AS Media Coursework Evaluation Questions 1-7By Ben Millard-Green

Genre – Horror/ThrillerMedium – Opening Sequence

Camera Work• The camera work had many different shots which as the opening sequence got on became faster and faster

paced. This helps with trying to challenge traditional forms and conventions of media products as it shows the intensity and sense that something is going to happen.

• The takes in between each shot seem to get more and more frequent as the scene goes on which can also support the earlier statement I made.

• The use of high angle and low angle shots in the piece gives a sense of vulnerability to the protagonist in the scene and it also makes the antagonist seem as though he is in more power and control.

Sound• The use of the backing track in the opening sequence is very key to the forms and conventions as the

increase in pace and volume builds up the tension that you would expect in a horror or thriller movie. This was the main use of sound as it would have been distracting and less relevant to have any other sounds used in the production as it would make people less focused and less interested in the opening sequence.

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

Mise-en-Scene• We used Mise-en-Scene to try and challenge traditional forms and conventions by using the headphones as

an illustration of the protagonist not knowing what is happening. This makes the protagonist seem unaware of their surroundings which can tie in with the camera angles to make them look very vulnerable.

• We used black costuming for the male character in the seen to try and give the audience an idea of how the character is going to act within the sequence. The colour black is used to signify darkness and evil which would give the audience the impression the character is the antagonist of the scene. This uses the typical convention of darkness and evil which is used in the majority of thriller and horror movies.

• Towards the end of the opening sequence, there is quite a dramatic setting change. The setting change ties in with the sound as it makes the opening sequence seem more dramatic as the space becomes more confined and it also becomes slightly darker. This signifies that the protagonist is becoming more and more in danger and the use of darkness illustrates how she is unable to see this.

Editing• The main piece of editing we did was to change the lighting of the entire project to make it seem darker.

We did not have the equipment or capability to do everything at night so we decided our best option would be to edit lighting. The dark lighting is very typical of our genre as it signifies how darkness can be misleading and how it can mean the person involved will be uncertain with certain things.

• The other editing we did was use transitions in between each shot. We tried to use the same transition for each shot as we felt it was easier and it also gave a sense of mysteriousness and intensity which led to the cut to black at the end. The transitions were a good way of separating the scenes but still making the continuity fit well at the same time.

Evaluation Question 2 – How does your media product represent certain social groups?

Protagonist – Hollie Denton:

Our protagonist is a teenage girl walking home from school. She is walking alone which makes her seem more vulnerable and if something happens to her, no one is going to see it or have any idea.

She is dressed in fashionable clothing which suggests she is a more popular teenager which can mean she is seen as a more obvious target.

She is wearing lighter colours in her outfit compared to her surroundings which could indicate their is something wrong and that she stands out.

The fact she is listening to her music makes her unaware of her surroundings which means she is unfamiliar and unable to see what is happening or going to happen.

We dressed Hollie in such a way that she was able to represent what we considered to be a stereotypical, relatively popular, girl in her late teens. This was done so that we could try and create an accurate representation of what society feels a girl like this should or does look like. We can clearly see that Hollie is a girl of white ethnicity which gives the audience the indication she is a British girl. The way she dresses is relatively fashionable but it is not any high end brands which gives us the indication she is more of a middle class teenager than anything else. Hollie is 17 and our film is aimed at people of 15 years upwards which means that the people who are most likely going to be watching it are around her age. This means that the audience may have a more personal feeling towards the film which may make them interested and therefore make them want to continue to watch it.

Antagonist – Ben Millard-Green

Due to lack of available actors, I had to play the antagonist in the opening sequence. We dressed my character in very dark colours as society normally portrays teenage boys as troublesome and often very mysterious people. The colour black is used quite heavily and the other colour is a dark grey. We do not see my characters face clearly in any of the shots but judging from Hollie’s character, the audience would imagine that my character is the same ethnicity and age as Hollie. The shots used have helped to try and illustrate my character as being much bigger than Hollie’s which gives a sense of the antagonist overpowering the protagonist in the scenes we see him. A convention of thriller movies is that the antagonist is normally a man who is dressed in dark and with this character, we felt we would be able to do this quite well and society would be able to understand and illustrate their own ideas of what the antagonist is like through this.

The darkness of the clothing represents how mysterious and troublesome the character is which makes him seem more of a threat to the audience.

The use of a bag keeps the audience on the edge of their seats as it adds another sense of mystery to the character. The audience does not know what may be in the bag which makes them more interested and hopefully continue to watch.

The antagonist is the only other person you see in this scene and for the entire of the opening sequence. This gives the audience the feeling that he is in power as nobody can see him and he is able to see the protagonist’s movement very clearly.

Evaluation Question 3 – what kind of media institution might distribute your, media product and why?• Film distributors are institutes that allow films to be provided to the public. They have partial deals

with other companies who have the facilities to actually provide the public with the media production. The film distributors would be credited for their work by the media producers by having their name and/or logo placed in the opening and closing credits. The film distributors are able to set release dates for the cinemas to show the media product as well as DVD release dates. They will also have a say in when subscription services such as Netflix and Now TV can begin to stream the media product.

• Our film will be suitable to show in cinemas and will also be able to be sold in stores and streamed online through legal distributors such as Netflix. The film is rated at a suitability which ensures that no one of unsuitable ages can watch it. As our film is made and produced in the UK, we would be looking to have a UK based film distribution company help us market our product. Also, due to our lo budget with the film, we would also have to find a film distributing company who do not have a large reputation such as 20th Century Fox as they would cost too much money and the production team would be unable to afford this.

• Another alternative to finding an existing film distribution company is that we as the production team could produce and market our media project ourselves. This would be beneficial to us as our low budget means we cannot market ourselves through the media institutions very easily as they cost a lot of money. Therefore, by making our own film distribution company we are able to cut costs and spend more time on making the project. We would also be able to market in the way we wanted to and change ideas easier which can also be very beneficial. This would allow the production team more freedom to make decisions regarding release dates and age certificate choices and the team would not lose any money or recognition through allowing a film distributor to intervene with the filming and editing.

• After much debate and research into how much it costs to hire media distribution institutions through the internet, we decided the best idea would be to market our media product ourselves. We felt that the low cost was a big factor due to our low budget and we also felt that the opportunity to have more freedom with our production and have no recognition taken away from us was also very key. Therefore we created a name and logo for our own media distribution company and used that in the credits at the start and end of the production. Below is our created media distribution company:

Evaluation Question 4 – who would be the audience for your media product?• To answer this question, I conducted a survey that I created myself and gave to some people once

they had finished watching the opening sequence. I surveyed four people and ensured that they were all of roughly the same age (16 and 17) so that there would be no huge differences in opinion. I also ensured that I used both males and females to ensure I was getting valid answers from both perspectives. The survey sheet I created and used is shown below and the answers are shown on the following slide:

Answers to the Survey/Questionnaire• Question 1 - The first question was answered with the majority

of the people saying it should be rated as a 15. the only other answer given was that the film could also be an 18. As a group, our idea was to produce the film as a 15 as we felt it would be closer to our target audience.

• Question 2 - The second question was also answered with a majority vote. The four people I surveyed all said that they believe the film would be targeted at an audience with the age range of about 15 to mid 20s. They stated their reasoning for this as the typical thriller genre films tend to be given the certificate of 15 unless they heavily include things such as gore, violence, nudity etc. They also stated that the people involved in our piece can be easily interpreted as the people who would be watching the film. This makes the film have more of a personal feeling towards it for the audience and that could make them more likely to watch it. A final statement that was given by one of the people I interviewed was that the opening sequence can be interpreted as factual which means that it could actually happen and does happen to some people in real life. Therefore they said it may make the audience more aware of some events that could occur to them, especially the female members of the audience. The interviewees also all agreed that the film would be more aimed at the male gender but stated that a select group f females would also be interested in watching the film.

• Question 3 - There were some mixed comments about the third question. I asked this question to try and find out whether or not the people I interviewed enjoyed the opening sequence and mainly to find out whether they would watch it personally. The more media knowledgeable interviewees used technical media language and spoke about how they felt the soundtrack fitted well and the colouring of the whole piece worked really well together. They said that with the cuts and transitions there could be more variety as the fade that was used made the whole scene very repetitive. They also stated that the tempo of the music and shot length was made very well and complimented each other. The less media knowledge able found that they were slightly less able to contribute like the others but they stated how they felt the piece attracted the audiences very well and how they felt the piece was very well matched to the genre it was mean to be. One candidate compared the suspense of the opening sequence to the film When a Stranger Calls.

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

• This question is asking me to look at the different media technologies I have used in the production of my main task and evaluate how I have used them and how important they have been during production. This covers both actual filming of the scenes and any editing afterwards such as soundtrack additions and cutting and fitting filmed scenes into a full sequence.

• For our production we used a camera with tape recording. The camera that we used was a Canon MV700i. The camera was very reliable as it never stopped working and all components of it were fully functional. The camera was also very easy to use as all the buttons were labelled in such a way that it made it easier to identify what functions they provided. The camera was obviously very important to the production as it was the only source of filming we had which without it, we wouldn’t have been able to film.

• As well as the camera, we had to use different pieces of equipment that were teamed with the camera in order to film certain shots. The main piece of equipment we used was a camera stand to allow for shots that require no movement or simple pans and tilts. We also used various props for shots such as high angle shots which included things such as chairs. This was beneficial to the task as it allowed us as a group to film more difficult shots and this allowed us to illustrate our camera skills more and then incorporate them into the final piece.

• Blogger is an internet website which allows individuals to make a blog and publish posts related to a certain topic. This helped me and my group as it allowed to keep a diary of production and it allowed us to refer to the blog if we needed any help with production or just general revision. It also allowed us to store aspects of our production on it for later reference such as our story board. This was important for our group and allowed us to be more organised with both the production and revision.

• Our group needed to be able to edit our production and for this we used a program called Serif Movie Plus. This program had editing software built into it which allowed us to cut down scenes so that we only had the relevant sections of it. this meant that we were able to produce the best possible version of our main task without having any mistakes. It also meant we were able to edited the sound of our production and add in a soundtrack which is what we needed in order to create more suspense and tension within our final piece.

• Following on from the previous paragraph, we had to use a soundtrack in our opening sequence as it was classed as a typical convention of our genre and it added a new component to our final piece. For this we decided to use Soundcloud. Soundcloud is a website where mostly unsigned musician and composers post music to try and get themselves recognised. Our piece could not have any form of copyrighted soundtrack which means we were unable to use music that had been used in other media products or had been produced by signed artists unless we got permission which would have been difficult as we had no form of contact with them. We had to ensure the artists were credited in the credits at the end of the production.