Evaluation Questions:

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be over the age of 15 as it is supposed to be an action thriller which involves violence e.g. the blood in the opening. Our opening is probably aimed more at a younger adult audience as the characters involved are young. 

As our product is probably in the Crime Thriller genre so would  probably aim at the conventional audience of between 15 and 40 year olds. This is as they usually find the more challenging story lines and plots more interesting and they prefer the feeling of mystery and suspense created in various thrillers. For example, thrillers usually challenge the conventions of normal films such as action films. One convention they challenge are the characters conveyed in action films. For example, stereotypical heroes especially are usually shown differently in thrillers, one example is 'the driver' character in Nicolas Winding Refn's neo noir arthouse film 'Drive' is shown as a silent character who, when pushed to the limits, is forced to carry out violent and brutish acts which wouldn't usually be expected of the conventional action hero. Another thriller which challenges typical film conventions is Alfred Hithcock's 'Psycho', in this film, the main protaganist Marion half way through the film gets killed, leaving the audience temporarily with no character to root for. It is for reasons like this that an older audience would prefer thrillers as they tend to challenge their audience more, for instance, in our own product, we don't have a clear hero or villain and it is left unanswered throughout the opening.

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

One thing we have learnt about technologies in the construction of this product is the importance and added professionalism and quality better technology gives you. For example, when we did our continuity piece, we were using a lower quality camera and therefore gave the finished piece a pix elated. However, we obtained a new camera for this particular project, the camera we used was a Panasonic HDC-SD40 camera that is capable of filming in 1080p. This is a massive step up in terms of the quality of the shots we were making and therefore added a more crisp, polished look to each one of our shots as well as making it look more professional.  

For the editing of our product we used Windows Movie Maker. Although this is one of the more basic editing software's we wanted a simple, easy-to-use site where we could quickly and effectively make the adjustments we needed to ensure our final piece is as close to what we wanted as possible. With this tool, we could easily make cuts with shots that went on too long and we were able to ensure that the continuity of the piece was of a good quality as well. Also, using this tool, we were able to add the text needed over each shot in order to show the audience the name of our product and who starred in it.

Finally, Web 2.0 was an important technology that we used in the constructing of the product. We learnt that it is much more effective in getting people to see and recognize your product once you post it on social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.Using the vastly popular video sharing site YouTube, we were even able to gain some feedback on our product and certain techniques we could of employed to make it of a higher standard and quality. This was mirrored when we posted the video on Facebook which further ensured that even more people who otherwise wouldn't of been able to discover our product managed to find and view it. As well as social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook, the site Skype was essential during the making of the product. Without it would have been much harder and more inconvenient to contact one another and arrange times and dates to meet up as well as to share shots from the product with each other to ensure each shot is as close as possible to the quality we all wanted it to be.

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

The preliminary task was in a sense vital in the progression in terms of quality of our final product. One example of this progression for instance is the difference in quality between the two pieces. When we looked at our finished continuity piece, although we were initially pleased with it, we thought one element which made it particularly weak was the camera quality of the shots. This made us use a much higher quality camera for our final piece and ensured a much higher quality for our opening. 

One effective method of filming we learnt from our preliminary task was the use of close ups as well as extreme close ups in order to fully convey a characters emotion. One thing we really liked with our continuity piece was the exchange made between the two characters involved in it, we thought we effectively caught a gripping and effective series of shots involving these characters as for the majority of these shots we used close ups. This enabled the audience to feel as if they were right in the action and also allowed them to see the emotions and reactions on the characters faces. Due to this, we tried whenever we could to add a close up of a characters reaction or emotions in our final full product so as the audience could feel these same effects and hopefully could see a more professional looking product.

Also, another benefit we learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product is the importance of planning. Through the uses of story boarding especially we were able to film the piece in an efficient and quick manner through knowing the exact locations we were filming in as well as carefully planning out each shot. We even were able to estimate the timing of each shot through the use of planning -for instance we timed shots usually between 5 and 15 seconds- so we were able to guess and to an extent control the amount of time it would take to film the piece.

Finally, through the preliminary task, we were able to see what we did wrong and attempt to fix it in the full product, for example the poor quality of the camera, and as well as this, we were able to take the positives we had learnt from the task and take them into our final product so as to make it as effective and professional as possible for our audience.



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

Our thriller project contains many of the general forms and conventions of a thriller. This was mainly achieved through the use of sounds and camera work. Throughout the opening, especially in the parts involving the most tension, there is a fast beating soundtrack in the background that we added in the editing stage. This was to ensure the audience was kept on edge and in suspense which is one of the main conventions of the genre. One part of the opening where this is most prominent is the very ending, where one of the characters is on the phone, and all the sound in the scene is completely diegetic, up until he pulls the bag out from under the chair and the music starts again. This enabled us to end on a climax and leave the audience in a state of suspense and tension.

Involving camera work, we gained a large amount of inspiration from 'Psycho' and even the famous American TV series 'The Walking Dead'. As in 'The Walking Dead'-which in itself contains many thriller elements- we decided to model are opening loosely on the opening of the show, lots of quick cuts from different abandoned areas would provide the sense of mystery and suspense we were looking for in our opening.  In the shower scene of our opening we were inspired greatly by the shower scene in 'Psycho', especially of the shot of the blood draining at the end. Also, using the camera, we wanted to make sure the audience felt right in their with the action so leading up to the attack on the pursuer we had a lot of close up shots of the characters, following them as they discovered what came next. This was to make the audience feel involved with the character in order to create more suspense and tension, as they can only see what the character sees.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product could possibly represent the presence of organised crime and the sort of people involved in it. As shown by the runner in our product. It could also suggest that everyday people no matter what social group they are in can get caught up in crime, as demonstrated by the changing room victim in our opening.

As well as this, as we cannot act or appear older than we are, it could suggest an element of underage crime, and again suggest the idea that anyone can get caught up in crime as well as this it shows audiences some of the consequences of these crimes.

Also, as the bag in our opening is sought after and kept a mystery, it is suggested that it contains something valuable, which is probably why the chasers are seeking it. This suggests the lengths some people would go to for money or other substances.

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

As we have aimed to make a Crime thriller we are not aiming at the biggest of audiences however ideally we would like to have one of the main film distributing companies such as Universal or Warner Bros advertising our product. This would give us a great amount of promotional power and the potential to get our product recognised and noticed by a large number of people. For example, adverts on the TV could be essential to getting people to notice our product. Despite our thriller being inappropriate for kids so it could only be shown on the TV at a certain time there our still a lot of people -mainly our target audience- watching the TV at that time who could be persuaded by a TV advert to look into our product.