Our fiction film reflects a crime and gangster genre. We tried to portray this firstly when picking our actors. We needed tall, well built male actors due to the thriller being based around a violent and opposing group of people. We had our actors dressed in suits and shirts to portray the rich and professional lifestyle a gangster may involve themselves in. There are certain props that symbolise the crime and gangster genre used in our fiction film such as the dark briefcase that is used to transport evidence and supplies used in the gangster world. The crime and gangster genre usually contains violence within it and therefore the gun used in our fiction film is a definite symbol of this genre.
Within the opening to our fiction film the two actors are shown by themselves or in desolate area together, this symbolises the secrecy and the fact that there is a dodgy deal being made. These are conventions of the genre being portrayed in our fiction film.
There are elements where we use the history of the genre in our fiction film, for instance within the movie the godfather they act nice and courteous around their enemies and then suddenly turn and kill them. We did this in our film when the second mobster accepts the deal and then kills the other mobster when they are not looking.
The fiction film may apply more to the past when mobsters and gangsters typically wore the top hat and suits and went around killing each other. Therefore the film may be realistic to the past rather than present day. However the props and scenery such as the mobile phone and modern day style house makes this film more relevant to present day. There is a high level of realism within our storyline, there is a high chance that in the world today dodgy deals are made between different gangs or groups of people and there is certainly a lot of gun crime nowadays. Overall although the conventions and the style of the storyline may be more relevant to the past, it can still be very much applied to modern day and therefore our fiction film does have a high level of realism.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our fiction film the people we have represented are mobsters and gangsters, people who are part of a gang or a group of people who do not keep in line with the law and make dodgy deals behind closed doors. We have represented these types of people by picking actors who were male and well built. They are wearing suits to represent that these gangsters make a lot of money from what they do. The dark room and the secluded area in which the whole of the first part of our fiction film is shot represents that what the characters are doing is probably wrong and against the law, they therefore do not want a lot of attention or any spectators to what they are doing. The theme of the fiction film is action; this is represented by the killing at the start of the film. This theme is represented also by the use of the gun in the different shots. Within the shot when the man is shot the gun is enhanced by having a perfect shadow of it on the tree as well as it being in the middle of the picture. The storyline is based on the past, a similar time period to ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Bugsy Malone’. However this actual story occurs in the twenty first century. This time period is represented by the modern day house shown in the establishing shot at the start. There are also certain aspects and props that suggest the film is set in modern day such as the use of a mobile phone. Although it may not be noticeable, one of the characters is wearing a modern day watch which also suggests that the time period of the film is twenty first century.
Look back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When shooting the fiction film we paid attention to the continuity within the shots and how the shots would fit together. We therefore shot lots of different shots from different angles within a scene so we could easily piece the different parts together and cut out any shots which were not needed. We took into account match on action when our first actor left the house that he was in. We showed him within the house and then walking outside of it to suggest to the audience that he had left the house instead of shooting the whole of action. We paid attention to the 180 degree rule when only shooting from one side when showing our character walking and when showing our characters talking to each other. We used over the shoulder shots and shot-reverse-shots to show where the different characters were positioned and what side of the screen they were on.
When taking into account our storyboard we kept to the main ideas that were in each scene, however we used different shot types in the scenes to make it more applicable to the way we represented our fiction film. We used the same shots at the start of our storyboard when showing the establishing shot and zooming into the house to suggest that this was where the next scene was taking place. However when filming our characters we used a variety of different camera angles and shots when it came to filming that we did not include in our storyboard. For example when filming the character on the phone we decided to have a close up of the phone and the face of the character when speaking, this contrasted with our storyboard where we decided to shoot this shot as a medium shot. We changed this because the close up was a lot more effective and we wanted to include a range of different shots in our film.
We wanted to film the whole extract of our fiction film within two to three days. This was also dependent on when our actors were free and what the weather was like due to the fact that we were filming outside for part of our film. Our time management was successful and we managed to complete filming in two days. We captured all the different shots we needed and collected and completed our ideas together on the day.
When it came to editing our film we realised that the sound had been knocked and temporarily broken near the end of filming. This mistake was not as costly as first thought as it occurred after all our characters dialogue. We were therefore able to put some backing music over the scenes with no background sound and this did not affect our film too badly. Within the preliminary exercise we realised that a big priority was to keep the camera straight and steady at all times, we also realised the importance having to capture every single shot in a scene even if we were not one hundred percent sure whether we would use it or not. Therefore we applied these learning curbs to our filming.
When filming we took it in turns to film, however we made sure that we were keeping to the storyline and that we included many angles and shots. Due to the fact that I am tall I shot the high angle shots and the over the shoulder shots. We had part of our crew that held the stands for the camera whilst we moved around to our different locations.
We gave the actors a general outline of what their character should do and what type of person they were. Seeing as the characters were meant to be cold, dark gangsters there was not a lot of dialogue. Before filming we searched the surrounding area of one of my team members houses and found a forest area with not a lot of people, which also created the perfect lighting for our film. Before filming we went to a store and bought a fake, plastic toy gun which we then painted black.
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