Costume

The costume within our film opening was one factor, among a number, which added something to our film. Costume helped us to set the scene, for example, when the girl walks along the road before the shot zooms into the poster, she was wearing everyday, casual wear, as not to distract from what is being said in the voice over.
Other times when costume was needed to be considered, were at the points when Daisy was walking through the park, Daisy in the cellar and the news report. When Daisy was walking the dog in Gillingham Park, she wore a navy blue coat, jeans and boots. Here, one could say that she was representative of the average teenage girl by wearing said attire.
In addition, the news report scene was thought of on the day we filmed it so, the costume which was worn throughout the report, was not representative of a news reporter as the character was wearing informal clothes instead of formal. If we had been more organised and thought of the news report the day previous, the outfit would have consisted of a blazer with a smart, casual top and either smart jeans or work trousers, depending on whether the shot to be filmed would be a long distance shot or a close up shot.
Finally, we put much thought into what outfit a victim of a kidnapper may wear. Towards the end of our thought process  we decided upon a black vest top and black tracksuit bottoms. This was due to the reasons that the black outfit would add to the atmosphere and her emotions. Furthermore, the outfit was plain black as to not distract from Daisy's reactions to her kidnapper entering the cellar and shouting at her in an aggressive manner. In average, all of the costumes worn within the filming were representing the younger generation and how teenagers choose to express themselves.

        

These outfits are along the lines my group and I were thinking of, in retrospect if we had more time.

  

Audience Feedback Half Way through Editing

As a way to ensure that our film opening was easy to comprehend and what we had put together was good, we decided to ask a few people what they thought was good and in their opinion, what we could improve on. Here is the feedback which we received and how we aimed to tackle any of the problems that would be highlighted to us.
It was said that there was a lack of variety of shots, for example, our shots were consisting of close up and extreme close up shots as well as, a tilt shot. Immediately we thought of being able to incorporate a point of view shot as Daisy is in the cellar looking at the man as he is coming down the steps. In addition, there was another point of view shot added, in the park, but it was the kidnappers view. We also added a pan shot, this is demonstrated when a random girl is crossing the road at the beginning. The news report manages to incorporate a medium distanced shot, furthermore.
Secondly, it was mentioned that the frames were held for a longer duration than needed and this was made more obvious when there was no movement occurring in the scene, this also made our opening seem very bare in content. When we went back to editing, one of the first tasks we did was to reduce the lengthy shots to a more appropriate duration. This can be seen 0:49 seconds into our film when one frame is held for 2 seconds, as opposed to five/six seconds.
It was noted that it was very effective when the music grew louder when the title came onto the screen gradually, the only criticism on that point was we could make the title bigger, to have more of an impact.
In contribution to all of the other points mentioned, there was one more, and that was to get Daisy's character to react more to the entrance of her kidnapper, and film some interaction between the two of them. For example, to get the man to reach his hand out to touch her face and then to get Daisy to  pull back and try to compromise with him to let her go. We took this on board, that there needed to be speech somewhere to fill the silence, this is when we filmed the news report and taped the voice of the man shouting "Look at me!".
In conclusion, it was extremely helpful to receive some input from an outsider as it allowed us to see if they understood everything and to see if they picked up on something my group and I would have missed. Also, when we got good feedback, saying that the slow motion used was very effective as it helped to create a suspense/tension to the opening, it made my group feel positive and look for other ways which would enable us to recreate those feelings.

Final Film Company Logo

Within my group there has been an ongoing query whether to go with our initial 'ASK G' logo idea or the more recent; cameo productions logo. In the end we decided to go with Cameo Productions as we felt it looked more professional and was a better Film Company name. Even though we had settled on the idea of having this as our logo, it was not until we uploaded the image we could make a accurate judgement. We found that the measurements of the logo were not exact to the measurements of the screen on Final Cut Express and as we created the icon in GIMP, it was not easily accessible to change on the computers at school. Due to experimenting in our spare time we managed to add a 'text' effect where our logo would have been placed and found the exact same font and typed    

C a m e o 

                                                 "      P R O D U C T I O N S   "

It was then we all came to a mutual decision to use that instead as we thought it looked just as good.

If we were more experienced and had knowledge of how to make our film company logo a animated/moving logo like Summit Entertainment or Regency, then I reckon we would have gone along that path.

Furthermore, from trying to replicate a logo, I feel if I were to do it again, I would try and look at more examples and looked at how company logos are adapted to each genre film they are in association with.

Getting a Variety of Shots filming 21/12/2011

For my group it has proved difficult to capture a variety of shots as we over looked this major detail whilst planning days before aiming to film. This meant that our shots we thought of on the spot, although, this does not mean our scenes were rushed at all as we had plenty of time to shoot the shots we deemed necessary. After experiencing lack of planning in our first filming session, my group received some feedback from our tutor, and from her opinions we deduced what shots our group would need to film in order to make our opening have a steady cadence to it.

In our filming sessions we have captured shooting a long shot, point-of-view shot and zoom in shot (when the camera zooms on the Missing poster), as well as the pan shot (when the camera films down the telegraph pole). 

Missing Persons Poster

One of the props required in our film was a missing poster, this was so that without speech the audience would know what was going on and how the film would develop.

In one of our filming sessions we each decided to research missing posters and looked at templates and what information would be put on such a poster. Following our research, three posters were created and by using something from each of the posters, (whether it be the layout, information or the eye catching title) we created the final product.

This is the result we came up with and the poster we will use to film with.



Furthermore, these are the posters in which we managed to create the final missing poster from.

                

Further thought of the Kidnapper's Victims and Future Victims

During the previous week Shannon, Grace, Amber and myself put together a montage of pictures of teenage girls which we could put on our set to further help set the scene within the cellar. We aimed to incorporate these pictures to represent future victims and past victims of the kidnapper. However, on the 16 th, when we improved our beginning of the film by coming up with a new idea (the voice over whilst zooming into the missing poster), my group and I looked over what was compulsory to have in our shots and decided that the montage of pictures was not completely necessary, mainly as they would not be shown within the point of view shot from Daisy and any other shot that was filmed in the cellar was Daisy tied up. This is the reason behind why there the pictures of victims are not included in our film.

The Inspiration on How to Link Our New Idea

Wolfman 2010

As we watched the beginning of 'Wolfman', immediate thoughts began on how we can link our new found idea with our existing footage.
When 'Wolfman' started with a pan shot down a headstone and a woman's voice over, it influences us to think of a paragraph which would also be said as a voice over, whilst a pan shot of the poster is being filmed.
We also gained the idea of zooming in on Daisy's eyes from the poster and then zooming out and her eyes would be looking around in the cellar in the present day. Similarly, in the film, a circle on the headstone transforms into a full moon into their 'present day'. This idea then aided us to link the existing footage filmed in the cellar, with the missing poster and voice over, which overall added a steady flow to our introduction of 'Daisy'.

New Idea

Once receiving audience feedback, my group and I aimed to approach our original idea a little differently and make it more comprehensive for our audience as out 'flashback idea' was harder than we had anticipated to create and made our film opening seem a little disjointed.
During another group brainstorm, we thought of replicating a missing poster for Daisy's character which would be the normal desperate act a parent would perform, hoping to embrace their daughter again. From this idea branched other ideas, such as having a voice over by Daisy, whilst the poster was being filmed. However, we were unaware of how to link this in with the footage of Daisy being tied to a chair in the cellar.

This is when we drew inspiration from a film opening we watched as part of research to find a solution for our problem.

Settings We Used For Filming

During our filming stage of the project, setting was key in creating the atmosphere we wanted to portray in a scene. Gillingham Park, a cellar and a street were the places in which we believed would best suit the picture which we had pictured when planning.        

Gillingham Park was used when "Daisy" was being kidnapped, we felt this place was relevant to our opening as it is fairly symbolic. Mainly children spend their time playing in a park, the fact Daisy was taken in a park is symbolic of her childhood being taken away from her and not of her own accord. 

    

 Having a cellar to film in meant we had a close proximity to work in, however the size of the part of cellar we used would translate on screen and would be an accurate portrayal of what my group and I wanted. Also, the naturally dim lit cellar would prove itself useful to create the tension to our opening of a film.

    

Bendon Way, situated close by Rainham School for Girls is a busy road due to the school. With our intention of filming on a lively street we felt Bendon Way was appropriate. Furthermore, as Daisy is a student from a secondary school, we thought if there was a student in the shot by accident, then the student would not look out of place.
   

Filming Session #3

After uploading the result of the previous filming session we figured we needed some dialogue so the opening did not seem more like a trailer. This filming session took place at one of our houses, this is where we all sat down and started to write what we would then use as the news bulletin, and put over the top of the footage of Daisy having flashbacks of that moment when she was being taken in the park. After writing the bulletin which would act as the divide between the music and silence of the scene in the cellar we then recorded one of our voices. The recording took more time than estimated, in total, we ended up spending roughly, 30 minutes on it as we each recorded our voice saying it to see who's voice would sound the more effective. It proved difficult for us to focus, however, once we had our mind fully set on the task we managed to produce the result we had hoped for.
Following the voice recording, we needed to shoot the scene of Daisy walking her dog in Gillingham Park. We did not set a time in which we had to finish filming by, as there were so many factors to consider, like, where in the park to film, are there any people going to walk into the scene and will the dog start to play up?.
Finding a spot to film was not difficult and time consuming as we managed to find a spot fairly easily, however, 15 minutes into filming of Daisy walking past the camera, getting a variety of shots, two ladies and their dog sat on a bench where we wanted to film. We managed to carry on filming shots we needed where we could not see them and by the time we had finished that they went which then allowed us to carry on.
Also it was a little time consuming getting the Shannon's dog to respond, though after about 15 minutes we got the shot of her dog we wanted.
Filming with an animal definitely requires you to take into consideration the needs of the animal and also that complications may arise and that you have to be patient.
Overall, it was a successful day for filming.

Voice Over

Our intial ideas which we wanted to film for our opening two minutes of a film did not include any speech of any sort whether it be a monologue, dialogue or within the music. After we had an assortment of varied shots of Daisy in the cellar and walking the dog in the park, we edited all of our footage and once we had do so, looking back in retrospect, our idea did not translate exactly how we wanted it to on the screen. It did not capture the tension we wanted to build up in order for the audience to experience an effective thriller film beginning.
After discovering our plan did not work as successfully as we had hoped, we traveled from the initial idea and decided to add a monologue to add the tension which is compulsory to introduce a thriller/crime genre film to an auidence.
This is the monologue we thought to add in - we wanted it to be a news bulletin voice over.

"Breaking News - Yet again another teenage disappearance has been reported. As of yesterday this has been the 19th abduction within the past six weeks. The victim is 17 years old and is currently studying for her A-Levels. Her parents, Deborah and Martin Robinson are holding out in the hope that Daisy will once again be reunited with them so that they can live a normal life."

Coming Up With A Title...

A crucial stage of the planning was to think up a title for our film opening. In our discussion of possible titles  we came up with names like The Lost abduction, Unknown, Daisy and Daze. In the end, we all decided upon Daze which we actually later changed to Daisy. The reason behind our transformation in title choice was due to fact from audience feedback. Our feedback said that 'Daisy' would be more relevant to our opening, rather than Daze. In addition to this, one person said that, in their opinion, when someone is in a trance they are in A daze, not, people are in daze. Bearing these very vaild difference of opinions, we named our film "Daisy".
The other names we thought of were discarded, this was down to the fact among my group some of us preferred names which others did not and we did not decide upon "Unkown" as we thought there is already a film named with that title, aswell, we thought people may draw to many similarities bewtween the plots and genre of the two films.  

Filming Session #2

The aim of this filming session was the same as last: to film Daisy being stunned and capture a variety of shots whilst doing so.
Session two, in retrospect was much more successful as we we aware that the lighting had to been changed (made brighter), to do this we tried positioning a small lamp light in front of Daisy, also we moved any objects that were in the way from allowing the cellar light to reach Daisy. We found that once uploaded to the editing programme, that the lighting had improved significantly.
Problems we faced , though did not address as quick as we had hoped was our indecisiveness which led Grace; who played the character Daisy, to say "Can we keep going, it is cold". In this filming session we managed to capture the zoom in, extreme close up and the medium distance shot, which is all of the shots we thought of at the time. It is fair to say that we did a lot of brainstorming whilst filming, trying to think of more dynamic and interesting shots to film, also we thought of trying to film a heavy breathing sound so we could edit her breathing and put it in the background of the fade in and outs. This was to (hopefully) effectively to help add to the ambiance.
We still had a little trouble with the pan shots, due to the tripod, however we managed to try and film the shot in a handheld position. 

Kidnapper's Victims and Future Victims

In order to create the right scene in the cellar we needed to make sure we had all of the props we needed to create the right atmosphere, which is that of a scared atmosphere. 

In the cellar scene we needed only one prop, and that was a small cork board with the pictures of the kidnapper's previous and forthcoming victims. 

We found all of these photos on google, through the photos we tried to show that the Kidnapper has a 'type' and that is teenage, confident and innocent looking girls with browny-blondy hair. Through previous research we realised that people who abduct the victims generally have a specific type of victim which they think is weak and would not be able to fight them back and is at a disadvantage to them.             

Other Company Production Logo Ideas

When going through our editing, we are open to new ideas and ways in which we can improve our opening. As we were watching our company production logo we thought we should try and come up with another idea for a logo as the ASK G  icons we came up with initially were to similar.
When trying to translate a new idea on to the computer we had to think of another suggestion for a company name. To try and get some inspiration on a brand new idea we went onto google and typed in 'company production logos' we found that most of the icons were play on phrases of filming terminology. Our next step was picking a word associated with filming. We chose 'Cameo role'. We did not plan what fonts we wanted as we thought we would just see what font works best once we have everything else in place.
Finally, this is the logo which we came up with -

Also, here are the images of the same logo, however, with slight alterations...

Universal Pictures logo and Ask G

From the research - watching countless film openings with the thriller/crime genre, it became evident that there was not one specific Movie Production Logo they use in the film industry. The main two production companies seemed to be 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures. Therefore, we randomly picked one of those - Universal Pictures.

As for the logo that follows the production company normally in the opening of a film, my group and I had to come up with a name for the title working, we thought of ASK G productions as it combines all of our initials. The next thing we had to was to create the logo and think of the colour of the font, size and if it was going to have any images on the logo.

Filiming Session #1

When it was time to start filming, during our first filming session we thought it best to practice using the camera just by filming random things. We started filming the footage we needed after about half an hour.
We needed to get shots of Daisy in the cellar going in and out of a daze (which is where we got our original idea for a title for our film). This took us approximately around two hours as we had slight problems with the equipment and we were inexperienced.
One of the shots we needed at the time was to have a pan shot of Daisy tied to the chair, we tried to use the tripod for this as it did not require to much of a steady hand. Whilst we were practicing getting to grips with the cameras, we also experimented with the tripod and found it easy to maneuver  as we were moving the camera up and down at a fast pace and when played back the footage, it was not jilty. However, when we were in the cellar filming the pan shot, we realized we needed a slow pan shot, we attempted this a few times and we each tried. It was only a few filming sessions later in which we realized that you can adjust the tripod and how tightly the lever is screwed in so you can make slower moving shots smooth. This was one of the problems we faced in our first attempts.
During the time spent in the cellar, we looked back at the footage we had just captured and we did not think that the lighting would have to be brighter. It had became evident that even though the lighting on the camera is bright enough, when you upload onto Final Cut Express, the lighting changes and appears dimly lit.
To conclude, our first experience using the cameras was not the best, however it prepared us for the next time and served a purpose of being more like a practice session.

Evaluation of the Usefulness of the Animatic Storyboard

Creating an animatic storyboard was both useful anhd helpful, before our idea kept changing. The aim of the animatic storyboard was to give us a rough outline of how long our opening would last. In this sense, it made it very helpful. However, there were disadvantages to our storyboard as we underestimated the duration of each of our shots, therefore, the usefulness of the animatic changed in my opinion. In addition to the effectiveness, we created the animatic at the beginning of the project , this meant, we had not yet practiced with Final Cut Express and could not include transitions, aswell as visual and aural filters so, our animatic was very basic. If the transitions had been included, I feel that we would have benefited me and it would have made the storyboard more effective as me and my group would have been more prepared with Overall, I think if my group had followed through with our original idea, then our storyboard would have been very useful. If I were to do this whole process again, then I would have produced an animatic storyboard and either stuck with the original idea or if I changed something in the whole idea then I would either add or edit the animatic storyboard.

Animatic Storyboard

Filming Schedule for December

As before, it was necessary to have permission in the form of a letter saying we are responsible for the video cameras, and in the form of risk assessments, the places in which we filmed were of no hazards.   

Filming Schedule for November

This is the filming schedule for November my group had to put together so we could see what dates we were all available on. Before we started filming we had to ask permission from our parents to keep the cameras at our house if we need to, also we planned it so we were going to do some filming in one of our houses, therefore we had to get permission to film in the cellar on the nights we needed to.

Further Research

As we have outlined what we wish to be in our main production, we gathered the more research we do into the subject of abductions the more information we can get out of it. Therefore, we found an interview on www.youtube.com  between a reporter and a victim of an abduction. Here is the video which we gathered a lot of information from.

Jaycee Lee Dugard was a girl who was kidnapped on her way to school and years later tells the story of how it happened, what she was feeling and what she was thinking. Because of this interview it gave my group and I a really good idea on how to show a kidnapping and as we filmed a girl (Grace Robinson) in a cellar we tried to put in some of those feelings in which Jaycee Lee Dugard felt whilst she was stuck in the nightmare that was her reality. Also Jaycee Dugard was locked in a dark shed, as no one in my group had a big enough shed to film in, we felt the next best thing was a cellar, this similarly sets a dark, damp and thrilling scene for the 'victim'.

Our Inspiration.

Films Which Inspired My Group...

My group and I drew vital information from the research we conducted as to how to replicate a conventional thriller opening. We studied everything from the fonts of the opening credits to a thriller, to the colour of the fonts, soundtrack playing in the background/foreground, and the variety of shots displayed within the first few minutes of the films. It would be inaccurate to say we were inspired by only one of the films we analysed as we emerged ideas from each of the films we studied. As an example, from the film "Memento" (the video below), we liked the transitions of the opening credits also the soundtrack playing in the background as it is quite somber, furthermore, by looking at the film posters of "Taken" and "The Butterfly Effect", my group and I thought the red and white fonts was quite striking and effective also the conventional colours of a thriller genre are reds, whites and blacks. 

Target Audience Research

When starting the planning phase of our two minute film opening, first of all my group had to research target audiences. This is the research which my group and I found when looking for possible target audiences...

 

 Film Certificates

 

Nobody younger than 12 can rent or buy a 12-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game. Films in this category may include infrequent drugs, infrequent use of strong language, brief nudity, discreet sexual activity, and moderate violence.

Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, strong language, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and mild non-detailed sex activity.

Only adults are admitted. Nobody younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category do not have limitation on the bad language that is used. Hard drugs are generally allowed, and a strong violence/sex reference along with strong sexual activity is also allowed. Scenes of strong real sex may be permitted if justified by the context.

By looking at the film certificates I feel the appropriate film certificate for our audience will be 15 as it will contain the conventions of a thriller opening, for example strong language and moderate-strong violence.

Conventions of a Thriller

The crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements in the genre.

Two film Adaptions

Kiss the Girl

In order to make Kiss the Girls a feasible idea we could change the fact that the main character is hiding in the loft spying on the girls in the house and replace that for a pad-locked cellar. During the night the person in hiding could pick the lock and creep upstairs to spy on the girls in their bedroom.

The shots needed to make the opening scene does not really need to be changed, as it is quite simple. The only thing I think that we may have to change is the injection. We could make it so that the girls sleep with a glass of water next to them and when the man creeps into their room he puts a dissolvable tablet in the water to drug them.

The Butterfly Effect

Another film we would have to adapt in order to make it look more believable would be to set the scene in an office at school that has slated blinds and is a dark room. The rest of the scene is fairly manageable we could write the letter which is written by Ashton Kutcher in the film and do a close up shot on the words “save her” with the people still banging on the door. Also the street that is filmed “thirteen years later” could be a street in Rainham, Gillingham for example. The ‘Mum’ can be fixing a bike or washing the car instead of fixing the car. 

My Group's Preliminary Video

This is my group's preliminary video in which we had to capture three different effects with filming. The three shots we managed to portray was a continuity shot, 180 degree rule and a shot-reverse-shot.

Initially my group filmed a entirely different video, we wanted our clip to be about a parents evening, and placed the scene near classrooms, however, one thing we failed to do was assess our surroundings, and halfway through the scene someone walked right into it. We took that as a lesson when we filmed the final preliminary task.

During the process of filming the 'Woods Scene' my group and I stumbled among a few problems, most of the problems we found a solution to, but this helped us to realise what sort of things we would have to look out for when we have to start filming our Film Opening later.  

Issues such as timing, continuity in what we were wearing, where we placed our feet in certain shots, and spacial awareness arose. It took us a few attempts to shoot the shot-reverse-shot as the space in which we were filming in was fairly cramped and Grace Robinson and Amber Shelley who were filming, was discovered later to be in the scene.  Of all of the obstacles that got in our way, I believe it was the shot reverse shot which my group and I found harder to overcome. In hindsight I realize this became something of a problem as we did not fully understand what is required for that type of shot to begin with, we did not realize the back of the shoulder had to be included which resulted in my group having to film it all over again lessons later.
On the other hand, things I thought my group and I had got right, was the setting which was appropriate with the thriller theme we initially had when planning. It would have been better if we had added tension by adding dramatic music, however, this is something which will be considered and put into practice when editing our 2 minute film opening. Also, even though it took longer than we had planned, I think we managed to successfully manage the three shots. Furthermore, editing our video at first was a bit confusing, though after a short while it seemed quite straight forward. 

Production Logo Ideas

My group and I wanted to come up with our own company production logo and these are some of the logo ideas we came up with...

Those logos are roughly how we want our logo to look like initially, they are very similar, however, they have small alterations, this is due to the fact when we came up with the first logo we wanted to add a background light and then we wanted to change the omniscience of the font as to add a bit more interest to the logo. 

The programme which we used in order to materialize our ideas was called "GIMP", we used this programme as we made this logo out side of school and were told is was the next best thing. We found difficulty in making the company production icon as it was our first time using the programme, however with a load of practice and testing out each of the functions we managed to create what we wanted. We were at a slight disadvantage not having used GIMP before, however, I think we managed to overcome our difficulties and next time we use the programme we will know exactly what to do and be much more prepared. 

Down With Love Analysis

The opening credits use bright backgrounds with pink font to display the actors and actresses names. The opening also shows gender symbols which tells us that the film is partly about the battle of the sexes. The beginning also uses shots like zoom and reverse zoom not making the opening so boring. The soundtrack playing is a duet about love, so we can draw from that the film is going to have romance in. The song finishes abruptly when the cast's names do, then we see a long distance shot of New York which zooms in whilst the narrator is speaking, giving us information about the time, date and population in America and there is a faint background music which sounds a bit feminine adding to the whole battle of the sexes theme. Following the zoom in shot of NY it cuts to a tilt movement, scanning a specific building vertically until we're looking at the entrance and there is a medium distance shot of Renee Zellweger stepping out of the building, however we cannot see her well as people are walking in front of her. Then as she walks forward she steps into a head shot. To make the point that the population in America, especially NY, is exceedingly high we see more shots of people standing about shouting "wait!" at taxis and masses of people in a rush to get somewhere. Then as she spots a taxi pull up the camera points toward it and we see Renee Zellweger walk past the camera to get in it. The comedy starts to creep into the film when there is a side shot of the actress looking at the car in amazement when numerous protesters got out with their "Down with the Bomb!" placards. To add further comedy she gets in the car and the taxi jump starts making a loud bang and the camera cuts to the protesters screaming and ducking.
This is one my favourite films of all time and just by analyzing the first few minutes I realize that the filming process is much harder than it looks. Also from the opening of this film it has given me a few more ideas on how I can make scenes more interesting by using the shots like head shot, side shot and zoom in shot when I film the final two minute opening...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVDNvRICPVY&feature=BFa&list=ULRVDNvRICPVY&lf=mfu_in_order

My Group's Film Opening Ideas

When we had to come up with ideas for the opening of our film, we knew we wanted our genre of film to be a thriller. Immediately we started to look at thrillers such as, 'Taken', 'Memento', ' The Butterfly Effect' and '21' (genre: crime) amongst others. From the film "Taken" is where we got our inspiration for the plot of our film in the end. Initially, my group and I came up with the idea a prostitute is walking along a street and we see gangs and suspicious people that adds to the whole mystery/crime genre and she gets taken. There would then be a shot of a police briefing of the prostitute's profile, and the next shot would be a flashback of the prostitute being taken, though with a few more extra shots than before. Titles would go up with thriller/suspense music playing in the background.

In order to show that the girl walking along the street is a prostitute she would be dressed in black leather knee high boots, short skirt, ripped tights, cheap fur looking coat. A film which mirrors how we would dress the prostitute would be "Pretty Woman". In addition to this, the lady would also by holding her arm out to passing cars and trying to look into them as they stop by the road.

We then after thinking of one idea we could go along with, thought of another so we at least have a couple of options to choose from. The second idea which we favoured more was the following...

Starts with a family in a park, the dad is filming his child and the rest of the family, and then when he has turned the camera to the Mum their daughter goes missing. The screen goes black and appear the words "10 years later…" Screen dissolves to black and then we should see the girl is being kept in a cellar, bruised. New information has come to light and the family’s missing daughter file has been opened up again.   This idea closely resembles the idea of "Taken" - a daughter who goes missing and the parents do not give up hope that they will be reunited with their child once more. 

Fiction Films, Genres and their Conventions.

Many films showing in the cinema today fall into the 'fiction film' category, for instance, the Twilight Sagas, Abduction and Johnny English: Reborn. The genres for fiction films range from Romantic Comedies, Dectective to plain comedies.
   For any type of film, depending on it's genre they all follow a certain convention. How To Loose A Guy In Ten Days is an example of a Rom-Com, it starts with two people decieving or hating eachother in some way, and then they get to know and understand each other and fall in love, but then there is a problem where all their secrets may come out but there is always a happy ending. If you take Failure To Launch or The Wedding Planner (all funnily enough with Matthew McConaughey in) it will take the same storyline. Here is another example of a rom-com...

   Horror films do not just follow the typical outline of the story - A hero who has to embark on a mission to find out who the villian is, why and capture them, and in the end they do so. They also follow the conventions of lighting being dim and low key, the soundtrack leading up to suspense and disturbing noises to alarm us and camera angles always being unnatural, close up, high and low angled shots. Handheld shots are very effective in the horror genre as it can confuse the audience with what they are seeing. Furthermore, visually, the colours black red  and other dark colours are used frequently.
Every single genre will ten times out of ten follow a certain pattern and does not just happen in films but novels and television programmes also.

To conclude, from the research I carried out to identify what the conventions were of certain genres, my group and I realized when we will have to think of ideas we will have to do so carefully to make sure we stay within those boundaries which make a thriller conventional. When Grace Robinson, Amber Shelley, Shannon Sutton and myself had to create a preliminary video, we knew we wanted to do a thriller, however, once we decided upon that, it became difficult to put into action. As we have now done the research required - acting as a guideline for us - hopefully we will not have the same problem we previously stumbled on.   

Why I chose to study A level Media Studies.

As one of my four A level subjects I decided to choose Media Studies for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, two years ago when I started my GCSEs I regretted not choosing Media, I was a little late in recognising my interest in the subject but when I started to think about my options which I would want to study for Sixth form I knew Media was one of the subjects.
Secondly, for me this topic, I believe will help me in my future as for a while I have been thinking about possible career options and media is a career I feel I would like to pursue.
Analysing all different types of films, genres and the various filming techniques has opened my eyes on how even a simple looking scene is quite detailed in the different kind of shots you can take, for example, shot - reverse shot and 180 degree rule amongst others. I am more interested in Media Studies than ever.