7th April 2010 - Review

Media Evaluation

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

My media product uses many media conventions, in thrillers, one convention is for the bad guy to be some type of criminal, psychotic, stalker or mental. We went with the stalker and there for follow the conventions of a thriller by choosing this certain character type.

Another convention of thrillers is to use woodlands and outside settings to create a sense of aloneness. We have therefore followed this convention using wooded areas and pathways; this creates a scarier thriller opening and a good area to shoot as the characters look alone and In the middle of nowhere.



We also use lots of quick cuts towards the end of the sequence, quick cuts are a conventions of thrillers as they up the pace of the film and make the audience watching it feel jumpier and more on the edge of there seat. Therefore we have followed this convention as this is what we want out audience to feel.

The music we have chosen in a product is also linked to thriller conventions, this is because it is early and dark sounding, and this creates a scary atmosphere, without being to revealing when something is going to happen. We chose this music as we thought it would be perfect at bringging the suspense needed to attract the audience while watching the film, the slow pace as makes it harder for the audience to see what’s coming up.

We challenge normal conventions by not using darkness and shadow much. We felt that we didn’t need to as this would affect the way we could film at the location. However because we cover up the stalker characters face with a hood, we still believe it gives the same affect as using shadows to block faces and identities.

We have also challenged the normal media conventions my using a Birdseye view/tilt shot at the begining as we feel this adds effect to the scene and makes it more thriller like as you can only see his feet. Normally these are not seen in thrillers and is a very unique shot to see in any genre of the film industry. However we thought it right to involve it as it adds a mysterious affect and a overall uniqueness to the film.

When looking at other thrillers like "Signs" we liked the opening scenes with the credits and music seen below:

However we decided that our film wouldn't fit the audience and the story line of the film. And if we where to follow the signs theme and not have any footage within the tittle section it would be to boring for the audience. Therefore we decided not to follow the way that M. Night Shyamalan (Director) oppend the film. We decided to have some shots of the characters waling and the title and credits fading in and out of the bottom and top of the screen, allowing the views to see the characters to keep them interested and watching the film straight from the start of the film.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents young adults as always being included in violence and always being part of the “hoody” culture as that is how one of our characters is dressed to cover his head with a how, but we still see his face. He then ends up in violence due to the stalker character and this is not his fault.

In the film "Harry Brown" the hoodies are seen as violent street thugs who attack other people on sight and cause a lot of problems with the older generation and other members of society. This is a stereotypical view of hoodies. Therefore we decided to alter this stereotype in our film where the hoodie becomes the victim and does nothing wrong.

(Hoodie in Harry Brown) ------------- (Ash in our thriller)

We also see stereotypically that young people have headphones in and are wearing flat peaks, this is because in today’s world most young people walk around with one of these items on or both. Therefore we used these props to show that the person is of that age group and is a young adult/teenager.

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

I would say a local or/and small time distribution company like Optimum or WarpX would help distribute my film. This is because they are small time distributors who specify on helping low budget films, typically in the region of £400,000 - £800,000; however I think that Oliver and I’s film would be shot on a lot less budget. This however is not the only reason.

Donkey punch, the film poster shown below is a thriller based on a sex act gone wrong on a boat. The movie had a budget of £500,000 and was filmed in three weeks. I would say that if we carried on with out thriller, we would be around the same level as this movie and as this film is distributed by WarpX I would therefore say that they are a very likely distribution company for our film.

The distribution company's would also benefit from using our film as, because we are small time and did not use a lot of resources to create the film. they have a bigger gain of profit to show the films. Also because we are small time Filmer's, our film is more likely to be distributed to exhibitionists digitally as this is cheaper and more cost effective making bigger profit for the distributors compared to using a film wheel.

Another reason is that they are focused on showing new talent being in the director, actors and production areas and seeing as I am not a big name director this would be perfect for out film. They also have a local office within EM media which is based in Nottingham and a wide area of the east midlands.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience for the film was teenagers and young adults. We thought it best for it to be this audience as this is the age range of the majority of people who go to the cinemas;however we know that adults may also like to view the film, but we focused our film on being an age rating over 15. As this was such a low age rating for a thriller type film, we decided it would be better to use the suspense techniques and sound to get the audience in fluctuated in the film rather than gore and blood as in real life this would have made our film go to an 18+ and therefore missing a wide area of our target audience.

We also decided on this age group as we go to college with people of this age and there for we could easily get views from this age group by asking them questions on how they would like the film to look and what would attract them to see the film.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

To attract our audience we asked 20 members of our targets age group what they would like to see in a thriller and what they want the thriller to be about. We then took the majority of the votes and then decided that we would incorporate what that was into out film. The decisions made where, how many characters, what types of characters, clothing, lighting, setting and sound... Therefore we could use the results to create a film that our target audience would like.

The audience feed back gathered also shows that we attracted our audience of teenagers and young adults. To get feed back we asked people after they had seen out sequence what they thought and if they like it or what could be improved.



This feedback suggests we did attract our target audience and they thought it was good; however they did suggest ways in which we could improve the clip and make it better and attract them to see the film more. The people who watched the thriller thought the cuts when Ash was introducded were very good and proffesional and the music chosen at the begining was very good as it kept them on the edge of there seats and didnt reaveal to much about whats was going to happen next.

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

I have learnt quite a lot while constructing the opening scene of my thriller. I have learnt that there is a lot more that just picking up the camera and filming, we had many options on the camera to change white balance, focus, zoom and many other options on the camera. In this task I also had to learn a lot more about how to use the camera for professional filming purposes and had to learn about the way white balance should be used to create the effect I want, therefore I learnt a lot about the way to film using the DV camera since i had done the preliminary task. I now feel confident in using them. I know how to record, zoom, and also adjust colour, brightness, and other things.

Since the preliminary task I have also learnt how to film using camera add on’s like the tripod properly I can now use it to take shots that are steady and at a correct angle easily as well as having a steady base to create good panning shots for the film. I have also learnt however that not everything filmed is right first time, this is because our films became pix elated on many occasions when filming for an unknown reason this cost us a lot of time as we had to re-film things again. Therefore we learnt that the technology is good however it can act up some times so we decided to fill the same shot many times to have at least one decent take of each shot.

I have also used a lot of new computer software while doing the Final piece; I can now upload the film from the camera onto the computer hard drive using the equipment in lesson. And once on the computer I am now more experienced in using Adobe Premier Pro, I can upload, cut and copy sections of film I want input music into the project and add effects and transitions onto the video to make it look more professional and like a full length feature film. I am a lot more confident using the software to create films than I was at the begining of the year and while doing the preliminary task.

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

Looking back I think that I have learnt that a lot more planning is needed to create a film that what I did compared to my preliminary. I also think there are many important smaller stages than I first thought there where in the Preliminary task like taking shots of the location and planning what the actors will wear before hand. I also think that I have learnt a lot more about the thriller genre and what goes into mailing the films to attract audiences but researching more into the genre. I have also learnt that I must work in a group more and be more group based rather than independent as doing so gets better ideas onto the table and there or better ways of gathering the audience to see the film than if one person was doing so. Also I have learnt that a large amount of time must be put into the editing phase at is a key important area as so much affect can be used to turn the out come of the film entirely. Therefore we used a majority of our time editing trying to get the correct we cuts we wanted to make the film as professional as possible.