Hitesh Hirji

Evaluation

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

Our sequence differs from a typical conventional thriller due to our sequence starting with flashbacks from the past, this shows we are deviating from an ordinary thriller film, the majority of thrillers start the film using the start of the story line. From undertaking detailed research, we found that a number of people that answered our questions said they are fed up with typical thriller; this is the reason why we had tried something new with our opening sequence.

Our opening sequence is based upon supernaturalism which is influenced by films such as Paranormal Activity and also The Ring including supernatural figures for example, characters becoming possessed. Our film is unique because it isn’t in chronological order compared to an ordinary thriller, we were aware that it may be a risk to produce a sequence that is not chronologically in order but we decided that it may be a good idea. The feedback received from viewers was also very positive and they commented on the fact that it was different. We developed our opening sequence to show it is following thriller conventions by using non-continuity editing, this creates more tension for the audience which will create an interest in the events taking place; this challenged the forms and conventions of real media products. The use of enigma code in our opening sequence develops the forms and conventions of real media products as when a character rubs another character off a black board, this is ambiguous for the audience.

Our use of camera was extremely effective in the audience’s opinion, we used a number of different shots such as close up shots that follow thriller codes and conventions, we had done this because our storyline was unique and if we used unusual shots which don’t match thrillers, and it wouldn’t attract the right type of audience. The first shot is a long shot which is of Emily running in the park, this is very effective because it ensures the audience are interested as they are curious and want to know what is taking place. Our sound follows forms and convention codes because we used typical music playing in the background which makes it scarier. We used diegetic sound as well as non-diegetic sound, for example the bang from the door when it slams in non-diegetic. In our opening sequence we made use of the different types of titles that were available, we used a specific one to ensure it matches the sequence as well as clearly stating the correct information needed.
Our sequence is influenced by many different thrillers which use similar techniques to have an effective reaction from the viewers; our opening sequence was compared to Paranormal Activity and also Sixth Sense.






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

Our thriller clearly indicates that the characters Emily and her twin Rose are both middle class, their parents are both wealthy and are grown up in the outskirts of London which therefore represents their class and social group. They are both represented to be very religious and this is shown when Emily holds a religious symbol.

In our sequence, gender of the twins is represented stereotypically. Emily’s room is decorated to show it’s a female’s room; it has a feminine style bed as well as very female type colours. This represents that the twins are represented stereotypically, from analysing other thriller films, we found that the majority of films do represent gender stereotypically, however Paranormal Activity is challenging stereotypes, this has been undertake due to the villain being a female instead of a male, the male is tortured and killed which obviously challenges stereotypes. A main stereotype in our sequence was the doctor which was played by a male, this is an obvious stereotype because the majority of doctors are males and the majority are white, comparing this to Paranormal Activity, the doctor helping the female character is also a male. Both our characters are protagonist and this shows that males don’t always have to be, this shows the doctor appearing to be dominant and in charge of the situation where as Emily (the patient) is very agitated and suffering.

Our opening sequence is based upon typical characteristics developing the forms and conventions of real media products, this is because both Emily and also Rose are typical young girls that are from a middle class background, on the other hand in some cases, our characters are atypical because Emily ends up taking Rose’s life which is very controversial and atypical as its not expected that a nine year old friendly child will end up taking Rose’s life. The fact that we included Emily killing Rose is very beneficial and also sets the climax of the sequence. In terms of the characters appearance, they are typical English females; this shows a sense of tradition as well as makes it easier to understand where the sequence is set. Sixth sense also have little children playing similar roles to ours, this shows that it is very common.

Our sequence was based upon twins that are nine years old, it would be difficult to talk about their sexuality, and I am presuming that they are straight because it’s usually common to be straight at that age. The ethnicity of the characters is English (white); we used white English characters to show London not being multi-cultural during this era. If we would have homosexual characters of that age, this sequence would be extremely controversial. Our sequence was based on the mid 90’s to show tradition and also the way of life then compared to now. The mother is a housewife and the father is usually away working. The characters are not disabled, they are both capable, and this shows the rareness of disabilities in filming. We didn’t try to represent real Londoners because the sequence was not filmed in Central London; it was filmed in the outskirts. People living in Harrow can relate to the way the characters and location have been represented.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product, and why?
From relevant research, I have gathered that our thriller is more likely to be distributed by a TV company. This is simply because the other major distributed companies in America would favour to fund American films compared to British films, our sequence was compared to Paranormal Activity, this is an American film which means it’s easier to fund because it’s almost certain that it will be successful compared to a British film, if we are funded by a British TV channel, it would mean the majority of viewers can relate to our thriller as its set in the UK.

Our thriller can be funded by Working Title, an example of a film funded by Working Title is Batman Returns, and they also funded Ali G in Da House, this shows they are for controversial story lines, this film was for British audience because others wouldn’t understand the humour. Our story line is very unique as well as controversial and this means it’s a lot harder to get it funded. If our storyline can relate to a lot of different countries, I believe it would be very easy to get it funded because it’s nearly certain it will be successful.

4) Who would be the audience for you media product?

We included a question in our questionnaire based upon our target audience profile, we decided that we would target 16-25 year olds because this is an appropriate age for our storyline, children wouldn’t be able to appreciate the controversy of the thriller and it would be too tense for them to watch. We do not have a specific gender that this would attract; I think it can attract a number of females because they can relate to the childhood of the twins.

Our British boards of film classification would be a certificate of 15 because age groups under this would find it too tense which may lead to becoming very scared. Our sequence does not include sex or strong language but it does include a very serious storyline. Paranormal Activity is also a 15 with strong language, if our thriller had strong language and also sex, it would be an 18.

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

There were a number of different elements used to appeal to our target audience, this thriller represents a primary group which shows family relationships, the twins are very close and the audience can relate to this as they once were very close to their siblings and it all suddenly changed. We attracted our particular audience by showing the agony Rose went through, a number of people can also relate to this. This was achieved with a close up shot of Emily talking about her feelings, this is an excellent way of ensuring the audience know how the characters are feeling, the from the research gathered from the audience who watched our thriller, the majority said they like the point of view and also a close up shot as they understood the story line clearly as well as relating to Emily.

Lastly we also used an extreme long shot in the park when Emily ran off from the swings with her teddy; this shows a view of the location and this also creates an unsettling image at a small child running in a park alone.

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

Using a Cannon XM2 camera can be difficult without experiencing and also practising how to use it, it’s extremely good for professional filming which means it included all the different features that are not in ordinary cameras. Using the camera outdoors was very difficult at times and we did have to re-shoot some parts of the thriller, this is an advantage because we knew where we had gone wrong and we would improve each time we would re-film. I did learn the new features when filming, one feature I wasn’t aware of was the white balance feature which balances the dull and bright colours to make the actual shot look extremely realistic. We used the portable mic at times, this was very effective for sound that needs to be emphasised such as the voice in the park, using the mic would cut out the noise from cars passing. The tripod was used to shoot in high angles, this was very beneficial for us as in the scene in the toilet, the tripod came very handy as we needed to film in awkward positions and the tripod stopped us from shaking the camera.

There were various drawbacks that took place during the filming process, one major problem was the filming in the park when the weather was terrible, it rained throughout the whole scene and this meant we had to cover the equipment with an umbrella, this meant we were not exposed to all different positions with using the camera.

Final Cut Pro was the software used to edit out filming, this was very effective and made our thriller as professional as it can get. At first we (the group) found it difficult to use the programme but after using it for two weeks were knew what to do as well as using the appropriate techniques, there were many shortcuts our teacher had taught us for this programme, for example on the keyboard. This meant we could work more effectively as well as efficiently. We used a technique which is extremely popular for thrillers called fade up, this was produced from using Final Cut Pro and this let our scenes flow.

7) Looking back you your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task was planned very fast, this helped us to become familiar with the equipment, and it was really beneficial for all four of us because we had never used a professional camera as well as the equipment. This made us more efficient while filming our real thriller. We became aware of the shots that were good and the ones that were irrelevant which we then removed. However, we became more and more familiar with the equipment while filming our real sequence because we knew it was serious which therefore meant we had to try out best. While filming, we realised some shots were taken badly, for example we tried using a close up shot which we then realised it was bent.

As soon as we were told the dates of the deadlines, we knew what to do and when it had to be completed, the schedule was made by each members input in the group, the research document was very effective as we were aware of what people were looking for in thrillers as well as what had to be done from our point of view.

In conclusion, we received excellent feedback from our audience; this means we have made a very good end product and also met our deadlines so we would complete our filming and research in time, in my opinion I believe that our final end product could be improved as when filming in the park, we were very concerned about the welfare of the equipment in the rain which restricted us to show our full knowledge of using the equipment. I have learned that we should have used an appropriate shelter for the equipment instead of an umbrella as it would have let us show the different shots we can shoot instead of limiting this due to the weather conditions.

This is a link of the trailor of The Ring. (look at the comparisions)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5CvZGv8yNs

This is our video posted on YouTube.com

Rahul's Media evaluation

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

Our media product deviates from a conventional thriller because instead of having a beginning of a story being shot, we start the opening sequence at the end. This usually goes against a typical thriller film as they tend to start from a beginning of a film, and run the action in chronological order e.g. beginning, middle and end. The reason we did this type of opening is because it’s something different for the viewers as they are use to most films out in the market following a typical convention. Our use of camera, sound, editing, and mise-en-scene do follow thriller codes and conventions. The background music is a deep, eerie, and sound similar to music we used that you’ll usually find in thrillers such as Alien, Orphan etc. This creates tension or anticipation because of the slow pace builds up of the sound. The use of the camera follows typical codes such as close up and mid shots. This is because close up shots show emotion of the characters. Point of view shots were used to align the audience with the character in the hospital scene to make the viewers see the environment/ setting properly i.e Doctor Ray using the needle to inject a drug into Emily. High and low angles were used to show who has more authority or more power in certain scenes e.g. villain is in a lower angle to show power while victim is in high angle to show vulnerability. Thrillers tend to do this as it is easier for them to show who’s in command. Films that tend to use these can be Saw and Alien. Our editing title and credits definitely follows typical thriller codes. In our opening sequence we use a cracked, bold font for credits with the use of flashes and shakes within the writing added to the scary feel of the movie.

2.) How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

Our media product doesn’t represent typical or particular social groups other than a girl’s bedroom. There’s one shot in our video where the girl is seen in her bedroom with a chalk board. The use of a chalk board shows that it’s a kid’s room and as it is a little girl, the room is pink with teddy bears on the bed. This depicts the stereotype of girl’s favourite colour as pink and having fluffy toys in their room. The gender representations in our opening sequence are mixed between typical and non typical. When we see doctors or thinks of doctors in our head, we instantly think of mature males. And that was one of the reasons we picked a male to represent the doctor. However in our two minutes, we have two female protagonist characters. We did this because in most thriller films, the main character or characters are mostly male. But we decided to go against this and have two main female characters to star in our film and this is one way we challenged gender stereotypes. But one thing we followed was that, one female was scared and vulnerable, this was shown in the mental hospital, when the doctor was injecting the woman, and holding the girl down in the bed. It shows that males are stronger physically and females are weaker physically.

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

The media institution that’ll be interested in our product will be the British film industry. The reason is because if we allow a British company to distribute it, it will be to the whole nation. This will be good for us and the BFF, because there will be a film that’s British that is been screened to a wide range of audiences. However If we have channel 4 or working title, both of whom are British companies who distribute the product may not have enough funding to advertise and this is where I personally think Hollywood plays a part. With a company like fox searchlight who are a subsidiary of 20th century fox, you are guaranteed to have enough advertising to attract the potential viewers. 20th century fox is owned by Rupert Murdock and he owns News Co-op, and they own the sun & daily mail newspapers in the U.K, fox news, to name a few of them and also own Vue so there’s enough money to advertise our movie. Fox searchlight is known for investing in movies that may not be successful at an international level but it may be successful if enough viewers like it, an example of this is Slumdog Millionaire, it was a risk to take for fox searchlight and as it isn’t 20th century fox it wouldn’t damage their name and that’s why it was distributed by fox searchlight for the risk factor it included back then. The reason I think a distributor like Fox Searchlight would be interested is because it includes the Hollywood thrill like in other movies such as Orphan, alien, but it’s also British at the same time and attracts both film industries.

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

Our target audience profile was selected by our questionnaires and research on who watches films in the cinemas the most. And from that we gathered that the age group we intend to target are 16-25 year olds. The reason for this choice is because if you’re selling a film you would want to target people who are interested in your film and who go out to watch it and for that the age group was 16-25 year olds. We don’t have a specific gender we wanted to target because thriller and horror thrillers are watched by both sexes. Furthermore our target audience revealed what and why they prefer certain thriller films. Some of their suggestions were because of the special effects, the ongoing excitement that wanted them to watch more, like fright, fear, thinking, action or gore. Features like the ones I just mentioned were what people enjoyed seeing in a film and why they liked certain films such as, Alien and Orphan. A film such as final destination is similar to ours. The reason for this is because there are mind games being played from the past; there are also gore and dark scary shots that look similar to Alien. That’s the reason why we choose a similar path and use some of the features these professional films use because of their use of camera angles, the setting and mood of the scene and also their use of a story line. Our target audience would be interested in our film because of the forms and conventions we follow. Even though we don’t have any male protagonists we still follow similar shots, lighting, sound and similar sense of freight experienced in other films. Features like these usually excite and draw attention to the audience which inevitably makes them want to watch the film.

Link to alien trailer to show mood/tone of film and lighting if the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eIpvZsEky4

5.) How did you attract/address your particular audience?

The way we addressed our particular audience was by having certain tones in our shots, and soundtrack. This is because in order to set the mood, we have to use different lighting techniques, shots and sound in order to make the overall shot of the film more suited to what the audience expect from the film. Our film is a horror thriller genre, and in order to attract the audience we had to follow the code and conventions of the thriller, which are dark, gloomy shots, slow paced scenes or quick takes, POV shots or creepy soundtrack like in Orphan. And as the target audience was between 16-24 year olds they would like to see gore, a bit of freight or creepiness in the videos otherwise it wouldn’t meet their expectations of a horror thriller.

Link to Orphan soundtrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShhfPO9A804

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

Some of the things I learnt, from the gadgets and software we used in order to construct a film was how to use the camera. The video camera (cannon xm2) we used was a professional video camera. Some of the functions it had which I didn’t know about before were the white balance feature. This feature balances the rich and dull colours to make the actual shot more realistic. Another thing the camera had was an in built mic, which at first I didn’t think was strong enough to capture voice, but it was and it saved us time and hassle, because we didn’t use an external mic, which made our recording process more fluent and could get the job done and keep to our filming schedule. One mistake we were told about was the auto focus. We were told not to use this because it only focuses on things that the camera picks out to be centre of attention. For example, if we had a shot of a person but in the background a large car drives past, the camera will focus automatically on the car and the shot would be ruined as it is not fluent in its focus.

We were also given a tripod. The use of the tripod helps us to get high angle shots; it also makes it easier to pan from left to right, vice versa. The reason why it is good to use a tripod is because there isn’t any shake with the shots, which makes the final video much smoother and looks more pleasing to the eye.

Some problems we had when shooting was the weather. It rained on one of the days we chose to film, but we overcame this problem by using an umbrella. This stopped the rain from covering the film lenses which then allow perfect clean shots to be taken in the place we chose to shoot, which was a local park. The only thing we had to be concerned with is the umbrella. We had to make sure it didn’t come into the shot otherwise this would ruin our shots and make it look very amateur.

Ways in which the college equipment enhances our ideas were the editing software they provided. This was by a programme called ‘final cut pro’, and ‘after effects’. This adds another dimension to the final product as we can distinguish our film from others by using few effects in the right scenes.

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

We planned every stage of our final media product by hand, and by doing research. 1st we were given a project schedule with dates to help us keep to the deadline for certain pieces of work. We made a story board to help us design how we want to film our final product. Questionnaires and interviews helped us to see what things attracted the audience to certain movies, and we tried to incorporate those ideas into our own movie so we knew what things people enjoyed watching when seeing a horror thriller movie or thrillers in general.

In our preliminary task we learnt how to become familiar with the basic techniques on how to use the camera, editing software and how to handle the tripod. The things we learnt about the editing software were how to use the shortcuts. This saved us time as there was a tool bar and the keyboard clearly laid out all the shortcuts for us. Another thing was how to cut and blend two shots together by dissolves and wipes. We were helped on how to avoid bad final shots, such as the 180 degree rule, and having the same continuity editing from one shot to another. We were also told it is good to have every possible angle of every shot, this way we could play around with the shots and see what suited us best.

To conclude our final product, I think we have done well. The reason being is that you can see a steep contrast between our preliminary exercise to our final product. We have included more fades that make transitions from one shot to another more professional. We thought we may have missed the final deadline for our video because when we were editing we found minor problems in some of our shots that couldn’t be put in the finished product. However we overcame this problem because we filmed many different angles of the same shots and this helped the final video to be complete. Even though the video may not be of a typical Hollywood quality standard we can be happy with what we’ve done because it makes sense as an opening sequence and we have used the information from our research and audiences preferences and used it for our final idea and this all flows well, from the low and high angles, to the point of view shots to establishing shots.

This is our opening sequence on YouTube.com

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

Our task was to write, film, edit and produce a two minute opening scene to a thriller. We choose to carry out research to find out what people wanted to see and what the traditional conventions of a thriller were. An opening sequence must set the audience up ready for the rest of the film, if the beginning doesn’t appeal to our target audience then we may lose a lot of your target audience we are aiming to meet. Our opening sequence sticks to many of the conventions and I believe that it achieves the aims an opening is meant to do. The story is built around a girl who lost her twin when she was younger. Our aim was to make the two minutes leave the audiences questioning what was happening and I believe this helps to create suspense and a certain enigma.

I don’t think our film pushes or challenges the conventions of the thriller film, although when we started researching I did want to experiment with the types of story lines we could have used within our chosen sub genre. This is because conventions set by the media industry and are developed over a number of years because they work for that specific genre. We decided to follow the conventions that have already been set to make our film as successful as other films in the same genre when it comes to the advertising campaign. As we have stuck closely and followed conventions, our film does allow the sub genre (thriller-horror) to be portrayed and I think the audience understood the film as we got a lot of positive feedback.

For example, the narration I feel adds to the horror effect and helps to build the character around her story and emotions and also is an important part of the story to help the audience understand what is happening.

Our format and style of presentation again is conforming to preset conventions of thriller/horror films. All the locations are realistic and we are proud of the final piece we made and feel we have created a true thriller/horror film. For example, we tried to make the music fit as gently over the film as we could, this way the music plays smoothly over the sequence making it seem more realistic and the music does not sound artificial.

We had all our characters wear clothing and have the correct props that would be stereotypically used to represent that social group, for example, the young girl with a teddy and the doctor in a white lab coat and clipboard.

I believe our film has been greatly influenced by ‘paranormal activity’, I remember watching the film and using it to help build and add to my own ideas of how I wanted our film to be advertised and produced.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main aim in the film was to portray the girl in the sequence as the same person the audience see in her memory. We had to overcome some hurdles to allow the storyline to come across correctly to our target audience. The younger girl represents the main protagonist as her younger self. It represents the stages in the girls’ life and how she dealt with the loss of her twin sister. So as Emily is put to sleep by the doctor she remembers her life when she was younger. The young girl is represented very stereotypical for her age, she has the pink bedroom and story tail bed. Also the use of a white dress on the girl follows the stereotypes. We used a traditional stereotype of a doctor- older man, very respectable and I think this portrays a very realistic doctor of middle class background.

We decided to follow the codes of a thriller film and this meant we did not get much of a chance to highlight much differentiation between social groups. We tried to portray the younger girl to be living in a very traditional house, with a pink room with ribbons on her bed and pink curtains to show her lifestyle and how she is just a normal girl that has had a hard life growing up without her twin sister. We wanted the audience to realise that she was once a happy child and in many people’s opinions ‘perfect’ until she lost her sister. We were restricted from portraying ethnicity and sexuality as we had a small budget and we were the only actors that we could use.
We used some ideas from the film ‘the ring’ such as using a girl with her hair down over her face which we then transferred to our film.

Link is a photo of the girl from ‘the ring’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/thering-girl.jpg

We tried to use the best locations possible, we wrote to the doctor’s surgery to book a time slot in the medical room so we could film our opening shots with the girl being put to sleep by the doctor. Our representation of men was very powerful in this scene; the male doctor had control over the venerable girl. When she is put to sleep she sees flashes of her life and it shows the audience how alone she is. Our other location is the park, a place that Emily (our main character) had spent many happy memories with her sister Rose, before Rose died. We used the young girl the sitting on a swing alone in the rain as this added to the feeling of her being all alone in the big world. We also filmed some of the shots in a young childs bedroom, this was Emily’s room that she used to share with Rose, she has had to grown up alone in this room thinking of her sister allot which is the image we tried to portray.

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

The film is definitely more plot based, with the film resting on its emotion and build of character rather than big action scenes, or scenes with big explosions. And the audience may very well be required to think and focus on the characters to flow the story line.
We have not created a Hollywood style film for a worldwide audience due to the budget and small scale of production we have worked with. However I feel our ambition and creativity would have been high enough to meet the standards of the some films with millions of pounds of funding. Our story line may not attract the Hollywood style investment as it is not a family movie, and does not have the typical ‘happy ending’ but I believe it would work well with the television viewing and we could reach a wide audience with channel4.
We feel that as an independent film company, we will be funded through either private investment or the British film industry. I think the BFI and Channel4 have helped fund some very successful films including the British made film ‘Slumdog millionaire’ and ‘kick ass’ which have all tried to target wide audiences.

4) who would be the audience for your media product?

Choosing who our target audience has been interesting as we decided to get feedback on who would want to see it through a questionnaire. We wanted to make the target audience as wide as possible and so we sampled a range of people (different ages and an equal number of females and males). We found that people between 15-19 were most interested by the plot and enjoyed thriller films. Because of the target audience that the film appealed to we decided to rate the film a 15, even though many of the films in this genre are rated 18.

I believe that we made the correct choice with giving the film a 15 rating because there is no link to violence, alcohol/drugs, or sexual behaviour in our film. Our film is based on the build up of the character and her life, she tells the story through her experiences and we believe this is suitable for 15+. We also feel that we appeal to the 15+ age as the main girl is 16. So appealing to girls over 15 will be a lot easier as they can relate to the character.
5) How did you attract/address your particular audience?

We have encouraged identification with the main character through the narrative dialogue over the sequence. This way the audience can understand how she feels. We learnt the she doesn’t want to be in the doctor’s surgery and so the audience do not want her there either, so they take her side and want her to be ok.

we included flash backs in our film, I think they help explain her life, and create tension in our opening sequence. This way the audience can start to understand her character better and create a an interest in the main protagonist (Emily). The flashbacks of her life are shown while she is being drugged in the hospital, I think the way we have filmed these flashbacks for our sequence has followed the conventions of a thrill and so this will help our film to attract an audience already interested in thriller/horror films.

They question themselves about how they would feel if they were in the characters situation, this is what we wanted so the audience can identify with her. We aimed to create this audience positioning to make more of the characters emotions and feelings show though in the film. We believe this will help to make a successful product and I think it follows the codes of thrillers even though it is not a common technique in thrillers as it creates tensions and suspense which are very important in thrillers.

In the interviews and questionnaires we found that people wanted a realistic plot and very realistic acting making it as real life as possible. We used ‘Hollyoaks’ the teen soap opera to help us portray the character well. Last year one of their story lines dealt with a young boy suffering from schizophrenia.

-“Newt was unaware of his schizophrenia, until Lauren watched a video of Newt vandalising a wall, which he told her was Eli. Newt was taken to hospital and diagnosed with the mental illness. Eli was revealed to be a hallucination”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_%22Newt%22_Newton
date: 12.04.2010)

Our film is also built around the girl who believes she can still see her sister and so we were able to get some interesting information from the way Hollyoaks represented newt.

We made questionnaire to help get help on choosing certain parts and adjusting our ideas to help it meet the target audience. The feedback we got from people shows 95% of people are interested in the film and would watch it if it came out in the real cinema.

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

When shooting our first shots, we made more of an effort to visit the set before, think about the types of angles we needed and we practiced filming some rehearsal shots in the park. This way we knew what looked good and if it would suit our film.

The cannon XM2 was very easy to use, very flexible and we were able to film 99% of the shots we wanted, it was easy to set up and it was small and light which ment we could try a variety of different angles and types of shots in small rooms.

However we did have some problems with the tripod and how it held the camera. We struggled to get the best angles with the camera on the tripod, and so we resorted in some shots to be filmed with myself holding the camera steady in position.

This meant we had to discard some of the piece we filmed. Altogether I am pleased with all the shots we collected and we managed to create a good two minute piece in my opinion I think we could have produced a better film if we had more time to film and get a wider variety of locations.

After research into some of the best films ever released it was hard to keep our ideas realistic. We had such high ambitions and if we had the proper production company, the time, the money and the contacts we feel our ideas could have been more developed and we would have produced a higher quality of film. For example we wanted to film fire covering the little girl in her bedroom, however we had to think realistically and decided candles in a circle around her is the closest we will get. We tried our hardest to be creative in all of the shots. We wanted to use two girls swimming together on the swings and for one to disappear. After we filmed this scene we realised that the effects we needed were not available to us we had to rethink how we could show the same thing but without this effect.

We used a programme called ‘final cut pro’ to edit our film, I found it very helpful when it came to adding in and cutting away parts of the film. We were able to get through most of the editing smoothly, having only small amounts of help. We did have some problems in making the flash backs look professional, but after a few tips we decided black and white flash backs would work well to help the audience see they are not in the same time as the main sequence. We used ‘after effects’ to add text over our film, and to add the production name. We found that this gave us a wider variety of effects to use and was very simple to import into ‘final cut pro’. We were also able to edit in sounds such as rain and music which helped to add a realistic feel to the film and I thought this made it look and sounds very professional. I was most pleased with the narration that we were able to add over the top, this was not part of our initial idea but as a group decided it would really make the charater come alive.

7) Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We learnt a lot from our preliminary activity, when we first shot the sequence we had some continuity problems and the edits didn’t match up so we decided to shot the scene again. Once we re-shot we were pleased with the footage we had saved. Once the five minutes of film had been edited down to one minute thirty seconds we were pleased with our final piece and the music we used to help add emotion and feeling to the scene. We learnt a lot, filming the different shots which helped us allot when we start filming the final production.
I definitely feel that we used a greater variety of shots in the final piece as compared to the preliminary exercise. I feel every time we were given the camera we got better at turning our ideas into reality on film and making the time we had most efficient with capturing all the shots and angles we needed.

To conclude, I feel we made a good two minute opening scene. If I was given the chance to do our piece again I think I would have created better characters through the acting which would have helped us to relate the film to our target audience better. I would have made the story line more dramatic and brought it to life more. The improvement our group made from the preliminary exercise to the final piece was so big and I was impressed with how well we filmed and how all our ideas came together, I feel that if we were given another chance we could make even more improvement and make our project to a higher standard and could even meet a wider audience. I am now confident with the skills we have learnt in both production and post-production of our project.

Francesca Boote

Emily's Evaluation

Emily's Evaluation

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

My media product follows the a conventional thriller in respects to the story line, the story line of my media product is very complicated, and follows mystrical twist through at the story, My media production doesn’t not follow the conventional narrative content of a thriller, as the narrative content is a story of Emily Rose’s life, it also consists of flash backs, and the film isn’t very consistent, because of the flash backs and non consistent scenes and images making the format of the product non conventional. With out Media product, the style of presentation is very different, as we used a series of flash backs and black and white effects, we got out inspiration from the thriller movie “Seven”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY

This is a link to the opening squence of Seven to show what we intentionally wanted our opening scene to look like with the jiggy writting and flashes.
This inspired us to use a jiggy/jolty font/edit on our text, as well as the flashes and flash backs, we thought this would have a great effect on the movie, so this follows the conventions of the style of presentation.

http://128.163.114.11/StudentCenter/images/posters/se7en.jpgn.jpg

We used typical characters for the production, two twin girls, bwe decided this because twins are emotionall attached to each other and create a bond, which would mean they would have more of a emotional effect on the audience, as well as following conventions of most thrillers using little girls such as “The ring”

http://www.impawards.com/2005/posters/ring_two_ver2.jpg

We used an orchestral music track to go with the movie, climaxing over the tension builinding scenes, to create the atmosphereic tension that a thriller movie creates. We created mise-en-scene’s in the park, hospital and bedroom, we chose these because parks and bedrooms are key elements in childrens lifes, and these are were most memories are generated. When we decided on the idea for the production, we decided that having an old fashion theme had much more of a thriller element so we have tried going for old fashion clothing such as white dresses, and tradional teddy bear pajamas. The only sound included in our production was screams coming from the main character, as we wanted the scenes to tell the story, instead of the dialog, as well of having the element that the production is a story we have a voice over of Emily explaining what is happening or what has happened throughout her life.

Our use of all these codes, suggests that we have been influenced by codes and conventions in our work to hit out target audience and their needs, it is important to follow the codes to ensure that the production is understood by the target market.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media production we don’t have very many social groups, only Emily, who represents a very twisted little girl who has lost her sister, she is white and middle class, also the doctor is very working class with his accent being very common, and mono tonned.

The man is very dominant in the film when he is a doctor, he has the most power, as he his powerful over Emily controlling her and forcing her to sleep, he also is a Doctor which would generally say he is the main income of his house hold, and in one scene he calls for a “sister” which is a nurse, which shows that the nurse is female, showing she is under the doctor, showing that he has higher status over her.

As we stuck to conventions we could not use an access of actors, and we had to use what was available, so ages, ethnicity and sexuality aren’t reersented well in a production, we also could not expremiment with different soical classes, physical ability/disability or regional identity, how ever status is shown by the doctor and the nurse, where the doctors preffesion is higher then the nurse’s.

We also used a special prop that would show that both the Emiy's were the same person. Emily would always wear this necklace because to show who she was. As the necklace was a cross it contrasted what was happening in her life.

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

I think our media production would be an independent movie or even arthouse film company production, which means it would be very low budget, as there are no high tech effects or CGI taking place, just actors and a story line, which would mean that the production would belucky to make cinemas, and would only be a dvd realise as well as internet. The production would be funded by BFL and ourseleves with small budgeting and adverstment with low costs.

Our production would probably be distruibuted by the internet this would be because it would get to the target audience as nearly all of that target market use the internet, its easy, cheap and quick.

The selling point of our production would be the atmospheric effect that the movie goes off as well as the supernatural twist in the story, this would provide the company with a unique selling point as not many production have these twists in the story lines, distributors would take an interest in production because with a unique idea you can

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience is males and femals ranged between 15-19, we decided on this because of the resreach we constructed on BBFC guidlines, we used paranormal activity to help base our production with a acceptable certifacte and target audience, because paranormal activity was a 15 we decided that, that was an acceptable certifacte, because there was no sexual content, gore or violence within our content, but a fair amount of horror.
When we did our target audience research we found that most of the answered questionnaires showed that many people like supernatural thrillers with a twist to the story, most of the candidates did like thrillers with violence and gangsters, but our research shows that many females like the idea of a supernatural twist.

BBFC classifications helped us chose a 15 rated certifacted due to the lack of sexual content, gore and violence, we choose 15 because of the amount of horror content within our production.

Professional productions that are similar to ours would be, the Blair which project and paranormal activity , with the supernatural twist to the story line, these movied appealed to use because they were unique, and also very tension building, capturing a good audience, marketing was also a good strong point to these movies, with the suppense building atmosphere to the movies, interesting audiences and attracting them in.

Audience’s attracted to these types of movies would be interested in our movie production because of the horror/thriller content within the production is very similar to that of both of Blair which project and paranormal activity.

How did you attract/address your particular audience?

We included flash backs which added to the atmospheric effects of thrillers to gain the audience interest in the movie, also tension building over voice, also letting the audience in on information about the story, which also interests audience’s. Building up a connection with the audience and the main character (Emily Rose) cause the audience to want to know what is going to happen to Emily rose, because they would have that emotional bond with the character from the first scene of her being drugged.

As we were unable to get a contrasting range of social groupings due to our type of the thriller, we don’t have a representation of social groupings.

Our production particularly put themselves in the place of Emily, they sympathise with the fact that she has lost her twin sister, and she is now being drugged, with a twisted childhood, the audience are witnessing, her flashbacks and distorted memories, as well as her being held down by doctors, this causes the audience to sympathise with the Emily.

The attractions of our productions, would be the interesting flash back we have used and the way we have cleverly used them to fit in with her being drugged asleep, the attraction is in the editing and camera flashes that we have used to have the effect of a flashback.

This links back to the forms and conventions of a thriller movie because we have used the character to cause a bond with the audience, creating a tension building atmosphere; we have used a developed story line, which has a supernatural element.

We sent around questionnaires to get audience feedback on our movie, this would help us analysis the movie and seek improvements, our audience feedback suggested that the audience enjoyed the production, as they felt drawn into the movie as well spooked out, our feedback showed that the audience would watch the movie if it was a release.

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

. When using the collage equipment it was able to enhance our idea’s because when we got to our locations we shot some different screens that were not in the script just to play around with idea’s as well camera angles making more of an effect on the scene.

When using the Cannon XM2 we were able to master the controls easily which made setting up very easy and assemble, we didn’t use many use’s of lenses, only zoom in and a pull focus which we didn’t end up using for our production, we found this task very difficult, and had to repeat it a few times before we got it right, even then we didn’t like the quality of the shot, we didn’t use any hand held shots apart from one, which didn’t turn out right, and we found it hard to conduct, we however used the tripod on many occasions, which made our shots more stable, all though it was hard to work the tripod, set it up right to get the right levels.

When shooting our productions, we sometimes found getting into some angles quiet difficult, and on most occasions the shot didn’t turn out right, when we were shooting the park scene’s it began to rain very hard, which then meant we had to film with an umbrella over the camera in order to keep it dry, this lead to the umbrella being in the shots and we’d have to re-take, the rain also led to the actors getting cold and wet.

When it came to editing we believed we were doing well with using pro cut, we then began to face difficulties with getting flashes into the scene as we had to use two different programmes to make this happen, as well as the effect on the titles.

We mastered editing very well asking for only very little help, we were able to be taught what to do quickly and then repeat it afterwards, which made editing allot easier and a faster process.

While editing we didn’t use any stills or pictures for the production, we did use a few sound transitions and they were just a fade, which helped with the rain soundtrack at the beginning, we found the jiggy text animation effect useful for a text to add that creepy effect to the writing.

We used music, sound and over voice throughout our production, and we had no problem conducting this, we used a sound booth and microphone to re-cord the over voice, and we found and orchestral tension building climaxing music.



Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When we were conducting our preliminary we had two goes of it because the first time we conducted the preliminary, we didn’t get the camera angle right so we were unable to edit, so we had to redo the filming with right camera angles and shots which would fit together nicely for editing, we learnt how to cross cut between conversations, and how to get the editing flowing.

When it came to making our media production we used establishing shots, which we didn’t included in our preliminary, however using close up’s, mid shots, wide shots and point of view shots in our preliminary help us allot because we were able to learn how to do these shots in the preliminary and improve the shots in our final production. In our production, we struggled to use panning well, this may because we didn’t practice this during our preliminary exercise, and therefore we could not improve. During the preliminary, we were taught how to frame a shot, we then went on to put this skill into our final production.

We didn’t concentrate so much on sound in our final production, but using the preliminary exercise, we used non-diegetic sound with dialogue using the microphone attached to the Cannon MX2, we didn’t use much non-diegetic dialogue for our production, just a few screams and shouts. However we did use a sound track, music and ambient sound, such as a door slamming, we recording the door slamming ourselves, we also used a rain track to add to the rain in the first scene.

When it came to editing our first preliminary we realised the shots were wrong, but when we’re did, the editing went smoothly, when editing our production we included transitions such as fades, we did this to give a flash effect between the images, as she had flash backs, we also used a sound transition to fade out the rain.
I now feel very confident with the post production and production because I feel we have done are best at editing to get it to appeal to our target market, we work well as a production team to meet the deadlines of the coursework as well as getting it to appeal to the target market while enjoying ourselves, we worked as professionally as we could working in the rain and cold conditions to getting the written and editing work done.
I feel very confident in saying that I believe our end product is very successful because we met the needs of the target market as well as creating a capturing piece of film, that it not only interesting but entertaining. Our final product compares to professional films such as, “Seven”, “Blair witch project”

http://www.bereitsgesehen.de/specials/bwp.jpg

“Paranormal activity”

http://www.youtuberobot.com/products/images/2009/10/paranormal_activity_1-wf2.jpgso

I believe our product will be very successful regarding to the success of the professional movies.