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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 v
iewers 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 col
our 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 ab
out 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.
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 v
iewers 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 col
our 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 ab
out 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
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