Harriet's Evaluation

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

In our opening, we have conformed to a variety of different stereotypical features of real media projects. We decided to focus on someone going missing, the idea of being followed and generic conventions of a man dressed in all black to create mystery and suspense. As well as this, both main characters are able-bodied, white, middle class and heterosexual. However, this we decided to do based on the results of our initial audience survey.

Used

A typical convention we have used within our opening is a complex narrative with false paths and clues. This can be seen from the very beginning where we are able to see one of our main characters, Emma, running: we used only a close-up of her feet to demonstrate this. Since the audience have not been introduced to this character yet, they are left feeling confused and intrigued, as they do not know why she is running and what she may be running from. Ultimately, this is not established until the very end, which creates ideas of Bathos - a build up to a climax that is generally not shown or established any further. This use of convention is quite generally used, as it evokes suspense and hooks the audience to a far extent. An example of this convention can be seen in Silence of the Lambs.

To maintain the conventions of thriller, this shot is effective as it does not establish anything the audience may be wondering about: for example, who is running and why? This links into the idea of complex narrative as the audience are unaware of what's going on; this creates drama, suspense and intrigue which ultimately ensures the convention of enigma is used to create a realistic thriller opening.

Developed

To develop our conventions of thrillers, presented within the opening, we combined camera, mise-en-scene and our sound to create a deeper connection with the forms. We used camera angles that drew the audiences attention to particular parts of a scene; to keep the mystery at the very beginning, we drew focus to only to a certain part of a person. Also we kept the Hidden Figure always in a full body angle to ensure that it's clear this character will be the antagonist of the opening, if not the whole film. The mise-en-scene made it clear these people were normal people with normal lives; our characters imitated what is expected of their generation and perfectly represents our target audience. The sound is almost diegetic as it is shown to be coming from a cassette player yet it is only in the background of the opening. Sound effects were used to keep the suspense of the audience and remind them it is a thriller; the main one that continues this form is the sound effect of Emma breathing heavily, almost panting, as she's running. It serves to develop the fact that this character is being chased and is having trouble keeping away. All of this works with our film opening to serve as an emphasis on the classic thriller conventions of a normal person going through something sinister or suspicious while going about their everyday lives.

Challenged

Our opening does challenge some conventions that can be deemed stereotypical. In example, we have it so that the audience believe they are watching that of a generic "damsel in distress" scene, but ultimately it is our main protagonist, Josh, that plays that role. Furthermore, our main character is not able-minded like his stereotype would suggest.

Our sub-genres were Psychological, Action and Crime - the idea of a Psychological thriller comes from Josh's mental state and the way he acts because of this. We also classed our thriller as Action due to the violence seen in our opening, and traces of a Crime thriller come from the fact that it is based around a kidnapping.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our film is based on the lives of teenagers which brings a more realistic feel to it as the audience can relate to it due to the generation similarities. Teenagers are also more likely to want action in their films as it excites and interests them so it makes the films more appealing for our audience. The film "Girl on the Train" contains very similar aspects to that of our opening; therefore has a similar target audience. The film reaches out to women aged 20 or above. Alternatively, ours reaches out to a slightly younger generation of both genders. The movie "Gone Girl" also targets women of ages 20 or above. Their movie features are almost parallel to that of "Girl on the Train". This could be a reason why their target audience is the same. The movie "Friend Request" is aimed towards girls of the age 15 or above, since it focuses on Social Media and therefore needs to be targeting frequent users of this and those that will understand what is going on. The film is also focused on women, just like that of "Girl on the Train" and "Gone Girl". This could be because the protagonist of the film "Friend Request" is a female. We have alternating viewpoints, therefore we can relate to both genders. The movie "Taken" does not aim its product at women, since there is a lot of violence and is primarily a Action Thriller. It is also targeted at boys aged 15 or above. We have a similar aged target audience, which is why we tried to include some aspects of an Action Thriller. Since is it not primarily an Action Thriller, we could also target women.

5. How did you attract / address your audience?

See final video annotations in answer to this.

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

We used Sony Vega Pro 13 to edit our film and learnt that cutting rate is more important than effects because even if you have amazing effects if the shots are too long then it doesn’t really work well. We did change the lighting in some shots as they were filmed after the initial day and at different times so the lighting had to be adjusted to fit. To make the later shots fit in with the rest of it we used the blur effect and merge effect to make it look less out of place. The software was used to make the soundtrack for the opening.

We faced minimal problems, including forgetting to film Emma screaming. To fix it we recorded it at a later date and it turned out better. We had a timetable to ensure we got the right lighting for the right shots. Our filming lasted about a week including any re-filming and extra footage we needed. The schedule did have to fit around when the actors were available. We used the tripod briefly to test the smoother footage.

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

See preliminary video annotations in answer to this.