evaluation number 4

Our target audience for our film is aimed at teenagers as well as adolescents. This is because according to my own research, thriller is one of the most favoured genre’s. Therefore, it will be easier for us to attract our audience. We used a young character to ensure our aim towards our target audience. Furthermore we used isolated settings. Since teenagers may ‘hang’ around in isolated settings, we wanted to reinforce where teenagers stay in everyday life. Furthermore our location was in tower hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in the whole of the UK. We wanted to show teenagers and adolescents are ‘at risk’ in poverted areas

evaluation number 3

1) After long consideration I believe wt2 production would help promote our film. This company is independent and therefore work on low budget films. Furthermore they will be able to give us support to improve our film. Moreover, if our film turns out to be a big hit, then we can approach bigger film productions. However, since our budget is low, we may stick with wt2 productions. My decision was influenced by wt2 productions release of ‘shaun of the dead’ where it received major hits and excellent positive reviews.

evaluation number 2

1) We used a young character to ensure our aim towards our target audience. Furthermore we used isolated settings. Since teenagers may ‘hang’ around in isolated settings, we wanted to reinforce where teenagers stay in everyday life. Furthermore our location was in tower hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in the whole of the UK. We wanted to show teenagers and adolescents are ‘at risk’ in poverted areas.

Evaluation number 1

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

One of the conventions that we used was developing suspense through many forms. For example, like effective thrillers, we used sound in order to build suspense; the sound used at the beginning makes the audience automatically think we are watching a thriller.
Furthermore I corporated the use of lighting, camera work and sound editing in the development of ideas in regards to my movie which is the same as to a standard movie as well as mise en scene, making my product conform to conventions of a real media product. I recorded the video with diagetic sound, and then editing it by including edited sound. This is a recognized use of convention. We also used generic conventions such as an isolated setting so it can be seen as a form of convention of a thriller movie.
Our art of the title is very effective since it tries to reel in the audience by not giving anything away immediately. This is shown in many art of the title sequences such as

EVALUATION

Question 1: Our media film theme is thriller. Having a thriller theme there is a certain way things have to be. For example, the background atmosphere cant be colorful as that wouldn't look tensing (it would look more funny or commercial like), another thing is the background music has to be tensing if not then it wouldn't put the audience in the suspense mood.. By doing this it helps the audience get into the pace of the film. Firstly the music, sound and music are a key as it creates suspense during the film which keeps the film interesting. It makes the viewer question themselves. We also used different camera-angles, we did this to create suspense and to make our film look more attractive.

Our title sequence that we chose to apply was done with a lot of thinking. We made it to suit our film by making the text RED. By making the text red, it creates anxiety. Also, the Font we used looked quite sinister and we made it BOLD, so it could stand out and catch the eye. As the title is a key in giving a hint if the film, we named it DEAD END, all in capitals, red and bold. As the title is shown at the beginning you could tell how the story will be or what is would be about.

Question 2: In our media film there is a representation of an asian social group, this is shown by the main character Tahera. You could tell this by looking at the mise-en scene. Firstly the clothes worn, she is wearing a headscarf, this represents islam. Secondly, the background people. During the filming of Tahera walking through the market and out of it, by observing the people around her you could tell that there is a mixture if races. Even though we shot the film in Bethnal Green for an asian community, there was not any bengalis at that moment in the market. Thirdly, by analysing Tahera's facial expressions the audience could tell she is very afraid even though there is lots of people around her. This also reflects to females being a lot less stronger then men, and a victim of society. All of these lead to how different ethnic minorities are viewed, and what opinion they give.

Question 3 & 4: In my opinion WT2 would be the institution that would distribute our final piece as it is a thriller and the locations are in england. WT2 films are more english with location shots in england. To promote the film i will upload it on youtube as others where done http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPXaysjZbkA to get a mainstream audience and with computers being a popular technology. Also as our film is a low budget film by promoting it through the media it would get more hits and become more familiar with audiences. By putting the film in a real life position of distribution, it would get a mainstream release. I can tell this by looking at the history of Shaun of the Dead and Star Trek as they both were mainstream releases.

The internet would be a good use of distribution and potentially reach a global audience. By uploading it on facebook and youtube i will attract and address my audience. Obviously the users on these sites will get the advertise of the publishing film and may look into it for more if interested. I could use popular out of home media like billboards to attract audiences which are more interested in that genre or theme.

Question 5: Our film is directed to teenagers around 15-17, but 20 year olds are even likely to go and see it in the cinemas on a day out with their mates. "Maria 18- I work in River Island and I love going out. Especially when me and my girls go cinemas and watch scary thriller movies." Many teens around 15-17 go cinemas when a new film comes out and just for the fun of it, either with their girlfriend or boyfriend or even with their mates. Other working class people aged around 20 and over go cinemas too. They are more mature and as they work all day might want to treat themselves or friends. "Tony 21- I work at an estate agent in Kings Cross, and me and my girlfriend always go cinema saturday night because that is when we both are free. We like watching scary films as it keeps us both anxious about what is happening." Overall, the film is directed to teenagers and others over that age too.

Question 6: During the making of this film we used many technologies. Firstly the main thing filming. We used a JVC video camera. Before handling this we had to have a tutorial on how it works and the hazards of it. This helped us create suspense as we took many shots of one thing and pasted it many times which made the part have more power. This is what made our film other then the edits we did on the computer to make the piece final. Also, after getting all the filming done we used many other technologies to fix up the main and final piece. Soundtrack Pro, Live Type, Final Cut Pro.

We used Soundtrack Pro to make our soundtrack for the film. This program is used on the computer. We had to fiddle around with the sound instruments to see what sounds right together and what sounds tensing and goes with the film at the time. We used Live Type for the title of our film. Again this is another program in the computer which we fiddled with to get a satisfied title which went in the flow of our title opening. Final Cut Pro was the main program we used which helped us edit and improve all our mistakes. It helped us hide stuff which didnt come out right, it helped us cut things out and paste other things on top and it helped us edit. Edit as in make bits slower to create suspense. There was many parts in the film where we slowed the movement when looking back to create tension. All of these technical programs and devices helped us make our film how we wanted it, it helped us improve on things.

Question 7: By looking at both the films, the main media piece and the match cut preliminary there were differences. Firstly the match cut preliminary was the first filming that was done after getting the cameras. We didnt really know how to use the cameras and was shy to be filmed. Whilst filming our final film we had experience with the cameras so we knew what we had to do, also our minds were more maturer and was not as shy. When filming the match cut prelim we had to film one scene many times over and over again this was due to not much commitement and distractions. But when filming the main film we didnt have to film over and over again and there was not any distractions even though it should of been more likely to get distracted in the outside world rather than in the classroom which is were we recorded the match cut prelim. So many of our skills progressed. For example the use of the camera and how we filmed and the sensibility of our minds.

Skills Audit: Creation of soundtrack (Plus Posting of Compositions)

When using the soundtrack program, it wasn't something you could learn easily. It took messing about with things on the program etc, in order for it to be more easier to use as it was the hardest program I think we've had to use. I did not use create the soundtrack however I was there most of the time when Shreub and Imranul was composing it. It took a lot of concentration, effort and time . First thong they did was created a melody, a melody which went with our clip. Our soundtrack was a vicious cycle meaning it didnt change at specific times within our clip. After a certain amount of time of our sountrack piece has finished it was just suddenly restart again flowing within the same pace. However when there were to unsuspiscious bits we made the beat thump a bit quicker and louder then before giving a harsh suspense feeling for the audience. After finishing our soundtrack we then had to drag it on to livetype, on to the timeline where we wanted our music to start from. It was not easy because we then had to listen to the soundtack whilst watching our clip, and any little problems where it didn't fit in or go right we then had to go back to the sountrack program and change it around.

Skills Audit: Creation of titles (plis screen grabs of decision)

When we were creating our title sequence we had to make up names for each part. We were told to do this in order to make our opening of our clip seem more realistic and professional. At the beginning of our clip we chose to have studio canal to be the first title set and the font was vey basic. Followed by WT2 Prdouction which was nicely fitted and contrasted with our clip. We used a bright but darkish red which was slightly fading in a way that it looked as though their was a shadow effect on the writing. This was put against a black background making it more clearer for the viewer to see and also we thought that by using our title against a black background would have more of an effect to the audience. It showed for 2-5seconds which was enough time for the audience to read it alongisde with our names after in order so they know who's involved within this clip. We made sure that didn't put the title shots straight after or overlapping an important shot, this way it makes the important shot stand out how it is suppose to. After this someone in our group them had to import the title sequence and import them onto final cut pro. They then dragged the title sequences onto the timeline where they thought the tiltle sequence would fit in and by looking at where it is in our clip, it couldn't have fitted in a better place.

EVALUATION

Question One:

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

Our media product is based on a thriller theme and because thrillers are not meant to be funny or comical, it has a very serious feel to it. It uses appropriate music, because sound and music provides the pace of the film, which is very serious and tense and creepy. This makes the viewer feel as if something bad or sinister may happen.

The main aim is to build tension and suspense in the viewers.

In our media product, we used many different camera-angles to create that feeling of suspense and to make our character look vulnerable.

The title sequence that we used suits out media product because the text is BOLD and the Font we used looked quite sinister. Sometimes, just by looking at the title sequence of a film, the viewer can tell how the rest of the film will flow.

Question Two:

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product, we only have one character starring. the character is a female and she is asian so she wears a headscarf. I think that the character in our media product represents the social group of a vulnerable and lonely female, who can easily be attacked by a certain individual or something of the same sort.

Our media product has been filmed in the location of Columbia Road flower market, which is based in east London. East London is known to have a large population of the Asian community and our character wearing a headscarf represents that very well. She is in a flower market and after buying a bunch of flowers she walks through the flower market which is very busy with many people around her. Throughout the clip, she is walking and she thinks that someone is following her and sometimes she turns around to check. Near the very end of the clip, she ends up getting lost and turns up at a dead end and drops the bunch of flowers that she was holding.

This part of the clip is showing that she is alone and vulnerable and she was being followed by someone, even though she wasn't entirely sure.

I think that portraying a female who is by herself shows that females are more weaker than males and that they can be approached by anyone without hesitation or fear.

Question Three:

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

I think that Universal Pictures might distribute our media product. The reason why I picked this distribution company is because our film has been made on the basis of it being a thriller. The inspiration for our clip came from the film American Psycho, where a normal person lives his life peacefully at day time but when it comes to night time, he turns into a psychopath and goes on a killing spree. Our clip doesn't show a psychopath but the character in our film, who is a female, is meant to be followed by one but she isn't aware of this.

Question Four:

How will you attract/address your audience?

There are many ways of addressing your audience or attracting them. The style of release we are planning for our film is for it to be globally distributed and we are hoping for it to be widestream. During my course in AS Media, we were all learning about two particular films, namely the British film called Shaun of the Dead which was quite a low budget film and was distributed by Universal Pictures. The second film which were all asked to study about was Star Trek, which was a high budget film and was distributed by Paramount Pictures. Both of these films were distributed differently. This is because Shaun of the Dead was British and was a low budget film, so it wasn't aimed at a wide audience and therefore it was only advertised in the UK first. Shaun of the Dead had many ways of advertising their film. They used the Internet, magazines, newspapers, television, marketing etc. Star Trek also advertised in a similar way but because their audience was aimed more widely, so they advertised globally.

Question Five:

Who would the audience be for your media product?

The typical audience for our film would be the age group between 16-40. The reason for this is because a person from the age of 40 or over is not likely to watch a scary thriller or horror film like we created for our media product. A normal person from the age of 20-25 will most likely have a job and he will be earning a decent salary or wage so he will occasionally go to the cinema to watch a film with either a friend, his girlfriend or a bunch of friends. This type of person will probably go to watch a thriller film which is what our media product is about. We hope that our media product wll be shown in well-known cinemas such as Cineworld, Vue, Odean etc.

Question Six:

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

Throughout our coursework we have learned to use many different types of technologies to create our media product. Below will be a short soundover clip of most of the technologies that we used to create our media product. Mainly to create our media product, we used a JVC video camera, 2 memory cards to save the clips onto, sometimes when we needed it we used a tripod, and on the Apple Mac computers, we used the softwares called, Final Cut Pro, which is used to edit film clips professionaly, Soundtrack Pro, which is use to create a soundtrack for our film and lastly we used Livetype, which is used to create title sequences which we put in our film also. Using the internet, we had to regularly update blogs on blogger.com, and this is also a form of technology. We also had to use other websites, such as imageshack.com and artofthetitle.com. Imageshack.com was needed to upload pictures in the right format and artofthetitle.com was used to compare 9 screenshots of out media product to another film that is similar or that inspired us.

Question Seven:

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

When we first started our coursework, before we actually started it, we had to do a preliminary match-cut task. Looking back at this, we can see that our skills regarding filming and also using the different softwares were not so good. The filming was not professional, for example, it was shaky and sometimes out of focus etc. This is because we had not yet known how to use everything properly. But as time went by throughout our coursework, we got better and better at using everything and it also became much more easier for us. The match-cut filming was done by us as 'rookies' at the time, but now, as we look at our final media product, we can call ourselves 'amateurs' or maybe even 'professionals', because we now have the know-how of filming and editing and all we had to do was put everything together and we ended up with our final media product, which was named 'Dead End'.

Overall, my experiance and also my group mates experiance has been very helpful. Before we started media coursework, we didn't really know much but now I can say that we know quite a bit.

Question Eight:

Audience feedback and comments.

After our films had been seen by the whole AS Media group in the cinema, we got alot of feedback and comments from them. We asked many different people to describe our film in one word, and then we gathered all the words together to make a word cloud about our film. We used the internet website wordle.net to create a word cloud. This is how it might look like, with all the words that were used to describe our film by other student, family, friends and teachers.

Evaluation

Conventions of Thriller Opening

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

My film is based as a thriller movie and is called Dead End, just by the title we know that it isn't going to be a happy/comedy film. Our film is very serious and this is mainly so it can build up suspense,tension and uncertainty whilst watching. Due to our film being a thriller we had to make sure that the colour we used wasn't colourful and the music wasn't a happy tone. Therefore meaning there should be a lot of harsh, loud, thumping noise, etc in order for the audience to feel more engaged and also start to make them feel a lot of anxiety. Our soundtrack which we created is a type of tone/melody which relates to the type of our thriller and works together very well. Within a thriller it isn't just the acting or how your able to create suspense to the audience in a spectacular way but it's also how you put things together very well. At the beginning of our thriller our soundtrack fits in miraculously well giving the audience an exciting feeling. Also the the types of camera shots which has been used contrasts with our soundtrack nicely making the audience question themselves whether this film is going to be as interesting and scary as we've made it out to be, by the opening clip.


2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
It represents Tahera as Vulnerable although she is in a busy market and this is a contrast with Tahera being alone whilst other people are getting on with their lives. Tahera is wearing a head scarf and this indicates that she's either trying to or is only approaching/trying to attract the asian community. Our film was located in Bethnal Green and this is a area which is popular for Asians. However we havent filmed our clip in a specific Asian area, our main location I believe is the market where she buys the flowers. As you'll be able to see its an diverse community and everyone seems to have come together seen as there are a lot of ethnic groups. Tahera, seen as being soo afraid of her surroundings, although she's around a lot of people could also indicate that she is trying to portray females as being more of a victim within society. This would be because women are known and seen to be vweaker, vulnerable individuals and not as strong or unworried as men.


3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution which might distributw my media product would be WT2 and this is because our film is a thriller and refers to how WT2 produces their film. My reasons being is because we also used British locations as we filmed in England. I will be showing my media product every week in the cinema. I will upload my media product on to youtube similarly to this one as it is a low budget film. I will do this in order to appeal and attract a mainstream audience and computers being a common technology I will be able to get passed on to different types of audience. Also uploading it on youtube as shown will also help my media product to get a lot of hits and become well known.



4) How will you attract/address your audience?
Placing my thriller into the real world of general cinematic release, my thriller would get a mainstream release. For e.g both Shaun of the Dead and Star Trek recieved a mainstream release. Shaun of the Dead appealed to a kind of 15-40 age group as it was both comedy and thriller. Shaun of the Deads institution is WT2 as it's also a low budget film and put more advertisements such as trailers on the homepage, games etc. This way it helps them to appeal to more of an audience. On the otherside Star Trek appealed to more an an older audience such as 16 onwards. However they also appealed and attracted the younger generation as they had games,toys and costumes which they'll definetly be interested in. It also appeals to mainly men when talking about gender wise. Its basically attracted to an audience who is matured, loves action and seriousness. Star Trek is the same as my product in a way of attracting an audience of aged 16 onwrads. However there's too many differences within our films. Wheres as Shaun of the Dead is appealed to the same kind of audience and is WT2. Its also a low budgeted film like my media product and is a thriller however my product doesn't involve comedy. Shaun of the Dead related to my thriller clip more.








This is the type of cinema in which my thriller would be shown at if it was going to be a real world of general cinematic release.











They style of marketing campaign i would envisage for my movie as shown and will be a wide-scale global release. To attract audiences we will use OOH media aswell as inside home and this will consist of billboards, facebook, youtube and asian magazines. We will use youtube and facebook as internet has a huge impact on encouraging and persuading people to watch our clip. Also due to our audience which we are appealing to, they are the ones mainly who would be surfing the net, especially the teenagers. We will advertise in the Asian magazine becuase our film in a way appeals to mainly the Asian Community.



5) Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our film is directed to the audience aged from 16 onwards also working class people aged 20 onwards would be interested in our thriller clip. This is because on their days off work they like to spend their free time doing something they are interested in. "Chinequa 21, I love it when it comes to the weekend, Saturdays, my girlies and I love going cinema to watch the latest horrific, spectacular, tense thriller films. We enjoy the suspense which are created throughout them and we really like screaming up the place in uncertainty and scaryness."



6) What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As media, we learnt how to use viedo cameras, Softwares such as Live Type and Soundtrack etc. This is the clip of still images with a voiceover note which we created. It's also showing one of us within our group (Tanika Warner) talking about what her group have used over the past few months. Using a range of different types of technologies helped improved the creation of our product by far. With using these technologies we were able to fiddle around with it in order to have better use of it so we can create a better piece of work which we did.


7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product.
As shown underneath there's a huge difference between our match cut and full product. There's a difference within mise-en-scene, camera angles, camera focus. In our preliminary task we learnt how to use match cuts, 180 degree rule and reverse shots and this helped us to have a better use within our clip in our final product. Our final product looks a lot more professional than the preliminary one.



8) Audience feedback and comment


This is a audience feedback from 2 students at City and Islington 6th form College who watched our clip. As you can see we have recieved to positive feedbacks which is wonderful meaning we used all our technolgoies and lessons very well.

In my media lesson we went on to www.wordle.net and typed a few words which we believe referred to our clip and thrillers in general. We then customised these words in different fonts, layout etc to what we want.

Wordle

These were some of the word feedbacks we got after watching the films within our media class. All of these words are words which described our film best and the name of our film was called Dead End. We used wordle to edit these words in a different types of style and font so it can stand out.

Skills Audit: filing (Plus 'on shoot' photos)

This is a photo taken whilst filming our thriller clip. This is an important piece/photo to our film seen as this when uncertainty, suspense starts occurring which makes the audience engaged to the film and curious of what is going to happen. The audience starts thinking and questioning themselves because Tahera, the girl in the photo seems to be paranoid as she's curious to whether something/someone is following her. That is why she keeps looking back as she walks up to an unaware alleyway.