Evaluation Draft

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

After watching a variety of real thriller openings I aimed to create a product which follows many of the conventions of real media products. One of the ways my thriller opening sequence does this, is the location. My product is set in an eerie place under a bridge, giving me the opportunity to film in low key lighting to make the location look even more daunting. The narrative of my opening challenges this convention of thrillers, as I focused more on the element of mystery and building suspense as the audience don’t know who he is and why he is there, therefore I didn't get to develop the narrative any further to clearly establish the genre. The opening titles constantly appearing on the screen during the opening sequence is a feature I repeatedly noticed when carrying out my research and due to my narrative being simplistic I believed this was something I would like to develop upon within my product. I put lots of effort into the font as I needed something which can be clearly read yet has the characteristics of a thriller, so I chose a bold slightly old fashioned and faded font. A common convention of thrillers is the climax after the build up of tension and this is something I tried to achieve during my opening sequence; all the slow paced shots with lack of movement work effectively to build the tension and begin to lead up to the end of the sequence which is where my actor begins to panic. The light flashes across the screen to resemble a headlight to suggest someone has found him, he begins to rush and panic until he suddenly freezes looking directly at the camera, acting as the other character. The change in pace throughout these shots works to catch the viewers attention and brings in the major ‘what happens next’ mystery convention of thrillers.

How does your product represent particular social groups?

As my opening sequence only has one character there is a niche social group represented whoever the one character is very in depth. For example, during the sequence he picks up a photo of a women and a child with an emotional face, this could be interpreted differently by different audiences however some may think that they are his wife and child who he has had to leave. Therefore this creates a dad figure and introduces the group of families. However he is living in a public area, which clearly shows he is a homeless character or a character on the run, introducing the social group of homeless people, spurring lots of questions about how he ended up there. In conclusion there is really only one social group represented within my opening sequence and this is the character of a middle aged man, possibly with a family. I did not want to create an over the top artificially stereotyped character, as part of the mystery is due to the character being able to be interpreted differently by various audiences.

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

There are many different distribution companies that could be eligible to distribute my media product depending on scale, and specific countries or continents where you would like the product to be distributed to. For example, if I was to distribute the product globally is would be sensible to target a huge corporation like Warner bros distribution or Fox film distribution ltd. Both of these companies target two of the biggest continents for films which are the USA and Europe and they also distribute films to many different countries across the globe such as Argentina and Brazil. As both of the chosen are global corporations they have lots of experience within distributing films of all different genres therefore would be able to appropriately market my thriller film. However if I wanted to create a more alternative thriller film and have it distributed on a smaller scale, I could pick a small company which has been successful in the past with distribution such as Momentum Pictures; who distribute their products to the UK and Ireland. This creates a smaller audience for the product and would be a cheaper way to distribute the product. On the other hand a different way to choose a distribution company isn’t through size or country, it’s to choose a successful thriller film and look into their distribution company and try and follow in the footsteps of the films. Furthermore I chose ‘Silence of the Lambs’ which was a very successful and they used the distribution company Orion Pictures which is based within the USA; they both produce and distribute films and are experienced within the thriller genre. If looking for a large scale success this would be a good company to choose as they are specific to the genre of my media product and they have been successful in the past. They are also based in the USA which biggest consumer continent for movies and would create the most profit.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Conventionally thriller films tend to be aimed at older age categories due to a lot of the common conventions making films not appropriate for younger children and this is something my media product would follow. I believe my main audience for my media product would be elder teenagers ages 15 and above.  This is because when carrying out my research it was proved that the age category who watches the most thriller films is people aged 16 – 20; therefore I don’t believe targeting an elder audience would be as successful. Another reason for targeting this audience is due to the narrative of the product, parents may see it is unrealistic and boring and therefore not appreciate the tension being built throughout, and however, people of a younger age enjoy the fictional aspect of thriller films. I would not aim my product at anyone younger than 15 because in order to do this I would have to ‘soften’ the narrative and this would most likely result in me loosing the interest of my main target audience. I looked into the age allowance of the top thriller films, and they nearly all had an age boundary of 15 or 18, therefore suggesting they are targeting a similar market and they have been successful.

How did you attract/address your audience?

A clear way in which I attracted my target audience was by clearly establishing the thriller genre, which is liked mainly by teenagers; therefore creating an opening sequence with an obvious genre would hopefully attract the right type of people. A vital part of addressing the correct target audience was learnt through my audience research. I asked a series of questions (attached on a different post within my blog) to ensure I knew exactly what conventions of thriller films my target audience enjoyed, common answers where the tension and suspense. Consequently I stated my opening sequence by establishing the sinister location and continued with the slow pace whilst my character was revealed, the pace then speeds up and the clip is left on a cliff hanger. From this I have tried to successfully include the conventions by target audience enjoy to attract them to my media product.

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

One form on technology which I used constantly throughout my construction was blogger.com; and as this is the first time I've blogged I learnt a lot from it. Blogger.com is an online site linked to Google which is used a storage hub for all of your posts which are stored as a blog; the background, font and order can all be customised to your own liking. One thing I learnt from blogger.com was how to attach different forms of media onto a blog such an upload videos from YouTube using a URL. A different form of software I used a lot was Adobe Fireworks; this was used mainly to create my opening titles. However the software can be used to create simple animation and edit basic pictures. One of the things I learnt from this software was how to correctly save your files to open them up in a variety of places such as whether to save it as a GIF or a JPEG. I also learnt the simple technique of how to create a transparent background so I could layer my titles on top of my opening sequence with no problems. And the most valuable skill I learnt using this software was how to search fonts online and download them to your software. This saved me a lot of time when creating my opening titles as I found the perfect font on ‘Dafont’ and instead of having to copy and paste the words from one page to another, the font appeared on the software and I could my title could be creating instantly. The final and probably most complex software technology I have ever used is Adobe Premier Pro, which is an editing software used to edit sound and moving picture. Throughout construction I had lots of problems with this software as it is very confusing however on the positive side this meant I learnt a lot. Firstly I learnt how to conjoin all my separate clips and piece them all together into one single long clip; during this process I learnt the importance of video transitions such as cross dissolve to make each separate shot flow into the next a lot smoother. A big challenge for me was the sound, as I wanted to mute the sound of me or the tripod but not destroy all of the ambient sound. Therefore I learnt how to crop sound clips to remove any unwanted noises, but also how to stretch clips and copy them to keep constant ambient sound throughout. My background noise was also backed up by a copy right free song, to help build to tension throughout the clip and establish the products thriller genre status.

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

From my preliminary task I definitely learnt the importance of background noise, as on my prelim task the speech is drained by too much ambient noise and the dialogue can’t be heard. The ambient sound also changes when the camera was re-positioned to film each part of the show reverse shot. Therefore when filming my final piece I ensured I always had ambient sound as I didn't have the worry of draining out dialogue as I don’t have any, also if no ambient sound was used the clip would look extremely unrealistic as when he is unzipping his sleeping bag or rustling the leaves there would be no sound. The main change I have noticed from my preliminary task is how comfortable I feel using the equipment in comparison to before, especially Adobe Premier Pro as before and even during my prelim task I didn't really understand any of it, and now I have managed to create a two minute piece fully edited by myself. I also now feel like I have progressed a lot using the camera as we got taught the skills, such as setting the white balance, and I now feel like I can use the focus and zoom a lot more effectively than I could before.  Since the first task I feel like I have gained a much wider knowledge on the thriller genre and believe I can now establish the genre a lot more effectively after all the thorough research and planning I have carried out.