alevel advanced media studies portfolio (ccr)

A2 MEDIA STUDIES PORTFOLIOCREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

WILD DOGS

 Q.1 How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do

they represent social groups or issues?

In my short movie, Wild Dogs, I’ve utilized some of the conventionals of Action and Crime films and challenged them as well. The movie is about two friends who were drug lords, but after a while

money shows its power.• Death- The way death is represented is different as it is more of a

convention to see the people normally shooting with guns or stabbing eachother with a knife whereas in my film you see two guys getting blasted off the kitchen due to the leakage in the gas tank by accident.

• Non diegetic sounds- I've used Non diegetic sounds at various places to change the feeling of the viewer and to build up the tension when the robbers enter the house.

• Another convention that I've challenged is that in crime movies drug partners are shown as belonging to one social group, usually blacks. But I used men from both social groups (blacks and whites) to give viewers a new experience.

• In crime movies, blacks are not usually shown owning a cat and having long hair, but yet again I challenged the conventions by doing the opposite.

• Keeping Todorov’s Equilibrium Theory in mind, i took shots from different angles and at different pace in order to make equilibrium and disequilibrium etc. which is also an example conventions.

• In my AS work, I didn’t challenge the conventions enough. I shot my movie opening with bad lightings although the genre was Thriller. I used conventions where I showed one undercover dark police officer interrogating a suspected person with very less camera cuts. This year I've done better in my short film by using more equipment such as my self made Jib made with some plastic materials.

Q.2 How do the elements of your production work together to create

a sense of branding?

WILD DOGSDirected by mahsam zainli

I tried to create a sense of branding for my product by coming up with a unique name and poster with a

consistent theme of red and black.  I believe my poster is a very effective communicator

of the nature of my film whilst holding onto the conventions of my genre. The main image of the gun

shows what the movie is about .

• The color scheme also links to this idea of Crime and Action through the red and black theme used to make the web page and the poster.

• I also used the same font size and format to create the title.

webpage: http://mah329.wix.com/wild-dogs

Q.3 How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

• Both of my products target audience is young adults and above 30s. The reason for this is that adults easily get attracted to crime and action films as they are always curious to know what goes around in the crime world.

• Many people can learn from this movie as what to do when stuck in such situations and the outcomes of being a part of the crime world.

•  I would like my product to be distributed by Lionsgate as it is a well known and affordable, industry though not included in the big 6.

• My movie being associated with Lionsgate will result in good profits as the cost will be abit less and viewership will be more.

• Initially, I would like people to watch my movie in cinemas, later it would be appropriate to release the movie on dvds.

Q.4 How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware

and online- in this project?• I used Adobe Premiere and Adobe After

Effects CS6 in order to present my qualitative data on the genre of crime films. It provided me with a platform to use for inspiration. Adobe After Effects CS6 also provided itself as an effective and memorisable platform in the display of data and with the help of YouTube I was able to add muzzle flare and bullet hits.

•  I used YouTube throughout my production in order to look for sound effects, tutorial videos and use it to post my final production. YouTube is a very useful platform as the views it receives from all over the world is outstanding and could be a very helpful tool in filmmaking.

The hardware that I used :• Canon X3, yet again with the help of Internet I

learnt a lot about this camera which enabled me to shoot videos more professionally.

• My self made Jib, I used some plastic materials which I got from local hardware store.

• One thing I enjoyed the most was doing makeup on my friend’s face. I learnt to make a fake wound from YouTube and besides that I also learnt how to make fake blood with the help of Hershey's syrup.

Postcard Analysis

• By looking at the postcard, my audience can judge what the movie is about.

• The revolver, which is used in my movie, can be seen in my postcard which suggests my audience that this movie is a classic crime movie.

• I've used red color to show the main elements of the postcard such as the name of the movie and director. And the second text color I've used is Beige in contrast to the background.

• And yet again I’ve used the same format for the title to create a sense of branding.

Thank you By Mahsam Zainli