Filming:

For our group's filming we decided the most efficient environment to film was in a dark place. We also needed worktops and surfaces to make the zone appear more eerie and dank - of course to fit into the Thriller aspect. Also, we believe that work surfaces would assimilate perfectly to match our desire to duplicate the film, Se7en.

Film Indent:

Above is our group's creation for our film's indent. For this to be completed, we used a programme called 'after affects' which allows us to enhance and improve clips and images, or, create them. We wanted to create an indent that was unique and superior to others, so that it would protrude - as well as keeping it as original as possible. For this to be accomplished, we recorded each other's faces tilting upwards and placed them with the correct letters of their/our names.

I personally believed this was a fantastic idea to improve our sequence and brand a more proficient approach.

Preliminary Project:

Above is our group's Preliminary Project. The purpose of this scheme was to express our skills and expertise as a whole. Within this project we had to include: the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse-shot and match-on-action. We experienced match-on-action as the simplest of the three too shoot, however it was a complex outline to accomplish. Furthermore, together as a group, we believe that we completed a very professional and smooth project - despite it being an unprecedented group.

We hope that we can keep this steady, yet  successful progress in the future for the benefit of our Media Studies.

Researching Professional Example Sequence:

Above is an example of the opening two-minute sequence from the film, Se7en. The purpose of observing this clip was to gain ideas for our own opening two-minute sequence. Also to enhance our own knowledge.

We took note of distinct aspects from this sequence that we thought would 'fit the bill' for our sequence. In addition, the group as a whole agreed for this two-minute sequence to be our aspirational succession. 

Completed Survey:

This time around the group and I had to produce a questionnaire/survey regarding our opening two-minute scene. The purpose of this was to gain important feedback from individuals and their views on the thriller genre (our group's chosen genre). In addition, we believe this will give us, as a whole, a lot more guidance towards producing the two-minute entry - as we can observe what elements the audience prefers/likes about thriller films.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7PGRGVV - here is the link to our group's completed survey.

Editing Footage and Beginning Survey:

This lesson, two of our group members, including me, began to edit the filming that we produced throughout last week on the Apple Mac - whereas the other two group members started to produce the questionnaire for our principal opening two-minute film entry.

However, me and another group member were briefly given an overview of how to edit our footage via the Apple Mac - once the explanation had finished, we began to get the hang of it and accomplished a pretty decent job editing the material. On the other hand, we wanted to include some CGI within our footage, just to make it that little bit special - and we started to experiment with certain aspects and features that the Apple Mac provided... It was harder then we thought!

Finally, our other two members of our group made steady progress on producing the questionnaire - as they had to create 10 distinctive questions which were significant for our two-minute entry.

Gratifications Theory, Reception Analysis, Open and Closed Meaning:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Gratifications Theory:
On the left, you can see a diagram of Gratifications Theory. This is an approach to understanding why people actively seek out specific media outlets and content for fulfilment purposes. The theory will not only meets a given necessity, but increase intelligence, social physics and diversion. Moreover, the physiological division is the most important; the things of which the us as humans need the most - then safety comes second, love/belonging third, esteem fourth and then actualization last.

Stuart Hall.

Reception Analysis - Dominant, Hegemonic:
On the left hand side is Stuart Hall. Stuart Hall detailed that  texts have preferred meanings, however the decoder will not always fully understand or read them as the intended idea by the producer - and this is because everybody has different social and cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, texts that are meant to correspond hegemony will be encoded so that they are simply deciphered and understood by a figure audience. 

Umberto Eco.

Open and Closed Meaning - Encoder, Decoder:
On the left hand side is Umberto Eco. Umberto Eco said that texts aimed at a big audience will be encoded so that the majority of the audience can only decode a preferred of significant meaning - this is known as a closed text. On the other hand, open texts are something of many meanings, or is purposely ambiguous, which can only be understood in different ways by a numerous of different audience significances.