Evaluation

EVALUATION

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

First two frames, Conventions of real media products

Here are the first two frames that we have chosen to use; the two sets of frames are similar in the way that they use the convention of blood that thrillers often use. The image from our thriller shows the character wearing an apron with blood stains, the bloody prop works well in our thriller as it helps draw the audience in and it also helps establish the character. The other image from the thriller ‘Se7en’ shows a similar image, the character also has blood splashed up onto his clothes, this also implies that someone may have been murdered brutally. The choice of costumes that the characters wear works in the thrillers as it also helps establish the characters.

Here is another pair of images that reflect a thriller convention, the two scenes are both set in warehouses, this is similar to the convention mise en scene with echoes, this means that the characters have been placed in the certain place because it is relevant to how the character is feeling. In this example the characters are both in dark, old, used warehouses, this reflects the characters mood and tells the audience that maybe the character may be sad, scared or confused about something in particular. The first image is taken from ‘Law abiding citizen’, this shows the main character in a dark room. Similar to the second image take from our film.

Second pair of frames, Developed conventions of thrillers
Below are the two images we have chosen to show the development of conventions such as blood in thrillers. The first image that is from the 1960’s film ‘Psycho’ shows blood being washed down the plug hole, this helps attract the audience, the mise en scene in the use of the plug hole implies it is the end of someone and they are being washed away. The second image taken from our thriller is similar to the one from ‘Psycho’ as it also involves blood being washed away down the sink.

Our image in this frame shows that we have developed the convention of crime in thrillers, we have used the crime; murder and then developed it using a sort of ‘torture table’ The torture table with a body on it, will help get the attention of the audience, the table implies that the victim may have been tortured previously to the murder. This may lead the audience onto thinking about different things that may have happened in the film. Our image is very similar to an image taken from the real media product ‘Hostel.

Third pair of frames that challenge the conventions of thrillers

The background music on our thriller is called ‘Cautious pathway’. Our thriller is very similar to most thrillers as there is not many times when we challenge the conventions of thrillers however our music is distinctly different to most thrillers. Below is the music from the thriller ‘Psycho’ if you listen to this music and then watch our video (from 0.25secs in) and listen to our music it is different as we have challenged that convention of the typical music for thrillers.

QUESTION TWO
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
This is my online prezi presentation, it shows a representation of social groups that feature in our thriller opening, i found it difficult to first use prezi, so i watched the online tutorial.

Product representation of social groups on Prezi

QUESTION THREE
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Below is the link for our media wiki presentation, on this presentation it tells us what type of film it is, and how this affects the distributers. The presentation also says what themes our thriller covers and what thriller conventions are used in it. It also says why the film would be released and how it offers opportunities for franchises, sequels or merchandising.
http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Iris


QUESTION FOUR
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our film can be related to the likes of   other films such as the Saw collection but most of all it is particularly like the film hostel. These films are usually aimed at a specific audience. The type of person that would watch out film would be along the same lines.

The perfect audience member for our thriller opening would definitely be a male; as we have researched and found out in our thriller research before producing the film that the majority of audiences for thrillers are males. The name Eliot Craig seems to suit the profile we are aiming our film at as it is a quite an individual and distinct name. He would not be a rich character and would be in his early 20’s, once again we have chosen to use this age as our research showed us that the majority of the audiences for thrillers was around this age. Eliot would have many hobbies that may be seen as different to the average 20 year old, his hobbies could also be seen as ‘geeky’. He shows interests in things such as mechanics. Hence why he is studying engineering at university in Leeds. Leeds is an appropriate location for him as it is an industrial area as he has particular interests in that.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/coursefinder/17731/MEng,_BEng_Electronic_Engineering
Above is the prospectus for the Electronic Engineering course at Leeds university.

Eliot lives with his long-term girlfriend, as he has been with her over a long period time he obviously likes to escape, with the use of thriller films he is able to fall back onto them when he wants to get away, especially since his girlfriend is not interested in them. His all time favourite films are ‘Silence of the lambs’ and also ‘Law abiding citizen’ these films have a mixture of crime, action and suspense. Along with watching films his hobbies are reading, Xbox and technology. Eliot is up to date with most of the latest technology, he is particularly fond of his HD television along with his blue-ray DVD player, however if he had enough money he would definitely invest into a 3D television. Another form of escapism he uses is when he plays the Xbox when he wants to get away, he plays along with friends with the online feature that Xboxes provide.

 
When Eliot is able to get away from his university studies and is on holiday in places such as Southwold in England, he is able to read novels such as ‘Da Vinci Code’, ‘And then there was none’ and ‘The silence of The Lambs’. Eliot was brought up by both of his parents with a religious, Christian background, however his religious beliefs have disappeared since he has grown up. He votes for the conservative party. When he is able to get away he prefers to see blockbuster films over art house films, he likes to see films on nights at cinemas such as ‘cheap students Tuesdays’. He is a regular participator in online competitions on film websites, hoping one day he will win.

Unlike the average 20 year old at Uni that may spend their money on mostly clothes and drugs Eliot enjoys spending his money on the latest Blue ray DVDs and CD’s. He is interested in rock/metal music. He has previously been to the metal festival ‘Reading’. His favourite bands consist of ‘Joy division’ and ‘The Killers’.

  

Below is the link for the ‘Reading festival’ website, the bands that are presented on the website are the sort of bands that Eliot would be interested in.

http://www.readingfestival.com/

QUESTION FIVE 
How did you attract/address your audience?
This is our final film product with some annotations, the annotations show us why we chose to use certain props and mise en scene. The annoatations also say what parts would appeal to the audience and attract them. In our thriller we used different thriller conventions that we had researched previously to making the film. Our film also uses supense through out the opening scene, this helps set the scene of the film and also helps draw the audience in.

QUESTION SIX
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The first image is a shot of me using the camera we used to film our final product, I am filming by just using my hands, when we filmed our film we did not use a tripod and filmed it with a steady hand effect. The camera has many buttons and different filming options on it, after research and playing around with the camera I finally learnt how to use it to its full effect. 

 

We should have filmed our final product using the tripod that I am using in the image below. The tripod enables the camera to stay completely still, this helps prevent filming from being shaky.

 

In the image below it shows me using our blog, on our blog we have had to post many posts throughout the year reporting on how our filming is doing etc, also on the blog it has many posts on research.

In the final image, I am seen working on final cut express, we used final cut express frequently to edit our final product and preliminary task. At first I struggled to use final cut express but after watching various video clips and tutorials online I have learnt how to use it effectively.

 

Above is the tutorial that I first watched, to help me learn how to use final cut express, I knew I had to know how to use it because it was important when we edited our final product.

QUESTION SEVEN
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progssion from it to the full product?

Below is our preliminary task that we have annotated it using youtube, the annotations show what we think we did well and what we had improved on to create our final product. For example in our preliminary task we learnt how to edit out non-digetic sounds in the background that was we did not need. Also when we filmed our preliminary we had a shot a scene that had our tripod in the background, we made sure when we filmed our final product we had made sure we had no objects such as tripods in the background.