Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We were able to develop our knowledge into understanding the forms and conventions of professional media products within this particular genre by watching and deconstructing well related films of this kind, looking into more depth at ones that specifically related to our sub genre we had chosen to do, aiming to use similar techniques to ensure our opening to a thriller was a success. When deciding how to open our thriller, we looking into whether we should begin with a relaxed opening of normality much like Law Abiding Citizens or that we should use unsettling scenes right from the start, like Taking Lives. We decided on giving the audience a sense of abnormality from the start as the majority of films we watched have done this - also considering the circumstances and the length of our film, we thought this would be more ideal. I found that emotion is an important element in creating an effective thriller and that the creators also tend to build up to an emotional high and 'take you along with the ride', something we aimed to do with specific shots and the information we kept hidden, disorientating the audience slightly causing them to become confused and question what was going to happen, ultimately scaring the viewer. This also makes our thriller unpredictable, important in relation to this genre. Silence of the Lambs effectively uses this technique, becoming a great success and knowing this proved to us that it could work well. We also focuses on the characters faces from time to time to help convey this emotion using their facial expressions. The setting and action in our thriller is also believable - we watched a few films in which i believed failed to do this, causing me to feel no emotion as i did not feel involved in the story, showing the importance of this particular form and the mise en scene within a thriller. We also ensured that the audience could connect with our thriller and therefore believe what is happening by including a sense of normality with the use of props and also having the teenagers act how they are perceived to be like in some cases, making use of stereotypes in which are used in the majority of films. A villain is a necessary part of a thriller in which should always over power the protagonist, in which our story perceives efficiently. However, i have found that the villain within a genre like this tends to be of a male in which we chose to challenge, making our thriller a little more unique and different. We also developed the idea of 'what is going to happen next' as this is important within a thriller, giving to much away to soon ruins the excitement and challenge of the audience themselves, having no mystery would cause the film to become dull and less effective. We also find that good and evil are used within a thriller, using binary oppositions to create that emotion discussed above. We chose to take advantage of this, showing the good and evil within the same character. We did this using the main character showing her happy and having a laugh with her boyfriend before she goes on to kill him - If this thriller were to be longer, there would be more scenes of her acting normal with her boyfriend to make use of this convention even further.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We chose to use teenagers as our main characters rather than using adults or people of a younger age. We did this as relationship issues tend to effect this age group a considerable amount, in much grater deal than at any other life stage and it is also here in which people go through dramatic changes personally and scientifically in which could be the cause for Del's behaviour perhaps, as although this is made extreme, she is clearly going through changes here. We placed them in clothes that they would be typically seen in and expected to wear, allowing them to be generalised and used as stereotypes rather than looking in to much at there character personally as we did not have time for this. To do this we had the boys wearing baggy trousers and t-shirts, quite casual and laid back outfits. We wanted to insure the teenagers were represented as normal and like any other boy of this age, causing the audience to be able to connect with them. We looked into what they would be doing when they are seen in the shots at the beginning and chose that watching TV and having a cigarette outside were both usual and ordinary activities, giving an accurate perception of what teenagers are perceived to be like at the moment. We also adapted the narrative and story line to this particular social group relating to relationship issues and being given the house to themselves etc. We also represented gender here, in relation to boys in particular. Their style of clothes and their bodily stance could make them look as if they think they are 'big' and tough, much like what is thought to be usual for the audience. Although John searches the house for Del when she appears to be missing, he is still seen to act very casual and does not move quickly, showing that he is laid back and doesn't really think to much about it, representing this social group further. We used the idea of representations to also shock the viewer as girls are often thought to be the venerable and somewhat dependant on a male, in which we chose to differ from this efficiently.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would be looking at film distribution's such as Universal, The Warner Brothers, Paramount or any big companies like these to distribute our film as they can distribute to many cinemas across the nation. The cinema would be the best place to show our film in as aiming to involve our audience as much as we can we believe that showing it on a big screen would help in doing this, ensuring all the effects can be notices and they have a real sense of involvement as the main character is seen walking to the camera, allowing us to create as much emotion as possible. This would also allow the audience to deteriorate between the lighting showing the flashbacks and what is present better and the non-diagetic music could have a bigger effect here, coming from a number of directions with the use of surround sound. Knowing that a number of films such as Taking Lives for example have been distributed by The Warner Brothers, this shows us that they have released successful thrillers that fit into the same sub genres as ours do. I feel our film would be at its best in a large modern cinema with all the latest equipment to enable it to show its full potential and create the desired effects we are looking to create such as tension. In advertising our film we would want our thriller to be advertised on the TV screens during the day or early evening, in between well known popular programmes, grabbing as much viewers as possible. However, we would have to be careful how this is done as we would need to ensure our trailer was fit to be viewed by people under the age of 15 at this time. We would add in extra elements and lengthening to our trailer that could only be shown after 9pm and over the Internet ensuring that we can get across the fear that would be involved in the film. We would like to show these on channels that we could benefit from, believing that the audience we were targeting would be watching these, such as ITV. Although we would use the Internet to promote our film, this would not be an ideal method to distribute as it would not gather as much viewers in this way and the quality of the film would not be as effective here. The dark lighting and lack of sound found in the cinema would also be beneficial in relation to this genre.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience has carefully been considered throughout the making of our thriller, aiming to draw in the minority of people but yet targeting one in particular to get the biggest effect. We looked into this in much detail, aiming to adapt our thriller to fit with this in such away. Factors such as age, gender, education and interests were all considered. We realised that making our film a classification of 15 would shorten our audience down my a short amount but we believed this would be beneficial in the long run, allowing us to add more horror elements and conventions of a thriller to gain more emotion from the audience, causing it to become more effective and popular in this way. Any age of 15 and above i believe would enjoy our film but this would depend on the persons personality and whether thrillers in general are appealing to them. We researched into this genre in particular, aiming to relate to this target audience. As being such a debated style of film the audience we are looking to attract would enjoy being afraid and influenced by the films they watch and we needed to get an understanding of where this particular interest came from. We found that the majority of people who watch thrillers tend to be teenagers, both of girls and boys and young adults. Having our main characters at this age we also helped would offer some further attraction to our film and relate well for them.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We aimed to address our audience with the music and image of the unknown location right from the start, we used an effect here in which could be said to relate to blood as we make the image unclear for a second, already showing the audience that something bad is going to happen and drawing them in to the story right from the beginning, creating a sense of tension and mystery and enhancing them to watch on and learn more. We have the main character looking into the camera at some stages and also have her walking towards it in which also draws the viewers in, giving a sense as though they are involved themselves and want to discover what is going on. The non diagetic sounds used give a sense of pace using a beat like structure, helping to convey the build up of an event as the sound becomes gradually loader before another track is added. We ensured our thriller was unpredictable and therefore created unanswered questions and the desire to want to learn more about it. Having text near the beginning showed the importance of some information, causing them to concentrate and realise that there was a case to be looked in to. We also made sure there was a lot of action and fast cutting so that the audience do not get bored or agitated.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The main thing i have learnt is in relation to editing and the importance of it. Having done all the editing myself i realised the effort in which has to be placed into it and the extent to which it brings everything together. It gave me a good understanding about the layout the clips have to be placed and how it can have a dramatic change on the mood and understand of the piece by a viewers point of view. The importance of getting the cuts in the right place and not dragging the clip on for to long or two short i also learnt, as well as the use effects can have, particularly taking use of slow motion in my piece. Although the majority of the film was filmed by someone else i did help out on the scenes in which i was not in and was in charge of filling in the preliminary task, both of which enabled me to make use out of the camera and understand what the shots, angles and movement within the frame contribute to and which ones are effective in giving particular messages across. I also found that the editing sometimes became difficult if some filming we believed would be ideal has simply not been filmed so we had to ensure that we had everything we needed. I made use of still frames, having the ability to change the pace of the clips, text, audio and its volume and effects, such as slow motion, colour change and flash. I believed i learnt how to control the mac and the camera efficiently and was pleased at how quickly i had adapted to this, taking much use out of our preliminary task to enable me to.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

I found the preliminary task extremely helpful when looking at beginning my final product and my understanding of the media industry has developed a lot since then. It was a very good starting piece for us and allowed us to experiment with a number of ideas. As well as being given a good understanding of the camera and editing suite, this also enabled me to see what was effective and what was not in terms of camera angles, positions and the pace of editing. Choosing to relate the storyline of it to a thriller in itself also benefited us well, allowing us to develop methods and have a clearer understanding of a number of techniques that we could use in relation to this particular genre. This also includes understanding the effects non-diagetic sounds have in developing feeling and emotion within a story and therefore the importance of them relating well. We also found that facial reactions are important to convey with the use of close ups, drawing you in to the characters themselves and allowing you to see there emotion. I was also given the understanding of the importance of a call sheet or organising what was being filmed and when as this would have saved us a lot of time here. We had a much clearer understanding when beginning our thriller than we would have done otherwise and are grateful for this, being glad that we took use of our continuality piece. Further to this, we can see evidently when combining the two that the music i believe is much better in our thriller along with the use of effects. We also took much more care over the detail in relation to the surroundings of the action in our final product as after completing our first piece and researching into thrillers in more depth we realised how this can effect the viewers and make the story much more believe able, needed to ensure the storyline matched its location. After completing this task, i also discovered the importance of planning and due to this we thought out and noted in detail how we were going to complete this product with the use of deadlines and schedules. In doing this we found things went much smoother and we were much more organised in which i feel is visible when looking at our final opening to a thriller. We often found ourselves making decisions at the time of filming when completing our prelimilary task and we avoided this completely, saving much time and also meaning our filming looked more professional due to the detail we had put in and our exact understanding of how it was going to be shot before hand. When completing this task we found we only had a little footage to edit with and therefore found it difficult to lengthen the overall thing, causing it to look a little short. Considering this we filmed a lot more footage that we needed when doing our thriller to ensure that everything we needed was there and taking more than one shot of each cut allowed us to choose the better one out of the two rather than being stuck with something we were not completely happy with. The preliminary task taught me a lot of things and i believed helped improve my thriller dramatically having learnt what i had in doing this.