Individual Evaluation

Evaluation- Nellie Stevenson

1.      In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Our media product is a psychological thriller opening sequence, from the conventions we researched before we made our opening sequence we think that our product conforms to the conventions we found in psychological thrillers.

 One of the main conventions we followed was that the main character endures conflict mentally and emotionally rather than physically. This was shown as our Antagonist, seen as the old man in the park, sits on the park bench hearing repetitive voices from the victim, having them play on his mind as he fights the urge to abducting the child while the mum is there. This convention we used can indicate what genre the movie is as we used effects and camera techniques to show it such as panning around the actor, slowing down the clip and echoing the sounds of laughing, this shows the audience that it was in the characters mind as its altered and specifically only showing him. From these conventions researched, we were very much influenced by many other psychological thrillers such as Shutter Island as the character in Shutter Island is very reliant on his mental strength which is shown in our movie as our Mother character makes no attempt to get her child after she has been abducted and is very composed in the final moments of our opening sequence. Another convention of opening sequence conforms to is the use of an enigma as out opening sequence ends with the audience not knowing whether the old man really took the young child, because the audience thinks it all in his head. This leaves the audience confused and  unsure of what really happened which in return makes them want to find out the truth of the story. We were not inspired by any movie that includes an engima however we thought it would be a good way to end our opening sequence as it further confuses the storyline to the audience which makes them more eager to find out the truth at the end, it also makes the audeicne guess to what they think happened.

2.      How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence represents a range of ages and class. Our Antagonist is a middle aged old man of about 45-50 years old, our female Protagonist is roughly 19-20 years old and our final character in our opening sequence is our child Victim who is roughly 8-9 years old. This shows that a wide range of representations are shown in our opening sequence however our movie is targeted at 15 years + so people younger than that would not be able to watch it. Class is also represented in our opening sequence as our Mother Character and the child victim are both represented as working class citizens, this is shown through the costume as there clothes are very basic and slightly scruffy especially the Mother character as she wears jeans and a shirt over a white top. However our old man character is shown as a higher class citizen this is also shown through his costume and hair, showing him with a comb over and in a nice jumper with chinos and fairly ‘trendy’ shoes. We think that our characters in our opening sequence conform to the typical sterotypes of the people represented in our movie.

This links to our target audience as we found that mostly 15-20 year olds that are students would be interested in our movie, as found out from conducting primary research, so this would appeal to people in our target audience as our movie would represent various age ranges and class.

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

As our product is obviously a movie it would be distributed by a film company, however we have decided as a group our movie would be a Independent Art House movie (Indie). Although Art House movies usually only have a niche market our movie would slightly differ as it would have a larger audience than the regular art house movie as thrillers are very popular with different types people. If it was to be made fully it would probably be a small budget movie and possibly be released straight to DVD or an Indie movie channel such as Sky Movies Indie or Future Shorts, we think it might also be released on various movie sites online. We think that if our movie were to be released it unfortunately would not offer opportunities to turn into a franchise as our storyline is very set and it cannot be expanded much more, also as it is an Indie movie it probably wouldn’t have merchandise because our storyline does not have anything in particular that would stand out or be marketable because our audience wouldn’t be that large.

The Mise-En-Scene in our opening sequence is very basic with hardly any detail, our costume and makeup is very minimalist, with everyday clothes and natural makeup just to enhance features. Our lighting was ambient and needed nothing to enhance it further, our location/setting was a very open plan park so it allowed us to be flexible with filming and props again were kept simple just to justify our reasons for the plot, for example the Old man Character was in the park doing a crossword to make it seem like he was innocent and in the park to get some piece and quiet. Our mise-en-scene was kept extremely simple which shows that it would be a low budget movie and Indie because it’s not very elaborate and glamorized as a big Hollywood movie would be.

4.      Who would be the audience for your product?

From the primary and secondary research we conducted to find out our target audience for our opening sequence would be, we got age, gender and occupation summary of who our product would be aimed at.

In our primary research most of the people we asked were aged about 15-20 years old, however there were a few 30-35 year old. We asked them questions like ‘What is your Occupation?’ and ‘Do you enjoy Thriller Movies?’, from this we found thriller movies are mostly popular with males as they have a lot of action and there much for enjoyable to watch. Females also liked thriller movies but not as much as the males, most of the people we asked, both male and female, said they were currently students in either college or university and the people that were older than 20 did low energy jobs such as office and filing occupations. We asked people in our primary research if they would be comfortable watching a movie with the theme of abduction or paedophilia in it, as this is what our film centres around, most  people said they would as although it is a horrible theme, most thrillers centre around a tragic or slightly unreal theme.

As conducted in our secondary research that most psychological thrillers are usually classified as a 15 by the BBFC because of the themes being disturbing or troubling to anyone under the age of 15.

Although it would be classified as a 15 by BBFC guidelines I would say any one above that age might enjoy our movie as it is aimed at a lot of different people and has a wide range of ages and genders throughout the movie that people can relate to.

5.      How did you attract your audience?

To attract our audience in our opening sequence we used many different techniques mostly including sound and camerawork. Our camerawork is very diverse and there are a lot of different shots in it for example, a pan around our old man character, a high angle shot of the park when the old man abducts the child and many various close ups and extreme close-ups. This keeps the audience hooked on the screen as we kept it quite diverse and different. Our use of sound was also a good way to attract our audience as we used tracks, that we had made in Garageband, that built up suspense so it made the audience think something bad was going to happen even though it doesn’t also we used loud bangs at the end of our opening sequence as images flashed on screen of the abductor as well as being mixed with images of the girl, this tends to make our audience jump as it is very loud and sudden so it is unexpected and could startle people.  As it may be quite startling it would not be advised for younger people which is again one of the reasons it would be classified as a 15.

In our opening sequence we have quite a lot of focus on the mother character through camera work, this makes people that watch our movie, particularly females who watch it, put themselves in the mothers position and makes them ask themselves “What if that was me?” which could attract females to this movie as it would be very touching to watch and could make them prevent things like this from happening in reality. Males will almost defiantly not put them in the position of the old man who is portrayed as an abductor/paedophile as that character is not how regular people think, it is a disturbed character and men would not be able to see themselves in that position because it is so morally wrong, however they might get a strong dislike to the character because of what he does in the movie, which could alter the way they feel towards other people at that moment in time.

6.      What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of filming?

From the beginning of the course I was very much clueless about all the filming, editing and sound equipment that we would be using to make our opening sequence.

All the equipment we used was relatively new to me except for the Canon Camera as it was pretty straight forward.

The filming process of our opening sequence was very straight forward as we had used the camera and tripod prior to filming properly on location. We all found it easy to use the tripod and the different elements of the camera for example the zoom. On the day of filming we did not have any problems with the actual filming however it was more on the continuity side, but overall our filming process was very successful.

Final Cut Pro was the software we used to edit our opening sequence. We had also got to learn about this and use it prior to editing our actual opening sequence. We learnt how to mark in/out the footage cut the footage and drag the chosen clips into place. We also learnt how too add effects and colour correction to make our movie seem more unrealistic which we used to go along with our storyline and we also learnt how to add sound, take it away and change the volume. During the actual editing of our opening sequence, we did not really encounter huge problems however we found some parts of it very time consuming, which was expected, but also we found it more difficult to keep the continuity in check within our opening sequence however the general editing process went well and we learnt how to use it very quickly and efficiently.

When using Garageband to create our soundtrack for our opening sequence we found the programme good however there was little choice in music to use as everyone was extremely up beat and there were only a few serious tracks to choose from. However the actual making of our soundtrack was very straight forward and just required laying certain tracks we wanted on top of each other. To get the echo in our music, when the man hears giggling etc in his head, we had to use Final Cut Pro as it was better for altering the effects in both the actual image and the sound.

Overall the different technologies were very straight forward and easy to get to grips with and we all found it very easy to use, especially because we occasionally each had an extra bit on knowledge on the programmes and equipment so we all helped each other to learn and become more experienced with these technologies.

7.      Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt from progression to the final product?

As a group and as individuals we have all, since our Preliminary Task, learnt a lot not only about filming, editing and making a soundtrack but also how to create efficient plans and how to conduct useful research. When planning our preliminary task we kept things very basic including the narrative, dialogue and the shots we decided to use. We had a guideline to follow saying what shots we should have in it, some of these shots were a two shot, long shot, over the shoulder shot, reaction shot and we had to follow the 180 degree rule. By using these shots it helped us to learn specific shots and then remember them, which helped when it came to creating the shot list for our opening sequence. When we story-boarded our preliminary task it was about the second time we had ever created a story board for a media project so we found it fairly confusing. However from creating the storyboard we realized that we would have to go into much more detail for our opening sequence to ensure that we would create a successful opening sequence. Although we did not do research for our preliminary task we did watch past students preliminary's to get ideas but also see how it should look, likewise we did this with our opening sequence by watching past students work. as well as conducting in depth research into our genre. When we filmed our preliminary task it was our first time ever using the filming equipment and editing software. We filmed our preliminary very quickly so did not get to explore the different techniques we could use for our opening sequence so we had to bear this in mind when creating our shot list for the opening sequence. However by learning the basics of the the camera it gave us a foundation to work on and gave us a flare for creativity. Much like the preliminary our filming went particularly well and helped rather a lot, this is because we learnt from our preliminary how to ensure our opening sequence ran smooth and efficiently. When using editing software we only used basic cuts for our preliminary, so like the filming we got to be a bit more creative. WE used more creative editing techniques such as blurring the edges of screen, fading, and adding text. We also got to be creative by creating a soundtrack as we did not do this for our preliminary task. Overall by doing a preliminary task personally feel it helped a great deal as we got to experiance equipment and software before we started creating our opening sequence and i think it helped to make it a great success!