Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Portfolio Review


David Jeffery-Hughes Portfolio Review

Research & Planning:
Through the research and planning I have gained knowledge and experience of what is expected of a product similar to this, specifically into how you build up a target audience profile.
For my previous project I had to make a 2 minute Gangster film opening targeted at the 15-30 year old market. We watched and analysed several film openings to see the traditional conventions through the use of camera work, editing and mise en scene.
To understand what our target audience wanted we complied a survey using “Survey Monkey” to aim our narrative as much to that age group would expect as possible. In response to the questions we did change some aspects of the opening to fit the age group. From this we learnt that the public’s opinion can change your outcome for the better because when you construct a product it is sometimes difficult to place yourself in the mind of the consumer.

Using Conventions from Real Media Texts
From the research we watched several Gangster films openings. The most common theme was to pop art title/stills. This was when the camera would freeze on a character and a threshold affect would be added while a title shows the name of the character. We used this in our opening with the main character. We also noticed this created a Wild West theme that added the whole stand of element between the two characters featured.
With the mise en scene we made sure the character wore typical costumes for the genre. One character wore a leather jacket and jeans the other wore a long coat and jeans. This is important as we had a short time to establish the characters, and the costume tells us a lot about the character.

In terms of music we were inspired by a scene from "Lock and Two Smoking Barrels" which used traditional folk acoustic music. As the music we used had to be copy right free it was difficult to find such a specific track. Lucky I discovered some local Bristol buskers that created a medley of classical tunes but played on acoustic guitars.

For the camera work we wanted to use a mixture shot types, for the calm travelling scenes we used still tripod led shots. But for the violent and dramatic moments we used a steady cam approach to create suspense.

Using these conventions allowed me to create a visually characteristic British gangster opening that a target audience would be engaged with straight away.


Digital Technology and Post Production

During the development of my 2 minute British Gangster opening I widened my knowledge of Camera equipment. I learnt how to change the settings to increase the quality of a shot such as creating a shallow aperture to create depth of field. I particularly gained experience in creating title sequences in Adobe Premier Pro to make the slip easily into the sequence as if they were on the location. This was useful because it made me think more about how I could make simple lettering a visually engaging addition to the project.

Creativity

Felt my creativity has improve throughout the project, particularly because some of my original ideas were very difficult to achieve so I had to think of simpler ways of making my ideas come to life. I have learnt that your initial ideas will change as your project comes together, so for my next project I will take that into account for when I start to make it.

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