Danny's Evaluation

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

Our media product uses and I feel develops forms and conventions of real media thriller products in many ways. First of all we have included most of the technical aspects used in thriller genre products as we have a dramatic score playing throughout our media product along with another sound effect playing at specific times, our score is at a fast pace to match our montage in our media product. We also have cross cutting between the montage and the murder scene because they are linked as the murder in our product is to set up the youths who feature in the montage however this introduces some dramatic irony like leaving the audience in suspense as they will be left puzzled as to why the girl is getting murdered and then being placed in the youths hideout by a stranger whose identity is kept from them at the beginning. In our media product we have followed the forms and conventions of real media products through our characters first of all we have a vulnerable young female walking through a park in the evening alone which only draws attention to the grave danger she is in as she is a girl walking though a dark park alone in the evening time, we also have our two main characters placed in a menacing situation from which escaping seems impossible as they have been set up for a murder they did not do but all the evidence is against them however they eventually manage to free themselves by finding out who did it. The locations we have used in our media product challenge the forms and conventions of real media products because we did not have the resources to use big open lands of park area and have our own corner shop to rob from however we managed to use local places and gardens but then film it so the audience does not know the exact whereabouts of where the shots of the vulnerable girl in the park is or the corner shop used to film, however we have added a bit of urbanization into our media product to do with the main characters appearances which again challenges conventions and forms of real media products as we have our two main characters dressed in hood’s to match the theme of our film and where it is set in west London. I think London to Brighton influenced our film most compared to all the other films because it had an urban feel to it and has a non-linear narrative, which is what we wanted to show in our media product for it to fit into where our film was set and match the characters characteristics. I believe our film is identifiably British because of the streets and right at the start the two characters are introduce with a shot under a hotel which is called Chiswick hotel which shows it is a British film.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents a particular social group which is young males in London who wear hooded jumpers in a negative way as we show them in our media product as little thieves who rob little corner shops also we show them robbing bikes from locks and jumping over peoples back gardens. We have represented them in this way because we stereotyped young males who roam the streets of London especially black males as we have a young black male in our media product because people have preconceptions about black teenagers so including one in our media product helped our audience understand the characters more and what they are like. We have stereotyped them in hoodies because it helps move the narrative forward even though they are being represented in a negative way but it makes the story more understandable and realistic because it shows the reality of what most young males of the working and some middle class get up to in their free time, we also try to introduce low key lighting in the shed to make it seem more tense in the shed with the murder and increase the audiences anticipation on the murder scene. We have represented males in a negative way as we have the two main characters just doing bad things like stealing bikes and robbing people, the murderer is also male which makes it more realistic because two females robbing bikes and people for the items would make the media product seem unrealistic, we have one female in our media product and we have also represented them in a negative way because we make them come across vulnerable to males as she does not put up much of a fight. Our film has only young people in it and we have represented youths in a negative way as well because they are doing all the bad things in the film so we make them look bad in our media product however this adds more realism to the film as many people do stupid things when they were younger but then mature as adults. The regional identity of west London comes across in a negative way because it has people like our two main characters and a murderer in it which makes it come across in a negative way.

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

The type of institution that probably would distribute our media product is an independent film or art house because our media product was at a very low budget and does not fit into a mainstreams film category as it is not a big budget film and does not include a Hollywood A list cast, a mainstream film will also have less challenging themes and they would be easier to understand as see and hear as everything is at a professional standard. I would say our media product would fit into the independant category and would be shown at an independent/art house cinemas which is just one of the many ways it could be distributed and exhibited for example like at the electric cinema in Notting Hill Gate in west London or chizeon in Soho in central London. Our film would be shown at these type of cinemas because they are not mainstream cinemas which show big budget films however they show films on smaller budgets and our film does not fit into the mainstream category in every section therefore could only be shown at these independent/Art house cinemas. Another way in which our media product could be distributed could be at an independent film festival for example at sun dance in America or at community film festivals where there is short film festivals and student film festivals however I don’t think our film fits into that category but more realistically our film could be easily distributed on the internet on video sharing sites such as YouTube which could easily get our film recognise and a lot of views if popular as people could directly upload them onto facebook which is a social network where people communicate over the internet which could gain our media product and you could ask for people’s opinions on the film likewise on YouTube, you could also have profit possibilities through YouTube as you could sign a contract with them and carry on making videos to share on their website which would then give you money and YouTube views for their website. One last way our media product could be distributed is through television but only on channels such as channel four late at night because it is public service broadcasted which provides programming for minority audiences also on community tv channels on cable tv which feature user created content which is why we could have our media product broadcasted on it but they probably would not broadcast our film as it is very low budget.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?


The audience for our media product would be aimed at older teenagers from the age group of 15-20, our product is suitable for this target audience because we were able to include a bit of strong language and also violent scenes could of be shown however, there’s a certain degree of violence that would not be acceptable if we would have wanted to keep to the 15 certificate’s demands. We lacked in the skill and equipment department to do a highly violent but at the same time realistic film for our audience so we hardly included any violence to keep our product as realistic as possible to keep the audience interested and keep them watching on. I believe our product is suitable for the BBFC of 15 because firstly the actors we used in our film are around that age which then will attract many young people of the same age group because they can relate themselves to not just the film but towards the characters behaviour and lives. We think they would be our audience for our media product because most adults would not take any interest in a genre hybrid of urban-crime thriller because they would not understand it as much as young teenagers would and could not relate themselves to it as much as young teenagers could.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly we thought that if we included young actors around the same age as our target audience it would generate a lot of interest from them because they could relate themselves to the characters, we also decided to shoot the film in and around the area our audiences would be coming from, places they would recognise straight away so then they would be more interested in watching the film. We also thought if we added an urbanized score which one of our strongest points in our audience feedback as every person said our score was well suited to the film and they thought it had great relevance to the film and the genre of the film which was a crime thriller because there are many crimes committed in our product to a urbanized score which we thought would attract our audience because teenagers would prefer to have a urbanized score playing instead of for example a classical slow score because it would not suit our target audience nor would it have gone with the theme of our film however we received very positive feedback on the score but some people thought it seemed a bit comical rather than a thriller because of one shot when Azzari has a little smirk on his face when climbing a wall.. We also thought that teenagers would be more interested in an urbanized crime thriller than for example a romantic thriller as some of the other genres would have been difficult to use like action thrillers or horror movies as we was on a very low budget.

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

The impact of technology on our media product has given me and my group a greater understanding on how to use the technologies that we used to a greater extent for example when using the internet to research on thriller genre films we used YouTube to view clips of thriller conventions and sites such as Wikipedia to find our information on certain thriller conventions and all the different sub genres used as well as all the films that fit into those categories and why. The process of posting all our posts on our blog has taught me how to use and create a blog from start to finish from designing it and how it looks to including pictures on our posts and putting them exactly where I wanted them to be. New media technology has influenced our film as we had to use the internet to find a score on a copyright free music website (image on the left) which has thousands of sound tracks to choose from, this influenced our film because we choose our score from this website under the urban section to add the urban feel to our film which is what we wanted to do. The use of sound effects such as foreboding which we used in our product on the murder scene to add that extra bit of tension when the female is walking alone in the park. For our production we filmed it using a mini-DV camcorder which helped me gain more knowledge on how to use one as I had never used one before, for example on how to put the tape in to how to record it and not film over already recorded footage on the tape however because of our low budget we was not able to use to celluloid type camcorders which have brighter colours and are used in mainstream cinema Hollywood films. The mini-DV camcorder has some limitations to it for example the fact we have no external microphone means we had to keep dialogue to the bare minimum to add realism to our film otherwise most part of the dialogues would of been taken over by the ambient sounds. Another factor is night filming was a problem as we could only rely on the natural light provided by the sky and the sun which therefore meant we had to improvise around that to make our film the best we possibly could with what we had, the effect of using a mini-DV camcorder suited our genre of film well because we wanted to add realism so the teenage audience could relate to our product as they film would come across more realistic so they would be able to relate it easier rather than if we used a celluloid camera because it would not be as realistic as it adds more glamour and has a less gritty approach but London teenagers would find it difficult to relate to this. During production we used a non-linear software which helped us a lot because it meant we did not have to shoot the film in the order it was going to appear on screen which meant the film only then took shape in the editing process because we would put it all in order on the timeline and then it is where we started to add all our sounds like our score and titles that were going to appear on screen. Our film changed quite a bit from the original story board however our final draft of the story board that we did just before shooting the film we stuck to mostly, apart from one or two shots that we was not able to do because we lacked either the equipment or the location we was intending in doing it in but our product was based on our final storyboard which gave us a massive boost when shooting it because then we knew exactly what shots we was going to do and for how long.

7. Compare your approach to your preliminary task to your main task.

When we did our preliminary task we first encountered problems with recordings and sound because we first recorded over some of our already recorded footage but then only realised when we went to edit the footage. This helped us on shooting our product because we took extra care on each recording and then made sure that we was not going to repeat the same mistake we made when doing the preliminary task. Also when doing the preliminary task sometimes we would forget to turn the recording off when setting up our next shot so we would have minutes worth of unwanted footage which we would then have to end up deleting when editing and we did not take as much care into how long each shot was going to be and from which angle and how far or close it was going to be from the person in the shot. This again then helped us on our product because we took extra time into preparing how long every shot was going to be and then took extra care into where we was going to place the camera for each shot and why we was going to put it there, all this would not have been possible without having done the preliminary task which set us up for our product. Whilst shooting the preliminary task we did not really take much notice of the locations where we was going to do it however now when doing our product we saw the locations as one of the most important things because we needed a suitable location to suit the theme. One thing we discovered when doing the preliminary task was that sound was not of the best quality because of the equipment we had was not of the highest standards as we had a very low budget so this helped our product come across more professional as we did not have to deal with ambient sounds coming over the dialogue and speeches and we kept dialogue to the bare minimum to add more realism to our product. I feel the preliminary task helped us the most when it came to editing because when editing our product we edited it quickly and efficiently when we needed to which helped our product take shape and look even better than expected in certain areas which we was unsure on at first.