Media evaluation
In what ways does your media product use; develop challenge form and conventions of the real media product?
Our task was to create a thriller opening; we had to plan out how we were going to construct our idea, by first seeing what the target market expects in thrillers and then using their expectations to create the idea for an opening. For the opening we had to form the video by editing the scenes to get to our final product.
This had to fit in with the rating criteria of fifteen. The age fifteen was chosen due too dark scene and such as a knife to show signifiers which are death and misery. It is also classified as a fifteen because it has conventions of a horror which would be: daunting areas which would be the woodland area and graveyard.
The setting is a graveyard and a church due to the wedding which is where normally a wedding takes place in a church but and also some is filmed in a graveyard this also shows conventions of dead and also our media production has been filmed in the woods the woods and graveyards are quite typical locations and they are very silenced and empty places.
A thriller is shown by having a mysterious narrative but still clear to the audience can follow the plot. They are typically designed to put the audience on the edge of their seat and make their heart race. In thrillers there is often the “Hero and the villain” these are typical characters in a thriller and classic setting such as a city, forest, deserts, or derelict areas. Conventions such as weapons and costuming create the sense of thrillers as a lot of the characters are normally dressed in suit and weapons such as knife and guns are used.Our thriller opening had props such as a dress, Vail, suit, corsage, roses dead/alive.
In the first two minutes of a thriller the film would show important information about who starred in the movie and the titles.
This shows all shows all the titles introducing the film the actor’s titles are put at a moment where they are in the movie and the other titles put on during dramatic moments. The title at the end distraught bride is done in quite small hand writing on a black screen this can show how lonely the film is going to be and mysterious by the sound playing whilst it is shown.
During the time period before we filmed our thrillers we researched and analysed different films such as “Psycho”,” Donnie Darko”, “The happening” and ”Memento” all these different films have been presented a different way. Conventions help to show what type of film it is going to be in the opening. In Donnie Darko the opening is represented through the landscape to show that it is confusing and a psychological thriller.
Conventions of the genre means that people expect a typical story line, characters ect but when it fails to be what the audience expect specific things from certain films due to what we have read or been told so this increases peoples expectations and when the film fails to meet the audiences expectation it is genre conventions.
Conventions can be broken by directors because they chose to do what is unexpected such as nonlinear narrative which is unconventional - when the shots and they film aren’t told in correct order or told backwards and aren’t in chronological order. This was done in “Memento” as it was a psychological thriller which was directed by Christopher Nolan.
Thrillers in my opinion they should start with a variety of different shots to portray the storyline and or leave the audience in confusion as what is going to occur in the film. For example in the “The Happening” directed by M. Night Shyamalan he presented the film with a confusing start by showing a typical city and typical everyday characters such as joggers and dog walkers and during this a women kills her self and this creates lots of abnormal scenes and shots such as freezing of peoples positions. This opening scene leaves the audience with a question which shows it is a good quality opening.
A lot of the camera shots from this film were close-ups which show the lighting is used in a way to create a sense of unusual day as the light is bright and as it goes on the light start to dim and get more negative. The shots are close- up to show confusion of the film and the negativity of death of people in the film, the film creates a sad atmosphere from the music as it is a sombre key of music to create the sorrow of the film.
The mise-en- scene is quite stereotypical as there are joggers and dog walkers in this area in “The Happening” as it is a park where the characters would do when wondering around on was a average day which what they want you believe as they are building up to the deaths by creating a normal atmosphere about the world.
The happening is related as much to our thriller but it has a weird storyline and is quite random which is what our idea is like.
Donnie Darko is related more to our thriller than The happening this is because donnie darko is a psychological thriller as it requires you to think deeper about what is happening in the film and it makes yourself ask question such as “ Is this real?”,”What’s happening?”.
Different film openings helped us to make our own thriller this help us by showing common opening which contain many fast shots and close-up shots this emphasizes the beginning of the film. Films such as “Psycho” influenced us and enabled us to make our thriller because part of the mise-en-scene is the prop, a Knife this helps to show the craziness of the character which we tried to represent in our character also as far as we know the women in “Psycho” is female as we can see from her clothes in the shower scene and her hair but actually she is male masquerading as a female this helped us to be unconventional and have a female killer and push the boundaries by doing this a having a what is unexpected. This helped us to make our thriller realistic by using similar ideas such as the terror of the knife and the unconventional women.
These shots have been shown to show that our thriller was influenced by “Psycho” this is due to how they are both unconventional female killers using a weapon such as a knife. Which both are used in frightening manners which are used to kill.
During our media production and editing many changes have been made to our media as it has been re-done 3 times this is because the narrative wasn’t clear or too confusing this meant that we didn’t have as much time to edit as we kept having to change the series of shots the correct the narrative we did this by doing voice over shots to show what the groom was thinking.
A marriage is arranged but the groom is uneasy about the matrimony so leaves her causing her to lose state of mind and go fanatical and hunt down her fiancée. The reason why the narrative was confusing was because they wasn’t much speech and when this was they were only voice over’s hearing the thoughts of the groom.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our thriller we used a women as the killer this is irregular and unusual. As men are used as the killer because they are seen to be physically stronger which is why it is different to see a female not in the position of the victim. Women aren’t seen as killers as people would not see them as killer as people would stereotype women as not being mentally stable enough which would create the impression that they aren’t spiritually strong enough or not physically strong enough. Because the bride is the killer it can show two things which are she is strong and empowered because women are seen as killers or it shows her weakness by being distressed and turning into crazy and psychological killer.
But the film shows her by having a women as the killer it shows her weakness as she has been left at the altar and it still is the man making the choice of leaving her, By doing this leaving her in a typical heart-broken and angry state of mind.
As a conventional role played by a woman it is normally the women who plays they distress character when they are attacked and normal not the empowered sex for example a thriller “Jagged edge” this shows a stereotypical blonde women who is naked being attack and as she is naked it makes her more vulnerable this is why it is unconventional about a women being a killer as it is seen as weak for a man to get killed for attacked by a women which is another reason for it being unconventional.
On the left shows small black smudges down her face this shows she has been crying and the one on the left shows her make-up in more detail. These both show the sensitivity and show both their anger.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
They are many types of media institutions such as Warner brothers, Universal ect these are very large institution types that use A-list actors and spend a large sum of money for the films to be made.
Whilst we were researching media institutions we researched independent movies making companies this would be what our movie would be as we would not have a large budget. Examples of Independent films are films such as “Donnie Darko” which is a film we have researched throughout our project.
I feel New market would be a good distributor for a media production as they create independent films and only distribute independents films which is what our film would be also films we researched such as Donnie Darko and Memento are films that helped us to create our film and by using the distributer of movies that influenced us I feel that would make it fit into the genre of an independent film and also a psychological thriller like many of the films created by new market this is another reason why I picked New market as distributed “Donnie Darko” and “Memento” The benefits of using New market compared to any other institution is because it only distributes in independent movies and we feel ours would be an independent film this is because we would have a small sum of money which limits our chances of using a large media institution and also New market have made quite a few films theses have been positive on the company and have had good feedback towards them and have been getting more well known distributor as they keep creating more films.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
To find out who would be the best audience for our thriller opening with gave out round about 30 questionnaires to members of our families and to students around the school in different years but mostly from the age group of 16 this was to see what people would expect to see in our thriller by asking different ages they each expected different for examples we found out what kind of genres the audience like and one of the most was romance which is why we incorporated a wedding to provide romance for the viewers, also questions like where would you expect the setting to be? Ect.
Questions were asked to find out about our demographic such as what is your age and gender? These where only very simple questions used in this area.
When deconstructing other films this helped us to decide on what ages the films would be because of the amount swearing or graphic scenes such as in Donnie darko there is bad language used but only mild but there are no gory scenes which is why it was chosen to be a fifteen. By looking at other films and researching the BBFC ratings it helped us to decide on what would be the age limit on our we choose fifteen this was due to how there was conventions such as death and weapons such as a knife to show brutal scenes would occur during the film.
How did you attract/address your audience?
By showing a convention of the genre death by using a huge knife this attracts the audience’s attention. By getting their attention by using music which is tense and aggressive also a mysterious feel to it.
The stills of the church create the setting which tells you where it is and also the graveyard this is one of the places where our audience said would be good to hold a thriller in our questionnaires. A lot of our shots are mid shots or long shots one shot that attracts the audience’s attention is at the end and a few points throughout the film is when Jacob (the groom) is stood in the distance partly behind a tree without the bride realising this creates a question if she will ever find him this would appeal to the viewers. Also the knife creates uneasiness and this would give the viewers many questions such as “what is she going to do with the knife”? The sound is very unnatural it creates a feeling of uncertainty which appeals to the audience. I want the audience to feel confused to why he would leave her as there is no reason but also I want the viewers to feel uneasy due to the fact that she has gone crazy.
We have met the target audience’s expectation as we have used part of the genres they suggested they liked such as romance and also used a setting which was a graveyard.
The BBFC affects our target audience as we have to follow a set of guidelines for it to fit in with the age criteria and by doing this is means you don’t get such a wide range of an audience of an such as scenes in films can be very different for a child than for a fifteen year old which is why we have to follow the guidelines and take into consideration language sex discrimination. And by having an age fifteen according to this our film may not contain violent can be used as long as not sexualised or sadistic. And whist violence is happening is cannot dwell on the pain and horrific gory scene aren’t to be used which is why our thriller is aged fifteen.
These shots would catch the eye of the viewer and interest them due the shots such a it has been in a long shot and caught an actor in the corner of the camera and another shot has been shot underneath and been ran over and the other shot is taken from behind also all these shot have effects on them which gives an sense of mystery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK7hLe5KeIohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3OC4Q5Gfgw this is feedback from our thiller that was uploaded onto youtube.
These shots would catch the eye of the viewer and interest them due the shots such a it has been in a long shot and caught an actor in the corner of the camera and another shot has been shot underneath and been ran over and the other shot is taken from behind also all these shot have effects on them which gives an sense of mystery.
During our project we have used lots of different software’s was such as imovie and garagreband. imovie was to create the actual piece and edit it all together during our filming I have developed my skills of using the camera I have learnt how to use a camera properly and also learned the 180 degree rule and also the golden rule, my skill have developed skills by showing the characters in different angles who that they all represent different things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL7j7R2AP5c
this link is about how we used garagreband
During editing I have learned how to do a voice over how to fade to white/black, dissolve to slow down the amount of shots together or showing death by fading to white by going into the light or showing fade to black by showing a painful dead or a brutal one ect. Also applying different effects such as black and white to represent a flashback, putting in titles for the opening, cropping pictures adding sound to create an atmosphere
this link is about how we used garagreband
During editing I have learned how to do a voice over how to fade to white/black, dissolve to slow down the amount of shots together or showing death by fading to white by going into the light or showing fade to black by showing a painful dead or a brutal one ect. Also applying different effects such as black and white to represent a flashback, putting in titles for the opening, cropping pictures adding sound to create an atmosphere
This shows how we used imovies to create voice overs.
When looking back over filming some shots weren’t as good as possible so some shots had to be stabilized to stop them from shaking when panning also some shots had to be cropped when not enough attention was drawn to them. When some shots showed bad quality changing the effect made it look better by changing it to black and white.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have developed as a film maker and an editor as I was the person who most of the time was in possession of the camera. This was because during our thriller both Rebekah and Jacob were both actors.
My strengths are now editing.
By doing the preliminary task it taught that when filming you should get as many shots as possible and also to re-shoot things many times this is because this would widen the length of the film and allow us to choose the best shot instead of settling for a good enough shot.
During our preliminary task we made a story board this was to make it easier for us to film as it would mean it would be less time consuming.
By filming in the school it was hard to film in certain places for reasons such as having permission and also as we weren’t the only ones in the corridors.
I learnt by doing that i need many different shots to capture the right image and also make it look interesting and different.
