Individual Evaluation

Evaluation.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?- We decided to make a psychological thriller and our film conforms a psychological thriller as usually the character doesn’t use there emotions physically but through the mind, and we done this by the camera movements such as close-ups and the echo’s in the soundtrack. In scene 3, where the camera pans around the man on the bench. You’re able to tell what sub-genre our film is as it makes you think twice about certain elements which is what a psychological thriller does. We used idea’s from films such as ‘the talented Mr Ripley’ as in that thy keep all emotions through the mind and use the technique of facial expressions and throughout camerawork by using the close-ups. The man who plays in it actually conforms to the stereotype. Other thrillers that helped us plot what a stereotypical elder man would look like were ‘the lovely bones’, which is a wealthy looking, friendly man who would be unsuspected, this is why we chose to use the man sitting on the bench doing a crossword so it could look like he’s just resting. We watched ‘flight plan’ as in the film the mother’s daughter goes missing and you see her panic in her face and the worry. This is where we got the idea of facial expressions from, at the scene before the end where the mum runs back into the park to find her daughters gone. The twist at the end of our scene when the mother and daughter walk back into the park as if nothings happened indicates the sub-genre as psychological as it plays with your imagination. In the editing process we used the use of the blur tool to make certain scenes seem more in someone mind or to make it look like it’s a dream. This is used in films to make the scene look surreal, so the audience get an idea that something isn’t right and gets the audience thinking.

How does your media project represent different social group?- The gender groups we represented was a male and two females, one of mid 20’s and one of a 10 year old girl. By using the mother and her being young her character isn’t stereotypical as the type to e irresponsible of leaving her child. On the other hand there could be a bunch of people who would think that this is stereotypical as being a young mother she’s naïve to think her child is ok being left, and didn’t use her initiative. We used a man as the antagonist which is stereotypical as in many movies men are used as the bad guys, such as ‘the lovely bones’ where a man is found to be paedophile, jut like in our opening sequence it seems like this is what’s happening. Our target audience was 15+ so any gender could have watched this, we suspected more woman than men would watch this so as a man being the antagonist the woman who watches this feel sympathy to the mother who has lost her child, and woman usually put themselves in the protagonist (the mums) shoes. This also gives some teenagers who are to watch the film an insight on some of the things that could happen to younger siblings or other people if left unattended, and to be aware of strangers. Social groups such as teenagers or woman from 20-50’s usually discuss what they thought of the film and if they understood. Our target audience was people in friendship groups who can discuss and share opinions, and the type of film that can be suggested to others to be watched. We investigated that teenagers like horrors and thrillers, which giving ours a twist makes people a little more confused which keeps people watching to see what happens in the story

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?- This film could be distributed on the internet to psychological thriller fans, like a forum room. I think it would be on the television because many people find psychological thrillers interesting and keep them hooked, it would be on a non-popular station as the film isn’t a big award winning, lots of money made sort of film and wouldn’t go to the cinema. This film could be distributed to certain groups that wish to advice on how to keep their children safe or show the dangers of strange men alone in parks, why leaving your child is bad. Some psychologists may discuss about matters from the film to people that have had similar experiences. The film wouldn’t be big enough to lead to merchandise as it’s not that kind of film where there are heroes or idols. Psychological thrillers are popular it would be released as an indie film company such as ‘Pathe’ and ‘Universal studio’s’, as indie movies aren’t high budget movies and don’t lead to bigger opportunities and indie movies release different films all the time that usually appear on television once or twice, or on sky movies indie.

Who would be the audience for your profile?-Our general target audience is 15-20 year olds and we asked questionnaires about psychological thrillers to see how into these types of films people are. The people that we asked were sociable people, who spend time with friends, this was deliberate to the fact of friends can all discuss there opinions and thoughts on the film. Our film didn’t link to any age of such if anything it would relate to people 20-50 years of age, as it makes mothers who watch it put themselves in the mother in the films shoes and imagine what feelings she felt.. A film similar to ours is ‘the lovely bones’ as a young girl goes missing and you see the mother’s pain, this film appealed to adults. Men that watch this wont usually have any particular feeling, men in general prefer to watch thrillers, there more men surrounded, as men aren’t known to get scared. Man or woman I think that anyone would feel sympathy towards the mother and daughter and feel almost disgusted towards the man or even confused on the storyline as psychological thrillers are mind players. We made the style of our film to have a twist in the plot but at the opening scene you don’t see the twist, you only see the man being the bad guy, and towards the end of our scene you see the mother and daughter re-enter the park, as if nothing had happened and the little girl wasn’t abducted. Later in the story things unravel such as the mother is emotionally confused, and these are just her thoughts. People who watch such as teenagers and females will judge the man as horrific from what they first see of him. It’s usually men who don’t have thoughts until they understand the whole film.

How did you attract you audience?- We discussed who would be most interested in watching our film, and gathered that teenagers and males are the types to enjoy thrillers more as they enjoy the suspense. We made an ages range of 15+ as we feel somebody under 15 may not grasp the idea of what going on in the film and may find some of the scenes disturbing., such as the end scene when the mother returns confused to see her daughter missing and there are loud thumps and close-ups into the males face, which could make a younger person jump. We used many ranges of camerawork we used lots of close-ups to the antagonists face to show his age (his wrinkles, and the facial expression) we also used a pan around the antagonist and played children voices over some serious sounding music along with a blurred picture in the editing, we done this to show his thoughts in his head, and it sounds quite spooky and eary which again could upset someone who was frightened by the thought of this. When filming we had the sympathy for the opening scene on the mother, as she is clueless to the man sitting in the park, and see’s nothing wrong of leaving her daughter alone for 1 minute whilst getting a plaster. Mothers whoa re to watch this would put themselves in the other mothers position and imagine how they’d feel if it was there child. The effect we were aiming for was so that people would be sympathetic and at the same time interested in how the story ends

What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of the filming?- When doing the filming process I learnt a range of new techniques of filming, and how to do different shots, I learnt that putting the camera on a tripod; give you a steadier view of the camera so your hands aren’t holding it being shaky. There is also a handle on the tripod which gives you ability to move the camera slowly and steady. Using these techniques helped when I and my group used the effect ‘panning’ we were able to do it better with the tripod than handheld. Me and my group found filming really easy and enjoyed doing it together and taking in turns of using the camera. Being able to have the use of zooming in and out to make different effects and using the camera in different ways to create the elements of filming. We used a lot of close ups and long shot in our film we kept that part simple but used elements like panning across and panning around, in scenes 1 and 3. We used a high angle shot when looking down on the little girls cut hands, we done this by having someone with the camera on the climbing frame at the top, as we filmed in a park., and they simply zoomed in to a good enough view of he little girl on the floor. We used the new equipment which was the tripod as we hadn’t filmed before using a tripod, so this was new to us but we grasped the using of it quite easily. When it came to using the editing software, we were all kind of new to this, so at first it was a little struggle and took us a while to get grips of things but eventually we picked up what to do. We all helped with editing and when we weren’t editing it ourselves we were giving advice on where to put things and where to cut the scenes. We all got our ideas in our piece well enough we could point them out. I came up with the idea of blur in the scenes. Adding the blur effect showed that it was a dream and looked like imagination. The cutting of the video didn’t take us too much time as the opening sequence is only under 2 minuets, we cut the video until it all ran smoothly and we could add extra editing and sound into it.. When it came to trying to make a soundtrack this was amusing to do, we wanted an eary backing track something to make the hairs on your back stand up, as well as children’s laughter for scene 3. We tried searching for heartbeats but none of the ones on garage band sounded life-like. We also hoped to find a single heavy drum beat, but there were only club beats, we wanted to use this for effect on the last scene on the close-ups of the antagonists face. We found something similar but it wasn’t a drum beat, it still sounded effective.

Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel that you learnt from progression to full project?-When we were doing the preliminary task we had lots of different ideas and we had to think about all the possibilities behind them such as the lighting, setting, characters and the storyline. We knew that we wanted to do a psychological thriller but we weren’t sure how to go about one. We decided that we would research on the internet about psychological thrillers and even look at lots of different films and we decided to go away and watch some. We gathered a few films we would like to base ours around, or take certain ideas from what we’ve watched and thought we could put into our opening sequence, but again we had to also think about how limited we are. We decided we liked the plots of ‘The talented Mr Ripley’ ‘Flight plan’  ‘The lovely bones’.
These are all psychological thrillers and all have the plot of somebody who is being played around by the mind, paedophilia, abduction etc. We decided to make a storyboard of what we would imagine to happen and then after decide if its what we all want to do and if that’s do-able. When planning we got to go over every point from scene 1 to the end. We noted down on each scene we perfected the camera angles we could use, which gave us time to list different ones we are able to use, and what would suit best to each scene.  Before planning we hadn’t thought of an camera angles we just saw a vision of a opening sequence in our heads and after we discovered how could make it so much more effective with the right camera techniques. We were doing everything basic, so the planning and writing all our thoughts and ideas down on what we could do helped later on and gave us a direction to head towards. We had a list of shot types we could use and we even visited a few parks to use there was one near our school but the environment wasn’t very clear it was very noisy as it was near a road, and we wouldn’t have a lot of time to visit were the park wouldn’t be busy with other children. So there was a park near one of our houses which was near a woods so was silent except the aeroplanes that passed over, but we discussed we could wait for them to pass over, and it was rarely busy and had a good atmosphere and importantly it had a bench facing the park which is what we needed. After using the equipment once or twice I got a better feel of how to set it up and put it away and how to connect the camera to the tripod. Doing the preliminary task helped us get a feel of what the real filming will be like and how we can each take turns on filming and also what its like to take part in the film by acting.