daniel mutabazis evaluation.
1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions for real media products?
There are many different conventions for a thriller genre. These are recognised through the constant use of close ups , fast editing, the use of dramatic and tense sound that has a fast pace, the use of cross cutting, as well as the use of low key lighting. The conventions of a thriller genre can also be seen in the types of characters that have been chosen for the movie, such as vulnerable females or a femme fatal. In addition to this they can also be seen in the type of sub- genre that has been used for the movie, such as psychological, crime and espionage.
The conventions of a thriller movie can also be split into classical, such as Hitchcock-style films or contemporary, such as modern-action thriller. I believe that we created a movie that was more contemporary, because we used a lot modern techniques, such as making an action thriller, rather than following one of the more classic sub genres for a thriller.
To add to this we have taken many classic thriller conventions and changed them, such as using a vulnerable female. We chose to use a vulnerable male, because it would make our film stand out from more classic thrillers. In addition to this we used a wide variety of scores for our film, because we wanted to get different sounds for different actions, instead of sticking to more tense and dramatic scores. However we also used some classic conventions, such as low key lighting, to add more drama to our movie. We also used fast editing towards the end of out movie, to make it more tense and keep the audience on their feet.
We were influenced by many different thriller films, such as the opening to 28 days later, where there is a lot of low key lighting used, which made it scary. There were also a wide range of angles that we saw and incorporated into our film, so that it would be more intense. We took advantage of these different angles through the fast editing we used, so that they were more effective in creating tension and making out film more suspenseful.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film changes the representation of men and women in thriller films, because we made a male the victim, rather than using a woman. This showed that the kidnappings that happen to women can also happen to men. However we did use youths as the antagonists in our film and this can be seen as depiction of youths being kidnappers. This is a different representation from that seen in real life, because this role would usually be associated with people of an older nature. We did not use any ethnic minorities in our film. The cast was made up of people of Caucasian background. This is because we wanted to change the normal representation of ethnic background being represented as the common kidnappers. We also showed some representations of age within our film, through the fact that all the actors were teenagers. This was because we wanted to portray that these types of crimes are not only associated with people of an older nature.
We chose not to include a representation of all social groups, because this would make the messages of the representations we did make difficult to understand and identify. Some were also not very relevant to our story and would have made our film less effective in being an opening thriller sequence.
In our film we have tried to not give a negative representation of any of the social groups that can be identified within our film, because we do not want to discriminate against any social groups. We simply changed the roles of some social groups, such as youths and the ethnic minorities, because we wanted to illustrate how these common crimes can be committed by people of nay nature and background. We have reversed the roles of some social groups, because we did not want to show stereotypes, but rather change them. This made our film different to a normal thriller, because they would commonly use a stereotypes and specific social groups. A lot of our representations challenge the typical dominant representation, because this makes our movie unique by reversing roles, but also to give off a message that stereotypes can be reversed.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
An institution is a company or organisation that distributes films. This means that that it can get a film to the audiences.
Our film is an independent production, so will most likely not be seen on major screens, such as Vue, Odeon and Cineworld. An independent film is usually going to be British or foreign and will have a low budget. We fit into this category because we did not have a lot of equipment available to us and it was very difficult to afford high profiled celebrities in our film. The other category is called mainstream and will consist of films that have come out of Hollywood and had a big budget to complete their films, such as bond films, the Bourne trilogy and the most recent ‘Avatar’.
The result of our film being an independent production would be that it would most likely be distributed at independent screens, such as Everyman, Curzeon and Watermans. In addition to this our film could also be screened at film festivals around the world, such as the Sundance film festival. It could also be screened at the Media that matters short film festival, as well as the Angelus student film festival.
My film could also be distributed across the internet, via video steaming sites, such as megavideo and YouTube, as well as social sites, facebook, twitter and myspace, where you can upload a video for your friends to watch. I could also use a public service broadcaster on television, such a BBC1 and 2, which is owned by the government, but they mostly use big budget content. A better possibility is channel 4, also a public service broadcaster, but one with a remit to promote independent British films. Alternatively I could focus in community channels on cable TV, which use user created content.
Thriller genres often attract a number of audiences due to the films containing moments of suspense, intrigue, mystery and most often action such as fast paced chase sequences like Fast and Furious or moments of feats of defying gravity like Matrix.
We decide to do a certificate "15", because it wouldn’t limit the audience to the extent that an 18 certificate would, but it would still allow us to incorporate some of the stronger thriller conventions. Overall the certificate "15" would allow us to do everything in our opening sequence, such as use drugs, violence and bad language. However it will have to be portrayed with very little detail, so not to be too explicit for the age rating.
With this chosen age rating we would aim for an audience who were both male and female, as our film is not meant to exclude any sexes. We would also hope that our movie could attract an age rating up to about 23 because we created our movie to catch the attention of a mature audience, but without being to explicit.
We decided to make this the minimum age for our target audience, because we wanted to be able to incorporate a wide range of techniques to our film, so that it could be as good as possible. I believe that we did make a film that was suitable for an audience of fifteen and over, because we used a cast of young actors, but made the storyline mature enough to attract people of an older age. We did not use any explicit material, as we did not need to and this may have lowered the range of the ages we could attract, however for a main target audience of teenagers, I believe we made a suitable film.
5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
We managed to attract and address the audience in a different number of ways, within our movie. Firstly we were able to make our very relevant to the thriller genre. I believe we achieved this through the different type of convention we incorporated into our film, as well as the way in which we were able to use a wide variety of scores to make our film more impactful.
Secondly we were able to make our film suitable to the age group, through our use of a modern score and casting young actors to make it more relevant to the right age group.
Thirdly, we chose the right plot for our film to make it appealing to our audience. We did this through choosing a kidnapping as the main frame for our film. This kind of thing can happen to a lot of young people and we believed that addressing this issue would catch our audience’s attention.
However we did encounter some problems in addressing the audience. We were able to notice these problems through the audience feedback we got back from our class. To begin with it was said that we needed to add a more mysterious tone to our movie, as well as create a more steady film, as we had too much movement. The audience said that this made our movie hard to concentrate on. We also needed to lower our score so that the speech in our film could be heard, because it was too loud. The speech is an important part of our film, so we too this seriously in making it the right level. We also had to alter our score to match the action on screen, because it was making out movie less effective in creating tension. Once we had gotten past these problems we were able to make a good movie and were definitely able to attract and address our target audience.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For our movie, we used a wide range of technology, which helped us to make our final product. To start the whole process of we had to use the internet to set up a Google account on http://www.blogger.com/ . On this blog we were able to post blogs on the different topics we had to research on thriller genres, such as audiences and conventions. We also used the website http://www.youtube.com/ to view clips of other peoples work on the thriller genre, so that we could get an idea of the type of production we had to make.
After the research and planning were complete, we were handed mini-DV camcorders which provided realism, but did make the style of our film a little less clearer than we were hoping for. We also got tripods. Theses were the instruments we were to use to create out films. It was very difficult to use these tools, but after some practise we were able to complete a film. The last software we used was I movie, which is a non linear form of editing. I movie can be found on an apple computer. This software provided us with the necessary components to edit our movie, as well put it all together with the score. The film took its shape in the editing process and we had to make a lot of changes to the original storyboard, because some parts of our movie became too long. We also wanted to experiment with different parts of the movie, to see if we could make it more realistic and effective to being a thriller opening sequence
We had a lot of limitations as we made our film with some of the technology. The camcorder had no external mic, making recording dialogue very difficult. We weren’t meant to use a lot of dialogue in our film. This was difficult, because it meant we had to find a different way to create tension and anticipation. To add to this, we had to film in the dark and the camcorder had no light. This made it difficult to get the right lighting for the right shot. We had to make use of natural light, meaning we had to wait for the right time to film. This extended the amount of time filming actually took.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full productivity.
When we were filming the preliminary task, it was a lot easier to complete, because we did not have to incorporate as many aspects as we did for the main film task, such as characters and lighting. The preliminary task did give us an idea of the type of thing we would be dealing with for the main film task and it helped us to gain some skills on using the equipment.
The preliminary task showed me how to get the right lighting for a scene and showed me why this lighting was the most effective, through the final product. I also saw how important a score is to a film, as well as the difference that you get in the film once you have edited it. The most important thing I learnt from my preliminary task was how to use mise en scene and how important it is. The research we did for preliminary task for mise en scene was not concise. In the main filming task we had to do thorough research into the location, casting, lighting, performance and props. We would have not realised this if we did not to some research in the preliminary task, resulting in more time being spent on research, rather than filming for the main task. In addition to this, the preliminary task helped me to learn how to organise the storyboard and script, because we had to complete these for both tasks.
Overall, without the preliminary task, making the film would have been difficult, because we would not have gained any skills to make it easier to complete the main task, as well realise how cinematography, editing, sound and mise en scene could have been important in creating a good film.
By Daniel Mutabazi
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