The main purpose of an opening sequence is to establish things like characterisation, setting, genre, narrative and the visual style of the film. Sometimes it can also establish the ideology of a
film as well.
I believe we have achieved all of these things in our opening sequence. Aidan's character has quickly been established as one of mystery but one of intimidation and violence. This idea came from my research in 'Dirty Harry' because the killer's face has been obscured yet he is still violent and this is what was attempted in our opening sequence.
This is a picture connected with our opening sequence and it is making Aidan's character look more threatening and it also makes the gun look bigger so that looks more dangerous but it doesn't show his face properly which sort of disguises him which is similar to the picture below.
This picture has been taken from 'Dirty Harry' and the gun clearly disguises the killer's face and it also makes the gun looks long and more violent.Between the two pictures you can clearly see similarities and from this I think we have achieved what we intended.
The setting of our opening sequence is quickly established and the audience can see that it is to be set in almost countryside. We decided on using this kind of setting as its not what you normally see in action movies as they usually are set in big cities therefore we are challenging the conventions of real media products through our setting.
This is a picture from our opening sequence and it clearly shows a countryside edge to it with the long winding road and the open fields and trees. This gives the audience the feel that the action in the opening sequence is unexpected in the kind of setting. 
This picture is from the Bourne Ultimatum which is in a series of action movies. You can clearly see this is going to be set in a city setting from the New York city landscape in the background of the picture which is what you assume the setting would be in an action movie and why we decided to go against the 'trend'.I also believe that we establish our visual style from the very first image of the the opening sequence. The first image the audience see is one of a comic book style of the story that is about to unfold. We got the idea of this from a bmx video called Sin City and also the movie itself 'Sin City'. In this movie there is a visual style of comic/ cartoons and after watching this i found it very effective and unusual for an action movie to revert back to comic strips.
This is a picture taken from our opening sequence and it shows the comic book style and the visual style we intended to achieve in the opening sequence. I believe it looks professional and therefore uses the similar media visual style of 'Sin City'.
This is a picture of 'Sin City' and it looks similar to our visual style apart from the colours. This is what we wanted, as we didn't want it to be too similar to 'Sin City' that is why we used different colours to the ones used in the picture.2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our opening sequence there is 2 characters and both play a main role. With both characters we wanted to represent the average young adult and we dressed them on this basis.
This is a picture from our opening sequence and it shows Aidan's Character. We wanted him to represent the young adult male of modern times. We wanted this character to be male because he is supposed to be intimidating yet not scary and we didn't think a women would be suitable for the role. We went with Aidan as one of the characters because has has long ish hair which seems to be the main trend of young adult males at the moment. His clothes are smart yet casual and comfy and we chose to dress him in the clothes because this also represents the one of the fashions of a young adult male at the moment and we want to keep up to date with the audience as it is a modern action film. The reason we have dressed him to be like a young adult is because that is the target audience we want to hit with this film. We also wanted this character to be a white male because this seems to be the usual in most action films and we thought that we would stick with what works in this case but in hindsight it wouldn't have mattered what race we chose to play this character as long as we dressed them in the right way. We wanted this character to be young because the opening sequence is all about the chase and a young person would have the energy to keep running and running compared to someone of an older generation.
This is a picture of Callum's character from our opening sequence. As you can see from the picture he is wearing a hoody, jeans and trainers. We wanted this character to wear these clothes because it gives off the idea that he is a casual person and that he is unsuspecting. This style given to this character is also another fashion worn by young adults at the moment and this is why we've got him wearing these, to keep him up to date with out target audience of young adults. He also has long ish hair just like Aidan's character to show his youthfulness. We wanted this character to be slightly smaller in stature compared to Aidan's Character so that Aidan looked a bit more threatening and overpowering. We also had to have this character as a male because Aidan's character is male and we thought it would look almost comical to have him chasing after a woman.
Both of our actors are young and 'trendy' to represent the audience we want to target with our opening sequence.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The opening sequence we have made is obviously a low budget film. It is low budget film because of the equipment we used and the actors and setting used. All of the stuff provided was free therefore it is low budget. Distribution in the film industry means the business of launching and sustaining films in the market place.
This means that we need a media institution that specialises in the distribution of low budget films and not an institution that specialises in Hollywood movies. This is because these institutions will help us to spread our media product around the UK and we would be able to trust an institution like this because they would have had experience at doing it. A media institution that might want to distribute a low budget film like ours is Film 4.
Film 4 is a media institution that develops, co-finances and helps to distribute media products, mainly films. Low budget films that Film 4 have helped to make a success are: Looking for Eric and Slumdog Millionaire. This shows they know what they are doing and they are very successful at doing this and both of these are very important.
Film 4 might take on a media product like ours because it is low budget and there might be a gap in the market for it. Without media institutions like Film 4, low budget films would not get distributed and the film industry would be ruled my films that cost million dollars to make. I feel it is very important that low budget films like ours to get a chance to be aired and shown to people because there are some very good low budget films out there and Film 4 has helped to prove this.
Big media institutions such as Columbia Pictures that have helped to distribute movies such as Spider Man and The Da Vinci Code would be no use to us because institutions like that are interested in making big bucks and to do this they have to take on media products such as the mentioned films.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
When we first planned our opening sequence we said that we wanted to target teenagers and young adults because we thought the action genre would appeal to this audience the most. I think the rough age bracket that our media product appeal to is 15 years - 25 years. Also, our target audience is males because of the action genre and we felt that males would be more interested in this genre than females.
One reason it would appeal to this audience is because of the character's used in the opening sequence. This is because the audience will be of similar age to the character's therefore it is easier for them to relate to the characters. Also, the characters in the opening sequence reflect the youth of this generation through their clothes and the hairstyles. This also comes across when the motorbike used to get away has a L plate on as seen in the picture and L plates are usually associated with the younger generation. Also, the getaway would appeal to our audience because it is fast and young people like to watch things that are fast and adrenaline rushed.Also, I believe that the younger generation likes to watch films involving violence and chases and hear swearing. So we thought it was important to have at least of of these things in the opening sequence and we went for the chase so we could entice our audience immediately with fast action. We chose to do this as it would still appeal to our audience but we didn't want to give too much away too them and thought we'd save the violence for the main part of the film. Because of the violence and the swearing to come in the film we thought it was best to classify it as a 15 rating because the violence wouldn't be too horrific but still awful enough to appeal to our audience.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
Firstly we attracted our audience by having a poster promoting our media product, this was so our target audience could get a sense/taste of what was to come. Here is that poster....
We hoped that this poster would get our audience interested in our media product and also give them a little taste of the visual style and establish the genre to them.I believe we attracted and addressed our audience successfully due to the feedback we received about our opening sequence...
Although one of the comments doesn't really say anything about our video in pa
rticular it still is a positive comment which as a group makes us feel good and confident about our opening sequence. The other comment is also positive and it says that our storyline is good and that our music fits well with whats going on and helps to make it flow. This is very positive for me as i chose the song for our opening sequence and it also gives credit to all of us for managing to edit it so the song would flow nicely. Also, we put a lot of thought into the storyline so its nice that other people think it is good as well.
These comments have also been taken from facebook and they all say different things which is very good. Shane Miller comments on it saying that he thinks our camera angles and editing skills are both good which is nice to hear as we though a lot about both and how they would determine things such as genre and visual style. Becca Owen comments on it saying the start of our opening sequence is very good which is also pleasing because the cartoon bit at the start took a lot of effort to get perfect and to how we wanted it to come across to our audience and from this feedback it seems we have showed our visual style to the audience successfully. Josh Thorpe comments on it saying we had a good storyline and an intense chase, both of these are very positive and pleasing. The comment on the storyline reflects how much time and thought went into thinking of it and it shows that it has been a success. The intense chase comment shows we have achieved what we intended by making it a fast paced action to appeal to our audience of a younger generation . 
I also asked 8 people that watched the opening sequence of "#Client 247##" to give me feedback. The question i asked them was "Would you carry on watching after the opening sequence?" All 8 people said yes which is very positive because it shows we have made a successful opening sequence as people want to watch on. The main comments I received on this question was that people wanted to watch on to find out what happened next as the opening sequence was left on a cliffhanger. Once again emphasising that we have made a successful opening sequence.6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Over the Media AS level, i have learnt alot about technologies from cameras to editing software. All i have learned will be very useful for next years coursework and also for later on in life as i now know more than the basics about certain technologies.
In the research stage of this task i used the internet a lot to do research about genre and other opening sequences of films. I found this very helpful to me as i knew what certain things should be in an action genre film. I also used Youtube to watch opening sequenes for example Dawn of the Dead and this was useful because it inspired me to make a fast paced opening sequence.
In the planning stage of this task i learnt a fair bit about how to use a camera. I used a digital camera to take photos of certain parts of our location i though would be good. By using the camera to take photos, it allowed me to see what parts would be good for light and what people would be able to see in certain long shots. Both of these were important and if i hadn't have learnt this then i think i would have made errors on the way light works in the opening sequence.
Through the construction stage, I learnt a lot about technologies as this is where i used the most technology. Firstly I learnt alot about using a video camera for example how to position it to make somebody look less or more threatening. I also learnt how the video camera's function work correctly for example how to view previously recorded clips which was very important for me after filming so i could see what they looked like and if they needed to be re shot. I also learnt a lot about the editing software Sony Vegas. Before i used it, i thought it would be a lot more compliated than it actually is. After i had played with it and found what certain buttons did etc i found it quite easy and i now know how to edit a moive relatively successfully. One of the key themes i learnt was how to get the panning acrosss effect and to do that you need to insert key frames at certain times and drag to the image across. I also learnt how to edit/change music even though we didn't incorporate the edited music in the end. I learnt on a software called WavePad which allowed me to add certain beats into a song and re arrange the song so i could get certain sounds to play at certain times. Overall the editing stage is probably where i learnt the most and i know feel i can use cameras and software very well.
For the evaluation stage i used the internet to gain feedback i.e. youtube and facebook. I learnt how to upload a video on to both of these websites which was very important to be able to get feedback to use in my evaluation. Another key website i learnt to use throughout all the stages was Blogger as without it i wouldnt have been able to write this up.7) Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in
the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task was around 30 seconds long and our opening sequence was over 2 minutes long. So obviously it was going to be harder to create a clear narrative over 2 minutes long than for 30 seconds.
I think the main weaknesses of our preliminary task was to do with camera techniques. After watching back our preliminary task i can notice a little shake of the camera a couple of times. So we felt it was important to not let this happen in the opening sequence and to do this we gave it a couple seconds after pressing record to shout action so that the shakeyness cannot be seen in the scene and the same at the end of the clip.
Another weakness i picked up from our preliminary task was how to use light effectively. In one scene of the preliminary task you can see a room to be dark but the next shot its quite light and this is to do with where the camera was placed. So, to adress this issuse on the opening sequence we took a digital camera out to our locations and tested the light so when it came to film we knew where we could posititon the camera to take advantage of the natural and non natural light.
We didn't just address the weaknesses of our preliminary task but also the strengths. We found a strength to be our continuity in the editing stage and we took what we learnt from the preliminary task into the opening sequence. Our strength in continuity was helpful because it meant we didn't have to spend a lot of time on in during the editing stage of the opening sequence.
Another thing we took from our preliminary task into our opening sequence is other people's opinions and points of view on camera angles. When we did the preliminary task we asked each other opinions on the angles and if it needed to be change slightly and we repeated this in the opening sequence. We found this an important thing to do because somebody might spot something in the scene that i missed. Also, i found it helpful to have other peoples opinions on camera angles because as a group we could collectively agree on good angles which made our opening sequence better than it would've been if i had worked on my own as i wouldn't have had other people expressing their views and trying to help.
Overall i believe everything has been a sucess, from preliminary task to this evaluation. :D
