Evaluation Question 4

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

Evaluation Question 5

"How did you attract/address your audience?"

Evaluation Question 3

"What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"

The production company for our film is 'COMA Productions', who would be in charge of the budgeting, scheduling, scripting, casting, organisation of staff, production, post-production, distribution and marketing of 'Rose'. As 'Rose' is a drama-thriller, social-realism style film, Coma Productions is likely to be an independent production company (like Lucasfilm, pre-2012, or Ruby Films) meaning it would probably have a low budget. This budget is likely to be funded through processes like equity (where people invest in production in return for ownership interest in the film), crowd funding (where friends, family and prospective audiences donate towards the film), differed payments (where producer fees, and those of any other staff who agree, are deferred until after release, reducing the payments necessary to start production) and gap/bridge financing (where we (the filmmakers) would have to take out personal loans to fund any gaps in production costs).

As well as an independent production company our film would probably also have an independent distributor. The distributor is the company responsible for the marketing of a film, setting release dates, choosing the method of the film's release, etc. Our film would probably be distributed by a company like A24, who are not only an independent film distributor but have also done film as of a similar genre such as 'Room' and 'Moonlight'. Our distributor would most likely opt to give our film a limited release where it is shown only in a select few cinemas, to gauge the audience's interest, before being released to a wider audience. This distribution method is similar to that of 'Birdman' which was released in a few US cinemas on October 17th 2014 before getting a nationwide release, in 857 cinemas, on November 14th of the same year.

The order of credits for our film opening goes as follows; COMA Productions, Cassidy Richards (director), Meg Dobson (actor), Tony Langan (actor), Owen Vidler (producer), Aimee Langan (editor), Molly Dowling (DOP) and David Chidlow (actor). COMA Productions appears first in our credits because they are our production company and have therefore invested huge amounts of time and money into the film earning them the films first credit. The second credit goes to the film's director, because they are instrumental to the telling of the film's story, and the third to Meg the lead actor. After Meg comes Tony, Tony is credited to show his character's significance in the rest of the film. After Meg and Tony we credited the film's producer, the producer is credited early on in the credits (before the title) as they are very important in planning and coordinating the film's production. After this the film's title is shown, in the middle of our sequence as is typical of film opening, and then the editor, who plays a key role in the formation of the film's story and look during post-production. We then give a credit to the film's Director of Photography, who both acts as camera man and provides the vision for the film, before David Chidlow, an actor, highlighting his character's significance in the rest of the film.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 

Evaluation Question 2

"How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?"

 

Evaluation Question 1

"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

Typically film openings seek to establish the film's characters, genre and a brief outline of its plot,  all of which has been conformed to within our opening sequence.  Our protagonist is very clearly established within our opening, with Rose being the focus of almost every  frame, and as a result of her enhanced presence the theme of mental illness is also revealed to the audience, giving them a sense of being inside  her head in a state of confusion, enhanced by match-on-actions.  Our opening also sets out the films genre to the audience, with the font, cold colour palette, fast and the opening frame's low key lighting working together to tell the audience that it is a drama-thriller film.

Titles of drama-thriller films tend to be short, quickly establishing key features, concepts or characters of the film (some examples include 'Room', 'Inception' and 'The Matrix').  We used our protagonist's name as the title of our film,  seeing that 'Rose' clearly showed the audience the film's emphasis on that character and her mental health issues.  The font we used for our opening titles also conformed to genre conventions, with the our use of capitals and clear block lettering clearly reflecting the font of films like 'Whiplash' and 'Taxi Driver'.

Generally film openings take place in and around one location, creating a sense of continuity and allowing the audience a smooth transaction into the film's action.  However, we decided to challenge this convention, moving the audience constantly from one place to another, disorientating the audience and giving them a glimpse of Rose's mindset.  Although we do use many locations within our opening they are all tied together with a common sense of sparseness, isolation and entrapment, achieved through minimal mise-en-scene, cold colouring and the motif of the camera circling Rose, together these common threads between frames give our opening the same feeling of continuity as if it were all filmed in one location.

Our use of costume and props within the opening is also minimal with Rose dressed in regular dark clothing creating a sense of verisimilitude, presenting to the audience the ordinarity of Rose's situation.  Costumes and Props are minimal until the final scene of our opening when Rose's hospital gown and the hospital room mise-en-scene are used to distinguish that to be the present moment.

Our film opening uses editing and camera work as a method of developing genre conventions as opposed to conforming to them.  Within the drama-thriller genre entrapment is a key theme and we have used camerawork inorder to incorporate this theme into our opening we used a motif of the camera circling around Rose in a 360 arcing shot. we also used a series of match-on-actions in order to repetitively change the location and disorientate the audience.

Evaluation Question 7

"Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?"

The dark colouring of our preliminary task was quite similar to our final opening, however, we think that it was better used in the opening as here we aimed to create humour by being dramatic, whereas our opening intends to evoke an unsettling feeling in the viewer. The close-up used here can be directly compared to our opening; we use a head-on shot of Meg's face rather than one from the side as in the prelim. We think that this creates a more striking effect, and is therefore more suited to the dramatic nature of our opening.

We used a match on action to show me walking through the door, which we believe was well carried out. The transition was easier to create because the shot changed from a mid shot to a close up, meaning that the shots did not have to precisely mirror each other. However, in our opening, we had more difficulty as Meg's expression had to be near-identical in both shots. Therefore, a large difference between the filming of our prelim and our final opening is that we created a lot more footage in order to be able to find the best matching shots.

In our prelim task, as we were fairly inexperienced in making videos, our camerawork was not very smooth. As well as this, we didn't think to check the speed at which I was walking in the long shot matched the close up of my feet that followed. For our opening, we decided that the majority of our shots would be circling around Meg, to create a feeling of disorientation and so we had to practice walking around her in a smooth and even circle before filming our final footage.

We also had to use a shot-reverse shot in our preliminary task, which we decided to show as an over-the-shoulder shot in order to clearly obey the 180 degree rule. For our opening, we did not show our actors' shoulders in the shot-reverse-shot, although we did overlap the sound from one shot into the next, so that the audience feels like it is a complete scene. In addition to this, we used more sophisticated editing techniques, such as the blinking effect used when showing Rose's point of view in the second frame. We also blurred this shot in order to again create disorientation. 

Audience Reactions

Storyboard Alterations

Referenced numbers working from left
to right and top to bottom.

During filming and editing, we found that we had to make a few changes from the original storyboard to the final version of our opening.
The first of these changes was from the planned extreme close-up of Rose in her room zooming out to a match-on-action of her in the park, which can be seen in frame 3-6. When filming this, we found that the camera's zoom did not allow for both the extreme close-up and the framing needed to create the match-on-action to the scene before in one take. Instead of this, we decided to switch frames 5 and 6 and zoom out as far as possible from the bedroom shot, then use the bridge shot in between that and the park scene so that we did not need a match-on-action.

The next change was frame 11, which shows a hand, assumed to be Rose's dad's, grabbing Rose's face. Despite filming this shot, we decided not to include it as it made the opening seem too much like a trailer, as it contrasted a lot with the 'weird' scenes throughout the rest of the opening.
Another alteration during filming was frames 12-14, which were planned to be shot in a white kitchen to fit with the washed out colour palette we were aiming for. However, the location we used proved to be too small to shoot with the desired framing, and so we moved the setting to a living room, which, despite having much warmer lighting and colouring, allowed us to film the shot of her falling. We also had to change the shot type, as we could not circle around the two characters, and so instead we used a shot-reverse-shot. We were still, however, able to shoot a match-on-action to the shot of Rose falling into the bath. 

Originally, we planned for the shot of Rose in the bath, shown in frame 15, to contain black water, but after discussion we decided that it would be unnecessary and potentially confusing and that we preferred the idea of her face being somewhat distorted underwater.
Frame 17 shows our plan to transition from the title screen to a close-up of Rose on a stage, circling round her to reveal an audience of empty chairs. However, due to time restraints whilst filming, we were unable to put out all the chairs and so decided to reintroduce the audience to the style of the opening using two long shots beforehand.
The last change is in the closing hospital scene shown in frame 24. Our storyboard shows that we were going to have the doctor repeat Rose's name several times before walking out of the room, however, after creating our first draft we found this to be too conclusive and so gave the doctor another line and changed the shot types from a zoom out to a close-up to mid-shot and back to a close-up.

Final Opening

This is the final draft of our opening for 'Rose':