Character Roles & Production Plans

Name: Razwan Butt
Age: 18
Sex: Male

Razwan's main role in our team is cameraman as i have mentioned in previous posts, he is a keen camera man and knows how to work the high quality equipment we have to its full potential.
We have currently got sections of our piece filmed, there are 3 roles Razwan plays throughout the scenes we have so far.
We plan to have a scene where Razwan is sat alongside me, (Kaisir) as friends waiting for a third person to come and join us, this is set in a living room and Razwan receives a phone call which is his Que. to exit.
Another planned scene including Razwan is a conversation between me and him, this takes place in the kitchen at a conversational tone however the tension increases as the topic of the conversation changes.
The third scene involving Razwan is more to the genre we have chosen, it is him tied up in a dark dingy room as me and the third character run in to save him.

Name: Hassan Mohammed
Age: 17
Sex: Male

Hassan we have planed to have as a joint main character along side me (Kaisir), the reason for this as previously mentioned is throughout the trailer it gives the audience more to focus on and gives more story perhaps.
As this is what we have planned all the scenes i am in Hassan shall be in also apart from one, this is when i am waiting on someone to come to the house, sat with Razwan.
A scene which we thought of whilst planning on set, was to have some sort of introductory scene into all the rest of the horror madness, 2 of the ideas we came up with are, me entering the house with Hassan answering the door, or me being in the house and entering a room to meet Hassan? this has not yet been confirmed.

Name: Kaisir Yousef
Age: 17
Sex: Male

My main role within our main task is acting, however this is not the only aspect i am involved in. The transition effect and some of the key ideas we are planning to use where ideas i came up with, however i was not fully confident at putting the transitions together to be part of our piece, so Hassan and Razwan helped with the camera equipment and Mac computers to achieve the best possible effect of the ideas in mind, this is one reason we work well as a team, because we all excel in different areas and by working together can help eachother out and achieve.

Unique Transitions

Instead of having blank transitions from scene to scene, for instance a blacked out screen, we came up with the idea of using a lighter and the spark of the lighter being the transition into the next scene.
After watching many trailers we saw that transitions have a big effect on what the trailers about, and the transitions are something unique to that film.
The type of transitions used can effect the flow and the intensity of the trailer. If the trailer is very fast paced and full of action then a transition can be used to slow it down, an example of this is in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer, the sound has been muted when they are being chased by the chainsaw murderer and a beat has been added to create a sense of rush, however when it shows the different scenes of the different people being chased a camera transition is used, it creates a freeze frame image which is kept on the scene and faded out.
This transition for instance slows the trailer down for a moment before it all speeds up again, this is very clever considering what the film and trailer is about and showing.

On the other hand a transition can be used to show a sped up scene to give the trailer pace, this is the opposite of the previous mentioned however is also a very effective way of using a transition.
Trailers are not very long and therefore the transitions are very short however the correct use of them can help create a trailer that someone sees and wants to watch the film of

Transitions are unique to films, they may not have a direct correlation to the film however as you watch more trailers, focusing on the specifics such as the transitions, you will begin to see that they suit the film perfectly.
When we where in location strolling through thinking about new possible ideas, the idea sparked into mind to use a lighter sparking as a transition, this thought, filmed and edited on the Mac provided something unique and very professional.

Media Self Evaluation

Media Studies

Self Evaluation/Observation

Media studies is a subject which i enjoy, this year i feel though i have excelled much more than i did last year both in theory and practical. 

The  main are i believe i am doing well in in practical, due to knuckling down and getting a proper routine of production into place we have been prepared and ready and in the right frame of mind to work.

Ont he practical and the theory side of the course i feel one of my main strong points is analysing, image, film, text. I am able to look at something and in a short time really get my teeth into about every aspect.

Compared to last year i feel i am doing significantly better in the theory side of the course, last year i felt slightly behind and didn't achieve a grade which i was happy with, with is why this year in class also i am making an extra effort to keep on top and make sure i understand everything and not let it go by.

One flaw last year was i slightly underestimated revision for the exam at the end of the year so this year, i have started already revising for the exam to make sure i am up to scratch by the summer. 

The main things i want to improve on are:

Revision

Time Delegation between both sides of the course

Going through work i have done on both sides of the course to make sure it is done to the highest quality possible

Overall however i think i began this year on a positive and intend to keep this on the ball frame of mind going, I appreciate the regular feedback from both teachers this allows me to keep track of my progress and highlights any areas that need work. 

Media Lesson Plan

As we are working through our planning section currently, our usual plan on a Tuesday afternoon is to film various sections of our media piece, however we have decided to use tomorrows section to do a photo shoot of all the characters involved, the locations, the garments, the props and equipment and anything else we have used.
Through this you will be able to see each and every step we took towards making our final piece.
Although we may not need to have images and descriptions of absolutely everything, we feel that by doing this anyway we are giving ourselves more to come back to and look at as we continue with our production.  Last year for instance we did lots of filming, when we went to the locations we would get ideas of other things we could do, better, more realistic etc. although we filmed allot extra i don't regret it, when it came down to it we had much more film to work with and we could say why we didn't use scenes, it gave us more of an idea about genre and what looked good to the audience.

Conduction of Video Interviews

We went around and conducted our media interviews, asking the questions that where on the post before this, our preparation and thoughts all put into 10 questions, there was an eleventh question which i added into the list to ask the people of an older category to find out weather their taste in film had changed from when they where our age to now, as i mentioned in the post before this there where many factors that could have changed from someones older teenage years to their adulthood, these may have shaped their preferences differently, one question we decided to definitely add was weather or not they found horror to be scarier if/when there was a child involved, as i expected many of the older people we asked have started families and now have children, mostly the age of the children you see in horrors, which puts them off if they where to watch them now.
One reason we got was because "i used to watch them to show off to my mates, now i don't really care what they think of me,"
You will see these in the full footage below..

Theorists & Media Language Theory

Toderov's media theory was tht every media text is made up in three parts, aturally a beginning, a middle and an end.
The specific words used to describe this theory were, Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, New Equilibrium.
You will find this theory in most meda texts however it is not always in the order, ideas such as flashbacks for instance used in movies are a way to dissemble this theory yet still contain it.
The pieces we create in media must contain all the camera rules and elements but die to the productions not being very long we thought that by going along with Toderov's theory that we will be giving to much away, although there is not going to be a film of this and this is media studies we are thinking like this to make our production as proffessional as possible.

Genre theory is all the necessary elements coming together to create that specific genre, a example is for horror, the typical elements are:

• Darkness
• Blood
• Physical Danger
• Supernatural Happenings
• Ghosts
• The Unexpected

Throughout media texts various groups of people are made to be seen as weak, weather they be male/female, intelligent or not. In some cases it may be groups of people to be seen in a certain light.
For instance in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the group of holiday makers are the weak group becasue on the other hand you have the people in the middle of Texas who contain the mad chainsaw bearer who attempts to slaughter them all. Unexpectedly the lighthearted female of the tourist group is the only one who manages to escape.
Levi Strausse's theory is that of binary opposites, opposites you will find precisely productions such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

• The Tourists - The Texas people
• The beginning is very innocent and bright - It ends with heavy rainstorms in the dark
• The tourist males portrayed as strong and young - Its the woman who survives
• What a scare and shock the tourists get - How mundane the chainsaw killing is for the Texans

Laura Mulvey is a professor who was educated at St.Hildas college Oxford and now teaches film and media studies in Birbeck, University of London. Her idea was Male Gaze, "media consumed through the eyes of a male." For feminists there are three views to this:

• How men look at women
• How woment look at themselves
• How women look at other women

You will notice this as you watch media productions, for instance in film you will notice the woman/women being objectified in many ways, there are many ways in which this is done.

• Short/tight clothing
• Lustrous facious expressions
• Innocent body language
• Make up

Women are used with these techniques to market products which have nothing to do with them, for instance to in a mens health magazine they will promote a muscle gaining product with a built male, and then you will see a slim bikini model along side giving the impression that if you buy this you will get built and attract good looking women.
Another example of this is in a car magazine, you will have women posing on cars, in cars, around cars, its not like youl get the women when you buy the car however it attracts male eyes, eye candy.

Team RHK

The planning sections of the whole course is not regarded as the strong point of any of the members in group RHK. However as we have been progressing we realised that alot of the work we were doing was planning, we just made the error of not noting it down to re-visit.
So through the product of lots of hard work we can go through and acknowledge the planning we have done.
We conducted video interviews to confirm our ideas about the ages that horror films appeal to, although we only conducted a certain number of interviews to show we thought and questioned all ages, we were constantly speaking to a wide selecton of people/ages throuout  our school and in our peer groups just to make sure we had the age spot on.



This Is Me.

This is me, we had large dscussions about who was going to play part in the opening, we thought just becasue i did it didnt mean that i had to for this peice, however when we thought, it made sense to have me as part of the cast, we done a substancial amout of filming last year, lots of which we didnt use but the experience of being in that role gave the edge that i should stick in the role i was playing.
By being in that role, i feel tht firstly i am actually doing something, because its all very well and good having put something down on paper however me being a very practical person i prefer to be able to say yes i did that rather than yes i saw that being done.
Once i am in roll, and im in the mode for the filming then my mind opens up to all kinds of possibilities, being in the environment helps me personally coming up woth new better ideas etc.





This is Hassan


 

The group is the same as it was last year however Hassan played a much smaller role than this year. This year instead of being more behnd the scenes hes going to be in them, alongside me, two main characters. With two main characters instead of one, you can play about with the story alot more then you could otherwise.

This is Razwan

Also a member of our group last year, Razwan was barely in the last production due to the fact that the area he excells most being the filming.
With a natural passion for filming, it was through razwan that we manage to source the high quality camera equipment and it is him who knows how to use it to its full potential.
Similarly to last year his role is not going to be very significant, he personally feels that behind the camera is where his place is and filming is what he is good at so is what he what he wants to be doing.