Media film opening Evaluation

Question 2,3,4,5,6 and 7

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

Our film represents men as powerful ones compared to the shy lonely school girl. This is a typical convention of a thriller film. In society women are seen as weak compared to men so we decided to stick with this role as it betrayed weakness and gave suspense to the audience. You can see by the girls facial expressions that she is less powerful than the men in the white lab coats and their overall posture. They stand tall and the camera angles convey this were as the girl has to look up at them which represents being powerless. Usually in society men are seen as the more dominant gender, however the women is the main character therefore is going against the typical dominance of a man. Our film follows the conventions of representing particular social groups as it represents men in their mid 20’s as being successful as the men work in the science lab. This represents men as being successful because they have a good successful job that implies their are experienced. We represented women in their teen years as being the typical teenager with her phone and a splash of makeup. This represent a typical girly social group who looks like they wouldn't have a clue what to do in the situation about to happen as the girl is clueless and unaware of what is happening until its to late.

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

We would get 20th Century Fox to distribute our film because they have distributed many other thriller films that fit the same description as ours. For example 20th Century Fox has distributed Taken, Unstoppable and Memento. I believe these types of films are

similar to ours for example taken involves a girl being taken. In comparison to our opening a girl is also snatched my two men in white lab coats. We would let shops such

as HMV and Blockbuster distribute our film as they are very successful in the retail market and they are very popular with our target audience (15-25). To reach our target

audience further we would use synergy to distribute our film on Blue – Ray DVD and normal DVD’s because they are on different formats. To reach our target audience

further we would use web 2.0 and distribute our film online as many people now use the internet to buy their films and is popular with our target audience. We would use

websites such as Amazon and Play.com and have again used synergy.

Question 4:Who would be your audience for your media product?

Our target audience for our film is 15+ year olds as you see gory science resources such as a dead duck in a jar and a dead rabbits body which can be quite disturbing. Throughout the film you also see a person undergoing a experiment which is intriguing and I believe it would confuse a child below the age of 15. However, because it is for 15 year olds we are losing out on profit as 12-14 year olds will not be able to see the film and this is a potential loss for us as film makers. However, if we did lower the age we would get complaints off of concerned parents so it could be worth the loss. The characters in our film are easy to relate to with the older audience. The older audience could feel sympathy for the younger girl as they understand what emotions she is going through. However, a younger audience would be scared by the way the men in the white coats when they grab the girl. They may also be scared of the unknown as the men in white coats faces are not revealed. The themes that are included in our film are aimed at a more mature audience. The themes that are included are adultery, blackmail and a murder scène within the film. This not only would have been too graphic with the murder but it would be hard for the younger audience to understand such complex issues.

QUESTION 5: HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

We made sure that with every draft of the film we made, we got feedback on what we had done by our teachers. This proved helpful as it meant we could create a film that best suited our target audience. For example in our first audience feedback it was mentioned that our Establishing shot was too long and that it was a bit messy,

this meant that we could fix it to make the film a better quality and suit our audience’s needs. We received a lot of feedback some good and some not so good during a peer assess activity. We made sure that we asked the audience on what

they thought about the plot, first reactions, strong and weak points of the film and what else they would add to make it better. We took on their feedback and are making adjustments to our film to please our specific target audience. given the

task to create a thriller film we knew that we would have to work on certain conventions that all thriller films use such as quick cuts, cliff-hangers, suspense etc. By focusing on these conventions we were able to attract our audience because it

would appeal to them. The reason that Hollywood thrillers are so popular is because they follow typical conventions and make sure the audience get what they want. But when they break some of these conventions I believe they become even

popular.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing

this product? To create our final film we used Final Cut pro which proved stressful. This is because we have

never used a programme like this before. It was a lot to learn in a small time period but I believe I was an expert at using it by the end of the task. Most of the time the programme was temperamental creating problems such as freezing when trying to save, not rendering etc… The main things we learned was how to cut clips and add non diegetic sounds. Cutting clips was very important as we used a lot of quick cutting in our thriller film which is conventional. While creating our blog we learnt how to embed clips, embed images, upload videos and add hyperlinks to other websites. This was information that we previously didn’t know but now we can do with ease. We also used YouTube to showcase our preliminary tasks, first drafts, finding songs and movie clips etc… This was a huge help to us as when other technologies failed to work this was always a backup for us. It was also a rich source of information for us when having to research into thriller films. Our blog that we created and our audience research film that we put onto YouTube. Other technologies we used were scanners, cameras and microphones. The scanner helped us when we uploaded our storyboards, audience feedback and other pieces of work that needed to be on the blog. The cameras were important to us to as it’s what we’d used to create our film with. The cameras were easy to use. Even though we didn’t use a microphone we tried it out and found it hard to use as you’d pick up small noises that would ruin a shot. Overall, these technologies helped us learn a lot of information about how the media industry uses different media platforms to create the finished product.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full

product? Since our preliminary tasks we have both learnt how to effectively use transitions and that certain

transitions convey a different meaning to the audience. If you look closely you can still see the main actresses face close up. We felt that it made the audience feel uncomfortable as you can still

see she is panicking and that she is locked within the science lab. My choice of setting in my preliminary task was not as good as what I would have liked it to be. So, in our final film I made

sure that the setting looked better and at the end I was happier with how the setting looked. We have both learnt that during our preliminary tasks we used messy over the shoulder shots. So,

when making our final thriller we made sure that if we were going to do this shot, we were going to make sure it was not messy and looked excellent. From our preliminary task to our final

product, we learnt that to include something in your film, it needed meaning. In our preliminary task some things were used just because we could use them, however, we didn’t do this in our

final task we actually planned each shot to prevent confusion with the audience. We both learnt from our preliminary tasks that when you saw something through the camera, it was going to be

darker when you saw the same clip on the computer. So, when making our final film we made sure that the lighting was brighter than what we needed it to be so that it would be the right light for the final product. Lastly From our preliminary tasks to our final product we have learnt about the

mise en scene of our films and how important it is.

Prelim setting