Mihnea Pop AICE Media Studies Reflection Questions Mihnea Pop AICE Media Studies

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? Our project does follow some conventions with some jokes like the “British accent” from the Bond villain and the occasional break in that accent to add humor. So, we did follow some conventions but we did some things different like having our antagonist be a heist boss who can actually see what is going on outside the jokes and realizes that the jokes are happening and that they should not be. Because, of course he is a heist boss after all. The movie is serious at times though so we made sure to give it those few scenes in the beginning where things are serious yet we did add quite a few jokes. With social groups and issues it did not really represent any but it has a diverse cast and a “adopted brother” story where the brothers look nothing alike. This cold go on to represent the lower class of teens joining crime after a hard life and seeing their mistake later in life. Overall it is a comedy and does not represent anything big in this sort of case; but it does show the issue that crime is not always good, because even if you do not get caught, you are among wolves.

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? It engages with audience as a comedic film that is action packed but is full of jokes or quirks to make you laugh. Satire may be used to engage the audience sometimes without actually giving a joke so that the jokes could be spaced out enough so that the action can come in as it should. We could have a PG rating as it does not have any actual reason to be extra violent but there are some humorous jokes or types of satire that we can aim at older audience just as scene by the very successful Deadpool released which was an influence on this opening sequence. The opening sequence on its own would be distributed over YouTube or another medium like Facebook just for laughs. Still, if the product were to be made into a full fledged movie it would be out in theaters first, most likely in the United States or distributed over Europe; then this would lead to a blue-ray or DVD for home viewing and even some use of the new YouTube Red which features movies. Netflix would be a good step after the blue-ray or DVD sales start to degrade. Of course it will still be a movie so it will hit theaters first as a fully produced movie later going into home viewing then Netflix and YouTube Red.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? I feel as if my producing and directing skill developed a bit as we “co-filmed” in a way when we had shots that involved each other the ones who were not in the shots would film and/or direct. I definitely got better at editing sound files as we had music in the background that would conflict with the actual video so I had a lot of editing problems with the sounds and had to make some last minute adjustments as well. In the beginning I believe I could edit pretty well but as the opening sequence was being developed I did improve a lot on my skill and adding in the title cards took some time as I learned how to edit them in properly. My acting skills also may have improved a bit and I have more knowledge behind the work that goes into lighting and the actual filming of the movie/video content out there. It was great fun but most of all I can say that my knowledge in editing has increased the most.

How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project? We had some trouble with integrating software and technology in this project. Most of all the title cards which were made in the editing software we use were hard to make and replicate in the end we chose to copy and paste them and then later edit them into each title card. We did use an instrumental of the music video Ready for War by 50 Cent. Using this music we also had to use the software and shotgun mic in such a way as to make sure sounds do not conflict. We used the same camera and bipod equipment like in earlier projects so we had experience with them but eh shotgun mic was new and we had to swap out a mic mid filming (we did not realize this but before editing the audio quality was different in the scenes) so we had to figure out how to use the shotgun mic effectively. We had to also use the blogs of course which I have gotten used to by know and all in all feel quite normal to me. As we continued to use the new equipment at our disposal we also had to use the editing software text as I mentioned before so that we can edit title cards and that came with its own problems by then end where editing was a chore as we had so much unconnected pictures on the software.

Thoughts on the final product and experience? I am pleased with the final product although it is not “movie material I believe for our first try at making an opening sequence of a movie I believe we had succeeded. It was great fun the class, the project, and the filming; I loved doing the editing even if at times it was irritating or not cooperating with me. In the end I believe we did accomplish our best and maybe its just me but I still have doubts and am pretty nervous as well. It was a great time for me and I believe the course as well as the film industry is an interesting field. B. (2015, April 18). The photographers who refuse to abandon traditional film cameras - BBC News. Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32337778