Extract essay

In the extract from the show 24, the director includes a very dramatic and intense scene of a cities fate in the hands of the woman he is interrogating. He conveys a feeling of intensity as he tries to pull information out of the suspect about a bomb. He creates a message that violence doesn’t always solve the problem. 

The first scene begins with the detective walking into the room angrily while the suspect sits there calmly. It opens with incidental music that continues through most of the extract. By including the music, it emphasizes the importance of the scene and the information she is withholding. The detective, Jack, looks at the camera in the corner of the room, where the director then uses the camera movement technique of zoom to show the audience that Jack knows he is being watched and cannot get too violent with her.  This foreshadows the future as he eventually loses his cool and starts to choke her. Jack then shuts the door which is a diegetic sound to the scene. This gives an underlying effect that something is about to happen. The scene then proceeds to display a close up of the suspect, Nina’s, face. This demonstrates the calmness that she holds in the situation showing that she has an underlying power. Jack walks closer to Nina, as she looks up at him it reveals a low angle of jack. This represents that he has the higher power as he is the detective and she is the suspect. 

The scene then switches from the interrogation room to the monitoring area outside of it. The director uses cross cutting to go back and forth from the two areas. This allows for the audience to see what is happening at two different places but at the same time. In this scene you can also see the costumes and clothing the actors are wearing. The professional business attire such as suits and sweaters make it look more realistic. This clip also includes a wide shot of the other detectives watching the TV monitors exposing what is taking place inside the room. This helps to show the area around them while including the actors. 

The scene then switches back to inside the interrogation room by using an editing technique called cutting. This acts as a transition for the two clips going from one area to another. Then director uses lowkey lighting in the interrogation room to dramatize the situation; this shows its mystery and dreariness. Nina looks at the clock in the room which is ticking loudly. This is an important prop showing that they are in a rush and by adding the sound effect technique it emphasizes the time limit. The two then start to talk about the bomb. This is called dialogue and it helps the audience understand what is going on in the scene. After Nina’s request, the camera focused on Jack’s angry face through an over the shoulder shot from Nina. This is one of the many shots that help make the clip interesting while showing the important features in the scene. While the two are talking the director includes a shot reverse shot in the room. This keeps the person talking in view which allows continuous action to remain on the screen. Jack and Nina continue talking when Jack gets mad and throws the table. He then goes close to her face and yells at her. This is a two shot which presents the actors’ emotional reactions to the situation. Acting is very prominent in this clip as it shows him becoming very furious making the scene intense. 

The scene then cuts back to the monitoring area. This scene includes a reaction shot of the two detectives watching them in the room. It demonstrates that they are uneasy about the situation, which can also foreshadow the coming actions of Jack. This short clip also incorporates a medium shot of the other male detective looking at the TV. By using a medium shot it not only shows his face emotions but his body language like his shoulders being tense and biting his fingers. This adds to the uneasy feeling. 

Once the scene switches back to the interrogation room the director includes a sound motif of Jack's reaction when Nina says he could be taken off the case. This creates more tension between the two. Jack sits down and stares at her thinking what to do next. The director uses a pan shot of them staring at each other. This allows the audience to connect to the scene by feeling what they feel such as tension, anger, and intimidation. This scene also involves a sound mix technique when Nina is talking with the incidental music behind her. It adds to the feeling of intimidation and anger. The scene proceeds with them in quiet with close ups of their face. This shows the makeup that they wear. This scene uses natural looking and not an exuberant amount of makeup as the director tries to make the scene genuine to the audience. It also shows a little bit of sweat applying that this is a stressful situation. 

The scene moves to an intense portion where Jack shoves Nina into the wall. The camera shows a high angle of him choking her. By using a high angle, it shows Nina is powerless in the situation making her vulnerable. It then goes right into a split screen showing Jack being violent in the room and the other detectives racing to get him off of her. This helps the audience visualize the separate actions simultaneously; it tells the same story in a more exciting manner by including the split screen. On one half of the screen it shows the detectives rushing to the room by using a tracking shot. Tracking shot keeps the audience engaged with the actions on screen by following the frantic detective. After the detectives and officer get into the room there is a long shot of Jack standing next to Nina gasping for air. This shows the cold and darkness of the room while also bringing attention to his body language. It displays the whole situation that is taking place including the setting and the work of the actors. While Jack is walking out of the room the director adds score music into the scene. This increases the level of drama while he walks out keeping the audience to think what happens now. 

The director uses a variety of camera angles, shots, camera movements, sounds, props, and editing to bring the point across that violence doesn’t always solve a problem. When Jack doesn’t get his way, he uses violence to try and get the answer out of her, however this didn’t work and caused more trouble. The director uses those techniques to dramatize and emphasize the effect of the problem they are faced with. 

TEA worksheets

Creative Critical Reflection

Here is my creative critical reflection in which I described my growth throughout the year through the use of 4 important questions. This included, How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?  How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?  How did your production skills develop throughout this project? How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? I answered these questions in-depth in the video and went over the projects we completed throughout the year. I included pictures and videos of the process, blogs, and the movie. This was to help the audience visualize my progress. Even though the covid19 pandemic had halted some of our progress we adapted to the situation to figure out a solution and still make our movie. So even though the year was full of twists and turns we figured it out and I'm very proud of myself and my group for getting through it. Thank you for following me through my journey this year. 

Nightmare (final task)

This is our final task for Cambridge. My group and I chose to do an opening scene for a thriller movie. Although this movie was a struggle we still ended up learning many helpful media perspectives that could be made useful in the future of the filming business. This was our final project to show all the improvements and progress we made throughout the year through the production, filming, researching, and editing of this movie opening. In the end, looking back at this year I feel as if I learned everything there is for a beginner to learn and absorb. I know that I made new developments and learned many new things about media in general. This class was an eye-opener for movie production and I have gained an interest in pursuing this in the future because of this class.

Music video

Here is my second project we completed. This one was quite different in some ways. Firstly, my group was different; we had James instead of Amanda as our third person in the group. Also for this project, I definitely saw more progress in many aspects. I learned how to utilize more shots and angles to the right use. I also improved on the planning process by learning the right way to storyboard and plan the next steps before filming. There was also a lot of research that went into this video. I learned how to properly research the certain conventions of the video we were choosing; in this case, it was a rap video. As a result of efficient research, I feel like it was easier to plan our music video knowing the certain aspects we could include. I noticed many learning developments through this project compared to the last project in which I was excited to use for the final task.

Commercial

 

This was our first project of the year. My group and I decided to make a commercial promoting our school for incoming freshmen to come to our school. This video was shot during school hours which made it easier as we could ask our teachers questions for any filming problems or editing problems. I feel like as it was our first project it wasn't too bad but now looking back at it with everything I have learned, it looks like an amateur video. I learned minimal from making this video but I did make progress from not knowing anything to the basics of filming a commercial. We learned how to use mis en scene, different angles and shots to enhance the video, and new editing skills to make the video look more professional. However, this is just the first of my development, you will see the music video next.

final preps and finishing CCR

Last week I thought out the answers to the questions and wrote them down. Then a few days later I had my mom interview as I filmed myself and answered the questions. I read off my computer because I couldn't memorize everything I wanted to say. the first try took a long time because the way I wrote the answers were more in essay form so ie dited it to sound more like an interview and not so proper. So after I edited the answers we filmed again. It was hard for me to answer the questions at first because I felt so awkward talking into the camera so I kept laughing and messing up. I had to redo many parts; without ending the video I just restarted my sentence and went from there. so when I got to editing my CCR it took me a while because I had to cut out all the parts I had messed up. When editing I put in many clips from our movie and pictures of things I included like my blogs, costumes, and music. I had filmed and edited last week because at first the movie and CCR were due last week but because of the pandemic, our teachers gave us an extension for the classes to have an extra week to get it done. The only thing I have to do is to actually submit it. However, I am a little confused about the submitting process as it a longer process then usual and it is way more complicated. I have to figure out how to do it but otherwise, I am set on the final project.

Finishing editing and starting CCR

After editing and almost finishing I realized we need a little bit more footage. We had about one minute and 45 seconds so I determined we needed more time. No help from my group I went out and filmed a pov of Reese running. We never got to film this part when we were in Birch State Park. Once I added it in it still wasn't enough as I only had 1 minute and 49 seconds. I couldn't think of another scene I could film without them there so I had to think of another way to make the video longer. As a result, I added some transitions and made the title slides longer. I didn't want to make them too long however, because we wanted the titles to cut through the film quickly to add a suspenseful feel to the thriller. Making the title clips too long would have taken that suspenseful effect away. Anyway, after consulting with my group they said that it looked fine. I ended up finishing editing with a time of 1 minute and 51 seconds. I am kind of disappointed even though we finished I edited most of this by myself when James was supposed to do the titles and lucy was supposed to do the whole editing because she didn't film with us. Lucy said she didn't know how to edit and even though I wanted to make her do it because she had done nothing for this project but I wanted our project to be good rather than satisfying my wants. As a result, I edited the whole thing and filmed it all. Anyway, I kind of procrastinated on my CCR but today I am finally starting it. In the beginning, we researched some conventions of a thriller when we were deciding our genre but I don't remember all of them because it was a while ago. So I researched it and started my CCR. I realized that we followed a lot of thriller conventions and codes. The only thing we couldn't follow through with was the low lighting because of the difficulties of filming at night. I tried editing the lighting to be dark but it looked artificial and I thought someone could still be chased during the day, it didn't always have to be at night. I am planning my CCR by first typing it up and thinking of all the responses then tomorrow I will probably have my mom film it for me and ask the questions.