How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
Throughout my project, I integrated different technologies such as Premiere Pro as software, canon as hardware and different online pages as my source for information, which helped me combine and produce an acceptable product.
For all of my editing, I used Premiere Pro CC 2018 as my main software. It was hard to grasp at first but I eventually got the hold of it by practicing on various prototypes. I stayed on basic editing like creating a sequence, trimming and joining the clips together. I also focused on colour grading to match the aesthetic and set the mood. From the audio tool, I also lowered and increased the volume as per required by the product.
For my shooting process, I used the camera Pentax KS2 with the 18-50 mm lens. It was essential to use a camera which already had a better result which would help me in editing process. For extra support to stable my camera, I used an ICON tripod but I mostly shot the film opening manually. For lights I used ring light and natural lightening as my main source of lightening. I did all of my process, from the beginning to the end, on Dell Inspiron 15 3542 4th Gen Intel Core I5 Laptop and took the pictures for the ‘behind the scenes’ posts from Apple’s iPhone X.
I presented my blog on the website WordPress as a platform to share my posts at various points in my journey. It complemented my way of work and seemed easier than the rest of the websites I looked and worked at. I used Google for most of researches and articles. For my feature pictures too, I used Google. For most of my theories, I used YouTube and used various tutorials to learn Premiere Pro. Wikipedia was used for my researches as a credible source for my researches. For my Moodboard I used Pinterest and then making a collage of those pictures on the app Collage Maker – photo editor & photo collage. For my Film Opening Analyses, I took the clips from YouTube, took a screenshot in my laptop, cropped them in the paint app and posted them as they were. For my scripts I used the website Celtx since it was the easiest to use and was user friendly and documented my pictures by using Snapchat. For my target audience questionnaire, the website I used was SurveyMonkey and distributed it via Gmail and WhatsApp.
Overall the combination of all three technologies helped to bring the film opening out of the production stages to form a professional piece that brought all of my research and pre-production documentation together.
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Initially when I took Media Studies as a subject I only had faint idea on how to operate a camera. Throughout my journey of AS, the first thing I learned was to understand a camera. How to operate a camera’s ISO, shutter speed, aperture and various lenses. Since I did not team up with anyone and I was working on my project alone, I had to learn editing, filming and the entire film making by myself. After the initial step, I learned about different camera techniques, types of camera shots, how to use framing to convey a message, and various different techniques which I never really tried to understand. Similarly I learned about the use of sound and the use of props in a film what meaning it constructs. The major part, which I lacked the most was editing and filming. The first experience I had with filming a film opening was while doing my preliminary task. I tried rather a practical approach to the making, so rather than studying the theory, I made the film on set while just knowing the story. This really showed me how I could’ve done the angle and framing better. The real difficulty I had while completing my preliminary task was editing my product. Since I was new to the use of Premier Pro CC, and all of the options were overwhelming, I used the help of various YouTube videos and somehow created an end product. After this experience, I researched through various products which were already made and saw how the there was such a diversity in camera framing and angles. I also learned about colour grading and how it really changes the whole mood and the vibe of a media. The use of Premier Pro CC was one of the most hardest and time-consuming, not because it was difficult to use, after the initial confusion the uses came naturally, but because it had so many attributions and features, most of the time was used in re-touching and re-arranging the final product. I learned through a series of trial and error how to convey my idea through a camera lens and editing. The most major element I learned was how I can deliver a message without any words. The elements which were included in the film opening which I was also concerned about was the titles, from my preliminary task to my final product, the one element that really bugged me was how I was not able to edit and add the titles like I wanted to. Throughout my research, my main goal remained to learn more about the editing of the titles and the one thing I am really proud of is the development of my titles from my first ever video to my last video. When it came to planning and production, I had the general idea about storyboards, mood boards and scripts but my skill in making them was polished thoroughly, by looking at references and practicing often, I was able to come with an outcome that I was satisfied with. For storyboard, I tried channeling my artistic self, and thought about how my film would look on paper, what it did was it gave me ability to think past the present and think about the final outcome, this was really eye-opening to realize that film makers have to go through this process frame by frame. This gave me patience and my respect increased even more for the film makers. For mood board, I searched through Pinterest for pictures which really channel my film opening in a picture, and to end the planning and production, I looked at different scripts of famous films and used the website Celtx to write the script and was able to conquer this task too by an ample amount of research. Music also plays a significant part in a film, and I used my research to fill in the gap by the lyrics which was made by the lack of dialogue, hence polishing my skill to convey a message without the help of narration or dialogue. Another element worth mentioning is the audience questionnaires, by researching about my audience and what kind of audiences usually consumes media, I was able to create a media which suited my audience. Different theories about audiences helped me learn more about how every individual consumes media, which in the end helped me understand the individuals around me also, while also helping me make a suitable media. A lot of my skills were polished and enhanced because of the advice I took from my teacher and my peers, which yet again helped me look at my product through a different aspect. The whole journey of my AS Media Studies thought and polished me, from constructing a meaning from a camera angle to using sound and music as a way of communicating, to understanding my audience to editing my film in way to convey a message without any dialogue, this journey somehow found a new sense in me, to look at everything from a different angle and constructing a meaning of everything. My skills developed from an amateur to a novice, yet the improvement gave me a sense of contentment which I know comes from the patience level which also increased in this whole process.
To answer this question, I presented my answer as a form of presentation.
The audience is engaged in a way where they are inconspicuously forced to think. Throughout my journey of various researches about audiences, the one which I strongly agreed to was the Uses and Gratification Model. The theory suggests that audiences are a complex mixture of individuals who select media texts that best suits their needs. The users and gratifications model suggests that media audiences are active and make active decisions about what they consume in relation to their social and cultural setting and their needs. Keeping that in mind, my film opening engaged my audiences by making them think what actually happened in the film, and by showing them a side of the story which a character wouldn’t be able to know. This makes my audience feel part of the story, solving theories and guessing alongside the characters. Showing compassion and empathy without any dialogue is task which I had to tackle in a way where the meaning was there, out in the open to reach but not exposed fully, my audience having the hunch but not having the whole idea just given to them. The feeling of belonging, the feeling of knowing something not disclosed yet makes my audience feel engaged and close rather than just viewing a film and being distant. Based on the results of the questionnaire I conducted for my targeted audience, the most liked genre was thriller and mystery and the time people watch a movie was once or twice a month, which meant that once they watch my movie, they will either think about it for a while or will forget about it soon, so I added an element of disbelief and surprise for my audience (the sudden death of one of the two characters, which also is not clear in the film opening) to think about it for a while, engaging them without asking much from them, or without making them use much of their brainpower. After the initial shock factor, the audience gets intrigued on their own, and constructs a meaning most meaningful to them by themselves, engaging them yet again unknowingly.
Since my audience will have so many questions about the mysteries and the Easter eggs in my film, they’ll either rely on the director and writer to answer their questions or will make groups and communities on social media platforms to discuss their own views, feeling yet again a part of a bigger picture. The first step to distributing my media would be having a premiere for the film, with my whole cast and crew and different media distributors. This will be my first step to launch my media for the world to see, and I will invite social media influencers to view my movie and tell their audience about the film if it matched their taste. After my initial distribution of my media in cinemas and online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now and Hulu, I will make various social media platforms and pages, such as an Instagram page and a Facebook page, for my audience to interact with me. By posting various behind the scene footage, the audience will have even a deeper understanding of the making of the film and will have more exclusive footage of the film, this will also be a place where the fans would be able send their reviews and fan art, and I will show my gratitude by showcasing their talents. After the initial release, I’ll do promotions via different platforms. First by giving exclusive interviews with well-known and respectable hosts so the audience of those hosts also give a look into my work and then holding a Q and A session for the consumers of my audience which will help the audience understand my media better. With the interviews, I will simultaneously create an ad in the form of a trailer of course, which will still have the element of surprise and suspense, thus it will attract the viewer to view my media just out sheer curiosity. These ads will be distributed at various platforms, like different media partners and distributors, one example being placing an ad before YouTube videos. I would release a limited stock of my film in DVD as Blu-Ray, which makes the buyer have exclusive never-seen-footage and bloopers, hence converting it into Blu-Ray. The reason why the stock of my DVD’s would be limited is because there are still audiences who likes to collect hardcopies of media, but since I know more viewers feel comfortable to consume a media in the comfort of their own home, I’ll keep the stocks limited only to 100, making it a collector’s edition. Lastly, I will use the help of textual media, such as magazines and newspapers, to promote my film. These tactics would hopefully make the audience feel more engaged and would help me distribute my media more widely- locally and globally.
1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
When it comes to my film opening, it did not follow the general conventions filmmakers use while making a film with Mystery and Thriller as the genre. The first convention that I did use was not showing or introducing any character in the film opening in order to create the feeling of being on edge. This convention is usually used in the similar genre to mine. The second convention was lowering the music in the background to emphasis on the conflict and on the visual which is also a common convention used to increase suspense, making the audience use only one of their senses. The way I see it, my product challenges conventions in almost every sense of the word. The first convention my film opening did not follow is the general aspect ratio used in films, which are most commonly 16:9, but my film opening followed the less used 4:3 ratio. I first saw this convention being used in the film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel – 2014’ and in the trailer of the upcoming film ‘The French Dispatch – 2021’. I originally did not have them in my mind while making the film, but while editing, this idea somehow was so different to the films I watched that it somehow stuck with me in my unconscious mind. The second convention my film challenged was the unstable camera and tight framing, this is the convention which has symbolism behind the difference, as I wanted to convey the feeling of uneasiness and uncertainness yet again. Combining all of the conventions stated before, it only heightened the state of anxiousness. It could be said that I went out of my comfort zone to create this film opening and for anything that involves a regular film convention, even for a thriller and mystery genre. For instance, the font for the titles used in a Thriller genre and the colour used makes the titles generally dark and dim, a little nervous and tense, but the type of font used in my film opening does not convey the tense feeling, using bright yellow completely throws off the idea of the film being dark and gloomy. The way I see it, the films similar to my genre usually follow the same formula of being set in a dark environment with suspenseful music and the same general blueprint, but the way I challenged the conventions were by changing all of the aspects respectively. By using ‘Killing Me Softly With Her Song by Perry Como’ I heavily relied on symbolism for this factor. Since the film opening does not give much idea as to what is happening in the story, I conveyed this message through the lyrics of the song rather than narration or even suspenseful music, a convention highly overused. The curiousness still being present without the audience being in the dark is what I had in my mind for the film opening, and all the unusual conventions give what I wanted.
As for the representation, my main goal was to shine some light on something which has being so normalized in this society that we do not remember similar incidents for very long. Murder, for whatever reason, assaults and violence have been so frequent that living carelessly or without any fear feels so out of the question. How anyone can break into someone’s home, and just completely destroy the bonds, the dreams, the feelings, the soul existing in the body used as a vessel to hold so much complexity, so many ideas, and so many views. It has been so normalized, how the society’s morals are being demolished right in front of our own eyes that we do not talk about this anymore. What I wanted the audience to get from this is that the murderer is also someone with ideologies, and how a human brain is so messed up yet it is so tremendously contrasting, to the one ending their suffering by giving themselves eternal peace in their own mind to the one who gave suffering to the one’s around them, fulfilling their own messed up ideologies. Insecurity, instability, and weaknesses are the most diffused and painful characteristics of the modern world, and if one does not know how to deal with these aspects, it can lead to a havoc on any undeserving soul. I hope my film opening was at least able to shine some light on the issue that this side of the society exists in masses, and it is time we talk about it and since media helps convey a message to an audience, it was necessary to not use it in an unmoral way. How the audience chooses to consume the media is what the film maker cannot choose for the audience, since it mostly depends on various factors, ranging from the audiences upbringing to their environment and whether the audience chooses to emphasize with the character or not. For this reason, it is important to have a representation of the audience, so the one consuming the media feel and understand the media rather than just watch it and forget it once done. The issue I talked about does not target a specific gender, age group, ethnicity or culture; it is an experience which could’ve been happened to anyone, since no one knows what is going to happen to them next. If my film opening had an end, it would clearly end with justice being served, which gives a sense of hope in this hopeless world. That is why representation matters in media and that is what I tried to do in my film opening.
He published a book called ‘S/Z’ in 1970. It focused on analyzing a short story by Balzac. Barthes goes through the story denoting where and how different codes of meaning function. In the book, he argues that every narrative is interwoven with multiple codes:
HERMENEUTIC/ENIGMA CODE: This code refers to any element of a text that is not fully explained ; this becomes a mystery to the audience. This is to keep the audience guessing until the mystery is finally revealed in the finale of a text. A mystery makes the audience want to know more, which keeps them watching.
PROAIRETIC/ACTION CODE: The Proairetic Code builds tension. Action or events are used to indicate something else is going to happen, meaning the audience attempt to guess what will happen next. The Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes work together to develop the tension, putting the audience on edge and wanting to watch more.
SEMANTIC CODE: This code refers to parts of a text that refer to additional meanings. These elements of semantic codes have a connotative function in the text and add an extra layer of meaning in addition to literal meaning.
SYMBOLIC CODE: Similar to the Semantic code, this code creates semantic meanings through symbolism. It uses opposites to portray contrast and create deeper meaning. This creates tension, drama and character development
REFERENTIAL CODE: This code refers to anything within a text which refers to an external body of knowledge , e.g. scientific, historical or cultural knowledge.
For my film analysis and film opening, I would focus mainly on enigma code but while searching for enigma codes, I researched what other codes are used.
Any kind of media is made for some kind of audience to consume, and in order to know what kind of audience is going to consume my media, it is necessary to conduct a survey.
87.50% of my respondents were female while only 12.50% of the respondents were male, meaning I knew more female would be watching my story opening rather than male.
Question 2
Most of my correspondents were in the 18-24 age range, 82.50% to be exact, so I knew that almost all of my audience would be late-teenagers to young-adults.
Question 3
The next question was how often do you watch movies? and the most closest were A couple times a month or monthly, at 35% and 32.50%, meaning people don’t watch movies very often. The film should be made in order for the viewer to feel it was worth it.
Question 4
The most watched genre was Thriller, at 47.50%, which means I would be making something close to thriller. The second place was Horror, at 17.50%, and the third being close to the second, being Comedy, at 15%, which would have been my second option and I would be able to explore more if I were to make a whole feature film.
Question 5
The most characters the people wanted were not mentioned, so all of the main characters which takes the whole story forward came in 52.50%, and the second being 3-4, at 27.50%, which also works in my favour, because I don’t have that less or that many characters in my film opening.
The most common was Story in the film opening, at 40%, which really helped me to focus on my story rather than cinematics.
Question 7
The most answered was online, at 67.50%, which makes sense because people tend to watch everything in the comfort of their home.
Question 8
The last question’s most common answer was through social media, at 75%, meaning most of my audience would be getting their news about the film through social media.
Conducting this has helped me understand my audience a lot, and would definitely help me while making my film opening.
My main reason to choose this movie was to show how a great story can be portrayed even with a language barrier, this movie is so symbolic, with so much meaning behind every single shot, prop, and every character, that it requires more than one watch. The genre was also what intrigued me, thriller and dark comedy, which it stays true to it’s words.
Titles
The titles are simple and shows the production house and the title of the movie, with minimal colour and just getting the names out out there.
Introduction of Characters
4th character
3rd character
2nd character
1st character
The filmmakers used a convention first by using the method of foreshadowing, where they gave the audience the order where the characters actually causes the conflict and how they affect the upcoming family.
Action and Events
The key, from the very start, is the use of light. Through out the whole film, the light represents hope, and the whole family being in a semi-basement and not fully underground represents how they still have hope of coming. The basement, with everything packed and congested, conveys the meaning of how bad the living situation is for the family. The main concern that we see the family having is not having the access to the internet. The simple use of Wi-Fi, is portrayed as a luxury which the family cannot afford.
The symbolism, like mentioned before, is shown from the starting by the mother asking what’s your plan and then the camera cutting to the medal and photo of the mother, where it is shown how the mother came in second which cancelled her plan A and now she was stuck with her second plan.
The son, in hopes of founding the internet, gets to every corner of the house and finally gets the internet in the bathroom. The toilet, which is placed higher that the family, also enhances the family’s situation, how the world and even the toilet is physically above them.
The fumigation process is what explains the title of the movie, parasite, and establishes it in the opening sequence how all of them cough and get affected except for the father, who keeps focused on making the boxes, indicating how the fumigation affected all the other members (of the family/parasites) except for one. This is hinted in the next scene when the manager from the pizza place says how 1 out 4 boxes is a reject. This whole scene explains itself in the end but it foreshadows the future of the family, yet using the same convention.
The whole family then tries to talk their way out of the paycheck that was deduced, and tries to take the job of an employee, manipulating the manager, hence playing the role of a parasite.
The difference in the surrounding , even between the neighbourhood and the house, is differentiated by using light, using blue and cool tone for outside world, while using dark and warm tones for the house, creating a boundary.
Night falls and Min, a friend of the son shows up, and is differentiated not only by his whole attire, but also how they physically and symbolically look up to him. The gift Min brought with him, which turns out to be fake, clearly represents how the opportunities he brought with him is also not good for the family. The character saying how it is metaphorical is also for the audience, to know it must be a symbol and not something genuine.
The whole exchange between Min and Ki-woo (the son) also establishes how Min looks down on the family as he feels less threatened on giving the job to Ki-woo then any other guy, as Ki-woo would not be able to compete against him, hence Min being safe.
Something which I took a notice of throughout the whole sequence was that the main characters look usually up when shown, but are shown to tower over the manager when manipulating her. They effect when they are together, just like parasites, and the father is shown from a high angle, hence shown alone and kind of helpless.
The reason why I chose to do an analysis on this particular movie is because it actually uses symbolism the right way. Without spoiling the movie, the filmmakers tell the whole idea of the movie in the sequence. This is what really intrigued me, how the use of light and symbols were used to convey a movie in such a order. It did not look like it was rushing or trying to convey a message forcibly, it did all of the work subtly, which asks the audience to view the movie more then once, and noticing something new every time.
The whole opening sequences how manipulating the main characters are, and we somehow feel sympathy considering they also feed off as parasite from the lady above them, by taking the advantage of the internet. We sympathize with the characters because the sequence establishes the concept that if the family is poor, it can do in order to live a better life. The whole sequence, if compared to the rest of the movie, plays a parallel part, and views the differences between the upper class and the lower class.
Genre
The film has the genres Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Dark Comedy.
These genres itself intrigued me because I have not seen many movies where the genre Thriller and Comedy mix up very well. But the film makers made sure to not overdo both and kept a very clean and clear story which does not makes the audience confused. The genres are both shown very subtly, with the comedy not being overwhelming and the thriller also shown subtly. This film goes dark real soon real fast, with the first half being almost comedic and the second taking a full 360 turn. If we talk about the film opening itself, we are only introduced to the drama part of the film.
Theme and Topics
The main theme, which I got, is the visible difference between the upper and lower class. The film demonstrates poverty, desperation, and inequality; it dramatizes the extreme differences in the worlds between wealthy and poor families. The opening itself shows the lower class in a poor condition and how they try to make their way up by trying to take someone else’s job. Min also gives his job to his friend on the basis (which seems clear once the meaning behind dialogues are focused a little more) that his university friends might try to hit on the girl he tutors and likes, but Ki-Woo (the son) would not do such thing because he does not looks at him the way he looks at his University friends, in other words, he looks down and Ki-Woo and does not think he will be able to win the girl over. The difference gets clearer and clearer and we realize that the metaphor parasites is used for both parties.
Sound
The only time music is used is at the start of the film, with the diegetic sounds and non-diegetic sounds mixing with each other. The rest of the film opening follows silence and dialogues only with the occasional background noise. In the semi-underground house of the poor Kim family, there’s a lot of interference from outside noise flowing into the interior, designed with a number of Korean-style ambience sounds, including the sound of cars passing by the alley, the sound of neighborhood people, the sound of street vendors, piano practice, barking dogs, and the sound of cats, all of these emphasizes yet again on the situation which the family currently lives in. All this makes sense as the film goes on, but all these small details are what makes the audience realize what the film makers actually did as they watch the film.
Enigma Code
The main question the audience gets in their minds is how do they actually change their situation. What the film maker actually shows is the subtle and major difference between the classes living in this communist world and how the people leach off of each other to survive. Although the question of what happens is not intense at the start, the unsettling feeling increases as the movie progresses. What makes it interesting is the use of symbolism and how the audience who views the movie again gets what various dialogues and actions actually meant which makes the audience part of something and the ones who watches it the first time also are left in a daze as everything they’ve seen finally clicks. The movie itself is not complicated to understand, but it has a depth to it only those understand who really want to understand.
And all of this concludes my third and last film opening analysis.
To conclude my film opening, I had to edit the clips and make it presentable as my film opening. I edited all of my film opening in Premiere Pro cc 2018.
EDITING:
The first step was to assemble my clips and assort them.
Then I assembled and clipped all of the clips together and created and created a sequence. The next step was to add the colour and correct the colours.
I increased the saturation for the first part of the sequence and decreased it for the end of the sequence and increased the fade. This all captured and enhanced the mood at the two stages, one where no suspects anything and the one where the twist is shown.
The next step was to add titles, and I used Bernard MT condensed as the font, and I kept the titles in the center as to match the way I cropped the screen and made it a square. I tried to make everything symmetrical as it feels pleasing to the eyes.
The next step was audio, and for that I used Killing Me Softly with Her Song – Perry Como. The song went well with the video and I made it go low at certain points to emphasize on the video rather than the song.
Then I rendered (“rendering” usually refers to the actions which convert source material into final pictures or footage) the whole sequence and exported it.
This post is made for the purpose to show how I did the shooting, where I did the shooting, and what I did exactly.
My shoot could be done at any time of the day since time was not relevant to my story, so we decided to shoot at night time, when my actor was available.
The first location
The first part of my film was done in my kitchen as the first shots were about cooking.
The second location
The second part of the film was shot in a bedroom since the story demands it. I chose this because the lighting shifts from our first location to the second.
Now for the shooting part of the video: Shooting
I shot all of my video on Pentax-xs without any tripod because I wanted my film to be raw and shaky.
I shot my video without any excessive lights and without many equipments. The lens I used was 50mm.
Since props were an important part of the film opening, I used acrylic paints and makeup to show the blood and enhance whatever effect I wanted the model to have.
We finished the whole shoot in under 4-5 hours, and the last step to complete my film was editing.
Eesha Saeed's AS Media Blog 