Our media production is a thriller, as so it therefore has to follow the conventions of a real thriller, such as what would be involved with the storyline and our intentions. Likewise, we have the central figure of the narrative and the person or figure causing the problem, from there you see the relationship between both the central figure and the figure causing the problem and how both are spellbound in the storyline. Additionally, thrillers also show unexpected events happening in everyday situations people face, in which they then relate to our product baring in mind that it is a thriller. This therefore shows our understanding of the bases of the genre (thriller), and have it formally applied to our produce. What is more is that , our product would/could challenge some of the conventions of media products. Thrillers are often shot in dark,gloomy places however on the contrary our thriller has not been shot in a dark place but a bright light set. The central figure and the problem cause do have some sort of relationship which we have incorporated with other thriller conventions such as, suspense, pace and cliff hangers. Within a thriller genre there are different conventions within it such as they follow a specific devices to create an effect on the audience. Often thrillers are focused around crime, in our thriller we focused on crime as well targeting the social issues teenagers face nowadays. In thrillers the protagonist usually has an exploitable weakness and you know who they are from the beginning and then the antagonist usually takes advantage of it. In thrillers both the protagonist and the antagonist are going against time.
Here I used a screen grab from another thriller that best compliments our thriller. I used a screen grab from the thriller film when a stranger calls where the antagonist answers the phone and therefore then engages in a conversation with the protagonist, similarly to ours we had Sara as the antagonist who receives a phone call from the protagonist. Films that have influenced me are Vertigo, When a stranger calls, Phone booth, and many more other similar thrillers have had an influence in the way we produced our thriller, encouraging us to think outside the box and explore with different angles and transitions. There are a few films that are similar to our film such as: Shifty, Don: The chase begins again, Bride of Chucky, The Conversation and many more.
2. How does your media product represent particular media groups?
Our media product represents a commonly targeted social group: teenagers to young adults. We follow the social norms and values and what influences many of the young adults within society, and as to how and why many of them end up where they are at the present e.g. drug dealing, imprisonment, gang violence etc. our media product represents the social influences teenagers and young adults face in society and the pressures they are drawn into. On the other hand we did not however represent other social groups in our media product because our main target group and focus was teenagers and young adults. Other social groups may not view the product in the same way as teenagers would because they would be critically analysing each and every bit of the product unlike teenagers and young adults who would just watch it. Our thriller explores the different concepts within society such as gender where by you usually find that it is the men who tend to be the one's selling drugs etc and not women because it is a more masculine thing to do in which we use a female figure to show the controversial role altercation. In our thriller we ensured that we had different ethnic groups/minorities and diversity within the different religions e.g. our antagonist was a female Muslim, the police officer was Irish and the driver was Turkish, so therefore in out thriller we explored the different religions and ethnic minorities. The characters in our thriller film were between the ages of 17/18 and the driver between the ages of 22-25, they are all within the working class selling goods to make a living. Young people are shown in both a positive way and a negative way as they face different obstacles in life and have to pave ways to make a living whether or not it is illegal or legal. They may be stereotypes within our thriller as teenagers are stereotyped as being mischievous and up to no good in which you see in our thriller.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
From our recent research into film distributors in media we found that Film4, BBC would be the most likeliest institutions that may distribute our product, because Film4 seeks to broadcast a mixture of films which are independent or created through self-governing, old, new, British films as well as other varieties of films. Our product is made by, media students, and is therefore an amateur film creatively produced. In addition, it could be used and shown in other media classes/students, who could use it as an example or somewhat guidelines to creating their own,and can compare their own product to other students amateur products. Furthermore, institution such as a school can distribute our media product. Other institutions such as YouTube or Internet TV related institutions might distribute our product. Other media institutions that may distribute our media product would be BBC 4 because it sponsors and promotes amateur films self-created.
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The type of media institution which might distribute our media product would depend on the financial support we would be able to get in order to distribute our product. Taking into consideration where the money would be coming from, where its going and the implications it may have. Through our research and experiences our product would be rated for a certificate of 15 so therefore our audience would basically be persons of the age of 15 and above because of the content of the product. Teenagers and young adults best suit the age certification because it was filmed in everyday locations for teenagers as well as representing them in the product. The type of market or institution our thriller would be most suitable for would be:
Adv & Dis Adv for Mass Media Marketing
- Television: Reaches more people than any other medium; but costs the most.
- Radio: Not as expensive as television, can reach the people with high satellite frequency and those able to get the message
- Newspaper: Not expensive to buy and many people read newspapers daily, increasing the possibility of the ad getting read as well if eye-catching
- Magazines: High quality graphics and information
- Outdoor Billboards and Transit: Good image or reminder medium; can't communicate many details.
- Internet: Good support medium; shares a lot of information worldwide so many people are in reach of the web, except those without the Internet, cheaper and easily accessible.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
The way in which we attracted/addressed our audience for our media product was by producing a questionnaire (focus group). We then asked them questions, together with their age and well as gender. Additionally we asked them what types and kind of thrillers they like, and why e.g. what draws their attention or attracts them to watch it, and what they look for in a thriller. Our results came back informing us that teenagers between that age of 15+, enjoyed “Crime, Horror, Action”. We have applied this to our storyboard, which includes the crime and the action aspect. Moreover, there is suspense created in the storyline, which then allows our audience to be able to work out the plot. In our product we used transitions etc, which will attract our audience. By shooting our product in this manor it enables our audience to take a closer look at the things which influence teenagers and young adults within society.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In the process of constructing our product we learnt a variety of techniques within technologies e.g. how to use the camera (positioning and holding), how to use iMovie software. When we first did our preliminary task it was the first time using a camera and had a few difficulties regarding positioning of objects or figures within the frame. By doing this task/exercise we learnt how to use camera in different angles and the different camera movements. We also learnt about continuity, the 180 degree rule and match one action. Moreover when it came to the editing stage we did not know how to do any other techniques apart from the simply straight cuts. Nonetheless, later when working with iMovie, I developed my skills of using iMovie further by learning how to insert different transitions such as cross-dissolves and overlap and fade ins. From then I began to think of the different ways in which we could incoporate in our product to make it polished. The iMac enabled us to upload pictures through blue tooth and many more. I found it productive using the iMac because I had used it before and therefore knew how to use some of its software's.When we were editing my other group members found it difficult to understand and to use as they had never used an iMac computer/software before and I was the only one in the group that had had experience in using it. Working with iMac requires constant saving unlike other software's were by they automatically save the work, so if you do not save the work then you are most likely to lose it and would therefore require you to do it again taking more time. The way in which our thriller held the audiences attention was through us as the producers producing a product in which by using music and clips and editing well to create a flowing product of events that will grab the audiences attention right from the beginning. People from thw ages of 15 above would be the most likeliest people to possibly watch our film because our target group is from the age of 15 onwards. The audience could carry on watching after the initial 2 minute opening because from our research on facebook after asking people what they thought of our film they wanted to know what would happen next which meant that they would want to carry on watching it after the initial 2 minute opening and find out what happens next because of the gripping opening overture.
iMovie is a movie editing application that is part of the iLife suite of digital lifestyle applications that allows Apple Macintosh users to create movies from a number of different sources including digital video cameras, DV-encoded files, and pictures.
iMovie allows you to:
Easily import footage from digital camcorders and still cameras (that support video capture)
- Organize your video in a central repository, across your Mac or on external hard drives
- Gather, view, edit, and share your edited movie files
- Create movie files that include music, sound effects, themes, menus, titles, transitions, and other effects
- Save your edited movies onto physical media such as a DVD, CD or as a file on a hard drive
- Share your movies on the Internet through services such as MobileMe Gallery, YouTube, and personal web sites
We used iMovie to edit our product by using this softeware it enabled us to work with better software applications and better our product.
Youtube is an online public communication site where you can upload music and videos where everyone can view. It allows registered users to upload their own videos and have available to others to view and comment upon. We used youtube to upload our preliminary task and our thriller film to recieve feedback from other people. Youtube was used because of quicktime upload it allowed us to upload our videos onto youtube quicker which meant that no time was wasted overall.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the product?
Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt an a great deal about media and its different conventions also about teamwork, editing, filming, production. When we first started, with the preliminary,we used it as an opportunity to understand the ways in which the camera works and how to edit. In the preliminary task, we did not have that many camera angles, positioning and movement. In the progression to our product, we have developed our understanding of how to use the camera incoporating what we learnt e.g. camera handling, positioning, movement etc. We had different camera movements, even though we did not end up putting them in our product. When we were editing our preliminary straight cuts and dissolves. Other than the transitions we used they are others which we did not use because we were uncertain whether or not they would be suitable. From experience we learnt that things will not go according to plan if you do not have plan to follow, which a can then have consequences. Moreover, I have also learnt that teamwork and cooperation within the team is highly essential. As a group I think that we worked well together as each of us had different ideas and together we merged them and had a positive outcome. The acting was left to those who we able to do it unlike me. As a group we found that working under pressure increases our pace in working. From when we did our pre-liminary task up till the point of which we then filmed and edited our final thriller product we have learnt a great deal and developed our understanding of the way in which different types of media is used and furthered our skills and editing and many more.The thriller shows further progressions and development of our skills because in the preliminary task you can see that we didn't have alot of knowledge as to how to use iMovie and the Mac software itself as it is an updated version of most softwares, and during our preliminary task found it a bit difficult to do but as we had further experience of how to use the software we become fully aware of the ways in which to use the software.
