Evaluation.

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

The media product that we have produced both follows and challenges the typical conventions of a thriller movie. One that it challenges is the lighting that is typically used within thrillers; it is usually dark and gloomy to give a sinister effect whereas our product was filmed in bright daylight with no others present so it gives the effect of it being extremely early in the morning. One that it follows is that the victim or troubled one is a female character; our female character is easy to identify as she is young, pretty and fashonable like that of the female in Mullholland Drive (2001). Other thriller genre conventions that our product follows are; tension is built up; atmospheric music is used; mystery is apparent and narrative enigma is used throughout. We have done this by use of the male character’s mystery and the plot of the attempted suicide based around our main female character. Another convention we have followed is the use of atmospheric and dramatic music; we used an orchestral piece of music called 'Abandoned' it is dramatic and adds the moody atmosphere that we wanted to portray.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product that is our opening sequence of a thriller movie we have an 18 year old girl who is troubled and is contemplating suicide, played by our chosen actress Annie Nurse. This character looks that of upper middle class as she doesn’t look overdone and doesn’t look what the majority would perceive as rich or poor. We also have a mystery man played by our chosen actor Jonathan Tang. He has a hidden identity at this point in the film and we are not supposed to know who he really is at the start of the film. He looks sinister as he is dressed in dark clothes and you do not see his full face. These characters are both protagonists and are represented as this because the male character does a good deed in stopping the girl’s suicide whereas the girl looks like the victim as she seems troubled. If developed further we would see how how female character would be represented as a troubled teenager and our male character's identity and story would continue to be more known to the audience throughout the film; the audience may feel they can relate to the characters. Also our characters have been represented in a modern way by the use of modern technology like the phones and by the characters' clothes.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A distribution company like Overture films would be ideal for the distribution of our thriller as they have distributed a thriller like Law Abiding Citizen (2009) which had a budget of $40.000.000 and the gross box office takings stood at $73,343,413 (USA). Another company that could also distribute our film is Warner Bros. Pictures. A thriller this company has distributed is Sherlock Holmes (2009) which had a budget of $90,000,000 and the gross box office takings of this film was $208,897,390 (USA). Either one of these would be ideal because they both have distributed successful thrillers which fits the genre of our media product.
Another distribution method could be by use of the internet. The internet has got resources that allow the world to view videos and films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007). These are examples of two sucessful, low budget films who have been recognised and distributed through the internet and then later distributed into cinemas and DVDs.


• Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our chosen audience would be 16 year olds and up who are interested in thriller movies. This is shown as we have the use of young characters and a modern day setting. This audience chosen is also because we would want our film to have a mass audience.

• How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by the use of tension and mystery within the introduction made. In order to engage narrative enigma we have a mysterious plot occurring within this opening sequence; the audience would not know why she is attempting suicide; they wouldn’t know why she is up on the cliff until she gets the phone call and the male character says ‘do not jump’ and then they would put two and two together with the text rto her mum at the start and what character B says. Also they wouldn’t know who the mystery man is and why he is stopping her. The tension is built up in a sense by not knowing whether the female character would jump or not. This would all in turn make the audience more interested in finding out who they are and what is going on and what is going to happen. Aside from the plot, sympathy and drama is also used to address the audience. The music used for when the female character is on the cliff is called ‘Abandoned’ which relates to her. It is moving and has a slow tempo and the use of orchestral instruments like; the violin, piano and the cello create a melancholic atmosphere. The piano comes in when she is looking at the picture of her and her best friends; this creates the sympathy for the character as you can tell she is upset.

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

During the construction of this product I have learnt many technological things like using the camera effectively; sorting out white balance; using different settings; using it on the tripod when doing shots in order to make them steady and run smoothly when doing a pan or a tracking shot. I also have learnt how to use the editing software to a better extent. We use Adobe Premiere Pro for editing so as the making of the product has gone on I have been able to learn more things and find more uses for the software such as the effect controls, fitting different clips together and layering them with extra footage and audio.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When doing the preliminary task I feel, in comparison to now, that I had basic knowledge about filming and editing and the skills involved. In this task we had to include a match-on-action shot, the 180° rule and a shot-reverse-shot and a basic conversation between two characters; this is limited compared to what we have done in our full product. This is also because the preliminary task was much shorter, required less than the full product and we had a shorter time to do it in so therefore further skills couldn’t be explored while doing that task. Now, after doing this product, I feel my skills have developed and I have gained more insight into the ways cameras and editing can be used. When doing this task and making our own opening sequence I got to try out different camera angles, shots and movements like pans; tracking shots; many match-on-action shots; close ups; mid-shots; long shots; over the shoulder shots; extreme close ups; establishing shots and zooms and when editing I could see which of these shots flowed better when putting it all together by using different transitions. In this task audio had to be used in order to create a mood and atmosphere for the opening sequence. To do this we recorded digetic and non-digetic sounds and ambient sounds like footsteps, cars, and birds. Also when recording the phone ringing, we layered a separate audio over the footage and dipped the sound when the character was away from the phone and made it louder as she got closer to it. I definitely have expanded my skills in editing while doing this product as I can use different video and audio effects and transitions now; I can layer different parts of sound and audio over others and also change the way the footage looks by means of using lighting effects and fades/dips and other tools too.