Wills Evaluation

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Used


Complex narrative

First of all we used a complex narrative structure where there is a range of misleading plots and possible endings with the audience having to always keep focused on the storyline in order for them to understand. We did this by using the young girl who seems to be playing happily in the snow, by using high angle shots and close-ups and seeing her joyful expressions and emotions. The audience then realise that with the introduction of the man in the POV shot that she is being watched. Frailty is also a thriller which has a complex narrative involving false leads to create confusion in the audience through POV shots and close ups like in this the audience assumes that this is a regular father and his children however all is not what it seems later on which supports this theory.

Reaction Shot

Reaction shots are another important part of Thrillers as it gives the audience an indication of action and mood and it reveals character's emotion without revealing what the character knows/has seen to the audience. It also builds tension and suspense as you don't see any action between the character or characters. In our reaction moment from this shot the character Rosie reacts quickly to the twig being snapped which gives the suspicion that she knows who it is that's there and has perhaps has a dark relation with them due to events taken before the film opening.
In this shot from The Departed there is no dialogue in this reaction shot however the character clearly shows his emotion towards the event that has happened which also tells the audience specifically how much of an affect the cause of the reaction has had on the character.







Developed 

In our thriller film we used Mise en scene in which to develop it, mainly to do with the snow like environment in which relating to the storyline of being cold due to actions of that the character Nigel has taken for example keeping Rosie the young girl captive against her own will as well as her being a child which is a difficult and sickening thing for the audience to consider. The character Nigel also takes Rosie to a what seems to be of an abandoned warehouse where she is to be kept which adds to the miss en scene of showing the thriller conventions in the film, the old and beaten up abandoned warehouse is again cold and dark with the black door and the sprayed painted grafetti around it giving the impression of a rundown type area where perhaps for example crime and poverty would take place. As well the introduction of a creepy type of music when there is a POV shot of the character Nigel's perspective which gives the impression that something bad might take place. In the Black Swan there is a scene where one of the dancers is dancing in a darken and mistey environment which adds to the development of the films thriller conventions and gives suspicion and tension into the mix.

Conventions

Children and innocence are a standard theme used in thriller films to create more of an impact on the storyline due to the audience associating their feelings with the fact that children are young and are not exposed to serious actions as well as knowing very little. We portrayed the girl Rosie being Innocent by the type of clothes she wears for example the pink Welles and fluffy ear muffs also some of the shots we used like her playing in the snow which shows this vulnerability in our film. The psychological thriller The Sixth Sense uses a child that can see and talk to dead people, this is a similar technique in using the child like we have used in ours which again makes the audience hard not to feel for this.

Challenged

We challenged other forms of media products by placing the film title at the end of the sequence from our opening which differeniates this. We felt that this was suitable to place at that specfic part due to the fact that we could create more tension and possible answers from the events that took place during the opening sequence.
We have also didn't introduce the main character, protagonist in the opening of the movie which most movies do introduce to the audience so that they know who's life there following through the storyline. The protagonist in our film is an inspector investigating the case of the missing girl Rosie, we did this in our film though so that our audience could understand what events took place and what the storyline/plot was.




Question 2 - Representation of particular social groups

Social groups as represented on Prezi

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your thriller film

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Misplaced

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Audience profile

Age – 20-30

Reason – We believe that this film might be disturbing and not suitable for the younger audience and perhaps not being in their interest due it having quite a serious and complex storyline. This audience age aim we are aiming for is a wide and big as well as us believing that they we be entertained from this due the amount of young adults who are in groups and do watch thriller type films like the paranormal activity series for example.

Gender – Female

Reason – We are aiming our film at the female audience due to the fact that the girl "Rosie" in the film itself appears to be in a frightening situation where they feel they are trapped which in course creates more fear and tension in the eyes of an female therefore giving more of effect to them compared to the male audience.

Class – Middle

Reason – Aiming this thriller film at this type of audience class gives us a bigger and wider range of people to persuade into watching our film piece due to the fact it being around a average and suitable price that is affordable for them to purchase and watch.


Location – Countryside

Reason – Having our film centered around the countryside as well the audience who live in a region similar to area in our thriller film will make the audience feel even more closer to the movie and will have more of an effect on them due to the thriller conventions entering into a similar environment to their own. This is again similar idea as of aiming our movie at the female audience.





Hobbies/interests – Interacting with friends/family.

Reason – The target audience we are aiming for is young adults who regularly do interact and are sociable in general allowing us to take advantage of this which will guarantee groups into doing activities for example going to the cinemas as well as the recent interest and popularity with thriller type films will also increase views.




What they spend their money on – Buying tickets for movies at the cinema/theaters as well as DVDs/Blu ray videos/computer video files when released

Reason – Aiming for these types of people who purchase a range of different DVDs will hopefully ensure them in to buying and watching our film, due to multiple films centered around thriller conventions that have been recently increased in the market type for the young adult audience.

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-d9D5qSio

Question 6 -Technologies from the process of constructing this product


Mac -

As I am familiar and experienced with the mac and its software I didn't learn much when it came to doing the regular and basic tasks expected to do on a mac like using the internet service and the file folders however there are very little differences if using a windows computer/device to a mac if someone started using it besides the ability to run different software types exclusive for the device for insistence final cut express which was required to make our thriller film. Saying this there was an advantage to knowing the device anyway due to the fact that all of the members in our group were also knowledgeable on the device we didn't have to take time learning and teaching these features to one another which meant that we could perform the tasks we needed to do straight away.


Final Cut Express -
Again I have the exact same software running on my mac which came to an advantage when it came to developing our short film opening however I did come out of it with more knowledge than i had already known which was mainly to with extending and developing clips with effects and transition, titles and audio specs provided on the software. It is definitely very easy to use and produces professional looking videos compared to other film editing software for instance IMovie which has a very basic editing program on the software. Final Cut allowed us to take our movie even further and develop upon the mistakes we made using a range of fine editing tools and equipment that could go even more deeper on tweaking the section to what we in-visioned to the film to be.


Blogger -

Using the online blogger I understood from it that we could easily organize our group posts with tags which told us who and what each specific post refereed to, for example the tag type could be either planning or research which helped us to locate and keep on track with what tasks we needed to do and what parts were finished. The blog also had the feature of having a side menu that showed us the tag types and the number of posts relating to that section again helping us in terms of saving time trying to the find the document when we could be editing it at the very exact time. Another advantage of using blogger is that we could import images either for the background of the blog homepage or when using images for posts which both made it more attractive and helped to relate to something more clearly in the post.


Youtube -
Having my own personal account on the site I had a basic understanding of the process of making our company channel and uploading videos onto it, despite this I learn t some of the other features mostly to do with annotating our videos and films which came to good use when doing looking at particular sections that needed to be edited as well as indicating why we did specific techniques in certain clips. Youtube also gave us the ability to customize our channel's appearance to match our blogger page as well which made it more appealing and attractive for our audience/viewers to look at as well as making it perhaps have a good reflection on our group.



Facebook -
Already having an account as well as the members in our group we could easily communicate and keep up to date on which tasks we needed to do, who was doing what part and what parts were finished, which we used to our advantage by staying on track with the work. Facebook also had the feature to create a personal group post so that only the members in our group could view the page as well as the ability to notify us when someone put a post onto our group page which did keep us up to date.

Camera -
Using the Panasonic HDC-SD9 camera for the preliminary task we decided to use the Canon HD CMOS camera having the ability to record the film for a longer duration due to the large amount of battery life as of before, the camera also has a better quality resolution which was shown most obviously when editing in final cut express. From the opening of our film we gathered that the camera didn't always fully work when it came to the lighting which was shown most obviously when editing and matching the clips in final cut express. Considering this let down the camera delivered what we needed it for, it was suitable in both video and sound quality.


 

Tripod -
Due to not using a tripod for our preliminary task film we definitely saw a huge difference in the stability and shot focus from the camera clips compared to our short film opening allowing us to have a great result, these differences were most noticeable when editing and watching over both films. The specific tripod we used allowed us to perform smooth camera movement shots whilst filming which was particularly useful for the last film clip in our opening short film.








Question 7 - Looking back

Looking back at our previous work allowed us to avoid the mistakes that we made previously and take into consideration these possible factors of the failure of these pieces therefore giving us the ability from this to make our final film opening reach its greatest potential that we could offer. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au3PN4GUEwA&feature=plcp&context=C4a55dbbVDvjVQa1PpcFPUZR_IUGAvM7g4zL-THDQW44Y1xxwgam8%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtuLbP4LMhY&feature=plcp&context=C479e0d1VDvjVQa1PpcFPUZR_IUGAvM9Xbf5ABZKv0VBe1jph7Bt0%3D