Evaluation activity 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Title of my film
The title of my film is "the Pursuer." The reason why I believe this is a good idea wis because it puts more emphasism on Aran and people know his job role but is still asks a lot of questions such as who is he working for. In my research of other opening two minutes, I had found that they never give the story away too early but a good movie will always keep you asking questions. I believe that thanks to this title, more questions will be asked. One of these could be Why is he pursuing people? and who is he working for? The reason for Pursuer as opposed to The Pursuit is that it brings more attention to the main character and that's what we want. The title connotes our genre as well as the Pursuer is linked with action.
A similar Movie to us is the film Taken (2008) and we took inspiration from this. This is because the fight scenes were not too over the top yet effective and the title is similar as well as the font. The title Taken is similar to ours because it's one word which describes the entire movie such as the pursuer.
 

Setting and Location

What was done well with this is that we wanted our film to be of an Urban/Action movie which I believe we accomplished for a number of reasons. Our first location was an alleyway with graffiti on the walls.  The name of this location was Waterfields in Leatherhead. It wasn't the longest of alleyways but the lighting was perfect. Moreover both walls were different colours withone of them being white which was helpfull when filming in the dark. We essentially wanted to film at night as we thought that it would support the fast pace action scene which it sure did and thus I believe filming at night was more effective that it would have been if we were filming in the day which we would of had to with the other alleyways we were looking at in our location research.

First Location: Waterfields, Leatherhead

                     
     The secondary location was a bridge overlooking the M25 and both of these have urban meanings. In many urban movies, the use of an alleyway is used and ours follows this rule.
Furthermore the use of language and his accent was helpful to show this genre as minimal dialogue was used but it was used effectively through the use of colloquial and urban language. The secondary location was especially helpful as it showed that the movie was still going at a fast pace rate due to the cars flying by underneath but it slowed down from the previous scene.

This is our secondary location overlooking the M25.

                       

The Use of Costumes and Props.

 What was done well was the use of fake blood. It helped show that Tom was hurt very effectively and complimented the X-Ray effect. Moreover the weapon we used was a knife connotes the fact that our movie is an urban/action film and so is a good weapon to have. A similar movie which used a knife was Attack the Block. We didn't use many props as we were afraid that it may give away too much about the story.
   We also dressed Aran in all black which was good because it didn't give much away about him and we dressed tom casually so that it puts more emphasism on Aran and the audience will be wondering why he's wearing all black.


Filming and editing
One strength of our filming is the use of our time. As seen in our film diary, we didn't rush anything and so it helped us in our editing stage. We knew that we wouldn't really get this chance again so we wanted to ensure that nothing would set us back in the editing stage.
Moreover we set ourselves good and realistic day to day expectations which we followed and this left us additional time after the completion of the filming and editing for any extra touch ups that were required. Sure enough there was as we had to film the ending all over again which supports this.

Another strength of our filming was the use of our shot types. We used a whole arrey of shot types but we didn't over do it. We put in the shot types which were required for that specific part. An example could be when Tom was running towards Aran so we done an over-the-shoulder shot which made it most effective.



Special Effects:
Something else we done well was the use of special effects. We used the X-Ray effect to show that Tom was hurt critically. We done this twice; once when Tom was hurt and the second time when Tom got stabbed. The use of effects in our opening two minutes was effectively to connote feelings but later on it helps dictate the pace which I believe is an additional bonus. For example, the title fades in just after Tom dies which slows down the tempo from a past paced action scene to state of comfort when it fades into the next day.
What also was done well was the way we tried to show that it was the next day after the death of Tom. The idea was good firstly because I believe that it helped us differentiate from a trailer but more importantly, the other videos we had witnessed. Moreover what helped with this transition was the visual effects once again.
We also used a number of camer movements but the shot that we used most was the pan movement. We used this in the alleyway when we used the knife and at the end when the camera overlooked the M25.

Costume and Props:
The use of costumes and props were used for a number of reasons. Firstly, Arans costume was all black as shown below. This helped differentiate himself from Tom who was dressed as a normal person. Furthermore, the use of all black would make the audience want to know more about the character as we didn't really want to give much away about Aran. Plus there are many connotations that go with the colour black such as the night and something that we wanted to show is that he is a quite assassin which is helped through the black costume.

Here is a medium screenshot of what Aran was Wearing.

The use of props were also helpful with the identification of a Urban/Action movie. For example, we used a knife which is more associated with a British urban action movie than a gun and we used blood to show the action aspect. Movies that have used knives are Kidulthood and Adulthood which are both similar movies to ours and also aims for a similar audience.

                                                     
                           


Camera work And Editing:
Camera Editing:
Mohamad and I focused on the editing stage the most as Tom and Aran were doing the filming. The production of effects was a long and dreary one where we had to spend around half an hour editing a few milliseconds of editing. We found this to be the hardest part of the whole assignment. When we had thought we finished, we found additional bits that needed editing along with constant rendering which finally paid off.
               
                                        
                                        

Camera Shots:
   Another strength of our filming was the use of our shot types. We used a whole arrey of shot types but we didn't over do it. We put in the shot types which were required for that specific part. An example could be when Tom was running towards Aran so we done an over-the-shoulder shot which made it most effective. Our use of camera shots were similar to movies such as the Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Taken (2008) in which they used a high number of shots such as ourselves and a good example of this is our pan shot of the knife.



Story and how the opening sets up
   The story of the film is of a pursuer who is the main character (Aran) who hunts down and kills others under bosses orders. The reason he does this is because there is good money put of killing people and this is shown via the ending of the movie where he has his next target in an envelope (which is me) and will be payed £12,000,000 to kill me. This gives the audience a clear idea of what the movie is about but also he is getting payed a lot to kill this next target as well so the audience might feel as if this is his final mission. The reason for this is if he was getting payed 12 million pounds to kill every previous target, then he would be rich and the setting of the film will be different and this is why he pauses when he sees the picture of me. For the opening two minutes, we didn't want to give much away as not many action movies do so we put in an action scene straight away. This also gives an indication to the audience about the pace of the movie. We wanted to show that it would be fast paced and action packed throughout the whole movie and even towards the end of the movie, the pace may have slowed down but the use of sound still stated that the pace of the movie isn't going to get any slower.

Here is a screenshot of me as the next target.

The Genre and how the Opening Suggests it.

  Our genre is Urban/Action and we have portrayed this in our movie via a number of different angles:

1. The location was one which would be associated with an urban action movie as we used a very urban pathway around an estate whereby similar locations have been used by movies such as Adulthood and Green Street.
2. The use of dialogue and accent- We attempted to use dialogue which has been stereotyped with urban movies but more importantly, people from council estates. This is why Aran Said "stay the Fuck Down" which will give the audience an indication of his class thus linking it to the urban section of the Urban Action movie.
3. The actual start of the movie probably shuns out the genre the most whereby there is an action scene right at the beginning of the movie. 
4. The use of the knife also shows the genre as a knife is a product which is very much associated with the Urban Action genre whereas if we were to use a gun, then this may have turned it more like an American movie. A movie which uses knives as well as a number of different weapons is the award winning Urban Action Movie Attack The Block.

How the opening Characters are introduced.

    In the opening two minutes, three characters are introduced; Aran who is the main character, Tom who dies but is shown a lot in the opening two minutes and myself who really sets off the movie.

Aran:

Aran is introduced with the camera looking over his shoulder wearing all black. Throughout the action scene, Aran is given most prevelence and also after the action scene as he was always shown as the bigger character in the opening two minutes but also had the majority of camera time. We had used a number of shots in the fight alone to try and attempt to show that Aran was the main character such as long shots, close ups, extreme close ups, ECU and high angled shots.

Tom:

Tom is first introduced via panicking which was shown through the distorted camera shot at the beginning and the use of the heartbeat sound. This showed that he was in danger and not dangerous. 

 

Me (Nadib):

  I was introduced right at the end on a piec of paper as shown on one of the pictures above. I'm seen as the next target for Aran as the camera focuses on the paper after Aran opens it.