AS Media: Evaluation

Opening Sequence.

• For my projects I worked in a group with two other people, Lauren Daly and David Noblett.

• We created a short opening sequence for a thriller film, all our work is on our blog, http://www.rdlfilmblog.blogspot.com

• I think that Lauren and I contributed equally towards the project.

• We did have some problems with working in a group as one of our member decided not to put much effort into the project and let us down.

• Throughout our projects we did research,making the opening sequence, editing and questionnaire’s.

Introduction.

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

products?• The genre of our film is a thriller, we use the typical convention such as the use of

non-diegetic sound which create emotion and suspense throughout the opening sequence.

• The use of jump shots and a variety of different shots creates suspense as it builds up tension to the main event.

• It was vital to use these typical elements to let the audience recognize the type of genre it was.

• Although you need to stick to typical elements of a thriller film, it is vital to change some of the conventions slightly as if you didn’t they would all be the similar and would start to lose the audience’s attention. • The graph to the right is some feedback we got from our questionnaire’s. I think the choices for our opening sequence was successful as 80% of the people asked recognize that the genre was thriller, they could tell this by the eerie music.

• 90% of the people we asked though that the images fit well with the music.

• All the people we asked though we used variety of shots.

• All these graphs show that our product

was successful.

• A thing we could improve upon in our final product is the pace of the scene, only 60% of the people we asked

though the pace of the film fitted the genre,

they said it was a bit and could have done with

a faster pace.

How does your media represent particular social groups.

• There are many different types of groups within the media, common groups are men and women, young people and old people, criminals and victims.

• Most thriller films have criminals and victims in them. In most thriller films the criminal(s)/Villain(s) are men and the victims are either ,men or women.

• An example of this would be The Taking of Pelham 123; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8TtjRlX_3E.

• In our opening sequence we have two main characters which are victims, you do not know who to villain is in our sequence

as you never meet the character.

• Almost everyone fits into a specific stereotype, we used the media and the way people are described in the media to class people into different stereotypes, we do this by looking at the way they act, dress, speak, appear etc.

• A film which stereotypes people is Adulthood; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhrJBUMxNMQ.

• The way the media represents teenagers in this film makes other people think that every teenager act violent, takes drugs etc.

• In our opening sequence I do not think we have put a stereotypes on our characters as I do not think you

get to know the characters enough to do this.

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

• If our opening sequence was used in TV I think that it would be produced by a British film company.

• I think that it would be produce by a company like Hammer Film Productions.

• This is because Hammer film production are best known to produce a series of gothic ‘hammer horror’

• Hammer also is know for producing science fiction and thrillers• As our film id a thriller I think that out sequence would be

something might produce. • They have produce many psychological thrillers before such as

‘psycho’.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• The audience for our media product would be aimed at both genders.

• Our product is aimed at mainstream 16-30 audience.• The social class our media product is aimed for the group B-

D(middle management to manual workers).• I would say group E but I do not think it would be aimed at

pensioners just the unemployed.• I say it would not be aimed at group A ( upper class) as the

quality of our film is not suitable for upper class people.• I haven not said a specific gender as the two main characters are a man and a women and the genre does not really link to a specific gender.

• I think this is a good audience as it is targeted at a wide range of people.

• If it was published as a film, I reckon because of the wide target audience it would get more viewing.

• All together in our feedback we receive positive feedback, 90% of the people we asked said that the sequence was successful.

How did you attract / address your

audience?

• In our media product we have used the todrov theorem by setting up an equilibrium and a disruption.

• In our film the equilibrium is the couple are in a house watching TV happily when the man goes to look for something to drink, after a while he does not return so she goes to find him.

• The disruption is when she goes into the cellar and she sees the blood on the floor and walls, then she finds his body.

• I think we did this well as we made sure that you had met the character and recognize the setting before we went

and disrupted this.

• 90% of the people we asked could tell who the main

characters were and could keep up with the story.

•We created a sense of time by the lighting in the sequence, low key lighting to show that it was dark. We also added in a shot of a clock to show that time had passed. We could have improved upon this bit as we should have faded one clock into another, so it looked like the clock is moving around.

• One thing that we seem to do well with is raising enigmas throughout our opining sequence.

• 100% of the people we asked said that the opening sequence raised enigmas.

• We asked them what enigmas were raised and the most common answer was, ‘what’s going to happen next?’ and ‘Who killed the guy?’

• We created many binary opposites in out film such as; life vs. death and human vs. supernatural.

• We did build tension and suspense throughout the sequence by using short shots that cut quite quickly.

• The use of music throughout the sequence plays an important part in our film, if the music was not there, it would have let down our whole product as the sequence would not have suspense or tension and would just be boring.

• The lighting in the film sets the scene, we have used dark, low key lighting to create an atmosphere of night time and to add that scary feeling.

• The use of props in our film adds to the effect of the thriller as we used fake blood to show that the mad had been attacked and killed.

• Also, the setting of the sequence was in an old farm house were nobody seemed to be around and the use of the cellar creates a scary atmosphere.

• The editing in our opening sequence is a little rough but this adds effect to our sequence as it builds tension with the jump cuts between each shot.

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

product?• The technologies I have used to help me create my research are

websites I have used before such as the internet (Google), YouTube and CD’s.

• I used Google to find out information to help me and to find useful websites such as blogger.com and the website that helped me

make all the graphs.• I used YouTube to research similar videos to the theme of my

coursework.• I used CD’s to find music that fitted with our media product.

• One thing i had never used before was www.blogger.com. This is were we posted all the progress on our mediaproduct. I found this easy to use so it was not a problem.

• The technologies and equipment we used to create our opening sequence was a bit more difficult to use.

• It took me a while to work out how to use the video camera and get it right when moving the camera.

• At first iMovie was hard to use but after a while I got used to it.

iMovie allowed us to add effects such as darkening our shot to create a more tense atmosphere. We also added in credits using the iMovie.

• The bit I found the hardest whilst using iMovie was cropping our shot and trying to link them together so our opening sequence flowed smoothly.

• If I had already know how to use I movie before starting my media product i think our final product would have been slightly better.

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

product?

• Looking back on my preliminary task, i realise that our skills have improves a lot.

• I think we learned how to use the camera better and show different shots such as close up’s and long shots.

• I have also learned a bit more about editing and using transitions and effects.

• The transitions we used was the fading between the credits and there flash at the end. These added more tension and allowed our media product to flow better.

• I think from our preliminary task to our final product there is evidence that our skills have got better even though there is still room for improvement.

Conclusion.• Overall, I think our final product is ok but does have room for

improvement.• we asked people if there would change anything to make the

opening sequence better and 50% of hem said they would.• The most common thing they would change be the pace if the

sequence.• They said they would speed the sequence up as it would fit with

the genre better.• I agree with that and I do think it would make the sequence

better.• However, most of the people asked said that our opening

sequence was successful.