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

Our task for AS Level Media was to film, edit and produce an opening for a thriller movie. We had to come up with something original and capture the main elements of a thriller to create an opening that would captivate the audience and grab their attention throughout the first 3 minutes. As a group we decided to give our thriller opening a ‘15’ certificate. Our opening has a slight sense of menace and threat to the group, especially one individual, which could evolve into something much more sinister later on in the film. In parts, we have captured a sense of someone being watched and followed, and some viewers may not be comfortable with this.

The thriller genre has many conventions and elements that make it such an interesting and exciting genre of film. Many thriller films use tension and suspense to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. The tension helps bring the audience closer to the story line and action, they are kept guessing and want to know more

i believe we have challenged conventions within are media with our character choice as we away have strayed away from typical damsel in distress as our kidnapped girls are not the typical blond bomb shell, Our actors are more thriller related there appearance helps add to the somber atmosphere of which we tried to create.

The picture below shows our credits and titles .

The titles we chose played to conventions as they were those typical to the thriller  connoting danger or death ahead which is what is used in real media product such as those blood feast :

This shows we played to typical thriller conventions copying typical thriller conventions of real media product and also fulfilling the typical thriller expectations .films with these conventions and mise en scene influenced during the make of our final production.

from when a stranger calls you can see where our fast pace editing inspiration comes from as from the trailer it is fast paced and keeps you on edge and allows tension to believe which what we were able to achieve within our media open production. you can see this we copy the long fade to black which i believe shows how are media relates to other products as it has the same effect on the audience building tension and keeping them on edge.

Our typical shot types in of a thriller are:-

• Establishing shots- This shot sets the scene up by showing the location and what is happening there.  
• Over the shoulder shots- This shot gives the view the characters perspective like of our stalker . This makes the viewer feel more involved allowing them to empathise more with whats going on within the film .
• Extreme close-ups- This shot type gives a clear close view of a important point, person or object. This draws attention to the chosen subject emphasizing with whats going on and also allows for tension to build like the close of actors face which helps to set the mood of distress. 
• Panning shots- This shot can be used to follow someone who is walking or to set the scene again. It allows the the product to run smoother if it is pulled off are pan to the stalker which show a perspective of one of the hostages.also adds tension as your waiting to see what coming this is how the pan is effective.
• Mid shots- This shot is the basic shot. It is used for the day to day shots.

these shots we have multiple use off  to show that are media piece that of typical media product like in the when a stranger calls we follow the exact structure and type of shots in the clip establish whats going and to show the perspectives of the characters. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

To start we thought that the certificate of the opening to the movie should be a 12a or border line 15 due to thrue nature and extent of the performance and what implications could be made including suitability aspects. ideally we would like our audience to be a younger range of the people because we think that they would be able to relate to our media production these days and as unfortunate as it may sound everyone past 12 knows or should know about what rape is/Stalking is also. A subtle contrast of sophistication and psychosis if they were ever to be one is what we were trying to portray within our stalker so we would expect our audience to be those who watch thrillers regualry or those just starting as i believe our plot is easy to understand but the true meaning behind it would only convey to those regular thriller viewers. we also make the media more   easier to watch  as we thought the age range 15-30 year old would not only be able to watch and to a certain degree empathise but also to notice the conventions and mechanism worked within the piece for a true appreciation from the audience. we were able to mock up a target audience by handing out 20 questionnaires 10 to each sex this aloud for us to gather a good range of information.we found that are ideal target audience were regular thriller watches between the age of 15-17 this is way he had to keep our classification of our film to a 15 so our potential audience could watch it.

BBFC 

·      We researched  in depth  film classifications that there are in the BBFC including  12, 12a, 15, 18, R-rated we then looked into each classification individually and decided on what content was able to be shown within each classification for our film. This would determine what age rating we should pass our film as and we chose classification 15 rated for 15 years and above. This was based on the fact that our film contained scenes of sexual and non sexual  violence,. Also this would guarantee that the correct audience would  be able to view the film. 

“Suitable only for 15 years or over

The rules on 15 classification are no-one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work. Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, strong language and one use of very strong language, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and undetailed sex activity.”

ence

i believed we worked well to fulfilling these guide lines as a lot of what went on was implied and there was only moderate sexual violence. so i believed we met the needs of out targe audience.

i believe we fullfilled the needs of the audience as from our audience feedback

How does your media group represent particular social groups?

The groups that we have focussed on during our media production are suitable for a target audience of 15-30 year olds. This was due to the statistics and responses we were given from our questionnaire. I believe that we this particular response we were given from the questionnaire. I believe from are questionnaire we came to conclusion the age group we targeted watched thriller after thriller we believed.
 Once the target audience was established we knew what demands we needed to meet and what was needed to be included for this too be a success so we decided playing to typical stalker thriller with a twist would be appropriate given the audience would understand what concepts we were attempting to convey .
we went for the stalkers perspective following the expectations of the audience. The story line was not unique but similar those other stalker films we went with his perspective so the sense of what he going to next lead to suspense and tensions keeping the audience engaged.

I have represented particular social groups women being inferior to women we did this by our choice of actors as you can tell they are quite young this shows them as vulnerable and  as insecure this adolescent help us portray women being inferiority of women to men. We also tried to portray the the aggressiveness and true brutality of men with the close up of the stubbing out of the cigarette butt which i believe conveys the mentality of men with in our media production.
We also showed the darker/sinister side of men within our production by allowing the the villain to be the stalker this shows a darker side as our stalker seem with the variation of shots which showed his true intentions i believe with the over the shoulder shots allowing the audience to gain his darker perspective of the opening.


Within our media production we represented hooded people people in a bad way as are stalker has his hood up constantly, which convey's the impression that people who choose to identity using are hood are up to no good. portraying our abductor represents a certain social group in society in a negative way. this could also portray mods in a negative ways as they were renowned for wearing parkas in the past.


we went unconventional in the fact that we represented middle/upper class committing crime by showing the main character is up to date with current trends and fashion by wearing the parka this shown. this is unconventional as you expect the working class to commit the crime as many sociologist have proven they are the typical suspects .

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience we chose to play towards conventions of typical thrillers. This included mise-en scene, which was our choice of location, props and actors .Our location was very conventional as it was in an isolated area in the middle woods, which I believed represented the ideal thriller location. For props we used a parker jacket that I thought played very well to conventions as it fitted the attire of a stalker. For the actors we went very unconventional for the victims, as they were not typical victims you expect in a thriller they were not the blond damsels in distress.

The type of editing with our opening we thought would appeal to our audience, as it was fast pace and in a sort of montage editing style which we believed to the leave the audience on edge and to build suspense. The non-diegetic sound within are thriller opening went really well with our editing as it had a quick tempo which has a sombre tone which set gruesome feeling to the opening.

The aim of our thriller was to make it a hybrid genre making it into a psychological thriller. This was achieved mainly because of our editing which distorted the viewer making them unaware of what was going to happen next.the pace of our editing made the viewer interesting so it was to be engaged like we intended. We also achieved this through the use of mise-en-scene. This was achieved by using an unknown location to others, as they could not relate to it in an everyday sense so it made the location more daunting.

We addressed the ideal audience by staying within their specific Age certificate, which we believe would be approve 15 guidelines by the BBFC we did this by Prohibiting the use of Drugs, sex, foul language or extreme violence we believe with out including them would not have made our opening an 18 and giving the opportunity to aim at a the wider audience .we did not want extreme violence within our thriller as we believed this to change out are thriller into a horror which is not what we wanted change the genre of our thriller.

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

I believe my thriller opening  would not appeal to the larger companies such as Paramount Pictures or universal studios as it a low budget film and they are not willing to take the risk and distribute it .the reasoning behind why these larger distribution company's would not distribute our production is because its only a small production and these companies tend to go with  larger productions of david Spielberg etc a safe bet which will defiantly turn out  to be a success.
An ideal company to distribute our product would be the uk film council which their aim is to make the uk a global center for films and distribution .they would be perfect to fund and distribute a film like ours because they support many upcoming directors and film makers and help them attract a wider audience. the uk film council also a wise option to choose to distribute as they are independent and have to restrictions on who they are able to fund as their main source of finance come from the national lottery.


An example of films they fund is fish tank (the below)

 

This shows that UK film council are willing to take risks on lower budgeted films like fish tank and i believe  our media production would be well received with open arms as ours to looks promising with a good story line behind it as well.

Another choice of distributor may be the BBC films as they are the forefront of producing British Independent films which our media production is so we would suite the BBC quite well as they are quite picky with what they back but they committed in finding and developing new talent in film which is what i believe our media production team poses and this is why we would be great candidates for thee BBC films.
The BBC films distribute a large range of genres how ever the thrillers they do distribute are all on the edge after thorough research on their past productions i found that ,our media production had many key elements which they possess this is why we would be best suited for the BBC.

i believe are media piece to have  much in common with the awakening as it has high levels of suspense and high quality level of editing .

screen gems may be interested in the distribution of our media production as its to there taste like many films they have produced and it is also where are main source of inspiration came from when thinking of ideas for our media prelim.they may be intreseted as the genre they tend to produce/distribute is that of ours the thriller genre . They have produced such films as resident evil and when a stranger calls which we found to very similiar to our production .

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

During the production of our thriller opening  and starting media I have learnt and developed a range of skills in filming and editing. As a group we became successfully when using a camera to capture different elements of a thriller.
By learning how to compose a shot different shot types can represent and what using different shot types such Using high or low angle shots signifies the authority character. Close ups or extreme close ups help build a sense of importance on that object or express or show feelings and emotions of a character that help build  a certain atmosphere. For instance, in our opening, we used an extreme close up of the rand some note help distinguish the main plot of our opening.
We used editing software called iMovie on the mac very efficient .i had enough time to gain some experience when using i Movie in my spare time on the macs just messing around with footage. I had used the editing software in my own time however i believed during our opening task i truly became confident using the soft where .

. After using iMovie for a considerable amount of time may skill became enhance on the mac this mean i was confident using transitions that were available to use were simple and easy to use in our opening.
 When using the camera we learnt as we went along as none of us had any real experience other than the preliminary task. We made sure we stuck to the 180 degree rule when filming each scene as we felt this was quite an easy mistake to make. also  we ensure when using the camera the camera work not use a large quantity of hand held camera work as this did not produce a nice steady shot this is when i believed this was my expertise, as i came to grips with using the tripod efficiently which is why we produced high quality footage. 

Also while using the macs i came to grips with garage band which aloud us to create a decent non diegetic background music which ensured we were able to edit are media piece so it coincided with our music so i learnt to shorter segments music and how to insert heart beats etc onto our back ground track.


But through out the long winded process of media coursework i was able to get grips with blogger which allowed my self to make progress on blogging my progress through the media course .so i was able to upload what i learned/ research.it also made it easy to upload videos which i had scene which may have inspired me with the planning and ideas of my media production. i got to grips with blogging things with uploading what i had done so far in my media course 

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

Before taking up media for as we had no experience what’s so ever and did not know what to expect as we were introduced into the thriller genre. So during my prelim tasks we learnt to get to grips with editing on the Macs, Shooting film and planning of the filmmaking. 

I learnt very quickly that in the prelim that just making a film was a lot harder to do out of thought and the main issue with are prelim is that there was not a lot of planning as we made it up as we went a long . we would have had been more successful when shooting if we planned so we knew exactly what footage was needed . 
Between are prelim and thriller opening we established that planning lead to a successful shoot we drew up story boards for are opening of our thriller so we knew exactly what footage had to be recorded so we did have a shortage of footage which happened in are prelim shoot as we were not exactly sure of what we had to edit with. We also learnt to take multiple's. 
As we found during the making of our prelim we couldn't use certain footage as we realized some shots were not good enough like the end pan right within are media we amended this by taking three or four of the same shots so we had enough footage to play around with. This extra footage help to achieve decent footage without mistakes like people looking into the camera multiple shot takes helped eradicate the potential of errors in our footage.

We also found during are prelim we did look at different types of shots as during prelim mainly consisted of the same shots close up. During are thriller opening thriller we looked at using different shots like:

• Long shots
• Close ups
• Low angle shots
• Establishing shots

So we sorted the problems of shot varitaion from are prelim by using a combination of shots within are opening and differed a way from the close ups to add variety of shots.

within are media project we introduced long shots and over the shoulder shots to help give other perspectives to the opening instead ,instead of just feeling like you were watching from a third person perspective all the time which it seemed to be like in our media prelim.

i found my strongest skill during our prelim was with out editing skills on the macs, which allowed having good continues editing which allowed our prelim to flow smoothly.This lead to our success because We also learned about types of editing from are prelim where it was continuity editing where everything followed making sense. however for our thriller to fit in with conventions of our thriller genre we introduced montage editing where the whole opening of our thriller is chop and changed not following a particular order to help emphasis the past and present this also allows for our opening to have an unpredictable rhythm as we wanted to keep the view on edge and anonymous to what going to happen ahead. 

We did montage-editing gives are media a pace a quick tempo which allow our opening thriller to be exciting and keep our audience enticed.

Although we are pleased with our opening thriller we believe we could have composed are shots better as lighting was a key problem during our opening of our thriller as we relied on daylight. We believe if we worked with lighting me could have made are opening more ominous and mysterious by playing to conventions like keeping the villains face hidden and making the whole scene more gloomy and dark, which would have allowed us to play to conventions of the thriller genre how ever we improved on this by changing there contrast of the footage on the mac to make it fit in within the thriller genre .

Also looking back over the past 6 months i have developed by camera work skills being able   When using the camera we learnt as we went along as none of us had any real experience other than the preliminary task. We made sure we stuck to the 180 degree rule when filming each scene as we felt this was quite an easy mistake to make. also  we ensure when using the camera the camera work not use a large quantity of hand held camera work as this did not produce a nice steady shot this is when i believed this was my expertise, as i came to grips with using the tripod efficiently which is why we produced high quality footage.