Evaluation

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

In my thriller form I used many of the typical forms and conventions. However, I also developed them to make the expected things different and interesting and also suit our own indivdual film.

The beginning of our film shows an event from the main character's past. To signify that it is a flashback we edited the film to make those particular scenes black and white. Though flashbacks in thriller films are quite common I feel that we developed the technique by editing the clips to make them black and white. This not only clearly shows the audience that it is a flashback but also puts across feelings of rememberance and nostalgia. Black and white can also show how the event is a negative event as the absence of colour sometimes represents sadness or fear, both of which are feelings relevant to the scene and film as a whole.

In the flashback, the "baddie" is the father - a man in a position of power. Having a man in a position of power as the villian is a common convention in thrillers. However, as he is the father of the eventual killer (Mikey), he can be seen as the role model or cause of what his son later does and this is what we wanted to put across - that a person's past can have a great effect on them in later life.

Mikey is also a stereotypical character. He is a schitzophrenic - killer's with mental problems are a common convention in thrillers - and a male. However, he is different from the usual schitzophrenics portrayed in thrillers as we had another actor play his multiple personality (Gabriel) and showed them both in the same scene at the same time. By doing this, the audience do not know that Mikey is the one doing the killings as Gabriel until right at the very end. This builds suspense, tension and keeps the audience interested, gripped and guessing all the way through the film.

Gabriel himself is also a clear stereotype. He's the main villain of the story - dark haired, dressed in smart, black clothes and menacingly charming to get what he wants. We developed this commonly used character by having him as a part of someone else's character. We felt this would not only keep the audience interested but help keep the character himself fresh and exciting.

The type of music we used is also a common convention in Thriller movies. It is high-pitched and mainly stringed and placed to build tension, suspense and fear. However, the music we chose for our opening is slower then the music commonly used by Thrillers. We did this to show the tragic element of our story - a young boy losing his sanity and the breakdown of a family - to evoke a range of emotions in our audience. We feel that by doing this the audience would feel more emotionally attached to the characters and become more involved in the film as a whole, making it more interesting and engaging.

We also used a very typical setting - a big, creepy, old house - for our film and used a common low angle shot looking up at the building to establish that the place has power but not in a good way. By doing this twice at different points in our film - once in black and white as part as the flash back and once in colour in the present - we allow the audience to make their own connections between the two clips and come to their own conclusion.

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

After researching various UK production companies, my group and I feel that our media product would be produced and distributed by DNA Films in partnership with Fox Searchlight Pictures.

DNA Films is a fairly recent company and was set up in 2007 by Duncan Kenworthy and Andrew MacDonald, though Kenworthy opted out in 2002. In 2003, DNA Films went into partnership with Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Fox Searchlight Pictures is led by President Peter Rice and Chief Operating Officers Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley. It is “a filmmaker-oriented company that focuses on distinctive films helmed by world-class auteurs and exciting newcomers.” It was founded in 1994 as an independent arm of 20th Century Fox. It has it’s own marketing and distribution operations and it’s films are also distributed worldwide by 20th Century Fox.

Both companies have produced and distributed many successful films including Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler and Juno as well as thrillers Notes On A Scandal, The Clearing, One Hour Photo, 28 Days Later and Best Laid Plans.

These thrillers films are mostly psychological – as ours is – and certified either 15 or 18. This means that our thriller film, we feel, would fit into their general target audience but may also attract a few younger viewers that may watch their other films such as Juno and The Wrestler. Most of these companies’ films have been very successful in the box office and we would obviously like this to be the case for our film if it were to be made.

Who would be the audidnce for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

The target audience of our film, Missing, is males and females aged 15 – 30. It is a fairly large audience meaning our film would reach many people.

We attracted and addressed our target audience by making the plot of our film something they, to some extent, could relate to. Our characters are in their late teens – around the same age as our audience or an age they can, at least, clearly remember being – and are going on their first holiday alone, something common to the age group of our target audience. This makes it easier for our audience to put themselves in our character’s position and imagine what they’d be doing in their place, making the film more engaging, interesting and frightening.

We also made our characters common teenage stereotypes that are easily recognisable to our target audience. For example, Robbie was the typical “jock”, dressing in tracksuit tops and trainers. From this, our audience can guess what sort of character he is likely to be – popular, funny – and feel that they know him better and can also relate him to people of the same clique or stereotype that they may know, again adding to the films realism.

So that our target audience could understand and be entertained by our film, we were also careful with the language we used. As our characters were mostly 17 – 18 they spoke informally as people of that age would amongst each other. However, we didn’t use any “street slang” and this allowed the audience to make assumptions about what sort of people our characters are, what kind of background they have and what they do. We also felt that Gabriel should speak slightly more formally than the others to show his higher level of power and control, especially over Mikey.

Overall, we did these things so that the film directly addressed and appealed to our target audience and so that they could understand it. The way it relates to their own lives and the level of realism that we created also makes the film more frightening and, therefore, entertaining.

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

During the process of making my media product, I learnt a lot about the technologies and techniques used when creating a film and how important they are to make the finished product look polished and professional.

I learnt how to use continuity editing to ensure that the plot line could be followed easily and logically with no plot holes or inconsistencies. It signals to the audience the chronological order of the plot, the relationships between characters and is also used to add more realism. This includes using diagetic sound, the 180 degree rule and establishing shots. We were careful to make sure that, while shooting, we used the same light and noise levels for the same scene and, if appropriate, the same location. When editing, we ensured all our clips were in the right order and edited to run cleanly from one shot to the next.

We also used editing for effect. For example, the black and white flashbacks. We used editing like this to signal something about the plot to our audience – to tell them the event was in the past – or to draw out a certain emotion or range of emotions in connection to a scene or shot, such as nostalgia, fear, sadness and pity.

I learnt how to use music to create an effect. We learnt where it is best to use music for the effect we wanted – suspense and fear -, what sort of music to use and whether to fade it in and out or have it sudden and loud for the best effect. We mainly developed this skill through watching films in the same genre with a similar target audience and making a note of how they used music to create a certain emotion.

We also learnt how to use the camera and other equipment for the best results. We always used a tripod for a steady shot, learnt how to zoom, pan and crab well, used large, bright torches for lighting when needed and tried to minimise noise when necessary to ensure that our film looked and sounded as professional as it could.

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 my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot while progressing to my final product.

While planning my preliminary task, I didn’t think about how I would find the sort of setting I wanted. This caused problems when it came to filming. Therefore, when choosing a setting for our thriller film, my group and I thought ahead about what locations were realistically accessible to us. This made filming and planning a lot easier and quicker.

With my preliminary task I also had problems with background noise. To try and avoid this with our final product, we chose places at our location where we knew we would be least likely to be interrupted. To help with this, we also kept the number of people we had around to a minimum. This helped a lot. It made the process of filming less chaotic, we didn’t have to film as many takes, everyone knew where they were meant to be and when and it significantly reduced the amount of unwanted background noise.

Finding reliable actors was also a problem so, learning from my preliminary, we asked well in advance for our thriller film and kept our actors updated often to ensure they wouldn’t forget or arrange anything else. Unfortunately, this didn’t work very well as two of our actors still didn’t show to film but, in the run up to filming, knowing we had planned in advance did make everything easier.

While editing our thriller film we further developed our skills using the iMacs and iMovie. This made the editing process quicker, easier and less stressful then it had been with my preliminary task as I knew where to find things, what to do and how to achieve the effect that we wanted.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We used many different typical teenage stereotypes in our film. We did this so our audience can easily identify and relate to our characters and know what to expect from them.

Mikey's parents are the stereotypical charming, possessive, agressive alcoholic father and weak, bullied mother. Though they're not in the film for long, the audience can quickly identify these stereotypes in them and it instantly tells them something about the family. These stereotypes do not represent parents or families in a positive way. Our representation of a family shows them as arguing, bullied, scared and controlling. It also shows how the man in the relationship is more dominant and powerful then the woman, another common stereotype.

Gabriel is also a stereotypical villian - charming, subtley powerful, controlling and agressive. He dresses in dark colours and only appears to watch or cause trouble. We used this stereotype as we felt it wasn't too unrealistic - not the stereotypical supernatural villian - and most people woould be able to relate to some of the aspects of his personality, adding to the realism and fear.

Other stereotypes we used were jock, plastic, popular girl and the innocent girl next door. These are common teenage stereotypes and we used them so are characters could be easily identified and related to.