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

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We have learnt about various types of new technologies that have assisted in posting and ensuring that we are able to make our blog posts creative. We have also learnt that creating a film, or as our task was, to create a two minute opening to a thriller film, due to experience you are able to produce a more creative and professional looking film, even though we are using the same technologies. This is mainly down to the experience and experiments of using different sorts of camera shots, and editing techniques to enable the product to look as professional as possible. This is proven as our main film entitled ‘Maria’ is a lot more professional and creative than our preliminary task, due to the preliminary task being one of the first projects we were assigned to complete

Evaluation 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

During the creation of our media product, an opening two minutes of a thriller film, we've learnt a great deal about technologies and they have vastly helped, and improved our media product had we been without them. To make our product, we used a number of different technologies, below is a list of various types of technologies I used for the creation of my media product;

-Digital ‘SLR’ Camera

-Digital Video Camera

-Scanner

-Adobe Premiere Pro

-Internet Explorer (Blogger)

-Microsoft Word

-Garage Band

From the process of constructing our product, we have learnt about various new types of technologies, and learnt more about technologies we already knew about.

Digital ‘SLR’ Camera

This was used to film various types of our interviews and audience research, but mainly used to film our opening two minutes of our thriller film. The advantages of using the ‘SLR’ camera, as appose to the normal Digital Video Camera, was the quality was better, and our group was able to acquire a tri-pod that fit with the ‘SLR’ camera, so we could film still interviews without the screen shaking. Although this camera is very expensive, as appose to the traditional Digital Video Camera, it is worth it, the durability of the battery is a lot more, so we could continuously film for extended periods of time. Another reason is that it is extremely better audio and video quality, therefore our projects and posts that we were putting out, were a lot more professional. 

Digital Video Camera

This was used during the audience research mainly, due to the SLR not being available at that moment in time. It was a new piece of technology we all hadn’t used before, but it was very effective in filming the audience research. By using this piece of technology, it engaged the audience viewing our blog, as they’re hearing and seeing the interviews, rather than simply just reading a blank piece of text.

Internet Explorer

The Internet was extremely helpful to our group during this project, as it allowed us to look into forms of conventions for each thriller film, and also allowed us to do basic research into films before we put it on the blog, about the conventions and various types of thriller films. Another aspect of the internet that was particularly important to us was the blog. On the blog we were able to post various types of documents, with all our research on thriller films, we used a website called ‘Blogger.com’ it was very quick, efficient and showed all our researches and posts very clearly. The blog was also used to keep track of the skills and experiences we had all gained through the production and post-production stages of creating an opening two minutes of a thriller film, this proved very helpful when completing our evaluation.

Scanner

This piece of technology enabled our group to scan in questionnaires and surveys from all our audience research, and therefore was particularly helpful during the research and planning stages. 

Microsoft Word

This piece of technology allowed our group to prepare the written features of all our blog posts, before actually putting it onto the blog. We learnt more about the technology after experiencing more of the written tasks for the blog, and helped us ideally for creating the drafts for our blog.

Adobe Premiere Pro

This technology allowed our group to edit and pre render various types of interviews, and eventually our main project, which of course was our opening two minutes of a thriller film. This piece of technology was new to us, therefore we had a lot to learn, Jack had been the only one that had used editing software before starting our project, as he had used ‘Sony Vegas Pro 12’, therefore he knew the basics about editing. After a lot of experience with Adobe Premiere Pro, we had all learnt new techniques and skills to make our interviews seem professional and creative.

Garage Band

This technology allowed our group to create my own music, this was also a new piece if technology, but this time we had no experience with creating our own music, therefore essentially, we didn’t know what we were doing. After being taught, and having lot of experience with it, we learnt a lot about how music can be made, and how this piece of technology will aid the creativity of our final project.

Overall technology has helped our group with our task of creating an opening two minutes of a thriller film, and posting all the research onto the blog. The end project without all the technology I have used and learnt about would be considerably less professional and of a lesser quality. It would have also resulted in our group being less organised and show less cohesion and clear research, planning, skills and evidencing.

Evaluation 4 & 5 - Who would the audience for your media product be? and How did you attract/address your intended audience?

The target age for our final film complies with what the normal viewing age of a thriller would be, 15. If our film was made into a full film, it would include strong violence, strong language, discriminatory language and behaviour and other controversial themes so  therefore would not be appropriate for an audience under 15. Even our opening scene has threat and disturbing images which build tension and make the audience uncomfortable so wouldn't be appropriate for under 15's. The reason we haven't labelled our film an 18 is because there is no strong portrayals of sexual activity, scenes of sexual violence, strong horror or blood and gore. No theme is prohibited at 18 providing that the material within the film is not illegal or potentially harmful, so it is possible that some themes tackled at 18 may offend some adult viewers, so we have decided not to make it an 18. 

As for the kind of people we have aimed our film at, hopefully the ranges for audiences would be open. People who would normally watch a thriller film would be any social class and both male and female in order to make our film as relatable as possible. 

We have made the film appropriate for ages 15 and over so that a younger audience can watch as well as an older audience as it would broaden the films popularity and make it more accessible. If a film is made into an 18, people of 15 will try and watch it illegally anyway, by making it available to the age of 15 we are ensuring that more people will purchase the film. If we were a large conglomerate or an independent film maker we would want the film to be available to a range of audiences, and people who range from the age of 15 to 25 are the people who are most likely to watch films as arguably they have more time to do so. 

We attracted our audience by making the age of the protagonist 17/18 years old  so as it is about a teenager, teenagers are more likely to feel they could relate to the situation more so that there is more of an impact on them and make them be able to imagine how the character is feeling etc. Providing that an audience can relate to a film  makes it more successful and enjoyable, so positive word of mouth will ensure it sustains popularity which would benefit us if we were to start selling our film and also would benefit the audience because they've got a satisfying product out of it.

Another way we addressed our audience is by conforming to most of the conventions of a thriller film. These have proved to be successful so are features that will make a good thriller film. For example, our protagonist fits the typical stereotype of a female protagonist in a thriller film. She is vulnerable, young and quite immature. The audience can tell she is vulnerable right from the beginning because she is on her own in a woods, which is another convention of a thriller we have adhered to. Adhering to these conventions ensure that the film builds tension whilst also entertaining and gripping the audiences attention and have proved to be successful. 

Evaluation 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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

A media Institution that may distribute our Media product is ‘Warp Films’. Although slightly ambitious, films such as ‘Dr.Easy’ and ‘71’ have been distributed and have been very successful. The reason why I think ‘Warp Films’ would distribute our film is because they more often than not distribute thriller films, therefore as our film is in the thriller film genre ‘Warp Films’ may be interested in distributing our film. The benefits to us having ‘Warp Films’ distribute our product, is that they are a big institution, therefore more people will be inclined to see it, due to it being distributed by a larger institution.

Another way in which we could distribute our film is through digital distribution. This would not include having an major conglomerate to distribute our film; therefore it would cost a lot less. The benefits of distributing our product digitally, is that it would be more accessible for the audience, for example if we were to upload our product online, it would be accessible on a phone, tablet, games console or laptop therefore benefiting the audience. The only down side to Digital distribution, is that Piracy comes into play, this is where people can download the media product illegally, this will lose money for the institution thus affecting the institution negatively.

Evaluation 2 -How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller film we don't explore social groups in particular detail, the only social group shown within our thriller film is that of young teenage females. In our research into thriller films we found that many main characters are teenage females, this is due to the fact that they are portrayed as innocent and vulnerable, this is similar to other films such as Oliver Megaton's thriller film Taken, as the plot of this film is that the daughter has been kidnapped and the father sets out to find her, therefore having young females as the victims within the film, as well as showing their vulnerability.

Another way that vulnerability is shown in young female girls within our thriller film is by the sense of the camera following the girl 'Maria', this creates an interactive feeling within the audience as they are able to feel as though they are the person stalking the young girl.

The point of the character in our film is to show normality; she is just a plain and normal person, the idea behind this was to show that the theme of the thriller film could occur to anyone, regardless of whether they are of higher class or lower class, although stereo-typically it is the higher class that tend to be the victims as they tend to be seen as more important and therefore more valuable members to society.

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

Our final media product is a two minute introduction to a thriller film, titled Maria. The sub-genre of our thriller film is psychological / mystery. Our film develops and explores many typical conventions of a general thriller film whilst also exploring the depths of tension a horror twist can bring. Our film takes on on some ideas from films made in the past such as "The Blair Witch Project" and "Carrie" which we used as inspiration, but also our film develops some of our groups own ideas too which gives it originality. We used "The Blair Witch Project" idea of basing our film within a woodland, which is one widely used idea within the film industry. A woodland setting is more out in the open so the protagonists safety is at more risk because they're open to the elements, which is a feature that would build more of an uncomfortable atmosphere and add more tension. Another film we used as inspiration is "Carrie", as we liked the dark undertone the film had and also the inclusion of the title being the name of the subject of the film, but we developed and challenged this convention by ensuring the main subject of the film (the protagonists sister) isn't actually shown at all in the film. We made our introduction ourselves in order to be more original, and didn't make it too theatrical because making it plain and simple with darker colours meant that it fitted in with the theme of the thriller. Also, we left our ident without sound to set the uneasy theme for the upcoming two minute introduction.

Like many other thrillers, our film involves mystery and has a twist at the end which adds a sense of reality. These features amongst others, such as involvement of a murder and the protagonist having a huge connection with the victim of the murder, ensure our thriller has as many similarities to a real thriller as it can have without being too cliché. If it is too cliché it will be boring, as it would be similar to too many thriller ideas seen by audiences before. In conclusion, our thriller does not challenge the conventions of a real thriller apart from the filming of only one character. This is because we wanted it to be recognised as a thriller and have the conventions of a thriller that will add tension and interest to the audience, so it was hard to get away from being a typical thriller. We know from research that the target audience liked the idea of a normal thriller film with a twist and that is what we gave them, so we know our thriller would be enjoyed by the target audience.