Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation question one posed a few questions for us to discuss, these all asked "In what way did our media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

The first question within this was part A, this asked:

 Part A - At a technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity and the language of film editing?

Whilst producing our film we included a range of editing techniques that allowed us to match the conventions of many films within the thriller genre and many generic filming concepts, this included use of the 180-Degree rule, shot reverse shot,elliptical editing, jump cuts and a montage.

180-Degree Rule

Throughout the film we tried to keep the 180 degree line, however there were many times in which we broke it to make the film seem more mysterious and weird, this included creating a view that almost made it seem as though our main character was being watched. The idea of the 180 degree is that the camera must be kept on one side of this parallel line to ensure characters do not look like they are going back on their path and ensures that ideas such as the shot reverse hot for conversing against. as you can tell from the film, we broke this many times to give an unusual feeling and a create and almost dizzying feeling allowing this to provide a disorientating effect and feeling and provide an ability to make the viewer feel what many of our characters may feel, this break also kind of acts to create a realistic like feel as human movement is not smooth and may have many quirks and differences.

 Shot-Reverse-Shot

One other conventional techniques we did was that of the shot-reverse-shot, we used this only within one scene in which our main character,Roman, and a stranger,Rose, exchange some dialogue about what pose to make for a photo. This technique is used primarily show both parties reactions and views when conversating with each other. The first angle is used to depict that of the first person starting the dialogue with the next shot showing the receivers/respondents view or response and then back again. We included this so you could tell which party was talking at which time. It also allowed for us to easily frame and set up the shot in which Roman would take a photo of Rose. This again was broken toward the end with the use of a whip pan to suggest that the woman near the church was Rose who had disappeared just moments ago and increase the pace of the scene.

Elliptical editing

Elliptical editing was important within our film to convey that time had past.  Elliptical editing is used to remove.cut many irrelevant shots to make the scene faster than it would actually be in real time. This also helps to retain the audiences attention ensuring they do not get bored and have a lack of interest with the film. The scene in which this is used is that of the transition between the travelling scene to that of Roman walking up the stairs in his new home. This cuts out the shots of more travelling and pulling into the house that would take over 4 hours in real time itself.

This is similar to how many other films transition through a  large period of time or travel without creating a montage, this can be scene in the famous Batman Begins scene in which Bruce Wayne is travelling across a mountain range, it does not show all his steps and only shows interesting and different movements such as when stops to pick up the flower, this is next shown when he is travelling over a glacier and through a small village, cut, and the further up the mountain face.

Jump cuts

The inclusion of jump cuts was only toward the end of the film with the scene in which Roman is blinded and stumbling away. This technique is done to to give the effect that the entire world is glitching and the idea of him breaking the camera distorts the world and make it feel that the camera has some sort of power of the real world and the lives it affects. It also allowed us to produce an enigma making the audience question "why is the world stuttering". It also helps to provide the feeling of what Roman may be feeling such as being dizzy and disorientated due to the flash of the camera. This is similar to that of the film "Royal Tenenbaums" in which one of the main characters is changing his appearance and instead of showing all the boring detail, it uses jump cuts to show the time passing and emphasise what each cut of the scissors is doing and how it is effecting him.

Montage

The final editing technique used was a montage. This like the majority of the higher level editing techniques was used toward the end of the film after Roman had been blinded by the flash. This was done by creating a new sequence and speeding it u quickly  to give the effect of a fast paced flash back like view of all the events which occurred within the film, although not originally intended it also seems that the montage is Romans life flashing before his eyes prior to that of going into the light, a metaphor for dying, further suggesting the camera steals their souls and presence.

This is not a stereotypical montage as montages tend to be used to show a sped up lapse of events such as training within the very famous rocky scene.

Part-B asked - In terms of the content, how does your film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre you are working in? does it fulfil the nature of the genre or does it subvert expectations deliberately. 

The genre of our film was that of a mystery thriller with neo-noir elements, this is determined from the idea that the camera is used to make people disappear and when a photo of them ha been taken, their soul is almost lost forever. Each important aspect of the film such as the things that go missing, appear with some item of red, this is in reference to the sin city franchise in which is too in black and white except important plot points or characters. The use of photos trapping or stealing people is in a reference to Shutter in which photos are a part of the person and were they to be destroyed, would cause the person to die in the same way the picture was destroyed.

The film itself tends to challenge many of the conventions of a modern thriller, rather than having increased amounts of action it plays to drastically building these up to help retain an enigma through the entire film. To ensure we were meeting the requirements of a thriller film, we conducted mass amounts of research into the concepts and conventions within this genre, allowing us to understand what we were trying to create. One way in which our film challenges this is by replacing a definite antagonist or bad character with that of an object furthering the idea of the enigma asking, is the camera,roman or an other worldly entity doing this. We however did stick to the conventions of thrillers within certain areas such as very slow and drawn out areas to help produce tension within the story.

There are a few themes and Icons in which our film fits the conventions of others, such as the cameras overall prevalence throughout the entirety of the film. This helped to emphasise the importance of the film and ensure that the camera was always at the forefront of people mind allowing use to manipulate them into thinking many views about the camera, with only its true purpose hinted within editing and camerawork and not directly. This provided the big selling point o our film which was the enigma. Using the enigma also helped us to ensure that the audience would assume it was a mystery thriller as we had a narrative device that was based around a mystery.

One obvious similarity that all members of our group noticed, was that the film closely replicates many themes of the recent film Polaroid as that too makes use of a camera that had mysterious and dark powers that was found. Unlike ours, Polaroid focuses on taking a photos of a person with the death of them rather than just the disappearance, whilst also focusing on more of the idea that the camera is most definitely supernatural. 

As we did not want to create and obvious ending and further the enigma into after the completion of the viewing, we left our film more open and up to discussion which subverts the classic convention of a thriller which would normally have a closed and fully concluded ending.

Location

Throughout our film there were many settings that complimented the thriller genre, these were all realistic and what seemed, normal locations with the ability to create a realism within the atmosphere of the film. This is also suitable as it allows the viewers to experience life within the position of our characters as the areas we filmed were all nearby and gave the persona of a real living and breathing world that we were stepping into. Of all the locations, the development room was the most interesting allowing us to be the most creative as the rooms themselves are contrasts between the regular world, spawning life in the form of pictures within the dark rather than that of the light. It also allowed us to contrast reality with the unusual too as the room made use of the dark and eerie in which the human mind would tend to wander and imagine things, which we portrayed within the action in our film.

Music and sound effects

Non-diegetic sound is sound which is added after the filming process and is not from within the live scene itself.

Diegetic is the opposite with the sound being created from the actual scene and is already within the shot, such as footsteps.

Non-diegetic sounds such as music was used within the film to help increase the building of tension within the production, this also allowed us to make use of the audiences emotions to make them feel as though the unusual was about to happen or be caused by something. One important piece of sound adapting was to make use of a quieter soundtrack within the dark room so that diegetic sounds would be much louder and off putting to the audience, for example this is audible when the tap goes off within the dark room scene, a top would not normally be this loud furthering the concept of unusual and weird.

Other aspects of non-diegetic sound was that of the voice over, we used this to set the scene that Roman was moving from Scotland and this is when everything within his life started to change. This helped to better the audiences understand of what was going on, without throwing them in the deep end and confuse them directly. The use of the voice over gave many people the impression of the beginning of trainspotting (1996) in which the main character Mark Renton sets the scene for why they are running and what it is like being on drugs.

Part-C - Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you "Play" with the genre codes and history? Are there any intertextual moment where you hint at a reference to another film?

As mentioned within one of our previous posts, intertextual references within our film, we identified many of the references within our film and the inspirations it draws from them. One of which is the aforementioned Sin City in which the most important aspects of the film are highlighted within red. within sin city this is used to highlight clothes and blood to commonly emphasise important points to the story and its progress. Within our film we used this to highlight the many items in which Roman takes photos of and disappears, this allowed us to almost foreshadow each item disappearing by making it of a red shade/tone.

This is also similar to that of Schindler's List in which items are sometimes highlighted red and the black an white is not so strong, with the white contrasting clearly against the darker greys and blacks rather than the cells shaded like darkness of that within Sin City. This use of red also signifies a danger in which is obvious when the entirety of the last scene is within the red room suggesting Roman would be the one who would disappear this time.

One final film we referenced was that of the short film Black hole in which a man photos copies a hole that becomes real and usable, this was referenced within the idea that when a persons photo was taken they would appear missing suggesting that photos have a real world consequence.

Part-D - What kinds of audience pleasures are you trying to provide and how confident are you that you achieved this?

The Richard Dyer theory of pleasures refers to the idea that media texts provide people with a form of escapism from reality and in comparison their own boring lives. There are five key components to this theory, the first being intensity. Our film helps to provide an intensity in the form a building tension and the fast paced stumbling within the ending of the final scene, this helps to compliment the second concept of energy in which the the fast pace of the final scene creates. This energy is also felt within the audience as they see Roman stumble and get disorientated within the ending of the film making them too fell confused and disorientated.

Our film also makes use of the other concept of transparency. Our film does this by stating what is happening, within the form of a voice over so the audience can clearly understand who Roman is and weather they wish to side with him or against him within the plot of the film.

The audience also have to watch through and enigma in which too is a form of entertainment in which we feel we have confidently matched. as it leaves them asking questions and negotiating their own opinions and views. This aligns with Stuart Halls theory of negotiated viewing of a narrative and that they will have one of 3 views. This can be seen in the final film evaluation when one quote given to us said "I thought the story line was good an I think I kind of understood it, I guess at the ending I was a little bit confused".

Barthes enigma theory of hermenutic code: suggesting the full truth of the story is not fully explained and is avoided to deliberately force the audience to guess making them feel a gratitude once the get it correct or a satisfaction once it has been revealed