Evaluation Questions

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
During the making of our video, we have had to establish the fact that it is an opening sequence and must perform all the necessary elements usually used to create the feeling of an opening sequence. We included opening credits which introduce the film to the audience watching it and also had to think about camera shots, genre, visual style, ideology and narrative. All of these things are essential when trying to create a media product similar to ones you may see at the cinema.

We had to make sure that the audience were aware of the fact that it was a psychological thriller by creating believable characters that fit with the ideology that killing is bad and that we should feel sympathy for the young girl who is murdered rather than liking Kourtney's character who is a murderer. If the ideology was to like Kourtney's character, then I feel we would be setting the wrong example to anyone watching it by saying it is okay to target children and kill them. There would have to be a very good reason to have the ideology this way round.

I don't think there are many films that are similar to ours which is why I think our media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products. Looking at the film 'The Hole', we notice that there is a similar level of sex appeal as our film. The intimacy and closeness of Kourtney and Jacob's relationship is similar to the relationships of the 4 teenagers who find themselves trapped in a war bunker. Their time down there is traumatic as only one of the girls makes it out alive, leaving the other 3 character dead. We later find out that this girl has been hiding a big secret; that she was hiding the key to let them out which could have prevented the trauma. This idea of a character having a secret and then the audience only finding it out later is a similar thing that we included in our video where Kourtney is the one keeping the secret.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents the social group of young adults. We made this clear by using young adult actors and dressing them in modern and appropriate clothing. I think that we have chosen reasonably attractive characters so that more young people will want to watch the film; they tend not to watch films where the main characters aren't at least a little bit attractive. Their social group was made to seem very mysterious and to have a dark side to them. Kourtney's character was hiding a terrible secret from her boyfriend showing that this social group can be devious and sneaky. We dressed her in modern clothing to appeal to the teenage audience as they would be be able to relate to her character. The audience are made more surprised by the fact that her character is a killer because she doesn't LOOK like one.

We also represented young teenagers to be vulnerable and small, shown by my character who got kidnapped and murdered without really putting up much of a fight. The fact that she is wearing school uniform shows her youth and vulnerability. This then creates sympathy towards her character from the audience as she is a young innocent character.

Jacob's character is supposed to be the innocent boyfriend who thinks he is in a perfectly normal relationship with a lovely young woman and he is totally unaware that she has a darker and more sinister side to her. We have dressed him in a way that makes him look innocent and unsuspecting. I think that lots of young adults could relate to the types of social groups we have represented because we've tried to make them as realistic as possible.

Q3. What type of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
There may be several media institutions that could distribute our media product; one being Film4 which is part of the Channel 4 chain. This is because it is a low budget British film which is usually the type of film that this institution may show; British films usually focus on the storyline rather than the CGI and special effects that they can spend lots of time and money on. We have found that most young people tend to watch channels like C4, Film4, E4 as they are modern and trendy and also show programmes like Skins which is similar to our video in the fact that it is about teenagers and also goes into their mental states. In the credits on our finished product, we have included 'In association with Film4' which shows anyone that watches the film that it was backed by this company. Film4 have successfully developed and co-financed a selection of feature fims that have gone on to become Academy Award winners such as Slumdog Millionaire, Happy Go Lucky and This Is England. Another institution could be the BBC who also supports low-budget British films like ours.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
We have aimed this at young adults and teenagers aged 15-25. I think that many young people would be interested in this type of film because, obviously, murdering is a crime, and many young people are interested in rebellious characters and crime based storylines. It is most likely to be young women who would want to watch this as the main character is also a young woman so they are the type of person who could relate to elements of the character's personality. For example, I think many young women could relate to the letter that Kourtney's character writes to her boyfriend as it is about love and their relationship which is something that the majority of young people have experienced before.

Most psychological thrillers are rated either 15 or 18 due to the fact

that there may be violence, strong language, drug-taking or scenes of a distressing nature. Many younger audiences would not be able to understand the storyline or some of the issues that will appear in this genre of film. The characterisation is much more important in psychological thrillers than traditional thrillers as the personalities of the characters need to be developed as much as possible for the audience to fully understand the mindset of everyone in the film so that they can enjoy the film knowing the full extent of the story.

Q5.How did you attract/address your audience?
We tried to make our media product appeal to everyone. It has mainly been our friends that have seen it so far that have given us feedback as we cannot connect with people on a larger scale in such a short amount of time. I am sure that, given more time and knowledge of how more people could become aware of our media video, we would have a much wider variety and a larger number of comments. This would give us a clearer idea of how we could improve it if we were to continue editing, and also things we could work on if we made another video using similar techniques. We mainly showed friends and teachers our video at school whenever we were on a computer and there were other people around too. This enabled us to see their immediate reactions to the video and to ask them questions about what they like and don't like.

From assessing audience feedback, we realised that it was not easy to understand the storyline so we then came to the conclusion that we needed to add another scene. This scene was of my character in the bath being tortured by Kourtney. We decided to add this scene so that anyone watching it would realise that there had actually been a murder taking place. Before this, the reaction we got was that the audience felt that our final video was more of a romance rather than a thriller. This was because there was no second personality to Kourtney's character so she looked more innocent. We also originally had several sped up sections in the video which we had to take out. From watching the video, the audience said they could tell that we only included the sped up scenes because we wanted to put in the WHOLE scene rather than just a little bit. By taking out the sped up bits, we had to focus more on the way we would get the storyline across to the audience without including as much footage.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of planning and filming, the members of my group and I have learnt lots of new skills that we would need to film, edit and document our video.

We have needed to know how to work the camera to enable us to easily and efficiently film everything that we need. We used rachael's camera which she was already familiar with using so she told us everything we need to know. The camera itself is an UltraHD Flip and was incredibly easy to use as there is one button to record and stop, another button to access and play previously filmed videos and scroll buttons to look through the video library which are also used to zoom in and out.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 was the editing software that we used to put our opening sequence together. None of us had had any experience using this programme before so we were all starting from scratch. The first time we were able to experiment with Movie Studio was when editing out preliminary task. It took us a while at first as we were experimenting with effects and generally trying to grasp exactly how to create the desired effect. As we progressed onto filming our main product, we got the hang of how to use the programme to make the video look exactly how we wanted. As we got more confident with using this, we added a more complicated piece of editing into the final video which meant using a cookie cutter making us able to see two shots in the same screen. To do this we researched on youtube.com exactly how to do this and found a step by step guide on how to create the desired effect.

Another technology that I have had to learn to use in the process of constructing this product is how to successfully use Blogger.com. I have had no experience with any other blogging website before so didn't even know where to start. However during the process of making our film, I have found it much easier to understand how to post, edit text and insert pictures so they actually fit in with the text surrounding them!

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Making our preliminary task really shows me how much my group members and I have progressed when I look at the work we have created now. The main thing we have learnt is how to use the editing software which is more of a practical progression. I have also learnt that continuity is very important when putting together a video to make it much more understandable and interesting. In our preliminary, we filmed one shot and the light was off in the room behind the door but in the next shot, using match-on-action, the light was on which is bad continuity. In our main piece, we made sure that each shot made a perfect transition into the next so that the audience was first of all not confused about what was going on and also impressed that we successfully made a shot that looked good without them noticing. The shot that we are proud of in our main video is the part where Kourtney and Jacob fall against a the wall as we feel it has good continuity and a good use of match-on-action.

In our preliminary task, we filmed totally indoors which is very much to opposite of what we decided to do for our main video. First of all, we filmed in the daytime for the whole of our preliminary task so made use of the natural light that was coming in through the windows. One of the corridors was very dark as all the doors were closed so we had to put the main lights on for us to be able to see anything. Whereas, in our main video, most of the shots were filmed outside so we could make good use of the natural light in the daytime shots but in the nighttime shots, we had to make sure we filmed in an area with streetlights so it wasn't totally pitch black.

Most of all, I think I have learnt that perfect time keeping and planning is crucial if you want to create a good piece of work. Also learning to work so closely with people has definitely been something I feel had progressed over time. Kourtney, Rachael and I have all been able to come up with some amazing ideas and pick out the best ones that work together to enable us to end up with a pretty good final piece. Since making the preliminary task we have been more understanding of eachother and the different ideas that we have. This has definitely helped us in making an opening sequence to be proud of.