Rosie's Evaluation

The ways in which our media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products Our media product is crime thriller. We took the classic thriller conventions and modernised them so that young British teenagers could relate more to the characters and enjoy the opening sequence more. We used some conventions of a typical thriller such as dramatic irony as the audience knows that ‘Aj’ and ‘Dee’ and being set up for a murder when they haven’t even found out yet. Also, we used a dramatic score adding to the excitement and anticipation. However, we updated this typical convention by making the soundtrack/score urbanised and modern. We overlapped a tense and suspenseful score with a upbeat urban soundtrack and made them subtly play together throughout. This was so that the murder footage was more tense and serious than ‘Aj’ and ‘Dee’s’ childish antics. Also, we used a urban soundtrack so that our media product would appeal more to our target audience and make our media product a genre hybrid; an urban-crime thriller. Many of the distinctive thriller conventions such as tension, suspense, anxiety and enigma are not fully fulfilled in our media product as it is not a typical thriller. Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller films were highly inspirational for the process of creating our media product. Hitchcock had a trademark for playfulness and a sense of humour in his work which I would like to think we portrayed in some of the montage scenes of ‘Dee’ and ‘Aj’ being rebellious and disruptive in their local neighbourhood such as when ‘Aj’ peers over a garden wall cheekily when plotting to steal a bike. Also, we took inspiration from the way Hitchcock presents women in his film; we had a young, attractive girl suffer and get killed similarly to how Hitchcock would have women as helpless victims. Additionally, after closely analysing some of his most famous works such as Psycho, it is evident that Hitchcock was very brave and experimental in his work and I wanted to take on this attitude for when creating our media product so that we could produce something creative and new. Our film is identifiably British as it is set in West London with an all British cast. Everything that takes place in the footage is filmed in London and this is evident as the locations are clearly in an urban city and show an urban way of life for many young male teenagers.

The ways in which our media product presents particular social groups The opening sequence of a thriller that my group and I completed represented the youth of London in a negative way. Young adult men are shown to be rebellious, law-breaking, troublesome, difficult and lacking morals. We used only boys to play the unruly teenagers as it is more credible to an audience for boys to be terrorising their neighbourhood than teenage girls as teenage boys in London are stereotypically known for being disruptive and often breaking the law. It was important that the boys we casted were teenagers as it’s a significant part of the film; teenage boys can be recognised as intimidating and rebellious therefore the narrative of the story is more credible if we have young actors in the film. Additionally, we had one white teenage boy playing ‘Dee’ and one black teenage boy playing ‘Aj’. Having ‘Aj’ played by a young black male added realism to our plot as being young black and male comes with many preconceptions as the audience may already assume that he is a menacing character as a result of stereotypes against youths in this ethnic group. Although stereotypes against young black males are negative we saw it as an easy way to communicate information to our audience about the characters and move the narrative forward. This is because the audience already have a fixed idea on how young black males should act and behave as they are portrayed as negatively in other media products such as newspaper stories, Hollywood films, advertisements etc. West London is represented in a negative way in our opening sequence as it is shown to be the playground for two teenage boys to disrespect and violate. It gives off the impression that they are the homes of troublesome teenagers that wouldn’t be a pleasant place to live in.

The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product and why Our media product, in terms of institution, is an independent film as it is low budget and does not have backing of film studios. Additionally, it is also an urban themed thriller with a gritty approach and we have casted all unknown actors which many mainstream films would not do. To distribute our film we could post it on the internet for public viewing and feedback on sites such as YouTube, Facebook or Myspace. Although the distribution of the film does not come with profit on these video sharing sites and uploading them onto it is free, there is a still a possibility that advertising agencies could give a small cut of their profit to us as the creators of the media product. Additionally, some advertisers can sponsor the film which would result in a profit. The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product is a terrestrial television channel such as Channel 4. It is a public service broadcaster and provides programming for minority audiences and therefore may show our film. Channel 4 also has a permit to promote Independent British films. Moreover, commercial broadcasters have advertising funding which means that our media product could also generate a profit from being show on Channel 4. Furthermore, our media product could be shown on a community channel as the content is user created; these sorts of channels are on digital, cable and satellite television and could exhibit our media product. Another way to get distribution is exhibit our film at a film festival. There are many short film, student, community film festivals that would distribute our film. However, more widely renown film festivals such as the Cannes, Sundance or Venus film festival may not distribute a media product as independent and low budget as ours. No cinema that is a major chain, such as Vue, Cineworld or Odeon, would distribute our film as it is not a mainstream film with a big budget and does not have an A-list cast. Mainstream films tend to have less challenging themes whereas an independent film, such as our media product, tackles more realistic themes that are experimental. However, independent art house cinema, such as Watermans in Brentford, the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill and Everyman an independent chain, may exhibit our film as they show independent films.

The audience for our media product Our initial target audience was young adults from the age of 15-20. We aimed for our film to be suitable to be classed as BBFC certificate 15. I feel that we met the guidelines set by the BBFC as we thoroughly researched what they were before developing our media product. There is no dialogue in our product therefore no extensive use of strong language and not a high degree of violent scenes, even though we would not of been able to provide ourselves with the facilities or skills to create highly realistic and intensely violent scenes even if we wanted to, therefore I think that we successfully created the opening sequence of a thriller that can be confidently classified as a 15 certificate as it obeys and follows all the guidelines set by the British Board of Film Classification. On our initial audience research we chose this age group as we felt that young adults of this age would be able to empathise with the teenage boys ‘Aj’ and ‘Dee’ and relate to them in terms of the way they behave, their interests, how they present themselves and the way in which they speak.

The ways in which we attract/address our audience Our media product related to our relevant target audience as we had the two main characters, ‘Aj’ and ‘Dee’ are genuinely seventeen year old boys therefore our audience, 15-20year olds, may feel for more empathy and understanding towards them as they have more credibility as characters. We also had the actors dressed in normal teenage boys’ clothes that the audience may recognise and then feel as though they can relate more to them as they’re dressed in clothes they might like to wear. Also, they're shown to be doing things that many people in the 15-30year old age group may feel they can relate to as they do it as well, such as playing Playstation. Additionally, the soundtrack of our media product is of an urban genre making it appeal to the tastes of our target audience and generally make it more enjoyable for them to watch and listen to. Our audience feedback was a very useful and an important part of creating and editing our media product so it is of the highest standard possible. Many people who watched our opening sequence and gave constructive criticism to help us improve suggested that we make the overlapping of the score and soundtrack more consistent and subtle. They also suggested that some of the shots were too quick and that we should make them longer to help the audience understand the story a bit better. My group and I followed through with their suggestions as the people who were giving us feedback fitted in to our target audience age group therefore we saw the importance of making the film appeal to them as much as possible. The subgenre of our media product was crime thriller. Specific conventions we included to make it appeal more to our target audience was having a urban soundtrack.

The things I have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing our product Throughout the production of our media product we used many forms of technology to complete and edit it. To complete the research section of our media product we used an internet blog to update different parts of research we had completed before doing the practical part of our media product. All members of our group had a login name and password to the blog allowing us all to put up all sections of the research such as photos of the locations we were planning to film in, drafts and final drafts of our script, synopsises of existing films and our own, analysis’s of relevant opening sequences of renown thrillers, audience and BBFC research etc. Additionally, I also used sites such as YouTube for research purposes to watch clips of thrillers and A-level candidates existing work for inspiration and to help our group to understand what looks/sounds effective in the opening sequence of a thriller. Moreover, we used the internet for finding a soundtrack off a copyright free music website. It was really helpful as we could browse lots of different genres of music that were all the length of a normal song (3-4minutes) that we could easily download and put into our opening sequence. Without the internet we would have been very limited to what music we could have used in our film which may have resulted in using a soundtrack we weren’t happy with that didn’t suit out media product. When filming our media product we used more technology; we used mini DV (digital video) camcorders. These are not high definition but add realism. Mainstream cinema films and US soaps often use ‘film’ (celluloid) which gives a less realistic look and adds more glamour to the image when being filmed. Although we were on a low budget and therefore did not have the option of using ‘film’, using a mini DV was still most effective for what we were trying to achieve as it adds a gritty realistic feel to our media product. When filming, we had some technological difficulties and limitations; we had limitations with sound as we did not have external microphones therefore sometimes the sound was not as successful as we’d have hoped. Although there is no dialogue in our media product, as a result of no external microphones, the ambient sound that is very important in our film to adding to the anticipation and suspense is often not as clear and effective as we’d have liked. Also, we had to improvise with natural light as we had no equipment to create the exact lighting we wanted. We had to make do with however the weather was on our filming days. Coincidentally, the days we filmed on were quite glum and gloomy therefore it created quite a good gritty atmosphere for a thriller to be filmed in; specifically the murder scene. However, we did experiment with lighting in one of the murder montage scenes by shining a large spotlight on the female victim as the key prop was placed on her; this was to add emphasis to the key prop and make sure it was clearly seen (as seen in the photograph on the right). We used a non-linear editing to complete the editing process of our opening sequence. This was really helpful as is not destructive like a linear editing as we could play footage of film into the timeline of scenes at different points and not be ruining the whole film in doing so. The software we used was iMovie on Apple computers to edit our film. It was really useful as it came with a lot of tense sound effects that help build suspense in our media product relating back to thriller conventions. It also came with transitional effects that make our media product more professional and well edited. However, we did not use many of the over-the-top and theatrical transitional effects as we just wanted to stick to simple ones such as fade out to black to maintain a professional look. iMovie was helpful as we could manipulate lighting on it when we did not have the equipment to do it as we filmed it. We were able to adjust and manipulate the colours and brightness of the footage and make there a dramatic visual difference for the audience to immediately pick up on between the murder scenes and the scenes of ‘Dee’ and ‘Aj’ terrorising their neighbourhood.

Looking back at the preliminary task, the things I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product My approach to the preliminary task was a lot more laid back and ignorant. I did not anticipate how much work would have to go into the whole filming and editing process of our media product. With the first preliminary task we encountered technical problems with the mini DV. We realised we had erased all our footage that we’d just filmed and then had to quickly re-film it all. Additionally, when we came to watch it all over at the end the footage did not look as continuous as it should have to be effective. Also, we often did not leave enough time at the beginning and end of each take so we did not have enough footage to edit and manipulate. Moreover, when filming in darker lighting we did not expect for the footage to come out so dark, we remembered this so that when we filmed out final product we did in natural daylight so that all the footage can be clearly seen. Also, we had many problems with sound such a laughing and talking in the background which helped us learn that those sorts of sounds are very distracting and make the footage look unprofessional. We learnt from our filming mistakes and technical difficulties and made sure we did not repeat them in our final filming. Furthermore, I made sure my organisation skills were at their best as there was a lot of work involved in the whole process of making our media product. The story board we had to re-draft more than once, finding appropriate locations that we could use we also difficult and making sure they were closed set to ensure we had no unwanted sound was also hard. However, in some scenes the ambient sound added to the realism and urban themed atmosphere, such as when ‘Dee’ and ‘Aj’ are sat at the bus stop.