1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our research for thriller conventions we looked at different thriller openings to help us with our movie this helped us gain a sense of what to incorporate into our film. We knew that films in which people get stalked are quite scary because people don’t know when the person will appear and this would get the audience scared. Many of our scenes have been influenced by thrillers like taken, i know what you done last summer. In the opening there is sinister music and sharp jump cuts these are some conventions of a thriller opening. we have incorporated a wide range of shots especially jump cuts and the transitions as well are fast that you don’t even notice them
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our product doesn’t show a variety of different social groups however it does show the social group of gender and how females can easily get attacked and victimized as well. For the male social group it shows that they can take advantage of woman very easily and they look for the easy prey. In terms race it wasn’t highlighted in our main task, but it shows that woman are not as passive as they sound and man are more the dominant beings. The age group in this product are young, hip and trendy and we used them to highlight the different situations that people of this age group have happening to them.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Personally we feel that our movie would not be produced in a major hollywood studio because the location would be hard to film in as we used busy train stations that are filled with various amounts of people which could affect the sensibility of the clips, but the concept and synopsis of our movie could be used as it exciting and intriguing and would appealing to our target audience and possibly other ranges. Our film would most probably be an art house movie as graphics would not be needed to give a more naturalistic view and an English film production company would be most suitable as the location is in England. The main task produced could be released as it instantly intrigues by how eerie and captivating it is and it could be merchandised by its location as most people visit them,
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
This film would most probably appeal to young people from the ages of 16-25 and the gender would appeal to both sexes as it conveys different views on the opposite sex, our film also deals with the attitudes and feelings towards victimization and violence performed by the females and males. Our film is similar to thrillers and horrors such as cape fear, fatal attraction, fear and scream these movies similarly appeal to a younger audience ranging from both sexes.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted an audience of both male and female but mainly the male. The film would not be suitable to the people under the age of 15 because it is quite graphic and violence is used and because there would be more gruesome scenes further on in the film . We used people of the ages that are audience would be so they could easily relate to them. We used a range of shots and transitions in our product so it would appeal to the majority of our audience. We have used POV shots so it seems as though the audience is following the main character that has been abducted. We did not use credits at the beginning because it took time and it was more effective and also the tensions builds throughout and the credits would be shown at the end even though it is not a convention of a thriller opening.
6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing the product?
The equipment used in this process of filming had many strengths and weaknesses. The camera was HD and so was clear and precise and every aspect and detail could be spotted, however that had its weaknesses as well because some details which we didn’t want to be shown were shown in our opening and so we could not edit this out. Using software such as Final Cut Pro had strengths such as being able to add transition to enhance our opening. This however had its weaknesses because we had difficulty using new technology that we had never used before and so time was wasted. There were some filming problems like the camera not being steady and the person controlling it not being able to film properly and so bits were cut out and things were in the way. Garage Band was useful in creating suspenseful music to our opening however this had its weaknesses because the timing was different and so adding the music onto Final Cut Pro was difficult but in the end it became a useful tool in creating a successful opening.
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
A lot of research was needed to plan and create our opening for the main task. We researched other thriller openings to help us gain a sense of how they are and what people actually like and what conventions have to be in a thriller. Also planning what shots were going to be used helped us to capture them easily and then add them into our opening and it helped the process to be smoother. Also creating the storyboard and the screenplay which was part of the planning helped us see a clear image of what are opening was going to be like and it enabled us to have a detailed plot. Also us using certain shots like POV, match on action shot has improved because we can now identify when they are being used and how they are effective too. We can now confidently use the equipment like the camera and the software needed to help us create certain pieces of work. This was a stressful but helpful and good learning process. We think that our main task and preliminary task was sort of successful but with some more time could have been better but overall we are pleased with the work we have done.
