Evaluation

Working in a group of three; me as the producer, Carla Hosker as the director and Sameena Waheed as the writer. Our project was to create an opening sequence to a movie. We constructed two videos; a preliminary task that tested our understanding of continuity by creating a basic sequence of shots that was edited to make them flow. Our second video, the main task that required a lot more skill and effort was the ‘titles and opening sequence’ to a movie, which we called ‘Burn in Love’. Editing the shots, selecting the appropriate music, helping to create the storyboard and acting in the sequence were my contributions to the project.

Our sequence has elements within it that can be related to a ‘thriller’, the narrative and characters are typical of this genre. A villain (the psychopathic mother), a victim (the daughter) and a plot to kill are all evident in this sequence. The typical props used, for instance, the way in which we decided to use the photo frame shows how abnormal and warped the mothers mind has become and the use of a 'petrol can' and 'matches', alongside the use of low angles illustrate the twisted and violent side to a thriller, they imply death. We deliberately used typical media language such as dark and dismal low key lighting, tense and reflective music to aid the fact that it is a ‘thriller’. Although our sequence needed these typical elements to establish that it belonged to this genre it needed to be different and to stand out from the crowd because if it replicated other ‘thrillers’ our audience would get bored of recurrence. In order to avoid this we came up with a narrative centred on ‘honour killing’ and the westernisation of the youth from a traditional Eastern background, there are no media products on ‘honour killings’ other than those shown on the news. Honour killing is prominent in the Asian community and affects many lives: our innovations will prove to be an insight into this horrific but true happening. This was shown as the majority of our audience found our plot gripping and exciting as it is based on events that prop up in the British News.

Our media product represents such social groups: - men and women, young people through their appearance and the media language. Firstly the men and women are represented through traditional eastern views on culture; men and women are not to mix unless they are family. To create this traditional image of the mother in the sequence we had to use a suitable costume; her conventional clothing shows she is still in touch with her background and is not prepared to give it up although she is from the East. Her actions (setting her daughter alight) show she has a backward mind as she cannot accept her daughter in a relationship and is not willing to give up her beliefs. This view of Eastern women with traditional views is stereotypical yet the fact that she engages in such violent and gruesome acts challenges the stereotypical view of women in the media as they are commonly seen as tender and loving. The reason why we decided to challenge this view on women was to show how distraught and upset the mother is by her daughters acts of indiscretion and our audiences response was positive as they thought her role bought a gripping edge to the sequence. Secondly, to represent young people from an eastern background who are westernised, their costumes and appearance adhere to their surroundings, not traditional but modern English yet the daughters headscarf shows her innocence and respect for her culture and religion. The daughter and her boyfriend are socialising in the sequence, stereotypical of young people as they are shown as happy , in love and innocent, this can be seen through the use of slow motion transition and bright colours in the scenes with the daughter and her boyfriend.

Our movie product although quite original has prominent aspects that link to big British hits such as, ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ and ‘East is east’. The sequence reflects and is based upon honour killing a fairly interesting topic that resurfaces every now and then in British News. Our target audience would be of 16 years and over, the topic is unsuitable to view for people under that age as it displays scenes of violence. The Asian teenage community can associate themselves with the idea that westernisation plays a huge and important part in their lives, they experience the ‘culture clash’ so this society would be our target. Our fan base would be basically the whole of the Asian society in Britain, although this is a small population, it is an interesting topic and thriller lovers should help pool in more viewers. Evident themes such as revenge and love would appeal to wider audiences.

We used media language, mainly lighting to create a sense of time and emotion. The past was represented in flashbacks; the shots were slowed down to illustrate that these events had taken place in the past and to show that the mother was looking over her memory. The lighting in the clip made everything/ everyone looks bright and cheery, suggesting that the past was a happy time. The lighting in the present was naturally sourced yet gave the shots a dark edge, signifying that the mother was depressed and is going through a tough time.

To create an effective opening sequence we raised a few enigma’s to keep the audience hooked and in suspense. The enigma’s we bought up were why the mother would want to set her daughter alight, whether or not she actually does set her daughter and/or herself on fire. We ended the sequence on a cliffhanger as the mother brings the lit match up to her face, considering what to do next. In terms of our genre we created the typical binary opposition in the main characters, the mother as the villain and the daughter as the victim. We did this to create suspense as to how the mother could have such strong feelings of hatred for her daughter when there is no stronger bond. The binary opposites produced in the situation are of East and West, the two cultures cannot live alongside each other as the beliefs of what is seen as acceptable are completely different and clash with one another. Throughout the opening sequence we created suspense and tension by using low angle shots to generate a menacing and powerful look. We used high angle shots daughter while she was sleeping to produce the effect that she’s weak and in serious trouble.

Technology played an important part in both helping to make our sequence and to research on it. The camera work to film the sequence was quite tricky, as we had to consider the rule of thirds and 180degree rule. Using the DTP software to create the project allowed us to select the shots we wanted so we could get the best effect. Learning to use the software was hard at first but once familiar with it, it was really swift and easy to create a sequence that we thought would be powerful, it allowed us to use transitions, such as ’flash/burn’ which was great for our flashback effect. When researching for our project, we mainly used the internet, this allowed me to use such sites as ‘Blogger.com’, this site was interesting as I had to post not only blogs but embed videos, which was really difficult for me to understand but practice makes progress. The technology we used for getting the audience feedback was Microsoft Word, we created a questionnaire that was handed out to the students from the class, and they wrote their opinions down on our sequence.
Looking back at my preliminary task i feel as though our final product was of better quality, the whole narrative was more enhanced; it had a deeper meaning to it, which was inevitable. The shots we used were more varied in the main product, we had: - close-ups (of lit match), low angles (looking up at mothers face when lighting match), tracking shots (following the footsteps), panning shots (daughter and boyfriend walking through car park in college), medium shots (mother walking toward mantel). I also felt we managed to use colour more effectively to show the state of mind the characters are in. The shots with the distraught mother in them were grey, this shows she was angry and cold-hearted yet the shots with the daughter in them were colourful to show how happy she is.
Overall i believe our product was really quite poignant, it had qualities that created a sympathy in the viewer towards the daughter such as clips of her when she young and innocent. The idea of having honour killing as a theme was quite original, and the music “adds to the mystery” (audience feedback) and also helped express the narrative and went well with the genre we were aiming at expressing. However i feel as though we could have made the relationship between the characters clearer. Most of our audience was unable to grasp that aspect between what was supposed to be mother and daughter and were also unable to fully understand why the mother was going to burn her daughter alive.

Evaluation

Our project was to create an opening sequence, to do this we had to get into small groups. My group was of three, myself, Sameena Waheed and Yasmeen Khalil.

The contributions that I made were some blogs on http://www.blogger.com/, such as, “Target Audience”, “Story Boards” and other blogs were done as a group blog i.e. “Initial Idea”, etc.

When it came to making the project my primary role was filming so I had to decide what shots to take and what angles to film.

Our media product is a relationship based drama about a mother who has brought her daughter up and been so close to her that she fears losing her to her daughter’s boyfriend. She also feels betrayed by her daughters actions and goes to the massive extreme of “Honour Killing” (this is when a family member decides to kill the family in order to keep the families name respected before the information of the betrayal shames the family name). So to prevent this, the mother “attempts” the traumatising plot, however we don’t know if she drops the match or if she is just having a thought.

The last scene the mother (Yasmeen Khalil), lifts a lit match up to her face creating an enigma of “will she, won’t she?” also if you watch it you could see it as being a thought after all the flashback without the full product nobody will know.
We have used typical elements such as ‘realistic issues’ and we based our ideas on the Riaz family who tragically died due to the father who struggled to communicate with his family and as a result the family got murdered.
We decided to make our relationship drama with an emotional but psychotic side to the mother so that it plays with the viewers emotions creating more enigmas and wanting them to watch more of the film.

I think it is vital to have a new twist in the genre because the viewers would just get bored of watching the same thing over and over again therefore creating something new makes the viewer want to watch.
Our innovation were likely to prove successful because our idea of “honour killing” was new to relationship drama’s genre also it’s based on a true story.

Our product represents the Muslim culture, therefore we had to make sure the costumes were traditional e.g. head scarves. Their appearance had to be Muslim style, for example, we couldn’t have the mother with bright pink hair, tattoo’s, piercing, tank top and mini skirt roaming around with a bottle of whisky in her hand because it wouldn’t fit our criteria or targets.
We didn’t use speech as we thought it would be more effective to have emotional music playing over the product.

For our setting we used Sameena’s home; the lounge area, the stair case in the hall and the bedroom. We also filmed at college to show where the daughter was during the day. There were also some home movies that we put in for effect to show the daughter when she was younger and happy.


The lighting used at the beginning when the mother was sat in the dark was chiaroscuro lighting, the natural lighting coming through the window helped create this effect also when she is stood at the bedroom door half of her face is in the light from the bedroom light.

The chiaroscuro effect helped to signify the different sides to the mother; white= the emotional, caring side – black= the psychotic, jealous and paranoid side.
We also kept the mother in low key lighting to show she is unhappy even when she is in the light there is always some dark shadow on her face to show the sadness doesn’t go away. Whereas, the daughter is mostly in high key lighting to show she is very happy.

The sound used is non-diegetic and parallel sound, therefore, the viewers hear the music not the characters. Also the sound links with the drama.

In editing we used overlaps to smoothen out jumps in the product, we also used “dissolve flash”, a transition used to depict a flash back.
For cinematography, we used lots of close-ups to show confusion and paranoia in the mothers mind.


For our product the age range would be from fifteen upwards, as a child under that age restriction may not be able to understand the contents or meaning of the product. The gender for our product is both as it is a relationship drama, not a chick flick or action packed.

For ethnicity we have looked at the Muslim culture and how the daughter is growing out of her religion, so the mother thinks, therefore, to save the family name from disgrace she decides upon honour killing.
Having the Muslim culture in our criteria it may appeal to the Muslim and English cultures.

We had a screening for our product along with others, when ours had finished we handed out a questionnaire. I took three sheets at random and used them for our overall feedback:
3/3 said they’d watch it to answer the enigma’s created
1/3 said they think some things could be added to make the opening sequence clearer
2/3 said they understood the product

Overall, I think our product received positive feedback.

For attracting and addressing our audience we used chronology, for example, when we put a dissolve flash transition to show the mother thinking of the past in her present state of mind. When it was present we had low key lighting to show her as depressed.

Enigmas were used throughout by using only emotional music and absolutely no dialogue being heard.
We also used binary opposites, for example, when the mother was shown depressed (always in the dark) and the daughter was shown happy (always in the light).

We built up tension by showing the mothers thoughts (flashbacks) and her gradually going to murder, for example, looking at the photograph, reaching for the matches, going upstairs to see the daughter, throwing petrol everywhere and then finally striking the match.
It also suggests a lack of communication between the two characters and as a result this could happen and from our research on our blogs this has recently happened therefore could be seen as reality.

For our research we used the internet; Youtube, Google, etc, and found them very useful when looking for our statistics and information on music, history, etc.
For our editing we used the Apple Macs, digital camcorders, video tape and computer software called iMovie, which was very useful for transitions, music, pacing the product, etc.
For feedback we used the computers to type up a questionnaire and handed them out after the screening.

Looking back at the preliminary task we learnt how to create lots of different angles for example, 45° angle, what panning and tilt shots are and the different shots concerning distance i.e. extreme close-up, close-up, medium close-up, medium shot, long shot and extreme long shot. we also learnt about the 180° rule and the nine grid rule. We found out that by following these rules for our final product would help us produce a realistic media product.

Overall, the strengths were definitely the choice of music and lighting on the product as it fits in well with the criteria. However, the weakness were the realistic look of the petrol can (milk bottle), which could have been improved so that it looked more like a petrol can even if it were to be handmade. We could also of shown more close-ups of the petrol (water) to empathise the reasoning behind the milk bottle to show that she wasn’t pouring milk onto the floor.
My favourite part was the match scene because it worked really well and brought to light the mother’s true feelings, emotions and final decision in which the viewer is left wondering if she does start a fire or does she decide against the heart wrenching plot, this is my favourite enigma in our media product.
In my opinion I think our finished media product is a success and will appeal to a wide variety of people because its difference in the genre which has a bitter or sweet ending.

Evaluation

For this project I created an opening sequence to a film named Burn In Love, on average about two-two and a half minutes long. Foe this I was part of a three people team which included Myself, Yasmeen Khalil and Carla Hosker. We all contributed in many ways, however my individual contributions were as follows: I came up with the story line/plot, I acted in the sequence, shot various scenes and made contributions in editing the sequence to reach the final result.

Our media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in many ways. It is based on Honour Killing. It is an original idea and was mainly inspired by the Riaz Family Tragedy which occurred in 2005-06. It is a family/ relationship genre and the equipment used were camera, tri pod and imovie for editing. It was crucial to use the typical elements as it gave the sequence a sense of familiarity and it gave us the chance to meet the standard the target audience expects.

It was vital to do something new with a genre as it would hook the audience and the outcome would be different to what is expected from this type of genre.

I believe my innovation would be a success as the concept, theme and narrative was original, it is a sensitive subject and we approached the sensitivity in a mature manner and reflected the theme thoroughly without being biased or critical and without immaturity.

Burn In Love fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence as we have kept the duration of the sequence so that too much of the narrative is not revealed. It also fulfils the requirements of the Family / Relationship Drama Genre as it is based on the story of a mother and daughter, we see their relationship and the destruction of it, through flashbacks we visualize the events that contributed to the mother’s insanity. We see flashbacks from ’Grim’ times to ’Happy’ times and the climax of the sequence.

Burn In Love represents particular social and ethnic groups such as women, young people. These groups were represented by the use of costumes, appearance, actions, setting, use of lighting and music. Appearance played a major impact on our media product as it required specific character stereotypes, we required an Asian Mother, through costume lighting and make up we were able to achieve the look of a typical Asian mother stereotype. This stereotype is mainly like a housewife stereotype but it also consists of a mysterious veiled victim of male oppression and an uneducated foreigner.

The actions and activities carried out in the sequence represented social groups as the scene in which the daughter is with a male friend represents the social group of college students, however the mother represents the social group of a psychotic woman/mother.

The use of no speech enhanced the narrative further, it made the sequence look dynamic and functional. We have used various settings to represent various social groups such as, the mise en scene and location - the house created an sense of personalization it reflected the social group of the mother and the college reflects the group of students and young adults.

The lighting varies throughout the sequence, the clip starts off with dark lighting the effect this has is unnatural and unsettling, then as the clip evolves into the flashback, the lighting changed to natural lighting this reflected the happier times and the dark lighting reflected the dark moments in the protagonist’s life.

We intended on creating a sequence in Flashback Form this reflected the mother’s state of mind clearly and how confused she was about the situation. We used various transitions to reflect feelings and emotions that reflect the mental stability of the characters, we used the following transitions: slow/reverse/forward, Flash burn, credits, each element had a different effect which made the clip more sensitive. The editing pace varied between the shots, the flashbacks were deliberately slowed down to show that the mother is reminiscing, the present tense shots were created with normal speed which gave the shots a contemporary feel. The non-digetic sound creates an emphasis on emotion and feelings.

The most successful shots were in particular those in the dark, these made the clip more exiting yet more meaningful, in contrast to the dark shots were the natural lighting shots these were also effective as they made the sequence more complex. The editing style we incorporated was suitable to our chosen genre as it caused bewilderment and did not reveal the story straight away.As our idea was original and there was not much stereotyping on the characters, therefore we took up a challenge in order to create a realistic approach to the character of the mother, we tried to represent her in a realistic manner and fulfilled that as she does not look fake, also the audience responded as we wished as the characters looked realistic and not incompetent.

Film 4 produced a drama which entailed a similar story to Burn In Love called Yasmin. Which was produced in 2004, was about Yasmin, a British Pakistani, who lives two lives in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslim clothes, cooks for her father and brother and has the behaviour of a Muslim woman. Further, she has a non-consumed marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal to facilitate the British stamp in his passport, and then divorce him. In her job, she changes her clothes and dresses like a Westerner, is considered a standard employee and has a good Caucasian friend who likes her. After the September, 11th, the prejudice in her job and the treatment of common people makes her take side and change her life.

The target audience for Burn In Love would be male and female age ranged between 16 + as anyone younger than this would not understand the narrative, it would be watch mainly by Asians as the central characters are Asian however people of any nationality could watch is as the story is straightforward. The universal themes we encountered were mainly love and revenge, these made the narrative appeal to a wider audience.

This target audience is suitable for the product financially as it relates to the lifestyle of many people therefore it would be supported throughout.

Our product gained a positive reaction from the target audience and proved a success, we gained constructive feedback and very little criticism.

Burn In Love addressed its target audience in many ways. The use of setting up equilibrium and disruption in the narrative targeted the audience as this gave an insight to the mental stability of the characters, this hooked the viewer into the sequence. The disruptive event occurs at the end of the sequence, this has a very big impact as it is the climax of the clip, here the audience wants to know what will happen next but do not know therefore want to continue watching it to find out .

The events that occur Burn In Love are not chronological, however at the start we created a sense of time and place but each event occurs in a different place hence we captured all the places individually and the time was also reflected in the sequence.

Various enigmas rose from this sequence as it is a very sensitive issue, the use of these enigmas made it more interesting and successful and made them want to watch it further, we created these enigmas in many ways starting off with the setting and location which made the narrative more understandable and appealing to the lives of the characters, finally we used cinematography in numerous ways to create various illusions, we used low angles at the end to show the mother in power in contrast to the weak daughter who was asleep.

We used binary opposition to create conflict in characters and situations, such as the difference in age of the characters which created a contrast in the roles, it also created a conflict in the lifestyles of characters and nature of the characters as there is Good vs. Evil, Honor vs. Disgrace, , Mother vs Daughter, East vs West and Past vs Present.

The ideologies Burn In Love gives an insight to the typical “Asian Family Honor”, and what honor means to these people, the effect this has on people is disturbing, the stone hearted mother’s behavior is unaccountable and not required yet her nerves take over and the consequences shock the audience, as this is so shocking the audience is kept hooked into the sequence.

We have used technology in many different ways whilst creating the sequence, we created a blog, the internet for research and YouTube. We used camcorder, tripod, imovie and music sites. In the blogs we included articles, YouTube clips, images and other information. We included all this information on our blog by embedding, copying, CDS/Pendrives, videos (old footage), external hardrive and the camera.

I have learnt many things about technology during the creation process of the clip. I learnt that shots can be edited in various ways which can give the clip a different look and gives the opportunity to visualize the narrative thoroughly, by using technology to edit the shots gives the sequence a more complex look and there are very little limitations that impose on our ambitions.

We used technology to receive feedback by creating questionnaires and asking for their point of views on the sequence, this was effective as we got various answers, the majority of the audience understood the concept and were pleased with the product overall, yet some people did not understand the concept of the flashbacks.

Since the preliminary task I have learnt a lot of things in regards to the sequence using technology, I think Burn In Love is better in a number of ways as when we shot this we knew a lot more about cinematography, lighting, mise en scene, sound and editing, also the use of using the transitions and effects also enhanced the clip which made the concept a lot more interesting. We experimented with the compositions of shots and used a various types of shots. The editing, cuts and fades were a lot more smoother and the sequence was flowing properly, the concept was more interesting and the character building was done in a better way, we created characters in a more obvious way, the titles and fonts, layout, and varied colour scheme created a more interesting and effective sequence.

Burn In Love was a very successful sequence due to the sensitivity of the genre, the key strengths of the clip are the flashbacks and the cliffhanger at the end however this clip could be improved to make it more effective. One improvement that can be made is that we could do more shots of the mother throwing petrol around the room, this would make the clip more realistic. I believe if this concept was taken further it would be a success as the idea is original and it is sensitive, therefore had to be handled with maturity or else it would not appear realistic, I think we incorporated the realism of the situation and handled the concept with maturity therefore Burn In Love was a success.

Final Story Board

• Fade in of production company. Mother rocking backwards and fourth in a mentality state of mind. (medium close-up)
• Same Scene only the camera shot is face on from the mother. (long shot)
• Dissolve flash; flashback showing what the mother is remembering of her child.
• Flash back of daughter and her boyfriend at college (Mothers Point of View from behind the cars, Panning, Tilting)
• Dissolve flash
• Back to another angle of the mother in the living room, showing the lit fireplace as an important prop to the storyline "Burn In Love". (Side shot, medium shot)
• Dissolve Flash
• Daughter smiling and talking. (Close-up, mothers Point of View, hand-held)
• Overlap transition
• Daughters boyfriend grining and saying something back to her. (Close-up, mothers Point of View, hand-held)
• Dissolve Flash back to mother side shot medium close-up and 
• Showing her daughter when she was a little girl with other children whom could be related.(Medium shot)

Burn In Love

Target audience and story outline of Burn In Love

The target audience will be fifteen upwards as anyone under that age may not understand the meaning of the opening sequence. The contents is about a mother (Yasmeen Khali) that thinks her daughter (Sameena Waheed) is betraying her family because she has seen her daughter with a boy at college when she was hiding behind a car, spying on them. Later when they are both at home the mother is sat in the living room rocking forward and backwards then starts to memorise how her child was before she became "Westernised". The mother is in anticipation as to whether she should honour kill her daughter in order to keep the family name sacred. In order for the mother to do this she goes to see her daughter upstairs, the mother strokes the daughters and sighs (which is showed clearly with a depressed emotion).
Another memory of the daughter appears, the mother decided to burn the family home sticking with her plans to honour kill. Title fades in "Burn In Love".
Overall, the media product show complications to the story line and is therefore unsuitable for children under the age of fifteen.

Further development of initial idea

Due to certain circumstances we were unable to continue the initial idea of "Burning Love", therefore we have changed the idea slightly to reflect an overprotective mother who fears her daughter is bringing disrespect and disgrace to the whole family.

We are sticking to the initial plot however, are tweaking it slightly. our storyboard:-

1)The first shot is of the mentally disturbed mother (yasmeen) in a dark front-room rocking backwards and forwards on a armchair. Start off with a close-up shot of her facial expressions. 

2)The close- up shot will then stretch out into a medium shot reflecting the mothers body language.                    

3)FLASHBACK-desaturated to reflect that it is in the past.