Sunday 17 March 2013

Evaluation Question 1


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

What are conventions of a film opening?


Using conventions in a film opening is essential. This is because the purpose of it, is to begin the audiences interest so they immediately stay focussed and engaged in watching the remaining of the film. Conventions of a film opening include many things, such as; introducing the main characters, so the audience are aware of what characters they should be following throughout the whole film, introducing the plot which will give the audience an idea of what kind of genre the film is and what it is about, establishing the setting, which will help the audience know the exact location in which the film is set, credits and titles, a key event occurs and non diegetic sound is used.


What are the conventions of a title sequence?


A title sequence is a method used in the opening of a film to present all the titles and the credits. This usually comes in a specific order. The production icon usually comes first, then the distribution icon comes second, the first actor then comes in, followed by the second actor, after this the title of the film is shown, this is then followed by the remaining of all the actors, after all the main characters are shown the casting is next, then the music superviser, then the costume designer, then the film editor, then the production designer, then the director of photography, then the executive producer, then the screenplay then the producer and then finally the director is shown last.

Recording over the film to show how we have used film conventions in our opening





Throughout the beginning of our thriller opening we followed all the conventions of a film opening. This is because we introduced the main characters, the plot, main setting, a key event occurred, we used titles and credits and non diegetic sound. We also followed the order of the title sequence. 

Evaluation Question 2


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups. There are seven main main categories , there are; class and status, age, ethnicity, ability and disability, sexuality, regional identity and gender.In our film opening, many media representations of these social groups were portrayed. The two social groups in which we represented were age and ethnicity. Age was represented in the opening of our film as the location was in a college which therefore links it to students of young age. Ethnicity is represented as society mainly sees and stereotypes the Asian community to be more academically able and successful which portrays the Asian chemistry student. Bullying and committing suicide is seen as a negative thing therefore these social groups are represented in a negative aspect.


Interviewing some members of the target audience






Evaluation Question 3


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


 

Evaluation Question 4


Who would be the audience for your media product?

Thriller films in general are targeted at mainly older teenagers in the age range of 18. This may because they include violent and upsetting scenes. It may also be disturbing or scary for younger teenagers to watch.  However the age range varies due to the different types of thrillers. There are psychological thrillers which may be aimed for older teenagers or even adults, romantic thrillers which are aimed at adults and supernatural thrillers which are mainly targeted for older teenagers. The audience more specific to our sub-genre would be teenagers from the age of 14 up to 19. This is because it is based around bullying and being a student and as it is also set in a college. 



Here is a Facebook profile of a member of our target audience. As mentioned, thrillers are mainly aimed at teenagers, this is shown on this persons Facebook account, in their bio that they are interested in thriller films as stated 'Love my thriller films'. This already shows the interest and engagement this person will have upon our thriller film. 


This member of our target audience has written a status stating how much she would like to see our thriller film and also how 'awesome' it looks. This helps to keep a larger audience as she is clearly has friends her age on Facebook, and therefore advertising it to all her friends, that they should watch the film also. This is how social networking sites such as Facebook help to get a larger audience for new films. 


You can see the excitement this member of the target audience has to watch the thriller film, again proving that thriller films are indeed aimed at teenagers.








Here she has written a status about watching the film and that it is a 'must watch' film. Writing 'must watch' helps the audience grow as this is again advertising and sharing the film amongst other members of the target audience. 



Evaluation Question 5

 
How did you attract and address your audience?


Visit to the cinema ( premier of our film screening)
Our film being shown on the big screen!

Interviewing the audience that watched our film in the cinemas
   
 

Interviewing the main actor from our film


Evaluation Question 6


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

During the process of producing and constructing our final thriller film opening, we used a number of different technologies. The variety of technologies we used included Macs which helped us to access safari and firefox which then helped us to access blogspot, other technologies include Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, JVC camera, mobile phones, flip cameras, still cameras, video drives, memory cards, camtasia and MPEG stream clip. Using these different technologies helped us to make our film opening as successful as it could be and without them it would of been very difficult. It also helped me as a individual to become more independent.


Using the Macs helped us to access nearly all the necessities we needed in order to create our film opening. This included technologies such as safari and firefox. Safari and firefox helped us to access google, youtube and blogspot. These three technologies made it easier for the researching and planning of our film. This is  because google helped us to find images and information we needed in order to help us with the planning of our film, youtube helped as we were able to watch clips of real film openings which gave us an insight on how to create ours and finally blogspot was a extremely vital part as it was through blogging that we could put all our research and planning together in order to create ideas for our final thriller film opening. Blogging helped me become more independent as I was able to blog whenever and whatever I though was necessary to contribute to the making of our film opening. 

 
One of the most important technologies we used which without, would not have been possible to create our film was the JVC cameras.The JVC cameras helped us to capture all the footage we needed in order for our film to be of best quality. It also allowed good shot compitsion and let us film a variety of shots such as close ups, mid shot, establishing shot, high and low angles and many other shots. It was difficult at first to get the camera to capture all the footage as we were not used to this new device however over time we began to get more and more used to it and very much enjoyed using them. Additioanlly the camera allowed us to take footage of every movement and all the footage we filmed were of high quality. Because of the high quality footage, it helped to make our film look professional. Before using the JVC cameras we had a health and safely tutorial on how exactly to use them and all the basic 'do's' and 'dont's' of using them. Using the JVC camera helped me to become more independent as I was mainly the one fiming the final product.
 
Another technology we used to constuct our film were the flip cameras. The flip cameras were a small, simple and easy piece of technology used as it was just swicting it on and getting on with recording whatever needed to be recorded straight away. Getting the footage from the flip cameras to the Mac computers was very simple as the flip cameras had a USB connected to it in which we had to plug into the computers. From there we had to covert the footage to MP4 using MPEG streamclip. The flip cameras were usually used to get feedback from our audience and teachers and also used for interviews. Using them really helped me to again become independent. It helped me to develop my planning skills as the feedback I got back would have a affect on me and I would take on board all the feedback I  receieved.
 
 
Still cameras was another technology used which helped us immensely throughout the process of our preliminary exercise. This is because it helped us to creare our storyboard as we took a number of pictures to create a storyline. The still cameras were also used to take pictures of the props and locations we used in our prelim. Using the still cameras helped me to become more creative as I took a number of pictures. All these images were then put on our blogs which therefore helped to develop our research and planning skills as it was helping to build up a story for our prelim.
 
 
Having the three memory cards, A, B and C helped keep everything stored as everything we filmed and took pictures of were always stored on the memory cards. This is due to the large storage capacity it has. This was one of the most important technologies because without it all of our work not have been safetly saved and stored anywhere. It was easy to put all the footage and pictures from the memory cards on to the Mac computers as all that needed to be done was inserted the memory card into the side on the computer. We were shown a tutorial from candimedia on how to insert the memory card into the camera. This was a significant part in filming as the footage we had filmed would not have been saved
or may not have got recorded without them.
 
 
The video drive was the most essential thing we needed in order to keep all our footage in place. This is due to the large storage capacity it has. Everything we had filmed was always stored in the video drive and this was useful as some of the clips from the footage were edited on Final Cut Pro and was put on to Soundtrack Pro. This was done by plugging the video drive into the Mac computers. It was often difficult remembering to safetly remove the video drive, by dragging it into the trash. This would of been a major problem as all our hard work would of been lost. A advantage of storing all the footage on the video drive was that it is portable therefore it was able to be moved around from computer to computer.
 
SoundTrack pro was another very important technology we used to create our film. This is because this is where the main sound was creared to put into our film. We found that choosing and creating a suitable sound for our film was very fun. This helped me as an individual, become more creative as it was me creating my own sound to put into the film. When we were happy with the end product of our sound we imported in on to Final Cut Pro. I was happy and very confident that the sound in which we created went well with our film plot.

Final Cut Pro was another technology we needed to create our film and without this it would of been very difficult to constuct our film. This is because Final Cut Pro created the whole film by putting all the scenes together in order for it to flow well and look as professional as it could be. This was done by trimming and deleting the clips that didn't go well together or clips that did. This was done by arranging all the footage on the timeline and editing them from there. In addition Final Cut Pro allowed us to add in effects such as flashes and transisitions, this may engage the audience. Final Cut Pro also allowed us to add in titles, credits and the sound and music we had created on Sound Track Pro. This helped me become more creative as it was about putting everything together in order for it to all flow well and also get the sound on the precise timing as the film.

Finally Motion. This is where we created our Distribution Icon for the very beginning of our film opening. We chose to name our Distribution company 'EyeWatch Films'.
We used Bokeh effects and transitions to create a professional look and also because we thought it would engage the audience further. This helped me develop my creativity skills as this was all created by myself and Fareena.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 









Evaluation Question 7


What do you think you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product?