In our media product we had to make sure that we included key conventions of a thrillers. Some key conventions of a thriller are raising questions towards the audience, creating an enigma code and the building up of suspense and tension. In our opening I think that we used a few of these conventions to good effect. For example we have attempted to raise questions by choosing to present our opening in non-chronological order by having the end of the film at the start, this means that we have left the audience asking questions such as; How does the main character get into this situation? Presenting the film in non-chronological order also allowed us to use restricted narration, meaning that we did not give away the plot.
As we chose to include a chase scene at the start we needed to make sure that it built up tension and suspense. This meant that we had to make our opening gripping and intense so that the audience would carry on watching it. We did this by using two different heavy breathing sound effects to simulate two different characters running, the breathing of the protagonist is faster than the breathing of the antagonist, this gives the audience the impression that the protagonist is struggling. Also to increase the intensity of the chase scene we made our cuts faster by cutting off unnecessary shot endings.
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| This is the title of our film which we selected a font for on http://www.dafont.com/ |
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our thriller opening we used some examples of representation of gender. For example we used a stereotypical view which was that girls are usually waitresses. However we show that the waitress (Dani) has dominance over Jake's character as she is looking down on him, she then becomes the antagonist in this part of the scene as it appears that drink she has served is drugged.
Another example of representation of gender we have used is that in the chase scene we have two men running in the forest, this ties in with a traditional stereotypical view of gender which is "men are more athletic than women".
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
As a group we have decided that "Soda Pictures" will be the main distributors of our film. They are a good distributor of small independent films like ours. We intend to show it at the Duke of York Art house in Brighton. This is because we intend to release our product regionally, it would be too expensive to release our film nationally due to costs of transporting the prints. Our films target is to be available on Sky movies, which would be a great way of distributing our film.
Our film will be rated 15 as it contains violence,drugs and possibly some strong language. This does cut down our audience down but it was our intention that this film would appeal to a more mature audience.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
I would say that the main target audience of our product would be men aged 15-30. Our product is a very male orientated film as it associates with themes that would appeal more to a male audience such as violence, crime and drugs. However some women also appreciate these themes and therefore women are also part of our target audience.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
In an attempt to address our audience we interviewed some people in our age group to find out what they thought about our idea. Feedback generally good therefore we knew that our idea would attract our target audience. Most people thought that arranging the product in non-chronological order was a good idea as it allowed questions to be raised. However, some people were confused by our idea but they said they would like to watch it to get a better understanding of our idea.
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| The start of our film which is actually the outcome of the whole film. |
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| The actual start of the film and the events that build up to the ending. |
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst constructing this product I have learnt how to use a variety of equipment and software. I have learnt how to use a camcorder properly whereas before I started I only knew how to record and pause a camera. Being the main cameraman in constructing this product has allowed me to learn new techniques such as framing, using a zoom where appropriate and how to use a tripod to get a good shot. When filming we had to be aware of the 180 degree rule and that we did not break it otherwise it would confuse the audience. I now know that before every take that I must set the white balance otherwise the quality of the shots could be bad. I have also learned that when using two cameras I should remember to get two tapes as this was a problem in our filming process. However in the end we got the footage we needed with just the single camera.
I have also learned how to apply lighting whilst filming this product, for our product we mainly used natural light but in some cases had to set up portable lighting to keep the shot visible.
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| Shot reverse shot, we had to make sure we didnt break the 180 degree rule. |
During this process I have become familiar with using iMovieiMovie to get a rough cut of our final footage we moved onto Final Cut Pro which was a more complicated way to edit our product but was good for tidying up our rough cut. I found Final Cut Pro very complicated and slightly struggled to edit using it, however it was easier to insert text into the sequence using Final Cut Pro as there was more variety of effects and animations.
I have now also learned how to add in sound effects and music using Garageband. For our music we used a song that Jack had created, adjusting the song to fit in with our product was quite easy, however we had to make sure that we could hear the dialogue between Jake's character and Dani's character but still had to establish that they were outside the gig. We did this by making the dialogue as loud as possible and lowered the volume of Jack's song so that we could just hear it. We added in effects such as birds in a forest, heavy breathing, a punch and Jack's music. In my opinion I think that the chase scene lacked a bit of music to increase the intensity of our product.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary exercise I feel that I have improved in every aspect. I also think that our final product is of a much better quality than the preliminary exercise. We experienced problems in our preliminary with white balance as the natural light in the room we filmed in changed as the sun came through one window, this left us with an orange tint on a white wall. Another issue with our preliminary was that it had no sound effects or a soundtrack of any kind. I found that it lacked intensity and was quite slow. In the preliminary we were told not to break the 180 degree rules, we didn't break the rule but we did push to the limit of which we nearly broke it. We had to make sure that we did not make these mistakes in our final product this meant we checked our final product over and over to make sure that we did not make any big mistakes.
As a group we worked well together as we shared out tasks fairly and everyone did their jobs well. Our main weakness as a group is that we could not think of ideas straight away, this meant that we took too long thinking of an idea which left us with less time to plan. All in all I feel that we are all capable of different roles in the group as we all have a knowledge of how to use software and equipment to a high standard.
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