1. By Jordan Iles

2.  The genre that we studied was the Action genre, we chose to
study this genre because we thought that it would be the most
suitable to our taste of films, as we have seen many Action films.
We found out that the codes and conventions of an Action film are:
 Major produced by Hollywood producers and distributers.
 They have more narrative Action codes than Enigma codes.
 They have clear binary oppositions.
 They often contain a romantic sub-plot which means they are
often hybridised with the Romance genre.
 12/15 certificate to maximise youth audiences.
 They have high production values including CGI and fast paced
cuts/editing.
 Often use Close-Up shots and High Key Lighting.
 They have a dominant representation of the male gender.

3.  We looked at a range of trailers in the duration of our genre
research. One trailer that we looked at was Taken. We chose
Taken because we thought that it was an Action film that
conveyed the stereotypical storyline of an Action film. This is
where a character gets kidnapped and then the hero has to save
the victim.
We also looked at Transporter 2 because that film also involves a
kidnapping and it was also a successful production. Most film
fanatics have heard of the Transporter series, hence why it is so
popular, but with Taken being a brand new production and still
being successful, we decided to take that path by subverting the
stereotype of our Action production.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCbDUREBwUg (Taken trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Q-WLlZl-Y (Transporter 2
trailer)

4.  We developed our sequence to match another real media sequence (Taken)
by having short, snappy shots in the opening of our production, this creates
suspense and tension because the audiences vision is impaired so they don’t
quite know what is happening, this is important in an Action film because it
fools the audience and they will carry on watching the film to see what
happens in the end.
 Also, our aim was to subvert the male dominant stereotype of an Action film
by having it as a female dominant production. We did this by showing the
female boss (Played by Katerina Tzogonakou) ordering her employees what
to do, and this was to capture someone. We decided to subvert the
stereotype of our genre because it hasn’t been done before and it was a fresh
idea, likewise, Taken was a new production that hasn’t been produced before
and it was highly successful.

5.  We’ve put the audience in a position where they see the crime
unfolding in-front of them. We done this by showing the two
kidnappers sitting in the car then they get a phone call from
their boss explaining to them what they have to do, then one of
the gets out of the car and kidnaps someone. So the audience
are aware that this crime is organised but they won’t know
whether it is successful or not until it actually happens.
 The representation that we wanted to give of the characters was
that they were aggressive and didn’t really care about anything
other than kidnapping this person, so we showed one of the
kidnappers with a gun and also they dragged the victim into a
car, this shows them using force which is what a stereotypical
kidnapper would do to capture their victim. This gives the
audience a sense of verisimilitude because we want the film to
be as realistic as possible, so we had stereotypical kidnappers to
do this.

6.  The institution we chose was Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), we chose
this institution because we liked the idea of the roaring lion at the
start of the production because the lion is a symbol of fear and
anger which should make the audience realise that they are about to
witness something bad happen.
 Also, MGM’s headquarters is in Beverly Hills, California in
America, this means that our product would get distributed all over
America worldwide, this means that we would get a vast viewing
audience making our production successful, meaning that we could
gain profits from our production, and also if our production were to
get good reviews from film critics, or film fanatics enjoy our
film, then they would want a sequel which would then we distributed
globally by MGM.

7.  We decided that we would classify our film as a 15 because we thought that
it would contain mild violence and language but we decided that we
shouldn’t have it as a rated 18 because that would minimise the youth
audience which means that it wouldn’t be as much of a successful production
as it was planned out to be. We also chose it to be a 15 because we think
that it is the suitable certificate to have to gain the biggest audience we
could. As previously mentioned, if the production was an 18 then that would
minimise the audience meaning that we wouldn't make as much profit as we
could.
 We also decided that we would have the BBFC classification at the opening of
the film to make it more legitimate and also to make the audience aware of
what they’re about to watch is only suitable for people over the age of 15.

8.  Well to create our Animatic we used the standard computers that are provided in the classroom, we
used Paint & Windows Movie Maker to crop the pictures and piece them together into stream of
pictures.
 Then to create our final production we used handheld camera’s which were provided by the Media
department. After we had finished filming, we used an Apple iMac to do the editing on and the
software we used was Final Cut which is professional editing software which had been installed onto
the iMac previously.
 We faced many difficulties when using the iMac because the software is advanced software that is used
by professionals to we had to get Mr Morris to show us the basics of using the software, it took a lot to
come to grips with using it because you have to do a lot of importing, exporting (So that the final
production will be able to go onto YouTube) and also rendering the clips with the effects and the music
to make sure that they work correctly in order for us to make a successful production.

9.  Taken (2008) – Pierre Morel.
 Transporter 2 (2005) – Louis Leterrier.
 YouTube.
 Wikipedia.
 Google images.
 Own knowledge.