Evaluation

Question 1:  In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The title of our film is "Stranger", this came to a group decision reflecting the idea of the two girls becoming targets of a complete stranger. A simple edgy font is used for the titles, making it clear but effective to read.


The locations used are purposefully dark and eerie in order to create tension and atmosphere that relates to the genre of our opening scene; 'thriller.' Although we wanted it to fit in with the plot to seem life-like.
In our opening scene we used various props, these consisted of:
- blusher brush/ toothbrush
- torch
- black jumper
- black eye make-up
These props were used to empathise thriller situations, including making a ordinary person into a scary figure. These props also helped us to produce tension and atmosphere that related to the genre of our opening scene, making our media product more successful.

We used a range of different camera angles and techniques such as:
-A close up shot, which tightly frames a person or an object. This will help to distinguish our main character as well as to show detail; such as characters emotion. This shot should help to create atmosphere and tension for our opening scene causing it to be more dramatic and successful,
-A point of view shot, which shows what a character (the subject) is looking at. This will cause the audience to interact with our main character, as a point of view shot will force them to sympathise with his situation making them more emotionally involved.
Which helped us to create a more effective, successful opening scene.

We used the software; 'Premiere Elements Pro 7.0' to create a successful, polished opening scene.

Our plot consists of two girls getting ready for a night out, not knowing they aren't alone in the house. As one girl drops her toothbrush the scary figure appears in the mirror background, this creates a big impact on the audience of a sense of mystery. Then suddenly a power cut happens, one of the two girls enters the bottom of the garden to turn it all back on, this is tense for the audience, not knowing if the figure returns to haunt the girl.

Our chosen genre for our opening scene was; 'thriller.' We feel that our opening scene successfully represents this genre through the media conventions stereotyped with this genre that we have used;
-Sense of excitement,
-Tense situations,
-Suspense,
-Dark, eerie locations,
-Psychological,

In conclusion to this analysis we felt that we have used stereotypical media conventions associated with films that have the genre; 'thriller, ' making our media product relate and comparable to existing media products.


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

Our media product focuses on a range of different social group to represent the characters within our opening scene. We chose different to play different roles in the opening to make full use of the ideologies that the audience are used to so they can relate to the product.

Common ideologies of the characters
In our product we decided to follow the common ideologies of the characters that are represented in our opening scene. For example, the scary figure is perceived as dark, old and mysterious, we chose to use this in our film, i volunteered to be this character by using the props. Another ideology that is commonly seen in people is that young girls are seen as petite, shy and thin. This has gave an advantage as why the scary person will choose to stalk on the two young girls, because they are worthless. We used Honor and Katie as the two characters, as they are both petite.

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

I think that our film would be more likely to be shown in mainstream cinemas, as the thriller genre is a widely popular genre which benefits more and can be accessed better by its target audience through mainstream cinema as opposed to Art house cinemas, etc. I think that our film would work better being manually distributed in cinemas rather than being digitally distributed. This is because of the genre of film; thrillers are more effective and entertaining for the audience in a cinema because of the atmosphere. Therefore our film would be better received being distributed through cinemas rather than digitally.

A film distribution company is literally that; a company which distributes films to cinemas around the country, or even around the globe in order for them to reach their target audience. There are many examples of these companies: New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Orion Pictures are just three distribution companies. I think that, from these three examples, our film Stranger would most likely be distributed by New Line Cinema. New Line Cinema distributed the Se7en which is also a thriller, and is the same kind of thriller as Justice as there are elements of both the psychological and action sub genres of thriller.

I considered Coffee Films as a possible distributor for our thriller, as it is a British Film company, and ours is a British film. Therefore, if our film was not popular enough to be distributed by Orion Pictures or New Line Cinemas a distribution company such as Coffee Films would be a good choice. Similarly, Lionsgate also distributes some independent thrillers, making this another option for a company to distribute our thriller Justice. Film 4 is another British film distributor that I could consider if I wanted our film to be distributed in the UK only. However, the obvious disadvantage to these companies is that they are smaller distributors, and therefore my thriller might not reach the majority of my target audience, as Justice may only by released in Britain or in certain cinemas.

However, I would not consider using a company such as Working Title films to distribute our film. This is because this company does not distribute thrillers generally, therefore making it less likely for our thriller to reach our target audience. Obviously, I would prefer for our thriller to be distributed by a bigger, more international film company such as Orion Pictures or New Line Cinema, as our film would reach more members of our target audience if distributed by this company.I think that our film does not fully compare with professional films distributed by companies such as Orion Pictures or New Line Cinema, as it is not a professional film. However I do think that our film is as professional as we could make it with the equipment we used, and the previous experiences we had with filming and editing.

Institutionally our film would compete with existing films such as:
"Edge of Darkness"

"Paranormal Activity 2"
We used these films to research what people are named in the titles. We found that the titles of a film normally include these people:
-The production company/producers,
-Cast and crew,
-Film distributors,
-Director,
-Film name,
-And sound producers.
Titles are normally used as a recognition for all of the various people that worked together to finish and release a media product. We chosen not to add the names in the piece because we felt it was best to keep it simple.


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

For our film, this can be related to by the audience, as our main characters are teenagers/young adults, providing a pathway for connection from the audience. The film opening will have a target audience of 15+ because it contains psychological problems.

The gender towards the film can change, for example: for the opening, the characters evolve around two girls, this would be more aimed at females. However when reaching to the end of the film when psychological takes place, male and female gender would be more interested.

Our target audience is based on the average teen like the ones that wear the average clothes, are sociable and are either left school or at college.Fortunately for us most teens fit into this bracket. I think this could be a possibility of expanding our target audience into the younger adult bracket but this would definitely be dependant on what type of thriller we included.


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

Once our disc was burned, we then decided to get random people from school to watch the film for feedback. They filled out questionnaire's each to gain evidence and research. We didn't feel the need to upload the film onto a social network site, including YouTube or Facebook, mainly because anyone could watch the film and it is targeted at 15+. Therefore getting people together to see their expression was useful as we could see the reaction eye to eye, than to upload and just get results; which could be untrustworthy and incorrect.


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

During process of creating our media coursework I feel i have learnt many things about different technologies. the different media platforms i used in order to produce our Media product are:
--Camera,
-Computer/Internet,

I furthered my depth of knowledge and understanding on how to use the software; 'Premiere Elements Pro 7.0,' not only developing my editing skills and techniques, some of these including; time stretch, duplicating, use of effects and transitions; but also how to upload our video footage onto the software and export of finished product into a movie file in order for us to burn our media product onto a disk.

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

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have a more in depth knowledge on how to make a successful media product, developing both my camera skills and software editing skills in the progression from our preliminary task to our main task.

The preliminary task enabled us to make mistakes which we could learn from, giving me an insight into the use of camera angles, software editing, sound and 'Mise en Scene. All which are factors and techniques that cause a media product to become more successful that I needed practise on. Therefore the preliminary task was a learning curve that supplied the foundation knowledge i needed to produce a successful opening scene.

I also think that my knowledge of scripting and writing of films has improved.As we didn't have a lot of time in the preliminary task there wasn't a lot of time to edit,create and develop my work. During the main task we numerously edit and re-wrote parts of our opening and i think this combined with my research helped to broaden my knowledge on how to successfully develop a film.