Evaluation

Evaluation

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

I created my final piece of work in such a way that I followed as many typical thriller conventions as I could. Ashley and I watched a variety of thriller openings during the research part of our work, and thus we had quite a lot of ideas on what conventions we wanted to use in our piece. Ashley watched the opening to No Country for Old Men (2007, Coen Brothers) and thought that we should create our work using a lot of the techniques used in it. No Country for Old Men has a very slow opening, with very still long takes, building up tension and making the audience ask questions about what is the significance of the locations being shown. We adopted this technique, and decided to make the pacing of our piece quite slow, so that the audience were pushed into thinking about what they could see. However, whereas the No Country for Old Men opening remains rather slow throughout the entirety of it, we decided that we wanted our pace to pick up around half way in to create a sense of danger and to “thrill” the audience. As with this opening, we also decided to use a limited number of characters. We filmed the antagonist for the most part, as it would make the audience wonder who he is and what he has done. Conventional thrillers also use ambient music in the background to add to the sense of suspense that is added by the slow paced shots. Ashley and I really liked this convention and so we added it to our work. The sounds now contrast as we have the birds and other natural sounds (diegetic) of the location playing alongside the sinister and thought inducing sound of the music and siren sound effects (non-diegetic). To finally create the look of a thriller, we made sure to use typical shot types and takes. From watching the opening to The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan), we noticed that a lot of long takes and long shots were used to show the surrounding locations and the action that took place inside the bank. These types of shots fit in well with what we wanted to do, as the long takes would reduce the pace of the piece, while the long shots would add to the suspense as it would seem as though there is a character following the person in the shot. Finally, we noticed that any editing was mostly in the way of cuts and sounds and so we tried to reduce the variety of effects we added in the editing process. This meant that we mostly used straight cuts to change shots, except for the fades to show a time lapse.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

To represent social groups in our work, we decided to create specific characters. The antagonist (the main character throughout the opening) was supposed to be a gothic, almost emo male in his early twenties. This was to show the antagonist as a depressed, angry character, suggesting that he is unhappy with his life. We wanted to represent the other teenagers by having the protagonist (walks past the antagonist on the street) dressed in brighter coloured clothes, contrasting with the greys and blacks and reds of the antagonist. We decided that the antagonist would have his hood up on his jacket, almost concealing his face and making him look mysterious, while the protagonist would be wearing a brightly coloured hat, making him look innocent and to show that he is the good guy. We specifically chose the colours that each character would wear to give them hidden meanings to the audience. The protagonist was supposed to contrast the antagonist so that it was clear who each character was. The antagonist wore dark clothes made up of greys and blacks, creating a mysterious atmosphere when he is on screen, whereas the protagonist is wearing lighter colours with bright white shoes and a red and white hat.

Above is the social group we based out antagonist on. I believe that we did a good job at re creating the image with out character.

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

A possible distribution company that could put our work to the cinemas is Lionsgate (http://www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk). This is because they have put out the Saw films, and so they are clearly interested in low budget thrillers such as the Saw series. This would be great as our thriller would also be low budget and would rely on suspense, location and characters to create the thrills. Another way for us to distribute our film would be through the internet. This could come from actual online showings via websites like YouTube and MySpace or just getting the film recognised and building hype. There are two notable low budget films which built a lot of hype up using the internet and made a lot of money because of it, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007, Oren Peli). This would suit my thriller as it would keep distribution costs down, which would save a lot of money overall, as well as giving the potential to make even more as it would be more widely available than if it were to be in cinemas as anyone could watch it at anytime.

Above is the Saw 3 poster. As can be seen, it atracts attention useing a simple picture and would be the kind of marketing the we are looking for.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our work would be anyone above the age of 16 as we would want the video to be viewable by as large an audience as possible. This is because of the obvious handicap our film would have compared to a big budget movie released at the same time. The audience could be made up of men or women, as it doesn’t follow the thriller convention of women being the main victims. Our thriller wouldn’t tackle any race issues, and would contain a mixed race cast to make the film appeal to yet more variety in people. We would also want our audience to be able to relate to the film, meaning our main audience would understand the choices that meant each character was who they were.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audiences we decided that the location needed to be able to be related to. Therefore, we chose a park as the main location for the piece, with a house being the second location that would be easy to relate to. We wanted to make the audience to think deeper into the story of the piece. No doubt that most people have seen someone looking out of place walking through a park, as does our antagonist. This helps the audience relate to what they are seeing as they can then imagine what they see to be realistic and entirely possible. Everyone is able to relate to going home, and most people should be able to understand the awkwardness of going home, knowing that something bad will or has happened, as is the case with the antagonist. We also made the characters as realistic as possible, with suitable clothing choices that are often seen in today’s society as well. This allows for the audience to relate even better as they will have seen similar people themselves, making the film seem as though it could happen to ordinary people.

This is the sort of area the the film would be set. It is an ordinary location with extra ordinary happenings. This is what would atract the audience becuase they would wonder what would be happening.

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

From creating my piece, I have learnt a lot about the technologies used. I didn’t realise how hard it was to keep shots steady, especially when panning, so that they are smooth all the way through the pan. It took Ashley and I a couple of practices before we managed to pan a shot fully without much stuttering. I also learnt a lot about pacing, as at first, our work was extremely slow, much slower than we intended. This was due to the length of each take, and we cut them down to make the work easier to watch, as viewers originally lost interest when the shots were lengthy. I also learnt a lot about the software I used to edit the work. Adobe Premier Pro originally seemed extremely complicated to use, and I needed to look for help on how to perform certain tasks, such as adding titles to the work and cutting the clips down so that only what we wanted was used. After a couple of times using the program, I was able to do everything that we required. However, I also learnt that some technology can cause more harm than good. This is because the first video camera we were going to use to film with was broken and so we wasted a lot of time trying fix it. This taught us to have a back up camera or other plan should we encounter problems. Despite this set back I believe that we still managed to work extremely well as we managed to film everything needed, within the time we had allowed our selves. Overall, I learnt a huge amount about the technologies as originally I had very little idea on how to use what I needed, but as we progressed through the weeks I learnt more and more until I was proficient with each piece of equipment and software that was used.

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

From doing the preliminary task, I think that it helped greatly in how well I performed in the final piece. The preliminary task allowed me to get used to the cameras and some of Adobe Premier Pro, which in the final piece I had less to learn about and therefore gave us as a group much more time to film and create our work. I also learnt a lot about filming processes, and just how much work needs to be put in to create a full length film. Along the course I also learnt a lot about thrillers, including conventions of them, which I then followed and used in my own work to make it as authentic as possible. Over the full period of the course I learnt a huge amount in all. I learnt a lot about Adobe Premier Pro as I had previously never used it and now I know quite a lot about how to perform different actions.