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

Our media product has used and developed conventions from a typical Thriller film. These conventions were dark lighting and dark theme, stereotypes of character and setting, shadows and creating enigma. We decided to develop and change our film from being a typical thriller film. For instance we didn't have a dark character in the beginning we had a normal girly teenager. Our film is very mysterious and you cant tell from the beginning that its necessarily going to be a Thriller. I think our film does indicate that other thrillers influence our work such as films like 'Gone' where he sister goes missing.

The title of our media product is 'Alone'. The title explains what the main character would be feeling for most of the film if we were to continue it and it suggest danger on the black background which suggests mystery and darkness. The white writing over the black is simple as we didn't want to distract the attention from the story. The special effects that were used for the title were making the torch in the background flash whilst making the title flash with it.

The setting and location was very important for our media product because we had to portray a normal teenage girl. We decided to use Ben's house because we felt that it fitted in with the genre of our film (thriller). The main characters bedroom was vital as this was the very first shot that the audience would see so we had to make sure every aspect of the bedroom was perfect.

As the camera pans around the room, the viewers are shown typical teenage girl props such as the dream catcher, pink curtains and normal girly ornaments which are important for the mise en scene. The rest of the house such as the lounge, kitchen, hallway and stairs also had to look as normal as possible with typical house possessions such as everyday items. Ben's house was perfect for what we needed for the opening of our film because he had

a boys bedroom. Lighting is a key aspect for thriller movies so we had to think a lot about what time of day we shot at because the film was meant to be set in the morning. Some of the shots that we did had to be re-shot because of it being to dar outside.

The costumes and props were also a big part in our media product. Although there was only one character shown in the opening it was vital to make her look as normal and as like a typical teenager as possible. In normal thrillers the characters would come across as quite dark and possibly wear dull clothing but we challenged these conventions and went the opposite way and the character wore a white hoodie and jeans.

The props that were used were the phone, clock, TV and remote. these props were all vital for a film because they all played a important part in the filming process. We used the actual sound of the alarm in our film and didn't edit it.

In most Thriller movies, camera movement such as tracking and panning are used most commonly in the openings of the films and the camera angles that are used are mostly high angles and low angles. The high angles shots are usually to show a powerful position but in our case we used the high angles to show that the character is going to be in control throughout most of the film if it were to continue. This is were we used form and conventions.
We also used a low angle shot from under the bed, this was just to challenge the forms and conventions of real media products and to add more variety to our shots.

Most of the editing and special effects were done on premier. The editing we did was on the phone when we had to make it look as if she had no contacts. Another editing transition was when we showed the family and car fading away. This was challenging the conventions of typical Thriller film as other films similar to ours haven't used this transition. The music that was edited on to our film had to be similar to other Thriller films. This was because we had to create enigma codes without confusing people into thinking it was a Thriller by using music that didn't fit into the genre. The music we used had to be mysterious and dark to keep the audience interested.

We challenged the conventions by not stating the opening sequence how normal Thrillers start. We introduced the character by her waking up like its a normal day but most other Thrillers start in a completely differently for instance some start half way through then return to the start with the caption 'a few days earlier' or them having a dream about something that's happened to them previously.

Overall, i think that our opening sequence is very successful. we do include challenges in our film such as not giving the genre away straight away and not portraying the main character as a typical mysterious person that would be in a thriller. We support the idea of keeping some of the typical conventions like keeping the music tense, dark lighting and the setting and location to stay Thriller like.

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Maddie is the main protagonist's in our film opening as she's the only character in our media product. She is a white, middle class teenage girl. We show that she is a middle class by showing a lot of her house in the opening including her bedroom, her brothers bedroom, parents bedroom, lounge and kitchen and we also showed a shot from outside.She is a stereotypical popular teenager, who likes to be out with her friends and shes a regular user on her phone as we can see she has an up to date phone.

We tried to make her show a range of emotions across the opening sequence to try and connect the audience with whats shes going through.

We discovered that the character played is a lot similar to the character 'Cher' in the film 'clueless' and this is the character we wanted to portray. She is shown as a very popular and is depicted as a narrow-minded, extravagant teenager. Cher also wears vivid colour and extremity to show her unique characteristic which is exactly what we tried to portray with Maddie. We don't actually show Maddie using this characteristic in the opening but if the film we to continue we would. The only difference that the two characters differ from is that Maddie's family have more of a middle class house and Cher's family are considerably richer.



We also found another character that's similar to my character. Amanda Seyfried plays 'Jill' in the film 'Gone' which is actually very similar to our film. It involves her waking up one day to find her sister missing. The character Amanda play is similar in the terms that shes confused and extremely worried about where her sister has gone. She portrays her emotions just as we would have liked are character to show hers; scared, angry, confused.



From looking back at our media product, I've noticed we focused mostly on the clothes and props. For instance, in most thrillers the main character comes across sometimes as quite dark and mysterious but we portray Maddie as completely different.

The Hollister hoodie and jeans show the audience that shes a typical teenager and nothing out of the ordinary. The fact that she shops in 'Hollister' depicts that she shops in a popular shops and its a shop that most teenagers shop in these days. Focusing on the props, we made sure that her phone was shown in the opening scene. We did this to show for one that she owns a expensive phone and two that this represent a young, sociable teenager.

Thriller films interest young adults as they find the plots interesting, they like feeling the suspense and mystery. Our target audience is a 15, this includes people who are about 5-17 years old. We chose this age because we felt that because the main character is 16 we thought this would help connect with our target audience as they would near enough the same age. It quite easy from the beginning of the film to tell what age Maddie is, the bedroom is a main contributor to this. You can see its really girly and a typical teenage bedroom with the pink wall, curtains and typical girly items. Thrillers appeal to both males and females.

Males are interested in Thrillers due to the action as they like to see something that gets their heart beating, and females are usually attracted to Thrillers because they like to watch something that plays questions in their head, wondering what will happen next.

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?

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you Attract/Address your Audience?

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

Evaluation Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

First Draft with Feedback

In class we watched all of the rough cuts and gave some feedback to all of our classmates. We then received all of the feedback to help us re shoot or improve some of the titles. The class scored us out of 60 as if it was our real thing.

The average score we received for our production was 45. This is slightly inaccurate as we received some marks a lot higher and lower than the average which brought the average down. We had some very strong points which we should not change but we also had some items that needed changes. Our strong point was our sound. Everyone said that it was really good and it fitted well with the genre. Some people thought that the genre was unclear but some people understood that it was a horror and thriller. People also liked our sound effects. The alarm clock was also a strong positive. People liked the sound and also how loud it was.

The titles we used had some mixed reviews. Some people really liked the font and the colour but some people thought that some of the words were unclear against the windows. There was also a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors which people picked up on and we have already changed them.

Most of the reviews about the acting were very positive, but they did think that there needed to be some more emotion in the facial expressions towards the end. This was also put to us from our teachers and when we re shoot we will take this into account.

Our class mates were really impressed with the amount of camera angles and different types of shots we used. People also really liked the editing and how that Maddie's family disappears.

Suvey Monkey Repsonces

We sent out a survey on a website called Survey Monkey. We recieved a number of responces, most of the said roughly the same sort of thing. Here is a responce we recieved.

Feedback

Mrs Field: Our Media Teacher'I really liked how the blinds on the Film 4 started like how the opening started by looking out of the window.'

Compared to your first draft, the acting vastly improved. Megan looked more scared and gave a better emotion to the audience.

I really liked the outside shot. I liked how she went outside without her shoes as it showed her panic and made it more realistic. I also liked how I could see Megan's breath in the air. I also liked how when the car and boy walked past, they faded later as if to imply that they were coming to help.

On the first draft the 'no contacts' was hard to see and also you could tell that it was an image. I liked how you have edited so that you cannot see that it is an image and it is also a lot clearer to read.

I like the flicker on the titles as it adds more mystery and fits the genre. It also gives it some individuality and is not as boring as a basic fade.

Mr Butcher: An English Teacher

Mr Butcher really liked our film opening. He said that it was 'amazing'. He gave us one thing that we could change and that was the button press when she turns on the television. He said it sounded a little too loud and out of place. We lowered the sound to make it sound more realistic and when we showed him he said it was a lot better.

Props

Here are some pictures of the props we needed to use when filming our film.

Television

Television Remote

Maddie's Phone

Costumes

Here are the pictures of Megan's costumes when she plays Maddie.


Pyjama Top

Pyjama Bottoms

Jeans

Hoodie

Changes made along the way

When we were planning our film, editing and also when we were filming, there were some subtle changes that we needed to make. The first change that we made was the brother’s name. He was originally going to be cast as Jack, but we changed the name to Ben so that we could use a door name.

The next change that we made was the poster. As you can see in an older post, we had three different posters to choose from. The first one that we made had a picture of Maddie standing in front of a house. The house was black and white and Maddie was the only thing in colour. The general feedback for this was that Maddie also needed to be in black and white as she looked a little out of place. We made this change and this gave us our second poster. We then showed this off again and people preferred Maddie being in black and white, but they said that she needed to be a bit smaller as she looks out of proportion to the rest of the poster. We also changed this and then we showed off this one. The feedback was very positive and we decided to keep this poster.

Another change we made was to do with the boyfriend. Originally we was going to cast him in towards the end of the film opening but we thought that it would be hard to portray him as the boyfriend and it might leave the audience very confused about who it was. Instead of using this we decided to use a different shot. We thought that when Maddie ran outside, she could see and car and a general pedestrian to disappear to give it more of a dramatic feeling to Maddie and we hope that this was portrayed to the audience.

When editing we made some changes to the sound. When showing off the first draft of Alone. We received feedback from classmates and teachers. Our teacher Mrs Field said that there were too many shots of Maddie walking up and down the stairs. She suggested taking one of them out as it could make the audience lose concentration. She also said that when the title of Alone appears, it looks like there is a light flickering in the background. This is what we wanted to get across. She said that we could put a light bulb flicker to make it more obvious that it is a light.

When we were putting on the titles, one of our classmates had an idea that the title could flicker out like the light in Alone. It would also make them individual and more interesting to look at instead of a boring fade in and out.