This is a media representation of our Evaluation questions; they are presented in a video with extra screenshots and further add ons for additional information...
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- We added dramatic music,which builds suspense and we feel that’s one of the most important conventions of a thriller. The story line involves a secret cult/ group and this strikes fear because the audience empathize with the girl (Georgina) , this feeling of putting yourself in her shoes is due to the realistic nature of the film, and this is quite normal for a thriller. She is the protagonist in our thriller, she has recently lost her parents and so is a very vulnerable character and is then exploited by the cult. It also links with the convention of a protagonist being drawn into a web of intrigue. Point of view shot, shows how the cult members are interacting, creates the paranoid feeling of being watched, and this means the audience is expecting the worse all the time, which is effective and helps add expectations and cliff hangers. Before we made our thriller opening, we researched other known thriller openings to have an idea. We looked at such titles as ‘Children of Men’, ‘Se7en’, ‘Panic Room’. Through researching we discovered the use of music, use of mystery and quick editing are every effective, the use of titles also play their own role in the opening of thrillers. We have included these in our own thriller opening because we have used dramatic music, also left some questions unanswered, such as ‘ why is the girl being followed?’ to add mystery and the cuts between different scenes are a good example of us using quick editing.
Most title sequences follow the standard pattern as established earlier:
- producers’ names
- the actor playing Bond
- title of the film
- supporting cast
- crew
- finally the director’s name.
However in ‘Children of men’ and ‘Psycho’ the title of the film is shown last and we found this very effective and so have used it in our own thrillers opening scene.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
- social groups are shown in the forms of a murderous cult, a vulnerable teenager (Georgina) and her boyfriend (George) and Georgina's parents. The parents aren’t seen in the film apart from through photos and flashbacks,however there death has left Georgina in a very vulnerable state and this is vital to her role in the film. This state has been purposefully created by the cult members and they know how to manipulate it into something else. This represents some teenagers as cunning and clever, which for an adult my contrast with the normal theories of teenagers being lazy and uninteresting. The murderous cult choose to make Georgina commit suicide, and it isn’t until Georgina commits herself to the cult that her boyfriend George realizes something is wrong, its up to him to save her, and this symbolizes strength in the social group of teenage relations ships which goes against the stereotypical idea of one, which wouldn’t usually have this kind of bond. However gender is shown in a stereotypical way because Georgina is the female and her vulnerability represents weakness and George is shown to be the strong male who fights off the cult to save Georgina, and so she is dependent on him, which represents the stereotypical ideas of men being dominant and women being passive . This will link in to our target audience as mainly males will being viewing it and so they feel that they can relate to the main character and would be the hero if put into a similar situation.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
- We will be showing our thriller in a small screen cinema because it was low budget and so will not be suitable for a multiplex . It has not been produced in a large Hollywood studio and so would be unlike anything that a large hollywood company would show, it would not have the same importance and people would be expecting more from it than it can actually deliver.Instead, we have chosen ‘Greenwhich picture house’ as our location. As it will be an ‘arthouse film’ . It doesn’t really offer any franchise or merchandise possibilities because unlike ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the rings’ it is a standalone product or thriller and there wont be any new toys or games coming from it. I think that the visual style is very dark and mysterious with the conventional cold winds and dead trees, and leaves on the ground.
Who would the audience be for your media product ?
- Our media product would probably be aimed at the 15- 24, we know this because of our previous research and we still feel that it is appropriate because the characters are mainly of this age group which means the audience will be able to relate to them and this will make them quite fearful that it could happen to them - which adds fear. The media product is very similar to the opening of ‘ se7en’ where it cuts between titles and film sequences.
How did you attract / address your audience?
- The script builds a lot of suspense and so i think this helps to gain attention from the audience, i know that the dramatic music makes the audience aware of the thrill and so they are always expecting something to happen, and this is a great technique to grip the audience. The target audience will be aged between 15-24 and so they will quickly be gripped as they have high expectations for the film. I think that the most thrilling part of the entire film is when Georgina has finally been brainwashed and commits to the group so much that she is willing to commit suicide, this is dramatic because the audience will be wondering what the outcome will be. The camera will be moving very quickly and swapping between scenes, this will create a confused and dizzy feel which will add to the drama and thrill. The audience are putting themselves into Georgina’s shoes and so will be a great way to creating a trapped and scared feeling, this is used in many good thrillers because it creates suspense, so we are following a generic convention.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
- We learnt how to construct a film and so this means, camera work , editing, adding music and making any necessary improvements. We enjoyed learning about these technologies because they are very useful and constructed a good overall film opening. The strength of the camera equipment is that the actual video camera was very easy to use and reliable, however a weakness in the camera equipment was that the tripod was quite tricky to use quickly. A problem that we faced was when we were trying to do a match on action shot of Georgina leaving her room, the door had mirrors on it and so you could see us filming in it. We solved this problem by changing the angle we filmed from, that way the viewers can see the door but not us in the reflection of the mirror. We edited our film in final cut pro, we had no previous experience with editing and so we learnt how to import sound and how to cut shots to make match on action shots and other effects. We found that the fade effect was very useful for our overall mise-en-scene. The music was created by a youtube account holder using music making software, I asked the account holder if I was aloud to use this music as long as I didn’t say it was my own, and he agreed and gave me the right to. Another software we learnt to use was LiveType, we used this to create our opening credits and titles to our film, we them exported and imported them into final cut pro before editing.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
- I feel that we learnt basic camera skills with the preliminary but we explored them much more within the final product. Our editing skills improved which made the process of creating the final product much easier. In the planning stage of our preliminary task we were unsure of how the video would turn out, we knew the technique of creating a match on action shot but it wasn’t until we got to the filming stages that we realised how to do it, and so we were much more confident in our final piece as we had experience. We also completed tasks such as the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot and this was useful because once we had practised it the first time we could edit it easier the second and so the editing part was quicker . Aside from this we also learnt what goes into the planning of a film, so we developed skills in how to write a working script and storyboard for a film and just how important this can be in helping you when filming.
