The Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our media product to ensure our thriller genre was shown to it’s fullest potential we made sure that our final product included all requirements needed to show it’s conventions of a thriller. The conventions of a thriller contain several sub genres Mise en Scene, Camerawork and Editing, Characters, Narrative structure and typical story features, Iconography, Music/Sound and Ideologies. We did this by using some of the ideas from previous thriller based movies.
The thriller genre was by far one of the most strenuous genres to comply to but with a lot of pervious lessons and commitment from the group we were able to abide by the conventions of a thriller and create a great two minuet product which definitely promoted the thriller genre.
In previous lessons we had learnt much convection that we needed to insure our final product was correctly categorized, by watching many different thrillers. As I watched the films I continuously wrote notes on what I liked in the films and what I did not like here’s a list of the thriller movies I watched.
• Memento (The opening 15 minutes)
• Se7en ( Opening 30 minutes)
• Sin City (Whole Movie)
• Panic Room (Whole Movie)
• Lakeview Terrace (Whole Movie)
• Righteous Kill (Whole Movie)
• Hills Have Eyes (Whole Movie)
• 21 (whole Movie)
• Blind Terror (Whole Movie)
• Malice (Whole Movie)
• Fatal Attraction (Whole Movie)
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Whole Movie)
• The Bourne Ultimatum (Whole Movie)
That’s just a few thriller films that I accurately observed plus enjoyed watching.
Narration: In order to fully understand the full use of narration we were able to research previous thriller based films that had used the skill of narration in there movie. From this we learnt that in most thriller production there was always a story, some films needed narration to explain the background of certain characters (Antagonist/Protagonists) lives. Other films used narration to explain what was happening to the characters.
In order to create a good thriller we also needed to use a list of all the convections of a thriller from the Equilibrium to the Enigma code. According to the narrative theory, standard narratives contain three stages. “The three-act structure”. This started with the ‘Equilibrium’ to ‘The Confrontation’ and then the Resolution. In each of the stages, certain types of events take place. The Equilibrium insured that the initial situation of the film was given context. In our final product we did not follow the three-act structure. Instead we went for a different approach instead of starting with the equilibrium we started with the disruption (we wanted to show that the protagonist was in fact having a nightmare and the audience only see this at the end of the two minuets when the main protagonist wakes up from her dream) this showed that the audience would see that something had occurred early in the story to cause a disruption. There was clearly a protagonist is our production as shown.
The main protagonist (Bea Ademujimi) was portrayed as a confused young female, (We were able to show the protagonist as a victim through her pusillanimous body movement and anxious body language used) who had previously suffered because of previous incident where she had been abducted by the main antagonist, whose main aim was to hurt and destroy people’s lives for his own personal pleasure. In our final product the causality was very effective we did this by using great technology and using continuity editing after filming, because our final product was only two minuetes long. Fortunately we were not able to create a resolution; we did in fact focus a lot on our liner sequencing because our final product involved a slight time line to show the effect of the antagonist towards the protagonist. The plot for the final product was defiantly thriller themed, but not quite easy to understand in the beginning that is was on of the faults in our final product, the audience could only truly understand the two minutes sequence after watching the whole two minutes. To create the conventions of a thriller mise en scene was defiantly another big key product needed. We set the location in the suburbs which to our group suggested “loneliness” and “empty” surroundings. For the morning shots we used natural sunlight, but for the evening shots we filmed in the evenings and used low key lighting we also tried out some colour during our test shots to give slight awry looks. We used cool blues which are normally used to portray realism towards it. Production design was used to show the convection in many scenes. In one scene we had to change a male bedroom into the main female protagonists own room, we did this by bringing female props and accessories into the room and using ‘pink’ bed covers and using a picture of the protagonist and her farther to put beside the bedside table which is actually in one of the shots in the two minute product. The set also played a very important part in portraying the conventions of a ‘creepy’ atmosphere; we did this by decorating a wall in a member from our groups home (Abi Black). The location co-coordinator (Abi Black) worked very well in designing the set of the wall. (Abi Black) and the film Director (Alex Lloyd) cut out murder stories from old newspapers, photos of celebrities and magazine clipping to show the previous victims of the antagonist they also used red paint and their hand to cover the walls in red paint ‘messily’ This was useful because it showed the environment of the antagonist.
• In order to characterize our main Antagonist our props manger (Bea Ademujimi) bought a special contact lens which made our antagonist character looked malicious and hateful which was our specific aim for our antagonist.
The use of sound was represented in many ways to show the convention of our final product.
• Diegetic on- screen sound was incorporated into one of our scenes, When Clair (Bea Ademujimi) is seen hearing and answering her phone.
• Ambient Sound which is used in the background while the credits are being shown we here dialogue from one of the other characters (Abi Black); by achieving this we were able to enhance the realism of our product, because we used our own real sounds we did not need to add much sound effects.
• Non diegetic sound was used to enhance the mood and enlighten the audience.
• Parallel sound was also used to support the mood of the images shown.
The filming and editing were by far the most important convections of our product because by using specific shot and angles we were able to portray the thriller genre the shots and angles we used consisted of
• High angles shots which showed the awkward relationship between the main protagonist and the copy cat antagonist.
• Very High angle shot was also used to make the victim look small and insignificant.
• Low angle shot which was used to represent one of the POV shots and to make the copy cat antagonist appear powerful and threatening.
• There was a shot in the protagonists bathroom were she was brushing her teeth this shot was show in a extreme close up (ECU)
• From the ECU we went into a close up of the Protagonists (Bea Ademujimi) face when she looked in the mirror.
• Mid close ups were also used a huge amount in our final product because it was easier to see reaction shot in MCU.
In a peer evaluation written by our class mates the range for our final product was a 2 which is equivalent to a Very Good grade. In the Marking Criteria there was a wide range of questions asked and many of the class said we did quite well in all the areas
The movie se7en was one of our main inspirations for our own thriller because the film contained a lot of fast paced shots which incorporated many quick cuts in order to create suspense and create shock.
I personally thought that the film Righteous Kill was a much better example of what I wanted our thriller to be based on and If I had a chance to re-do our final product I would have based our product on that film
I felt that as a group we did very well but the only criticism that I personally had was that I would have loved to use a much clearer camera and much more lighting in order to see the reaction shot much more clearly and to see the whole set a lot more but this could just have been improved with some more filming equipment.
The reason our final product was so successful was because we were able to use the convections to their fullest use and beyond and because ewe did this our work was a great success.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I personally think our media product represented modern day victims who have been in near death like experiences. Instead of using a stereotypical protagonist we chose to use a female character instead of the normal stereotype of a brave male and the female character was also slightly ironic because instead of being a brave young female she was distressed and distorted constantly. The age represented was in late teens so from 17 to 21. The ethnicity of the character for me I felt did not really represent any difference by the protagonist was of African American background. There are two female characters in the final product one is the main protagonist and one is the protagonists friend (Abi Black) The main protagonists is seen as a loner she wear average clothing and no makeup, because the Clair is not with her family she is seen as an outcast hence the reason she acts so timidly. The friend of the main protagonist is dressed very nicely and is seen wearing makeup if we had been able to have more time to film the differences between both female character would have been observed and been able to compare. The Antagonist was represented as a ‘tramp’ looking criminal. The gender of the antagonist was male (we decided we wanted the antagonist to be male because we knew that more males were able to take advantage of females and portray fear) we also chose to pick a male because we wanted to show the different between sexes and how the male oppresses the female, age was not clear. The ethnicity of the antagonist was also not that important the most important representation was the main look of the antagonist and we were able to show the antagonists evilness through the contact lens used. We used make up to enhance the antagonists ‘creepy’ look and to show he was a villain. If the film went into box office I would personally rate it a 12/15 certificate because most of the scene would not have been appropriate for minor but I did not think the movie should be over an 18 because I thought young teens would be able to view it and handle the film.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
To create a film there are three main stages involved
• Film Production – Making the film
• Film distribution - Securing the placement film an exhibitors screen and for home viewing
• Filming Exhibition-This is when there are places were the audience watch the film such as the cinema and special screening places.
There are many very popular film distributors such as Lions gate Films, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures releasing and Universal. Many of these distributors have produced many box-office smash hits such as Mamma Mia and Quantum of Solace.
Icon Film Distribution
Solar House
915 High Road
London
N12 8QJ
T 020 8492 6300
F 020 8492 6301
www.iconmovies.co.uk
Production Company and distributor offering mainstream and independent releases. Recent releases have included Priceless and Man on Wire.
I chose Icon Film Distribution because I felt our film was an independent film and would do very well with this precise final product if our film would of contained a bigger budget are film would defiantly be a great hit with icon film distribution.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
I think the film is aimed at both Male/Female in under 45 years of age but over 15 years of age I rate the film a 12/15 certificate because most of the scene would not be suitable for minor but I did not think the movie should be over an 18 because I thought young teens would be able to view it and handle the film. I think more male than females will attend this film; because the film is quite ingenious .I think many males between the ages of 15-35 will come to view the film because it has great suspense and a great story line which will intrigue the audience.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Our audience will enjoy our film because there a defiantly some great shot and the story line keeps the audience intrigued which a good thriller film needs. The story is also great because it not a common thriller based story it include slight scenes of action in it. The music used helped to also attract the audience’s attention because it help to show the mood of the moment and create suspense in needed scenes. If we were able use the work of advertising we would have attracted a wider audience from using the radio, television adverts, posters and advertising the film on billboards so we could attract a wider audience.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We used a lot of technology from
• Using the Apple Mac Pc
• Using the Imovie program
• Using Garage band to enhance our music and create music for our film.
• Using Imovie to edit the filming
We learnt that it takes a lot of time to edit all of our two minuets sequence so for really big films it must have taken much longer to fully edit.
There were times when we edited and we would cut out the incorrect part luckily we were able to undo this and redo the mistake. My favorite task was garage band because I felt it was my specialty. I felt that I personally did not do to well with the Imovie task and therefore did not participate in the Imovie aspect of the task but I feel that I have improved with Imovie other the past months and if another filming task was set I would be able to excel in the Imovie aspect of the task.
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 the preliminary task I feel that as a group we certainly have done so much better. Our final product was very good and I have learnt how to fully use the convections of a thriller. I have also learnt that with a great camera and great lighting a film could look very good. I have realized that organization is defiantly hey to successful work. I have realized that a group of all four people is sometimes hard to organize but we were able to work round that .
I am very happy that I had this experience and I have learnt a lot from it and I am very confident that we did well.
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