EVALUATION

George Nicholls (CAND. NO.) and Jack Higgs (CAND. NO.)

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

Our media product was developed on the idea of the typicalconventions which you would most likely see in thriller movies.

With this in mind we used several techniques which are common and relevant to the genre of thriller. We have also developed some of these conventions with the use of our editing skills to create a much more enhanced atmosphere.

We have selected 9 frames from our media product which either develop, use or challenge the convention of real media products…

Frame 1: (Dialing 999)

This clip use the typical convention of emergency and a situation where help may be needed. This occurs a lot in real media products to show a realistic side to it. It also sets the opening scene up showing terror and that something has happened which is in need of help from professional assistance, such as the police. The use of the dialing 999 lures the audience in, which you would see in real media products to attract the audience straight away.

Frame 2: (Hooded figure walks across screen, sped up)

In this frame the character is seen walking across the screen, with a sped up effect. This develops the situation as it distorts the camera and gives the audience little time to actually focus and gain detail from this actor. This is effective as it creates a much more interesting broader imagination to the movie, which in some thrillers isn't used enough.

Frame 3: (POV High angle, Hooded character walking)

This frame again shows the hooded figure. The costume gives little detail of the character to the audience. We have used this costume because of this and in certain shots where it may be clearer to see the character, the costume comes into play but defending his identity. This is used in many thrillers conventions as it is sometimes important to protect a characters appearance. Also the use of our camera work has enabled us to not give to much information of the character away, which is an important factor to take into account.

Frame 4: Frame 4: (POV Follow character)

This frame shows a POV perspective a lot more clearly, as if the character is being followed. This camera work is seen commonly in this genre as it includes action. By doing POV shots, you feel more into the action, undergoing a characters movement and in this case, stalking/following an intimidating character.

Frame 5: (Credit Roll)

Credits are used in almost every real media product, however they may work better in certain genres such as thriller. As our credits, we used a slight fade in/out, across the screen, glaring in sync with the voice over. Our credits were important to our opening scene as they allow the sound to work with them and also seperate each clip allowing us to use more transitions to portray a more thriller-like atmosphere.

Frame 6: (Over the shoulder shot)

This frame you see an over-the-shoulder shot of the hooded character. At this point the viewer is gaining more knowledge on the character as he becomes closer the camera and is seen stopping and walking through bushes, like he is weary and alert. We have taken this approach of introducing the character by not giving too much detail away. Again, important in real media product conventions, the character is introduced correctly.

Frame 7: (Hammer closing shack)

In this shot we see a few more props that are used. We have used a hammer as it's brutal however innocent, determined on how it is used, but uses the typical approach to a thriller that it is most likely used as a weapon. We also gain a better understanding on the setting, being set in woodland, again typical to real thriller convention products. The fact that there is a small shack in the middle of this isolated setting brings up a more mysterious element to our opening scene. In real media products, it is vital to create an appropriate setting of the genre you are following, so the audience can have some understanding, but is still slightly confused.

Frame 8: (Extreme close up of character dying)

Our camera work here has enabled us to get a clearer understanding of what is happening to this character. By being close up, it doesn’t give too much away what has actually happened to the character but at the same time you know something is wrong. This develops a convention used in real media products due to the use of the camera.

Frame 9: (Title)

Our text we used shows two colors. One simple, the other red, which shows the sign of danger, death and blood. This uses the genre thriller as it can involve, death, danger and blood which takes place in typical media products. The font is not too complicated and is clear enough for the audience, however is different in its font and animation to the credits to make this title stand out as it's name 'The Victim'. We have used this title as it is short and snappy but lets the movie to progress onto a deeper storyline, which is important to use in a opening scene.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product, we have only involved one actor that appears throughout our opening scene. Our product only represents one social group, as he is the only character involved, and that social group being a young male. Underneath is a picture of our actor Jake, Noel Clarke who plays a character from the movie Kidulthood and Zac Efron who plays a typical young male in many films…

As you can see from our media product, our actor is dressed in young urban clothes which are popular in todays society, and the use of the hood which is used to hide identity, which can be exampled in Noel Clarke's character in Kidulthood, which involves youth crime. He is very much like this character as he gives off the impression he doesn't want to be noticed and the fact he can be seen as an intimidating character from movies like kidulthood, who express the use of hoods to be seen like this. However Zac Efron can be found as a little different to him in appearance as he wears more smart and brighter clothes. This is due to the variety of sub-cultures which hide in young male identities.

The way in which we represent him in our opening scene is the fact that because he is a young male, he is innocent and weak. However in other genre's they aren't represented in this way, for example Zac Efron who is seen as a confident man who gets up to mischief, and again Noel Clarke in Kidulthood who rebels against society. Jake also looks like he's unhappy and not interested in where he is, hidden and doing his own thing away from anybody else. This also gives the image of young males in modern today.

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

Question 4)Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product, a thriller opening scene, would be targeted at the typical middle aged couple, who would enjoy film and be able to understand a plot which may not be so obvious for others.

Due to experience, middle aged people are generally more intelligent and aware of things. They would have a more mature taste in movie, and be able to understand it. A thriller offers several plots which can be complicated and need a patient character. Other thrillers share some action and horror however not taking it to the extent where it is too intense and unrealistic. Both these types of thriller are suitable and enjoyable for middle aged couples.

As mentioned briefly earlier, it is likely as a middle aged person, they would have a mature attitude towards lifestyle. I'd expect them to shop and smart and general clothing stores which are practical and suitable for there everyday life.

I'd also expect there music taste to be more independent than you would see in a young individual who generally listens to whatever is top 10 in the charts. They would more than likely respect music younger generations may not as it could be slower and less up-beat. They would also watch certain TV drama's which involved investigations, problems or even romance, programmes which had morals to them, something they may experience in their life through experience. In conclusion, our target audience would have to have a mature sense of imagination who would be attracted to situations which potentially route in several directions, and have good understanding.

Question 5) How did you attract/address your audience?

Our thriller media product immediately attracts our audience with the use of techniques and ideas exploited in this one opening scene. It is done in many ways:

First of all the audience is attracted straight away with the urgent dial of 999. This then raises question on why is this someone calling an emergency number, questioning themselves, but wanting an answer, therefore continuing to watch to find out.

There is then conversation between a man and the police women. We have used it as a voice over as you're not actually aware of when and where the phone call is taking place but all you can hear is a man reporting a murder, again making the audience eager to find out how and why this murder has taken place.

Whilst the voice over is happening, you are seeing a figure walking through the woods and with a few sped up shots giving the effect of distortion leads to more questions, and maybe leading onto an answer, again draw-ring in the audience.

This technique has been used in many thriller movies before, where the ending or the future is used as the opening scene but then later on in the film goes back in time to explain why and how, and in our case the murder. This has helped us address our audience we previously identified as we know from research these techniques work well.

This technique of introducing the outcome as the opening scene can be found for an example in the movie Oceans Eleven. Oceans Eleven being a comedy/thriller, it worked well as the audience are immediately interested about why George Clooney, is being interrogated in prison.

Another use of technique which attracts the audience in our thriller is the unique colour of black and white we have applied. This reflects a number of thriller conventions which are relevant to what we are trying to portray such as the mysteriousness and darkness. This can be found in movies such as Sin City, where they have used black and white throughout the movie, but colour to enhance the individual colours such as red.

Also the fact that our character isn't giving his appearance away. This is suitable to our middle aged audience as they have to work out who the character is, and they would be better at this through their experience. This is also common in thriller conventions such as batman, when characters like the joker, use a disguise, however people can still judge who he is even if he doesn't give his real identity.

Question 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction of this product?

While producing our opening scene, I was familiar with some of the technologies we used, however I also came across and learnt how to use several more. Throughout the process of construction we used camera's, tripods, macbooks and its editing software iMovie, garage band, youtube links for research, blogger and photoshop.

Camera's and Tripod:

I learnt several techniques using the camera's and tripods. I was able to put into practise all the camera angles and shots that would work well for different moments. I learnt how to use these angles effectively. Also the use of the tripod and its ability to move and control the camera came very useful while constructing out media product.

iMovie/Garageband: Using iMovie we were able to edit our clips together. iMovie was very sufficient and did exactly what we needed it to offer. We all learnt in the group how to edit and cut down clips, adding in special effects and sounds and control the lighting of our clips.

Garageband was also very helpful to us as we could put together our own music, and not have to worry about stealing copyrighting songs. It was a nice simple programme to use and all learnt how to export and import it into iMovie and add it to our film.

Youtube/Blogger:

Youtube was a major resource in our research for our construction. At youtube I watched several tutorials on how to edit, use garageband, master a collection of camera techniques and also the chance to watch other thriller opening scenes. Youtube offers so much in terms of video and has a selection of them to watch. It was a vital part of our construction also.

Never using a blog before, blogger was simple and easy enough to understand and enabled me to keep on track and write up about all we were doing over the course, from planning our preliminary exercise, designing our main task and looking up thrillers. It has been very useful and something which I had not used before.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

We learnt a lot from the preliminary task, from camera work to editing we covered a lot of techniques and skills needed to progress for our main task.

The preliminary task allowed me to practise many shot types such as the 180 degree rule, match on action and the shot-reverse-shot. Being able to use these shots in practise was very effective in helping us as a group achieve a higher standard for our final product. Here I have taken several shots from both the preliminary task and the main task:

Here we have used long angle shots, where the character is walking away from the camera. Little shots like these have enabled us to be more aware of how to use them correctly and getting an ideal angle which portrays what is going on in the shot correctly.

We have used shot-reverse-shot techniques in our preliminary, however we didn't feel the need to in our main due to the fact conversation wasn't involved. Again from these two pictures we have continued to use shots again such as the over the shoulder technique. It works well as you can see what the target is roughly looking at (in direction).

We have also learnt a lot of skills from the editing side of the production. By using transitions on our preliminary task, we have learnt how and where to use them in appropriate moments to help cause tension and create a smoother flow between clips.

By Jack Higgs and George Nicholls