My Evaluation

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

In this evaluation I will answer a variety of questions about mine and my teams (Woodland Productions) final media product called ‘Left Behind’. I will look at what I feel I have learnt throughout the process of producing our media feature, including technical skills.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

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

I have learnt a range of things from the process of constructing our full product from our preliminary task. Each section of the construction taught me something different.

Research and Planning sectionIn the research and planning section of the our media project we had to research a variety of films which could influence ideas in our own media product. We also had to research the 4 audience theories which are The Hypodermic Needle Model, Two – Step Flow, Uses and Gratifications and Reception Theory. These helped me to see how an audience receives, reads and responds to a media product. After researching a variety of films and techniques used in them we had to plan our own media product, we done this by planning out a story board. Even though I feel that I have learnt how to plan out ideas, I still feel I could improve on this because we ended up having to change our story board completely, I have to learn to think about things that we can do not what I want to e.g. putting titles on the road signs (which we had planned to do). Also by researching and learning about the BBFC rating helped me and my group when we had to give our media product a rating.

Constructing sectionIn our construction section we had to learn about the cameras and its features, this was quite easy however I still learnt how to use it and film our media product with it. In the preliminary task we didn’t have long to explore the cameras so having time to look at what it did and how we could use it was useful. I also learnt that technology has its limitations because when we were filming one of scenes it was a windy day and the camera was moving around on the tripod which didn’t make it a steady shot so we couldn’t use it. We also had to be very organized and good at time keeping because we had to follow filming schedules as we only had a certain time to film.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

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

Editing SectionI learnt a lot in the editing section, in the preliminary task we got to look around the editing software – which is Adobe Premier Pro – and I learnt a few bits however in the full product we were able to explore it more and see what editing styles were best for our media product. I learnt about the video transitions and video effects (e.g. dip to black, brightness and contrast).

I also learnt about the limitations of technology, when we came to looking at our shots on the computer we noticed that some of the shots that we had taken had some wind and car noise in the shot, and we couldn’t take it out so we weren’t able to use the shot in our media product.

Feedback sectionIn your feedback section I learnt how much this section can help with the finally media product, it was really interesting to see how our audience read and reacted to our product and it really helped us with producing our final media product. By making sure we do this market research/ feedback we can make sure that our media product is what our target audience want to see.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

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

Our media film uses a lot of similar features as films such as ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘The Blair Witch Project’ like the hand held camera shots and the cast we have used within our film.

Cloverfield

Our media project – Left Behind

The Blair Witch Project

Our media project – Left Behind

Pathé is a distribution company – run by the Pathé Brothers - which

distributed The Blair Witch Project; they have also distributed other films

similar to ours such as In The Cut, so I feel that they would be interested in

distributing our film. Pathé is a medium sized company, it is known by the majority of the public, this is why it

would be beneficial to us if we were able to get them to distribute our media

product. I feel that they would be interested in distributing our film because the thriller genre is very

popular amongst younger ages and they are an audience they aim

towards.Same with Paramount Pictures – owned by Brad Grey - who distributed ‘Cloverfield’ and they have also distributed other thrillers such as Paranormal Activity, considering this I feel that Pathé and Paramount Pictures would be interested in distributing our media product. Paramount Pictures is a large company

who distribute a variety of films with a range of genres. It would be good if we could get Paramount Pictures because it is a big well known company and is known by a range of potential viewers.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I feel that teenagers will make up most of our audience.I think that this is because people usually like to view films with characters which are in their own

age range or have similar characteristics to them, they are more likely to be focused to a feature if the characters are similar to themselves, enabling them to relate to them.

An image of the age ranges we think would be drawn to our media product. The reason we believe this is because when we were

collecting our market research, this age range 16 – 20 seemed to be more interested in watching the film.

However, The Blair Witch Project – a film that is similar to ours – managed to gain a worldwide audience of all age ranges. If we could create this appeal through our own

film then maybe it will find a greater audience of a range of ages. However usually 15 – 25 year olds are the

audience for thriller films.

We decided that our film was a rating 15, meaning our audience will defiantly be above, around 15 - 25 however I

feel that people above 25 may also enjoy this film.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Gender:Both Males and Females.Our media product has both female and male characters, so both genders could relate to the film.

Education: College and Sixth Form students. Our media product has characters who attend college/ sixth form students. They are also the age of people that would so viewers could again relate to the cast.

Age: People aged between 16 – 25 years.

Whilst researching

thrillers for our research and

planning section, we

found that people that

usually watch thrillers are aged from

around 15 – 25.

There are many elements that our target audience will have, certain characteristics in which we group them in, these include age, education and gender.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We have attracted the audience towards our media product by making sure we used suitable, attracting music to the film We done a variety of research into types of music and chosen carefully the music that we

felt created a tense atmosphere, by doing this it should attract our audience into watching our media product. Also when researching thrillers and collecting our market research we looked at audience expectations,

which are things like keeping the audience guessing what is going to happen next and understanding the product.

In our previous rough cut, we felt that because there was so much footage and so many images for an audience to watch, the atmosphere that we wanted to create wasn’t created, so audiences could become bored and lose interest in the film.Also by including too many shots, we gave to much of the story away for an opening of a film, no enigma code was created for the audience so they would have lost interest in the film.

So what we have done is cut out that section of footage and

replaced it with a shot of the woods. By doing this we could

over lap the titles and add music into the shots, making them a lot more atmospheric. In the case of

our media product, less was more.

I also feel that because we have used titles over lapping film,

people will watch the film to read what we have put in the first two

minutes of our film. Also by not including a lot of shots in our first

two minutes, the audience will want to continue to watch the film

to see how the shots we have used relate to the rest of the film.

Towards the end of the two minutes we have used 4 clips of different pieces of clothing and a character walking, these clips

contrast with the shots before – the hand held night shot – which are dark and confusing, where as the clothing scenes are brighter.

We also enter the clips of clothing with a dip to black, this way audience can see that there is a different scene coming up and

become focused in the film and will want to continue watching our media product.

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

Within our media product we have made sure that it includes and uses the three convention types - technical, symbolic and audio.

How we have used real media conventions within our media product.

We have used a variety of camera shots which show

different objects in a different perspective. In thrillers, certain camera

shots are used to represent a person or situation.

We have used a dirty shot – one which is used often – so that the character isn’t

seen clearly and can make the audience feel

uncomfortable about the character.

Dirty Shot

We have also used a variety of distance shots – close ups/ long shots – to represent who in the film

they should become close to and trust.

Long shot of Lewis

Extreme close up of hoodie

We have also used dark lighting, which is commonly used in the thriller genre to create suspense because the audience can’t see what is happening in the scene as clearly.

Close up of hoodie

Thrillers commonly have a protagonist and an antagonist, which we have used within our film, Lewis being the antagonist and Verity, Hayley and Callum being the protagonists.

This is one of the areas where we have developed the convention of their being only

one protagonist.

The antagonist

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

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

How we have challenged real media conventions within our media product.

We have challenged conventions of real media features by the fact this piece is filmed primarily by a hand held camera. Hand held camera shots aren't used very much within

thriller films however we felt that it was one of the best ways to engage the attention of the

audience as they feel they are in the situation of the character within the film. With the hand held camera effect you aren’t seeing any of the characters including the person who is holding it, so viewers will put themselves in that situation to try and understand what the

film is about.

When we looked at sound conventions, we looked into music to layer with the shot. Music is an important part

of attracting an audience into a feature, so we done some research into music to see which type we thought was the most effective in our media product. We have

used the thriller genre convention of sound by choosing music which builds tension and makes the audience feel

nervous.

In order to challenge convention, we have given no information away to the audience by character spoken dialogue in the first two minutes of the film. In traditional thrillers dialogue is key to moving the plot towards a series of incidents within the narrative.

Thrillers are usually move at a fast pace and include a lot of straight cuts to make the story move faster so the

audience are more alerted, however we have challenged this convention by using transitions in

between shots and by using quite slow shots including the hand held camera scenes.

Hand Held camera shot Mid dip to black and shot

We have also challenged the convention that the protagonist is feminine as we have two females and one male being the protagonists and a male being the antagonist.

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group that our film is representing is teenagers.

Even though throughout the two minutes of our thriller teenagers aren’t really seen apart from Lewis, we still have the threat of a male at the beginning, which is a thriller convention as it is usually a male who

is the antagonist. Also by having shots of only Lewis and then clothing of Hayley, Callum and Verity gives the audience a hit that Lewis has a lot of power over us.

The antagonist

One of the reasons we chose to represent the social group teenagers is because in our research we found that people ages 15 – 25 years are usually the audience of

thriller films. So by representing teenagers, our audience could relate to the characters in our media product or situations that they are in. Also by including a

male as a protagonist, it makes a male audience relate to a male character easily as many viewers would relate themselves to the antagonist.

Our audience who can relate to the characters in our media product.

The protagonists

Candidate Name: Verity Easton Candidate Number: 4050

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

When we begun to film our media product, me and my group explored the camera and looked at the features that it had that we could use in our film. We decided to use the night mode on the camera for a few

scenes in our product. So one thing that I learnt was how to use the features on the camera and how do use it in the shot to make it a good shot.

When we got to the editing stage of the production of our media product, we had to learn a lot about it. The editing programme that we used was Adobe Premier Pro, which we also used for our preliminary task however we didn’t have a long time to look and explore it so we didn’t really get to learn everything. I looked at the video effects and transitions and I also learnt some extra things such as how

to flash words and overlap titles with a video, which was really helpful.

I also learnt about how certain situations can effect the filming that it done. We planned to film on a certain day, however we didn’t notice how windy it was. When looking back at the

video which we filmed there was so much wind noise that we couldn’t use it and the camera was also moving a little bit from where the wind was blowing it. So from this I have learnt that even technology has limitations.

I also learnt a lot when editing the film, this is a huge part of film making and I really learnt why certain transitions or techniques are used and if they are the wrong ones to choose, how it can completely change

the piece and what it means.In our rough cut, we used a lot of scenes and different shot types, but when we sat down with a group of

people, we realised that we had tried to pack in so much that we lost the atmosphere we wanted and how the audience just got confused, so I learnt that sometimes less is more, in our final piece we used around 5 shots, but the atmosphere created by it was what we wanted for our film. From this I have learnt that the editing process is a series of stages, when making differences each time, the media product can have a

completely different effect.

A night shot

Adobe Premier Pro