1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
I have made an opening sequence of an Action film.My product does not in any way challenge the norms and conventions of an opening scene.It follows the same method of filming any action thriller.
The Opening sequence Includes the Animated Logo of the Production House.It follows with the
opening credits for the Actor,Editor,Cinematographer and the rest of the cast and crew .
The Opening sequence introduces the cast and crew in quite a Comical way.With the
free frame effect. All of these are the codes and conventions of an
Action film.
In costumes.It portrays the two characters who are teenagers to be wearing casual Clothes which
are jeans and casual shirt.
In editing: The editing has been done using the conventions of an action film.Which includes quick and fast paced cuts with dramatic music which sets the theme of the opening sequence quite while keeping up with the task of following the codes.
In Props: Another area in which my product follows the codes and conventions of an Action films by the use of Guns.To show that the film is going to have the use of Guns and various other artillery which are a norm in action films.
2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
I have tried to make my product as attractive as possible to attract audiences and to be able
to engage in it easily .It consists of a dramatic and a catchy sound track that has been taken from a Royalty free website.It is dramatic as well as suspenseful which engages with the audience in such a way as to keep their attention towards my opening sequence.I shot my opening sequence from a dslr the Canon 60D order to achieve high resolution imagery and video.The colors have been kept Bright. Even though the color tone doesn't necessarily follow the convention of usual action films as usual action films are color graded to be dull or dark and to show less saturation and promote intensity. I Challenged this norm and left the colors in their natural tone
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
I somewhat had some experience in making short films and had a little bit of idea. I began with the basics of using tools like adobe premier and adobe Photoshop.Where i acquired the basic knowledge and skills to pull off such a task .I learned on how to make a poster for a film/Which is present on my blog. I made a poster of men in black. After that we carried out extensive research.Which consisted of studying 5 different movies and they camera angles plots and researching on how they opened their movies.Either through texts graphics or actual footage from the Movie.
I gained a better idea of how different camera angles and different camera movement can be implemented which in the end effects the mood of the whole film and how it is necessary that each shot has some reason behind its use
We were given a preliminary task on filming a scene which consisted of a few shots and camera tricks which would later on help us with our final Project.We practiced the over the shoulder shot.Two shot and the 180 degree ruled which helped me prepare well for the final project.
I also gained quite some knowledge of story boarding and learned the reason behind its use
and how it made our workflow a lot more easier and for my final project,
I learned the fact that just execution of a film isn't enough and the only way the final product would
be of any use is if it has any research carried out for it which would in the end help in understanding
all your work.It also helped me save time.As way before starting my project i had already researched about the codes and conventions and had a good idea of how i wanted my film to look,feel and sound
In post production.I used adobe after effects ,Vegas pro to edit all of my clips
I used.My understandings of using these software and achieving my desired results improved
over this period and i was able to understand the conventions a lot better.
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
.My whole film was shot on Canon Dslr the 60d.I used the 18-55m and 50mm lense.
Both of these lense helped me achieve different shots.For the closeup shos where i wanted
a shallow dept of field.I used the 50mm. Where i wanted a wider angle with more stability i used
the 18-55mm lense .
I used an Acer laptop to save all of my files which also consisted of all my softwares.
This helped improving my workflow and having a data base for all my work including
all my footage . This is also where i carried out all my research.
For my initial Editing.For putting clips together adding music and cutting and pasting clips
together. i used Vegas Pro 2.0 . This was a software which had an friendly user interface.
and saved a lot of time. I didn't prefer using adobe premiere for my initial editing as i was much familiar to working on this station.This software technology helped me add various fade in
and fade outs to my project and i got my final 1080p render in 24 frames from this software as well
For my special effects.Such as the slow motion that was a major part of my fight scene.I used
adobe after effects.which is software used for visual effects and tracking .I used the add on plugin twixtor to achieve high speed slomotion my footage.I was also able to grade all my footage.I also used this software to make comical inserts which serve as the introduction credits to my short film For those shots. I Froze the disired frame from my shots and added different saturation and contrast levels.Along with different exposures till i achieved my desired Look
For a lot of my research i reffered to vimeo.com Which consists of various shorts films from both established or rising film makers.It helped me gaining experience on how to pan my shots
and how to set the pace of different films Vimeo played a huge role in my final product as it helped me better understand the art of film making.
