Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

My final media product uses conventions of real media product throughout including smooth transitions between the present time and the flash forward and the non-diegetic sound.

Flash backs are commonly used to narrate a thriller genre therefore I decided to attempt to challenge the usual conventions and use flash forwards. However this is not very obvious but I wanted to create a lot of mystery in the first two minutes to make the audience want to continue watching in order for it to make sense. This is a far more complicated narrative structure to my preliminary task because I wanted a story to able to evolve from my two minute opening, instead of a simple conversation which was used for my preliminary task.

This is an example of a flash forward scene from my opening production

This is my main character in the film's 'real time' during her interview







This is my narrative structure. I included my flash forwards as I wanted to make the audience aware that something bad was going to happen to the cousin but they wouldn’t understand straight away therefore wanting them to continue watching to find out.

The characteristics used within a stereotypical thriller film normally have more antagonists than protagonists and the ‘hero’ character usually prevails through all. I have used the normal conventions of this idea but developed on it by using two girls and having the native character becoming the victim and the previous villain becoming the hero. I have chosen my characters to be female however as the antagonists will be male and I wanted the contrast of sexes to challenge the usual conventions of thriller films.

This is the main protagonist, played by Liam Neeson, in Taken (Pierre Morel: 2008) He is shown as the stereotypical strong male hero.

Jodie Foster plays Special Agent Clarice Starling, the protagonist of The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme: 1991) She is an atypical protagonist for a thriller, which is what I wanted to achieve.

This is the protagonist (Liam Neeson, standing left) faced with the antagonists’ gang members. This appear intimidating due to their extreme difference in appearance to Liam Neeson. This is what I would like to achieve in my product.

(Taken: Pierre Morel – 2008)

Evaluation 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My film is based in a country town, similar to the towns in our surrounding area, and the trouble began in a bigger city like London. I have chosen to set the majority of my film in the country, as I would want to attract the middle class teenager/young adult audience. I have included the harsher side of London to outline the towns’ extreme contrasts that will come together throughout the film. This would help my film represent more social groups which are involved in today’s youth. The main social group I want to target is young adults between the ages of 15-26, this is because I think they should be around sixth form/college/university age and this is the age that thriller film stereotypically attracts.

In my preliminary task, even though I was meant to appear as a teacher, and my partner as the student, this was unclear and I don’t believe it worked as we did not correctly characterise ourselves.

My film’s main character is a young female, aged between the ages of 17-19. This is clear by the way she sits whilst being interviewed, her clothes, and the way she speaks. Her previous social group is a rough image from a city that would appear as a gangster image.

The contrasting character is her cousin, who is a mature teenager who has a clean record and is completing her education. Her outfit shows this by contrasting Katie’s puffer jacket and hoodie with her smart black jacket and neat jeans.

The contrasting social groups help me represent a larger section of today’s youth. I have presented them through the character’s clothing, attitudes and speech. When Katie is seen in the same scene as Rachael, Katie is wearing a puffer jacket which contrasts to Rachael’s subtle jumper.

By including Rachael’s car into the filming connotes that she is able to afford to drive and buy a car which contrasts to Katie who has to phone Rachael in order for her to go home. They are both seen with phones however Katie’s is not seen close up but Rachael’s in a BlackBerry which connotes that she is wealthier than Katie.

I feel I have represented my contrasting social groups through clothing and props that are seen being used by the different characters.

Evaluation 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I believe my film is aimed at a mainstream audience, as it would involve people of all age, both genders and different backgrounds. It will also be a thriller film, which already has a large mainstream audience as a genre.

There are many world famous film institutions such as:

Columbia Pictures

Paramount

DreamWorks

Twentieth Century Fox

These sorts of institutions produce thousands of films a year. I would not want to use these institutions because they are too international for my film as it is extremely British therefore I would want it to be produced by a British based company.

 However for my film, I would want an English based institution to produce to reinforce its location and background. I have researched into the institutions that produced “Slumdog Millionaire”. Even though this is a very different genre to my film, it brought a lot of success to Britain and was extremely popular.  One of the institutions was “Film4”. I would want them to produce or help produce my film because their target market, which is channel 4’s, is very similar to who my film is directed to; teenage to young adults of both genders. This could help me advertise my film also as Film4 already has its own television channel which the advertising could be shown on and it already has a well-known reputation. I believe Film4 would be the best institution that might distribute my product.

Evaluation 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The intended audience of any film is important to consider from the very start of production. I asked people of my target audience to answer a short questionnaire to help me decide certain aspects of my film, as it is important to include what they want to see otherwise they may not be interested.

These are the completed questionnaires a small selection of my audience completed. I used a lot of their ideas and included them into my opening, as I believe the audience’s views are very important when creating a film.

I have filmed these opinions in a relaxed environment, instead of a professional one because I wanted it to appear more natural, relaxed and honest rather than controlled and prepared.

The audience I want for my film is teenagers to young adults of both genders, between the ages of 15-26. I have said this because this is the typical audience of the thriller genre therefore this is the audience I will be focusing on. To incorporate the intended audience into my film I have made the two main protagonists the same age as the audience in order for the audience to connect with them. I have also made them female so that my female audience can place themselves in their shoes and the male audience can be made to feel as if they wanted to protect them or maybe even be attracted to them. I have given my audience great thought when creating my film from the very beginning.

Evaluation 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

When I was researching into my audience I discovered that in order to attract and address my audience, I will need to do what they want to see on my film. I watched a lot of different thriller openings such as “the hand that rocked the cradle” and “Taken” and took a close note on what I believe appealed to the intended audience. I then asked what my audience wanted on my questionnaire to be sure I knew what I needed to create. An answer I got was that my audience liked mysterious thrillers, this encouraged me to include the flash forward sequences to create a confused atmosphere as the person who was featured in the flash forwards was also featured in the very last section of the opening and introduced as the main character’s cousin. This makes my audience want to continue watching in order to find out why she gets kidnapped and what happens to her.

Another key aspect of attracting and addressing my audience I found was in the non diegetic music that was used. In well known thrillers, a good build up piece of music can stick in people’s head and make them get more involved within the film. This is why I research thoroughly into finding my non-diegetic piece. I did not want lyrics as I did not want it to take over the dialogue that was occurring. Instead, I found a steady track which built up steadily throughout the track which I believed perfect for my piece. It is also covered by copyright because on the YouTube track information it said:
“This music is free for all film makers to use. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their interest & very kind comments. I am very grateful for these boosts.

The splendid photograpy is from Kristin Maling on Flickr.

All the very best on thanksgiving,
Padraic"

I made sure I found this out before using this piece of music, and I have added her name to my credits.

Overall, I have found that in order to attract and address my audience, I needed to focus on the aspects of a film that appeal to my audience; sound, location, characters and narration. As well as this I found that by using techniques which are commonly found in thrillers so they can relate to them.

Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Technology has been virtually important throughout this project. Actually using the camera was the first stage. I believe I experimented with different angles and distances with each shot. I used extreme close ups as well as extreme long shots which I believe added varity to my opening and made it more interesting to watch. In my preliminary task I did not experiment with different shot techniques. I used simple medium shots with an over the shoulder shot. This has shown that my progression has been positive throughout this course as I have improved with using the camera.

The editing process of my film proved to be the challenge within this project. I spent many hours out side of the lesson editing my footage to make sure it matched what I believed I wanted to achieve from my storyboard. Due to the over time I put into my product I was able to finish a week before our deadline. In my preliminary task, because I was in a pair, I didn’t have a chance to do much of the editing myself and to get used to Final Pro. As I did this project completely solo, I was able to experiment with Final Pro myself and learn how to use it on my own. This proved successful as I was very impressed with my final product. I edited non-diegetic sound into my piece, and altered the volume of both the non-diegetic sound and the diegetic sound when appropriate. My favourite section of editing was when my character, Katie, gets into her cousin’s car. I have edited he footage so it comes a match on action shot which flows brilliantly and reinforces my continuity editing without any discontinuity errors.

In order for all my coursework to be presented properly, I have been blogging. I have never blogged before and therefore this is a new aspect of technology which I have never used before. I wasn’t used to it at the beginning of the project however as my product progressed, I became better at blogging all my activities. I believe I have done the right number of posts to suit my two minutes opening as I didn’t want to blog too little, therefore missing information out, yet I didn’t want to blog too much with too little information on each post. I am happy with the presentation of my blog also and believe my ICT skills have been demonstrated well throughout.

The background I have used on my blog reinforces my genre of thriller as I wanted my blog to match my two minute opening.

I have also made my blog archive bigger and more accessible for the examiner to see all my posts over the months.

Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In my final product, I conducted a lot of research and planning into every decision I made. However I did face a problem with my mise-en-scene with my interview room. The problem was that it appeared too light and friendly when it needed to appear dimmer and more sincere. If I was going to film it again I would make this change. This was similar to the interview scene in my preliminary task however the scenarios were different; my preliminary task needed a lighter, more relaxed atmosphere which contrasts with the atmosphere I needed for my final product which should have been more sincere however I did not manage to create this atmosphere successfully.

In my preliminary task, me and my partner also used an interview scene to show our over the shoulder shots. However I didn’t want to use over the shoulder shots in my opening section to show my interviewer because I did not want any attention taken away from my own main characters.

The editing in my preliminary task was done well, especially the match on action with opening the door and leaving the interview area. This inspired my match on action editing in my final product which turned out to be my best section of editing in the two minutes of footage I edited.

My narrative in my preliminary task was very basic, with only a few lines of exchanged dialogue. I wanted my final product to have a complicated narrative because in my questionnaire, the people I asked preferred a mysterious thriller film to an obvious one therefore I wanted to confuse my audience in the first two minutes so they continue watching it throughout. However this may of become too confusing for my audience because I did not want to use unnecessary titling to explain the situation, for example “4 months earlier” as I believe they appear unprofessional.

The filming of my preliminary task reinforced knowledge of certain basic shots which I was able to without difficulty in my final product. The issues we faced also in the preliminary task I was able to avoid for my final piece or to adapt to make my product different and better, therefore making the best result I could have achieved.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I believe I have improved a vast amount since then. In my preliminary task I was with a partner and we just experimented with a limited range of techniques including match on action, simple camera shots and a slight different range. We also faced issues with lightening which shows we did not consider our mise-en-scene thoroughly enough. Our problem with the lightening was that we filmed me with the sun directly shining behind me which made me unclear and dark to the camera. However I have used this technique to help me in my final product as I filmed Katie appearing from the light behind her as she walked down the stairs. This is because I wanted Katie to appear as a silhouette until she was closer to