Shawnee Rogers AS Media evaluation

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

Over time our opening has dramatically changed and developed from our first original idea, looking back on our original animatic and the early stages of filming we had shot and edited we realised just how complicated our opening would have beenfor the audience.

Our original idea was simply a montage of different situations and locations. After the opening had been reviewed by our teacher and other class members they all have trouble understanding the narrative and where confused by the numerous random locations shown, in which we decided to re-create and design a new opening that would be simpler to follow and understand.

Our final opening is similar to a lot of other films due to the sue of conventions that we followed. One convention that we wanted to follow was suspense so that the audience would not know what to expect next. The idea of suspense was effective through the Use of mise-en-scene. Through out most of the scenes of where the protagonist is in the house the rooms are very dark and gloomy, the dark atmosphere creates a real sense of mystery and suspense for what is going to happen next. This convention That we wanted to follow came from the film ‘Seven’ this particular opening also creates a sense of suspense due to the dark gloomy atmosphere similar to our thriller opening.

Here is a shot from the opening of the film ‘Seven’ , this mise-en-scene used in this scene is very similar to our own.

Here is a scene from our thriller opening.

Also we used a similar idea inspired by the credits in the movie ‘Seven’, Each piece of text in the opening of seven managed to be able to fit in with what was happening on screen, which as you can see here we also tried to portray a similar approach,

Here we tried to fit our credits in with what was happening on screen similar to the opening credits in the movie ‘Seven’.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups

Our thriller opening represents one particular social group which is teenagers, only one main character is shown through out the sequence who is a white female middle classed teenager. This chosen social group can relate to our chosen target audience. In a typical thriller film the main character is a man, however we decided to have a female actress to be the lead protagonist. Through out the opening the protagonist is very distressed, which is all we really wanted to display rather than following on stereotypes.

The second character that is shown is a white male policeOfficer, who could be perhaps seen as a role of power.

We also created an area of a field filled with empty alcohol bottles and drugs to portray a party held by teenagers.

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

Our product would most likely be produced by a small film producing company. I believe that it would be put straight onto TV as the plot would not be enough to compete with other films that are shown in cinema. Also there are no famous actors or actresses starring in the film which could effect the film very negatively as a lot people would want to pay to see a movie with their favourite actor and actress in the film.

After researching into a channel that could likely show our movie on TV it would be likely that itv would show our movie as they seem to broadcast a lot of British thriller films and shows. As this movie would be rated an 18 it would be shown after the 9 pm Watershed.

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

Our chosen target audience for our media product is ages 18-30, teenagers to young adults. There is no specific target audience for gender however young girls may engage more with the film as the protagonist is female which could help the female audience to relate to the story a lot easier than the male audience could.

I believe that this film will be rated 18+ as the film would include drug and alcohol usage and bad language which would not be ideal for the younger generation audience’s to be viewing.

I believe that the bbfc will rate this film as an 18, due to the strong language and alcohol and drug use that would be shown later on in the film.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

We are attracting our audience of teenagers because we wanted to make a film that we knew that would fully appeal to Teenagers and that they would understand and almost relate to. Throughout the opening the female protagonist is clearly very distressed and with the use of flashbacks and what she is saying to herself it then starts to become clear to why she is so upset, these strong set of emotions could interest audiences through sympathy. Also a high level of suspense is left through the opening, the protagonist mentions her missing friend, and what exactly happened that night at the field. This could attract the audience as they may be curious as to what happens next.

We wanted our opening to attract/address both male and female, in the beginning of the opening our young attractive female character would mainly cause the male audience to engage with both the character and the sequence. We also decided to put a female stereotype in the sequence where the protagonist washes a cup in the kitchen sink, this is way to perhaps engage with the female audience.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product

Throughout this piece of course work we have had to use new software’s and technology that I myself had never come across before, learning how to use these new technologies has helped me learn a lot of new skills which will be useful in my future studies. We were introduced to Adobe Premier Pro, which is a professional timeline based video editing software application. This software was where we would put all our footage onto and edit it all into our thriller opening. I found that I had most trouble with this software as I have never had experience with film editing before. Fortunately working on the editing for our continuity task and animatic gave me the time to learn the basics of premier pro which helped towards the editing for our Final product.

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the Progression of it to the full product?

Looking back to my preliminary task I believe that I have progressed in many different ways. When it came to working with the different technology and software to create our first project I found it very difficult to understand how to work with most of them. I had most trouble using Premier Pro for editing as it took a lot of understanding on how to edit the video clips, after working with this software over time I eventually found using this program much easier which was useful towards creating our final piece.

Also looking back on our preliminary task before I had never realised how much thought there needs to be in every shot, in our first project we didn't put enough thought behind each shot and what effect each camera angle and movement would create. Where as with our final project as a group we discussed each camera angle, movement, mise-en-scene and editing for every scene and why it was important to have these specific things in each shot.