Q.

1- How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social
groups or issues?

The term convention refers to the aspects that appear frequently in a specific film genre.
Characters, objects, themes, story lines, and other elements are all examples of genre
conventions. Conventions are what distinguishes a type of film and defines it as a specific genre.
The theme on which we are filming our opening film is more of a mysterious and serious kind of
story, portraying sadness as well, which the serial killer is enduring as a result of childhood
neglect. The plot revolves around the detective's deductive ability, prowess, confidence, or
diligence as he seeks to piece together clues and circumstances, locate evidence, interrogate
witnesses, and track down a criminal. Characters, props, themes, scenery and camerawork will
all indicate a grim realistic scenario. Our story focuses on the social issues of drug usage,
addiction, and sadness. All of these are growing challenges in our community, and they affect a
large number of individuals especially 15-21 year olds as they are more prone and have more
exposure so they know first-hand about what all these things are but are too young to know the
consequences. Our story will highlight these difficulties and raise awareness about what may
happen when alcoholism and depression take control of a person's head.

Q.2- How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real
media text?

Suspenseful films provide the audience with a more objective viewpoint. This objective
viewpoint sometimes permits the audience to know more information than the characters. The
audience of a mystery detective film prefers it when the opening scene does not reveal the story
and instead creates a sense that something will happen, which will engage the audience more
into the film; similarly, in our film's opening scene, the detective does not know who the killer is,
but the audience is given an idea of who the killer is. The outfits, camera shots, mis-en-scene,
lighting, props, makeup of characters, and their wardrobe will represent a dark mode, type of a
depressed movie, which will make the audience feel empathy for the character and will make
the audience incline towards how the story will unfold later.

Q.3- How did your production skills develop throught the project.

During the filming of this film opening task, I had to counter several problems which I faced. The
lighting was a big part in the whole film. Getting the perfect warm tone for every scene proved
to be a challenge and tackling night time scenes in dim or dark environments without the use of
any external light sources was difficult to say the least. What really came into play here was how
to control the aperture of the camera I was using. In order to avoid grain or fuzzy video I kept
tweaking the settings and in this process also improved my cinematography skills as a whole.
No gimbals were used during the making of this film mostly on purpose for a wider variety of
hard to film shots. I had to keep my hand steady and try out different perspectives in order to
tell the story in a more captivating way. Capturing different environments and especially indoor
and outdoor scenes were a hurdle due to the limitations of a smartphone camera as opposed to
a DSLR but due to the stabilisation of the phone camera it proved to be a viable option to shoot
on.

Q.4- How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online-in this project?

In my opinion, the best camera you can own is your smartphone camera. It's not about the
quality of the camera you're shooting on but it's about how you capture the elements. I used my
personal smartphone which is the Samsung S22 Ultra which has a solid professional video mode
in the default camera app and has excellent video stabilisation capabilities. I decided to shoot in
an unusual aspect ratio for amateur or beginner video creators. Shooting in a cinematic 21:9
aspect ratio really gave the film a Hollywood style production element to it. All of the filming
was done freehand meaning no tripod neither a gimbal was used to stabilise the video. It gave
me more range of motion to film in tight spaces and improved my cinematography skills in
general. Tracking shots were easier by hand and filming close-up shots like the character lighting
up a cigarette was aesthetically a good choice. I watched a couple of tutorials on how to film on
a smartphone with the utmost professionalism. I had to tweak the white balance for every
scene, adjust the aperture and the shutter speed in order for it to be suitable to the grim
scenario and criminal nature of the film. I deliberately shot some of the scenes as bright as
possible so that it would be easier for our editor to play with the lighting and exposure during
the whole production process. The lighting plays an important part during the film and dim
lighting is used throught the whole film to convey to the audience that it is a dark and suspence
filled thriller.