Before any filming took place we had to look at the typical conventions of a gangster black and white film to ensure we could try to portray these within our opening sequence.
Contain a crime organisation or gang; present in our opening sequence is the Italian gang L'asso di Cuori of which where the title of the film comes from. These are instantly shown to be overpowering the American man with their intimidating look and the way they set him up at the end of the poker game.
Use of black and white to portray the time period; our opening sequence was edited into black and white to portray its 1950's time period and to also allow us to use the extra effects such as being able to see the cigarette and cigar smoke across he screen.
We also used simple media conventions such characterisation, costume and props for the viewers to easily establish the genre and time period. The use of dressing the Italian gang to look intimidating, powerful but also laid back indicated to the audience that they are the gang/mobs of the film. Dressing the young American in a shirt and bow tie made him come across to the audience as the amateur and nervous one. Also when the hitman arrives at the end to stitch the American man up he is also wearing a suit to portray his experience and intimidating but powerful effect along with the knife held in his hand. This is exactly what we were hoping for and along with our use of props the whole genre and time period was easily conveyed towards the viewers. The use of the olives and holy pictures on the wall gave it it's Italian feeling and the use of the poker equipment, alcoholic beverages, cigars and knife etc. portrayed its gangster and poker feel along with the 1950's time period.
All of the above conventions were used within our piece to help portray and establish the time period, genre and characters used for our opening sequence, we believe these conventions were conveyed successfully to the viewers of the video.
The shots and characters used within our opening sequence compare nicely with those used in similar situations in Scarface, The Godfather and Goodfellas. The following screen shot is from Goodfellas and although there may seem to be more action occuring the shot is still very similar to that in ours of the gang around the table all seen in the camera shot and still appears very authentic.
In L'asso di Cuori we also tried to challenge the use of the characters/actors and try to make them as similar to of that in the 3 films listed above. The pictures below show the relaxed, intimidating and powerful comparison of the actors, aswell as the clothing and props seen in the images.
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The particular social groups represented within our media video would be that of the older generation who are interested in the 1950's gangs, mobs and crime organisations. Due to the L'asso di Cuori gang being made up of the older generation of who are all smoking on cigarettes or cigars, drinking alcohol and playing poker for high sums of money and/or valuable goods means that our film opening is also aimed at those interested in the 1950's Italian/American gangster film noir, singling out those who came from the middle classes in the 1950's who would have watched or been involved in the original gangster/film noir films just after the war.
Those most likely to watch our film would be males due to the violence, gangs and it being dominated by male actors with an age range of about 16 - 60. This down to the younger males wanting to watch violent gang films and the older ones wanting to re watch films made for their time era.
The actors used and their costume, characterisation and props is another reason as to why the older male generation would want to watch it as it may bring back what they stereotypically wore back in their younger days representing their younger social groups.
Our film would also appear interesting to the young American males of today as they would probably like to see how one of their calibre would fair back in the 1950's against an experienced Italian gang. The young, nervous American gang amateur is represented as middle class American of someone from today. His use of costume, not smoking and nervousness would make represent our film towards the younger american male social group of today.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution that might want to distribute our media would be that of som
ething like Channel 4 films or itv films who would be looking to show low budget films from the 1950's to the viewers of their channel. Channel 4 would be the likeliest of the two due to them already showing a large number of older films compared to itv's use of more modern films. Institutions like channel 4 would be looking to distribute films like ours to make money and to also entertain their older generation of male viewers with a gangster/film noir film from the 50's. The institutions would also distribute our film after the hours of 9pm due to it being atleast a 15 certificate.
4. Who would be the audience or your media product?
The audience of our film would be male dominated and of all nationality's but maybe favouring those from Italy or America. This would be due to the gang L'asso d Cuori being Italian and the younger nervous man involved being American.
The age range of viewers for our film would probably be about 16 - 60 with the older ones wanting to watch films re - made from their time era of the 50's and the younger ones, a majority of Americans, wanting to watch for the violence and to see how the young American man would fair back in the day of the 1950's under severe intimidation from an intelligent, experience, powerful and laid back Italian gang.
Women would probably not want to view our film due to the violence and gangs involved. Also due to no female actor being present it would probably not appeal to females as they are more likely to watch romantic films from the 50's and not gangster films from the 50's.
Also those interested in films such as scarface, The Godfather and Goodfellas are most likely to want to watch and enjoy our film.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted/addressed the audience in our opening sequence by inclu
ding a bit of action and voice overs which would hopefully draw them in to see the stitch up from L'asso di Cuori just as the film is about to start. The use of the voice over also tells the viewers the situation of the American and will hopefully interest them and therefore drawing them in to the film. Also the use of the soundtrack makes the poker game seem very intense and the music becomes louder and more upbeat as the game progresses to an end. This soundtrack also helps portray the time era and genre straight away, so those interested in the Gangster genre or 1950's films will hopefully have been drawn in straight away.
The use of the American voice over will also help attract the American viewers as they are now more likely to watch our film as one of their own is used withink our gangster film. This will help draw them in to watching how the younger American man fairs throughout the video.
Once again the use of props and costume will play a big part in attracting viewers as as soon as props or costume of an interest to the viewers is seen they are more likely to want to watch on, so within our opening sequence we have tried to use as many different styles of costumes to portay our actors and also an awful lot of props to portray the genre and become intersting and attractive to the viewers.
During trying to attract viewers we set out a couple of questions for the 30 people of random ages from 16-60.
1. Could you see our opening sequence developing into a film?
Approximately 80% of the viewers said they could and the other 20% did not say no but that they could after maybe touching up what we had as they believe wat they saw could be improved vastly.
This type of answer gave our group a very large boost in knowing what we have produced is very good in the eyes of our viewers.
2. Could you identify the genre of our film and possibly the time era?
Everyone who viewed our film identified it to be a gangster genre, and all of them would have been correct. Also only 50% of them were able to say the 1950's but everyone else was not far away with answers of 'during the war', '1960's' and '1930's'.
Once again we were pleased with the answers we recieved as a vast majority of our viewers were correct and once again provided a large boost to our production group.
3. Did the voice overs make what was going on a little clearer to you?
Again we recieved the answers we wanted to as most of them said the voice overs ceared things uo for them but surprisingly a few said without the voice overs they may have been able to determine what was happening but maybe not the nationality's of the people involved, they said the voice overs helped determine this.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
During the process of my opening sequence I have learnt that alot more effort and time is needed to film and edit the video footage than is first thought. The editing stage is based over a long period of time and alot of patience and skill is required to perform the correct transitions using the editing software. You can film your video footage in as long or as short time as you want but the main part of the production is the time spent editing.
Also during the process of our opening sequence i learnt how to use all of the software and equipment required such as the camera, editing software, using a tripod etc. Also as a production team we learnt about how important charcterisation is in the video footage and tried to encourporate this within our opening sequence using the costume, props etc. to help.
I also learnt about how to make what would seem an impossible bit of editing quite straight forward and easy due to the use fo the editing software Vegas Movie Studio. The editing software required time and patience but overall was very straight forward once you got use to it.
I have also learnt that decent films or video footage can be made with low budget equipment and software and that the very best stuff is not needed. All that is required is time, patience and a bit of effort and hardwork :)
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
From our preliminary video to our final AS film opening sequence I have learnt an awful lot and my media knowledge has progresed massively. The various and numerous camera angles, camera shots, video effects etc. have helped me piece together and produce and opening sequence with my production group.
From our preliminary video to our final piece you can see the difference by the number of different effects, camera angles and camera shots used. Also the fluency of the video footage for the opening sequence shows the progression of our knowledge throughout the AS media task. The preliminary task allowed us a little bit of experience with the camera, equipment and editing software, and all in all this paid off massively. If we had gone straight into our opening sequence without a preliminary task I don't think our video would be half as good.
Also being able to produce our preliminary task in 1 day helped us indicate how long we would have to work on our opening sequence if we wanted it be as crisp as ever. Alot of patience was used spending long lengths of time on every piece of video and then more time and effort to record our voice overs and place them in the correct places in our video. Also trying to find an appropiate soundtrack and then applying that to our video footage was so hard and therefore made us realise that film production is not an easy money job and that alot of time, effort and patience is required to recieve the very best video!
