Evaluation

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

After looking at the trailer for 'hide and seek' this gave us our main inspiration for our own opening, this thriller itself tends to focus on a young girl which is similar to ours. We used the idea of outside lighting, the brightness of it all to reflect the mood of this particular scene, to show the contrast and to reflect the little girls behaviour. We also used the idea of sound, the soundtrack in 'Hide and Seek' began off with a slow sound of the piano,it then reached a climax when the action starts to happen which again is what we used with our soundtrack 'save the hero'. It began whilst the child was slowly swinging but by the time we shadows had started it was more louder and powerful creating a more dramatic atmosphere building the tension which is what we wanted at this point.
We also identified lighting as a key convention of a thriller, we used this to the fullest by creating a shadow effect, we used a dark background with light in the foreground to do this, we were then able to create two dark shadows. We think this was really effective and suited the genre of our opening. As it showed the father repeatedly attacking the mother, but not in too much detail this was almost more haunting, as the characters could not be identified, the audience didn't know what they looked like which gave a sense of mystery. Films like 'No country for old men' used a similar technique by creating violent scenes but no really showing the audience everything, this was an idea we adapted to our own thriller with this shadow effect. Also the use of the baseball bat in shadow for shows the extremity of this mans attacks on this woman - the sort of character he is and helps the audience to see this.
Editing also played a big part in our opening, having looked at others and seeing how fast cuts speed up a scene and create more tension we decided to use this in ours. Alternatively we also used slow motion to show the intensity of some parts. By cutting away to two different locations this enabled us to show the contrast between what was going on in our thriller opening it also enabled us to show what was going on and start to tell a story. We also used slow motion when the soundtrack got to different lines, this to emphasise the innocence and just how alone this little girl was. We also though this would entitse the audience even more, and we found this to be extremely effective.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

With our thriller opening there is a certain focus on social class, in particular a lower social class, this can be identified through the mis-en-scene of the room the shadows are based in, the fact its so empty and dingy. These are the type of people that can only just get by, this would of been made clearer further on into our thriller. The domestic violence shown is committed by the male figure, this itself a representation. The contrast of this huge strong man attacking a smaller, weaker woman. The representation of the typical young girl; blond hair, blue eyes, the use of the white dress and her being at a park showing the child in her, a naive side.


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

We did some research into different media institutions to find out which kind of one would be most likely to distribute ours. There are mainstream producers making mainstream films, these aimed at an extremely wide audience, yet smaller producers which cater for a more niche market aiming for a specific audience by making there films. For example you have your Hollywood studios making films to be distributed all over where as UK films which cater for a smaller market. By making a 'Thriller' we are immediately restricted to the size of our audience as our film would only be viewable by 15+. So as far as publicity for film would go it would not be advertised on children's channels as this is not the audience our product is aimed at. We looked at similar thrillers such as 'Hide and Seek' because this too was a physcological thriller, and found the distributors of this particular thriller to be 20th Century Fox. So this would be an option for our thriller. '20Th Century Fox' is hugely known worldwide so for our thriller to be distributed by this particular institution would give our film the global recognition. Also Physco - an award winning thriller was distributed by 'Paramount Pictures' up until 1968 and then 'Universal Pictures' up until this present day. So any of these would also be a great media institution to distribute our product. Again both well known and global. However because our film is low-budget, institutions like this may not be interested in our film, they want something that's going to sell in this case films that have millions spent on them and their effects. So other options could be Film four, this aims for a more niche and highbrow market by showing a mixture of old and new independent, art house, British, foreign language and specialist cinema, along with some critically-acclaimed Hollywood films. This distributor almost ticks all the boxes for the sort of brief we are going for with our distributor. Any of the above discussed is a possibility for our film.



Who would be the audience for your market?

I briefly touched on this topic in the last question, we would be aiming for a more niche market due to the age certificate and genre of 'Thriller'. Having a certificate of 15 obviously we would be aiming for age group of above that, similar to 'Hide and Seeks' this being age 15-25. We are not aiming for specific gender, our thriller would be watched by both. We also understand that not everyone enjoys thrillers so our audience would be people that are particular into them but also more complex ed plots and can grasp an understanding of our film and the phsycological reasons behind our characters actions.


How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly to actually draw recognition to our film, we would show a series of advertisements on ITV, Channel 4 and E4, these shown after 9 to make sure they were seen by the right age group. To address our audience through the film, we set it in a location (park) that was natural to everyone, turning an innocent situation into something far more intense. The initial feelings towards the little girl were sympathy and curiosity, as if there were so many questions people wanted to ask about her e.g. 'What was wrong with her?', this immediately got our audience hooked. We also saw the idea of using a child instead of an adult was much more effective as people immediately feel more towards a child. By then using the shadow seen, showing violence, there was sense of mystery as to who were these people, there faces weren't visible - so it was almost like to find out what was actually happening the audiences' only solution was to keep watching! Also the idea of domestic violence is something that can commonly occur, although people don't think about that, in any ordinary family, someone could be the potential victim of this. We showed how the actions of another can effect someone else's behaviour, without their knowledge. It kind of makes the audience think and take in a life lesson.


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

Throughout this media project we've have come across so many different and new things that we've had to work with and learn how adapt them to our own work. The whole process has been completely new to me. I've definitely learnt how amazing technology is today and that most things are capable. Firstly using the camera's before the preliminary we originally filmed a short 2 minute sequence exploring different camera angles, putting the theory we'd learned about all the different types of shots into action. It was a lot simpler than i though it would be, and gave us so much more confidence using the camera's for the real thing. We discovered which shots gave us the most effective filming and arranging a series of different shots also worked really well, depending which effect we wanted to create. When it came to editing, it was the also the first time we had ever used these 'Apple Laptops' so the way they actually worked was trickier to get used to, when it came to using the editing software on there i was amazed how easy it actually was, we got to play around and figure out what each effect did, and how to make different transitions. I learnt that editing was the part that really made the film into what it was. However it was time consuming, but worth it. It was more difficult to make sure you cut shots in the right places so you had smooth transitions from one shot to another, and didn't look like you'd just put it together. I learnt how slow motion and alternatively speeding a shot up was and by using them in the right places was extremely effective. But by getting plenty of practice before it actually came to editing our film it was pretty easy to do. I also found out how to add a soundtrack and how this could suddenly change and create a mood. The endless possibilities technology gave us was brilliant, we could do almost anything, so i would say technologies are almost vital in the media.


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

Our preliminary task was basically a short conversation between two people sitting either side of a table, although it was a simple idea, it provided us with the steps we would need to ultimately create our opening. It enabled us to practice different shots and use them to their full potential creating the best possible effect. First in creating our preliminary was deciding on an idea and then putting this idea into a storyboard so we knew exactly what we were doing and exactly what shots would be needed. It was no good to deciding all this when we were actually filming, so i would say I've learnt how important initial planning is into creating something successful. Setting time limits and deadlines is also extremely useful so you know exactly what your doing and when - there is no stress involved you can just get on with the task in hand. By delegating certain roles to team member's was also extremely successful and was more definitely more efficient. Also from our preliminary task, we learnt it was best to get more footage than needed rather than just enough, this gave us some to play about with and add in if we felt it would be more effective. Every aspect of our film opening had to be planned in detail whether it be the locations, props etc.
The actual filming of the preliminary gave us a firm understanding of how best to use the camera, so when filming our opening we knew exactly what we doing, exactly how to position it and how to create the effects we wanted. This made it quicker for us to get the shots we actually needed. We were confident using the camera as well as the software. Having previously used different effects and added in title pages and music, we could get straight on with doing it for our opening, and making it the best it could possibly be. We even learnt how to share our thriller opening and make it viewable to an audience by uploading the video onto 'YouTube'.
Overall I feel my understanding of everything has continuously developed since the preliminary task, this enabled me and the rest of my group to create a really effective opening and show off everything we'd learnt in the past - it also really tested our skills. However we were able to overcome any problems that occurred with minimum amount of fuss. So i would say the preliminary was key to creating our opening and helped us to excel in every aspect of it.