We then had to decide how to portray each character. As it was a criminal meeting we thought that one person could be bringing an illegal item which we could keep anonymous and the other person will be waiting for their item to arrive. Therefore we dressed the dealer in a suit which signifies his seriousness, though we partly un-tucked his shirt to make him look less formal as if he was off duty. We then made the recipient dress casually though we also wanted him to seem serious so he wore a smart long sleeved t-shirt. The clothing is conventional for a criminal meeting as usually the dealer will be offering an expensive object meaning that they and the recipient would both be dressed smartly, usually in expensive clothes. However if I was to film this again I would make the recipient smarter as they would be the one with the money to buy the product.
At the beginning of the clip we started with a door slamming shut, this took a lot of time to make sure we got the correct sound from the door to immediately get the attention of our audience; they now want to see what just happened. The dealer was kept anonymous as he walked down the corridor and up the stairs and you could see different parts of him though not his face. We then used a match on action shot (shown in pictures below) as he came to the door at the top of the stairs. This worked well for us as a cut to get through the door and we used the suit and the door frame as recognisable objects so the audience didn’t become confused as we changed camera positions.
We then had a brief pause as we were introduced to the recipient through an over the shoulder shot. Then from another perspective using the 180° degree rule we saw the dealer over the shoulder of the recipient, though not wanting to instantly reveal his identity we kept him at a distance out of focus until he came close enough to the camera for the audience to see his face for the first time. We then used the shot reverse shot technique where firstly we used an establishing shot to show the dealer sitting down next to the recipient and then we used a series of over the shoulder shots as they were talking.
We made the dialogue very brief and formal to make it feel like they had never met before and also made the dealer look like he was in control. We achieved this by making the recipient hold his fingers to make him look nervous and also by making the dealer talk in a confident way. This may not always be how a deal works with the dealer being in control, though it depends on the product he is receiving and how he went about getting it.
Our media product represents the criminal world with deals going on in discreet areas. It shows how deals in the black market may go through, though this is only how we understand they happen from what we have seen through other media products. Hustle is a good example for criminal deals as for most cons they need an item made so they have to pay somebody to make it; they then have to meet them to receive it which will usually happen in a discreet area.
Media institutions that may distribute our product would be companies like Film Four as they have a reputation of taking on young promising film producers and making them recognised. “The company develops and co-finances film productions and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the UK” (Film4 Productions webpage). They may choose to take on a younger age range as they will be cheaper and perhaps more willing to try new techniques/ideas in their productions than more experienced producers.
Our preliminary task is aimed at an audience aged between 16 and 40. The mysterious start to the task will mean the audience has to have patience as the slow start helps builds up tension. The “deal” will then appeal to a teenage/young adult audience as this is more action/crime based tension, though may put off older viewers as they feel threatened by the criminal activities that are taking place. We used this genre in our preliminary task to see if this would be the genre we wanted to use in our main task.
From the preliminary task we have learnt how key attention to detail is. For example when we filmed the last few clips you could notice the lighting change as it got darker outside. This may not have been a problem for a real film crew as they would be able to adjust the lighting levels using lamps and umbrellas. We also learnt that before starting a new shot we needed to look back at the last clip and check we had not taken anything out or put anything into the shot that was not there when we ended it.
Overall I was very pleased with the outcome of our preliminary task. I felt we accomplished the objectives we needed to and more. We managed to build up tension in the first 20 seconds which I was wandering whether we would be able to accomplish in such a short period of time. We also managed to keep the identity of the dealer a secret until he met up with the recipient.
For our main task our 4 key areas for focus are:
• Sound - make sure we minimise/eliminate the amount of white noise you can hear as it makes the film look amateurish.
• Match on action shot - if we have an opportunity to include this in our main task I feel we should as I feel we used it well in our preliminary task as a cut between clips.
• Lighting - make sure we keep constant levels of light or at least if there is a change then make it gradually fade.
• Minimise Dialogue, as we do not have access to top actors we want to reduce the amount of clips with dialogue in as if they are not believable it may ruin any tension we had originally built up.
No comments:
Post a Comment