MY EVALUATION

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

Our film used conventions from a range of different thrillers, such as Gone Girl, The Returned, and Before I Go to sleep; all extremely psychological and thought provoking films, which play on the viewer’s expectations, and manipulate their responses. The main objective of our thriller was to expand these concepts that are used in those thrillers and interpret them in our own way. For example, the opening scene of Lola opening her eyes was influenced by the ending scene of Avatar, where Sam Worthington abruptly opens his eyes, which is quite shocking and unexpected for the viewer. This idea was very intriguing for me, and although many films have used this idea in the past, I think that we managed to accomplish this shot very successfully. 

The French television series, The Returned, and the new film, Before I go to Sleep, were our main inspirations for the thriller; There was something so chilling and disturbing about the idea of a woman waking up in a secluded area with no recollection of where she was, which I was so captivated by, and had to include into my own film. The last scene in our film, which shows the collection of photographs on the wall of Angela, was also inspired by the film, Before I go To Sleep; we adapted this convention in our own way by placing Malcolm, the main actor in front of this display so that he would appear as a very strange, and frightening for the viewer. The objective of this final scene was to make the audience feel very unsettled and concerned about what Malcolm has done, or what he will inflict to Angela.

Another convention we used was the opening sequence of Dexter, the television show, in which is shows himself cutting, and making food however, in a very stimulating, and intense way; I wanted to take this idea of preparing food, but turn it into something psychotic, and deranged. Obviously, our own interpretation, wasn’t as professionally developed as the original sequence of Dexter was, which I don’t think we would have been able to accomplish any way, unless our camera equipment was extremely advanced. However, I think that the sound effects we used, such as the harsh scraping sounds of the knife, was very compelling for the viewer; I am very pleased with this idea, as it was completely our own, and wasn’t a convention from another film we had seen.

The famous classic thriller, ‘Memento’ was the final inspiration for our film, which very similarly to ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ portrays a young man who has no recollection of where he is, and suffers from a rare, untreatable form of memory loss. After watching these films I was very intrigued by the concept of ‘memory loss’ that is used in film; I feel that the audience become so compelled and attentive as to what the character with the condition might do, and there is such a distressing uncertainty to these films.

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

Our film includes a range of different social groups, such as the representation of youth. In our film, the audience is presented with the character of Angela, a troubled young woman, who is trying to cope with the abusive behavior of Malcolm, the man who has been keeping her in his custody; we know that that this woman is not safe right from the start of the film, when we see her running through the woods, looking disheveled and having no recollection of where she is. However, by the ending scene Angela, has overcome her vulnerability, and become more confident as a person.

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

I think the best way for distributing my film would be online; YouTube would be an obvious outlet and we could try and use twitter, Facebook and other social media to generate interest and increase the number of hits. Especially, Facebook in particular which is a great medium for sharing short films which people enjoy to watch. YouTube also holds films competitions and a great way to get the film talked about would be for us to enter it into some film festivals, such as 'Your Film Festival', or 'London Short Film Festival' which is widely used for students that would to distribute their films.

Ultimately I would like to create a film that would distributed by major independent film companies, such as Vertigo Productions and Working Title Films. However, trying to distribute our film in cinema, would be extremely difficult for us at this point because to get audiences to come to a cinema we would need to have a publicity budget to advertise our film, and we would probably need some well known actors featured in our film. Another outlet for distribution would be TV; Channel 4 run an occasional late night season of short films, and we could apply to this and see if our film would be taken on however, that would be a very long procedure and we may not get any more viewers this way then we would on YouTube.

Overall, I believe that Social Media would be the most sufficient and successful way in getting our film distributed; We could post our film onto sites such as YouTube, or Facebook, which people would then start to share, and could later start to become trending on sites such as twitter.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? 

I think the primary audience four our thriller would be sixteen to twenty five year olds, particularly because this is the demographic of heavy online users; also because all of the characters featured are of a young age, which would make it more relatable for a younger audience watching it. Although there is no form of violence, drug use, or sexual behavior, our film is supposed to be more psychological thriller, so I wouldn't suggest anyone under the age of twelve to watch it, simply because they would not understand it.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In preparation for creating our thriller, we were looking at the different ways our audience could be addressed; we knew that the audience targeted was from around sixteen to mid twenties, the reason for this being  because the characters were of a young age, which ultimately makes the film more relatable, and there for attracts a younger audience.Most importantly, our audience was addressed through the conventions from other films that we adapted into our own. There are some major similarities between aspects of our film, and others; such as Before I Go To Sleep, or The Returned, which I think could attract the audience, as they would be able to recognize these conventions used and make a personal relation to our thriller. I think the most sufficient way we tried to attract our audience, was the build up of suspense in our thriller. Right from the start of the film, the audience is faced with the character, Angela who struggles to cope with the disastrous accident inflicted by the character, Malcolm. 

6. What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through the process of developing our media product, I have become more conversant on the technical side of film, this includes, using camera equipment for filming, and Final Cut Pro, which we used to edit our product. As a group, we decided to apportion responsibility to key areas according to our strengths, so I decided that I wasn’t going film, as the other members, were very passionate about wanting to film, and felt comfortable with using camera. Having said that, I took an important role in deciding key shots of the filming, and I wanted to make the film as visually spectacular as possible. For editing our thriller, we used Final Cut Pro; which I was quite hesitant in using from the start however, as I progressively started using it more frequently, I am now extremely comfortable with the editing software.In saying that, I personally was more involved in the makeup aspect for the thriller, which is something that I have a very strong interest in; I was also in charge of deciding what clothes the actors and actresses wore. For example, I wanted to portray Malcolm as a rough-looking, disheveled man; but at the same time was quite a powerful, intimidating character, so I decided for him to wear a tank top and chain. For the character Angela, I wanted to depict her as vulnerable and feminine, as she wakes in the woods, so I chose for her to wear a flowery dress, which I thought would accomplish this ‘look’ more successfully. However, for the second part of the thriller, I chose for her to wear jeans, and a long coat, to try and portray her as a more sophisticated character.

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 have become a lot more conversant on programs, such as Final Cut Pro, which we used for editing all of our footage. I would say that before filming our preliminary task, I was fairly confident with the program, as we had previously used it for editing our 'Heathers' opening. However, in comparison to our thriller, I am now able to edit completely on my own, and I am fairly confident with it now. There are some aspects of development, which I believe I could have saved a lot of time on, such as the story boards, which I could have developed faster if I had not been trying to perfect them so much. I also think that using final cut pro, was quite challenging for all of us especially at the beginning of editing. However, by the end of the process, we were all capable of using it a lot faster than from the beginning.I think my biggest accomplishment throughout this process is defiantly become more accepting, and open minded to other people’s ideas; at the beginning of development, I can honestly say that not only I, but the other members of my group were all quite stubborn, and dismissive of each other’s ideas. However, we learnt to collaborate our ideas, and although there were many hiccups and disagreements on the way, we accomplished something I believe was very successful.We all had our own strengths, which we worked extremely hard to reach. Although Benji and Harold, my group members took control of the technical side of making our thriller; However, as I am quite a visual person, I was in charge of the Mise En scene; I think that this really not only allowed me to become more confident in my own ideas, and work to my strengths; but also become more accepting to my member’s ideas too.