Lauren'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, straight and cis-gendered. 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?

I decided to present this answer as a podcast, which can be listened to here:

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 Vegas Pro 13 to edit our film. We learned that cutting rate is more important than effects because, even with special effects, the effectiveness of a Thriller comes mainly from the feeling of disorientation or lack of disorientation through the visual aspect of the movie. We used the Brightness/Contrast tool to change the lighting in some shots, as they were filmed after the initial day and at different times; the lighting had to be adjusted to fit in more effectively. To further create suspense and unknowing for the audience, we used the blur effect tool to make it look less out of place. We also used the Pan/Crop tool to create ideas of the camera being unsteady and to create an idea more realistic, for example when Emma is running and when the train zooms past. The software was also used to make the soundtrack for the opening. We were able to split, stretch and compress the audio easily within this editing software, which allowed for a more comfortable and easy process. The way the composition tracks were laid out was also significantly useful: it was clear to see when the audio changed due to the coloured frequency waves, and the video track allowed, to some extent, a visual of where the clips are and at what point they would be playing. Although we are glad we decided to use this software, there was a slight technical issue that occurred. Any effects that were placed on the audio began to glitch and play loud beeping noises which we were eventually unable to solve. However, we had already finished editing the audio of our opening before the glitch began.

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

See preliminary video annotations in answer to this.