The Final Video

Evaluation Task 7 - Preliminary Task VS Main Task

Evaluation Task 6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Today we uploaded and put annotations onto our video via Youtube to show the examiners how we edited the video.

Evaluation Task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Script:

Genre

The genre of the film is a sub genre, an action-thriller, and the films Eden and the Whistleblower have influenced us to create this sequence. For TV shows there is an episode of Law and Order called 'Accepting Loss' and the series called Human Trafficking which also gave us inspiration.

Setting

The setting is in a container which is supposedly in Russia, because of the dialogue outside the container. This may appeal to our target audience who are based in Western areas who know about the current affairs of sex trafficking in and around these certain areas.

Narrative

We have attracted the audience with narrative by making it very intense, the dialogue is short and based around confusion. The storyline builds up by two girls getting taken out of the container throughout the sequence, making the audience feel sympathetic for the girls who have been taken away and the ones who are left inside.

Media Representation

We are appealing to the gender stereotype of females getting taken advantage of, but also contrasting this by getting one of the females to stand up for herself.

Music and Titles?

In our sequence there is not any background music to attract an audience, we believe that this would distract the audience and take away the suspense. There may be a few titles with a black background at the beginning, but annotations of actors names will not be present throughout the sequence, as yet again it will distract the audience. There will be a big title at the end of it stating the name "Renegade" to interest the viewers to watch more.

Directors/star names/institutional logos

To attract an audience, we must make a short, snappy title for the sequence to make the audience intrigued in the rest of the film. We will include directors names, the production name company and institution name. We don't want titles to go on for too long as we want the opening to be engaging.

Editing/film style

The editing is quite slow throughout the beginning, to get the viewers comfortable and let them understand the set and scene. During the middle, it gets very fast paced with quick jump cuts and jerky hand held angles. Nearer the end after the commotion of the two girls getting dragged out, it slows to the realisation of how the girls find out why they are locked in the container. Then it slams to black with the title of "Renegade".

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What institution would make our thriller from Ellis Monk

Evaluation Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The ideal institution for my thriller to be distributed by is 20^th Century Fox because they distribute similar genre of films as my thriller. Such as Taken, Gone Girl and Poltergeist. This institution is the most suited because it does a wide range of other film genres too and it is a one of the big 6 film distributers, which means the film will get lots of public attention. Taken is a very similar film to our sequence, as it involves sex trafficking, as Liam Neeson has to buy back his daughter from some people. The rest of the story will depend on if the film would be based on an action adventure thriller where the girls have to find an escape to the mayhem. This will be more related to the film Eden, which was produced by Plank’s Centripetal films, which obviously does not compare to 20^th century fox.

20^th century fox has a higher status, therefore it will have a great editing team and post-production would be very quick. Advertising will also be on a high budget and displayed worldwide in famous locations such as Times Square. It will be shot on a top quality camera as the film production company is very wealthy, making the sequence look much more professional. This distributor would buy good enough scripts for the production as the people who are scripting the film would be highly educated and creative, and would be paid a lot of money to create a script meant for 20^th Century Fox. Funding would be taken care of because the company is very wealthy; therefore the budget is very high. Casting is done after the approval of the project and funding is given to hire actors, where they an unlimited amount of Oscar winning actors ready at a phone call. However some distribution companies try to find new actors so once they get famous, they can take all the credit for ‘discovering’ them. Directors hired in the production would be well experienced and have more power than the producers.

If I had an unlimited budget, I would hire the best actors to be in my thriller, as I want the fan bases of that actor to also be attracted to my film. The actors I would choose would be Emma Roberts, Jessica Biel, Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried to be the 4 girls that are being trafficked. The main male actor would be Andrew Lincoln because of his thrilling looks he is able to give, and would suit the role of being an aggressive dominator in my sequence. 

Evaluation Task 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Gender is represented in the mise-en-scene in our media product by the contrast in clothing between the girls and the trafficker. The man is wearing a full body of clothes, while the girls are wearing near to nothing in a freezing container, suggesting the men are sexualising them. The girls are all wearing small, provocative clothes, which suggest that they could be easily taken advantage of. The stereotype of prostitutes always being girls is also represented in my sequence, as the norm in real life situations is trafficking of women, not men. Their makeup and clothing is dirty and rough, suggesting that they have been crying and been in a grimy place. The audience will notice this from the close-ups we have edited into the sequence. The man who comes in to collect a girl one at a time is your stereotypical man: broad-shouldered, has a stern face and looks emotionless. We used the torch in this sequence to shine onto the girl’s faces to make them feel intimidated by the light, as it glares into their eyes; it makes them feel smaller than they already feel. This suggests that girls are easily intimidated, which is another stereotypical representation. Their facial expressions express their emotions towards the situation, and if it were men there would be a completely different aura in the sequence as they would not be worried, only determined to find a way out. Our media product is set in a container and this is an empty, cold environment the girls will be afraid of, suggesting weakness and connotations of helplessness.

The females having more screen time than the males represent gender in camera angles. There are many close up shots of the girls faces to show their emotion and suggest they are confused and distressed. This suggests their importance in the sequence as the audience will be intrigued in the rest of the media product because they expect the girls to attack the situation they are in. When one of the girls attacks the man who is coming to get her, it represents a countertype, as usually the detonation of a female is not to stand up against someone who is a bigger build than them selves. However, it is stereotypical of females to be taken advantage of, and therefore the man fighting back and winning suggests this. In our sequence we are conforming to the gender stereotype of female weakness and try to alter this throughout the sequence but conform at the end of it. Showing a femme fatale in our sequence makes the consumers interested, as this is not the norm because females in the movie industry are considered frail and helpless in most situations. We try to show masculinity in one of our characters as she stands up for herself, but fails miserably. Camera angles show her being slammed onto the container’s wall and we carefully capture the gaze from the man towards the other two girls, which is stern and terrifying. We limited the amount of long shots we produced in the product, as our location was claustrophobic and not very interesting. We focused mostly on mid shots and close-ups to capture emotion and response.

Near the beginning of our sequence we kept it slow and steady to allow the audience to get comfortable and understand the setting and the scene. The start of the sequence begins with a shot of a hole with daylight shining through it, proceeding to some dialogue between the girls about the location of where they are. Editing it, we decided to jump between pictures of the girls talking and the other girl’s reactions. This makes the audience feel the emotions the girls are feeling and makes the viewers sympathise with them. As soon as the man walks in, the sequence starts to get more fast paced with hand held camera angles. We filmed the identification of the girls with a hand held camera to make the mood seem unsettled. We cut the scenes down into jump cuts and quick pans to make the audience feel unnerved and assume that something bad is going to happen. As soon as the first girl gets taken out, the jump cuts slow down again, like the beginning of the sequence and makes the audience relax again. The scene after the first girl gets taken out is a scene of dialogue and to suggest to the audience that the girls are getting more frightened the more they don’t know about the situation they are in. We included many jump cuts to show the girls responses to ‘they are taking her away, she’s gone’, by creating the stereotype of the females openly feeling sympathetic and caring towards the loss of a person. On the other hand if males were to be in this situation, stereotypically they wouldn’t care for the other person, just care about their own wellbeing. The title ‘Renegade’ was found by us as a group to suggest prostitution and to indicate gender and status. The word ‘renegade’ means ‘a prostitution ring which is not run by a pimp’ which is the same as our sequence, as the man who takes the girls is not a pimp, but a trafficker. Renegade is quite a feminine word; it slips easily off the tongue and is delicate, just like the girls in the sequence.

Gender was represented in our sequence by sound by having the girls speak in a naïve, high-pitched worried tone, which is stereotypical for females to speak like. The microphone did not pick up echoes in the container, so in Adobe Audition we had to edit echoes into their voices to make the situation seem more realistic. We did not have any non-digetic sound in our sequence because we felt we did not need any background music to heighten suspense. The girls breathe heavily throughout the sequence, which suggests panic and alertness, which is a gender stereotype as females are normally the ones to get anxious in a situation like this. Another gender stereotype is how when the first girl gets taken out, she screams, which is the natural reaction of a female to produce. In post-production we had to dampen down the scream because it was so deafening. There are many noises of cars arriving and driving away, making the girls become more panicked and heightening the tension of the sequence.

Overall, the effort of the girl standing up for herself is a counter typical representation in our sequence as we tried to not conform to the gender stereotype of weakness of females. In the end, the audience is left wondering what the final two girls will do to protect themselves, leaving the sequence on a cliff-hanger, intriguing viewers to watch more. The girls show the normal social behaviour a stereotypical female would, and so does the male trafficker in the sequence, reverting us as a group to conforming to the stereotypical representation of gender in our sequence.

Evaluation Task 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Task 1 - Notes

Similar types of media to our Thriller:

Films:

Eden (2012)
The Whistleblower (2010)
The Jammed (2007)
Trade (2007)

TV shows:

Human Trafficking (2005)
Sex Traffic (2004)
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: 'Accepting Loss'

Music Videos:

Run by Chris Rogers and Sara Cariveau

Games:

Human Trafficking Game

Passengers

Things which link them all up:
- escaping, which is the main plot to our own thriller
- forced to look good
- the use of woman in sex trafficking, not men
- all have attractive woman in the storyline, none are not pretty

Editing Reflection

Today we went into the editing suite after filming our thriller. It took a long time to edit the picture and even less time to edit the sound. We chose the title of our thriller by searching up synonyms of sex trafficking. Renegade means a prostitution circle which is not run by a pimp.
Here are some pictures which were taken near the end of editing the final product.

I am experienced in editing because I have been using iMovie to edit other videos of my own, therefore I helped to create the picture edit mostly by myself with the help of my group. Ollie and Sasha gave their opinions on what should go where, but I was faster at editing than them, so I had most control over the computer.