Media Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product follows certain rules of convention and conformity but at the same time maintains a separate distinction from what rival thrillers would offer. Many thrillers in modern cinema and in our own Media group relied heavily on blurring the lines between the conventions of their thriller and that of horror. Whereas ours was more centred around inner-city petty crime. Ours followed the central convention of thriller films with the final scene of our opening sequence, with the betrayal our characters offering a “Why” to be answered later in the film. The finished feature would’ve gone with a typical convention of thrillers with the pacing, the momentum would’ve increased as the mystery unravelled, with the wronged character trying to discover the reason for the other ones betrayal.
James Mclynn
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Social groups are a number of entities that have the same views as each other on social and ethical situations. Our opening sequence appeals to many different social groups but does not relate to all of them because it is a physiological thriller. But even though it does not apply to the target audience it still appeals to them. The social group that it represents is youths in London. The way that it represents them is stereotypical and also non stereo typical. It represents them as violent this is, because the main character of the film goes around setting people up. This backs up the representation that youths in London are violent and have no problem messing up people and their heads. It also subverts the stereo type as most youths are seen as bad not mentally ill. Our product would appeal to different media groups because of the stereo types and the representations of youths in the 21st century. Youths can find common ground in the characters and relate to their situations which will in turn help them to come to terms with the character and understand them better because the characters are of different racial groups which means that they are more relatable.
Nathaniel Gardner
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Some examples of possible distributors for Just Business, our feature, are films that would be fairly local and focus on independent British films. Revolver Entertainment, distributors of West London based film Kidulthood would perhaps take an interest based on this release. Kidulthood was set around several teenagers in the Ladbroke Grove area and focused on stereotypical teen topics, the film centred around some criminality-based characters and this is what gives the impression that the company wouldn’t be intimidated by such a film topic. Another distributor, although bigger in scope and reputation than Revolver which could take interest in such a project would be Film4. The Channel 4 funded company has a strong reputation for bringing out the best in British independent film, with its recent success of funding and helping promote and distribute Slumdog Millionaire being testament to this.
James Mclynn
4. Who would be the audience for your media product and why?
The target audience for our media product would be both males and females aged between 16-18.
We responded to the initial brief with our audience in mind by researching our target audience, having them fill out questionnaires and asking what they would like to see from an opening sequence for a thriller film.
Our research helped us in the creative process as it helped us to focus our ideas. While we may not have been completely decided in our film ideas, we knew how we would produce the choices we had to appeal best to our audience.
During filming and editing we were very ware that some scenes could be interpreted in ways they were not originally intended to be. To tackle this, we took care in editing are clips and the arrangement and order of the clips to ensure that the development of the story was clear to the audience at all times, while still creating enough enigma to make the audience want to watch more. Knowing our audience was 16-18 year olds we did not make anything excessively simplified as we may have done for a child’s film, although at the same time we did not create a complex, deep and metaphoric opening sequence that would need interpretation and analysis. Instead we created a sequence which provides thought and creates enigma but shows developments in the story clearly to the viewer. We chose this approach as we thought it would be the most effective for our audience. We spent a lot of time focusing on audience with even the actors being the same age group of our target audience. Slang and colloquial expressions have also been added to our sequence so that our target audience can further relate to our opening sequence.
The consideration of our target audience was a driving force in the creative process of our sequence as the audience is vital to any media text as it allows the text to reach people and allows the message of the media text to be spread. We realised early on that if we did not cater to our target audience, there would be no point in creating the opening sequence as we would have no one to watch it. We created a sequence with a target audience in mind so that a select group of people would be genuinely interested in our media text and to ensure that our media opening sequence would reach an audience, even if it was a small and specialised one.
Brian Harding
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
After completing our opening sequence, we had a screening of the sequence to our target audience. We let them watch the clip and then gave them a questionnaire to fill out so we could find out what the thought of the sequence. We asked them 6 questions: What did they like about our opening sequence, how they thought the sequence could be improved, did the sequence have conventions of a thriller, were representations (of race, gender etc.) established, what questions were posed after viewing the clip and did the opening sequence make them want to keep watching.
For the most part, the responses to the sequence were positive with people saying that they liked the sequence. They said the sequence could be improved if the lighting was adjusted because generally people said that the clip was too dark. People also thought that we should get rid of any ambient sounds we had and we should change the volume of the speech as it was difficult to hear the dialogue between the characters. Everyone who answered the questionnaire said that the sequence had conventions of a thriller as it created enigma and tension. Some people mentioned the stereotypical representations of black people being the burglars but this was seen by some to make the film less of a thriller and more of a 'gangsta film'.
Generally, people asked the questions we wanted to to, such as 'Why was Jefferey beaten up?' 'What is the 'business' Nathaniel is talking about?' and 'What will happen next?'. Almost everyone said that the opening sequence would make them want to carry on watching, making us feel the opening sequence was effective. Our target audiences interpretation of our opening sequence matched what we had originally intended. The positive feedback and constructive criticism allowed us to see what we had done well and how to improve. From the questionnaires it seems as though we have effectively addressed our target audience, showing how important the research process is as without it we would not have been able to appeal to our audience.
Brian Harding
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst making our opening sequence I learned how to use a video camera properly and how to achieve good steady shots using a tri pod. I also learned how to use I movie very well. I had previously used it last year to create my music video but this year I used it in to make of my opening sequence. I think that making our opening sequence has allowed me to learn how to create different effects to enhance the opening sequence, for example adding music to a clip and to change to volume level of the music so that the dialogue in the scene can be heard. I also learnt how to add special effects such as transitions that allow the sequence to flow and add effect to it. I movie allowed us to edit out sequence to its best quality as possible. We added many transitions and cuts to add suspense and an eerie feel to the sequence; the music also had a big effect on the feel of our opening sequence. We were able to make basic shots look very professional and effective.
Nathaniel Gardner
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full Product?
Our preliminary task was to create a short scene with a two sentence conversation. There were only two people in our short clip. Brian would offer to have a staring contest, I would accept. From our preliminary task we learnt the basic rules about filming. At this stage we were introduced to three basic shooting and editing uses. These were 180 degree rule, Shot reverse shot and Match on action. The 180 degree rule for example requires the line of action not to be crossed, if people are having a conversation where ever the camera is they should be seen to be looking at each other on the same side of the shot. Other effects could be added to our short scene to give the viewer more to look at. The use of a Shot reverse shot implemented through editing could be used here, these are alternating shots, typically of two characters in a dialogue sequence and or even in a silence to show contrast in facial expressions in our preliminary task for example. Another editing technique we used for our preliminary task was match on action. It is a cut that connects two different view of the same action, at the same moment, in the same movement. By carefully matching the movement across the two shots we were able to make it seem that the motion continued uninterrupted. For a real match on action the action would have to begin in the first shot and end in the second. All three of these were thought about for preparation for our opening sequences. There were of course many other techniques we could employ but these basics were very important because they provided a foundation for the creation and development of our sequence.
From our preliminary task we learnt how each of these basic techniques could be used to effect and we were able to see where they could be fitted in for our opening sequence. At the editing stage we learnt how we could use a number of extra special effects to improve what we had already filmed. This was done by using Imovie HD on the Imac computers. There were a variety of noises like sirens and animal noises; there were also a number of ways to move to the next shot (transitions), for example a fade in or a fade out. Of course with our opening sequence so much could be implemented and this preliminary task wasn’t going to be that long. With our opening sequence being a thriller a variety of noises and transitions could be used seeing as the conventions of a thriller are usually fast paced sounds and a number of different transitions to think about. There is however suspense which engages the viewer, and there were a range of suspense related applications available to us on Imovie. For example a heartbeat which creates tension is very effective. When we feel afraid our heartbeat increases and we become anxious. We included this in our opening sequence because we thought it would create anxiety from the people watching it.
Creating our opening sequence required us to put more planning and more creativity into what would be in our clip we thought about the setting, the time of day, what the characters in it would be wearing, all of these factors were taken into consideration when recording began. It was set in the night and Nathaniel and I were wearing Black clothing. We initially began shooting in a park where Nathaniel would receive a phone call from Jeffrey about meeting up to rob the house but this was cut out and we forwarded it to night time to create more enigma and mystery for the viewer.
We were required to produce a storyboard picturing what would happen, showing the characters and the type of camera shot. Our original idea differed from the final creation. Originally we would rob a shop and Nathaniel would shoot the owner leaving for Jeffrey to be charged with the assault and sent to prison for nine years.
Our opening sequence was a period where we used our resourcefulness, coming together and sharing ideas which was beneficial to our knowledge of Media Studies.
Jeffrey Bruce-Mills
