Evaluation
In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
For our final piece we decided to shot a thriller feature film because we believed that it would be the best genre to shot as we would be able to show what we have learned throughout the year, using different camera shots and also different editing techniques. To understand what elements make up a thriller genre film we used Nick Lacey’s Repertoire Of Elements and studied a number of thriller films, such as ‘The Descent’, ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Wrong Turn’. Nick Lacey’s Repertoire Of Elements uses a number of headings to understand what elements belong to certain genre. The headings which are used are, Narratives and Themes, Stock Settings, Stock Characters and Iconography. To see our repertoire of elements click here.
Throughout the making of our film I believe we used the conventions that best suited the film we wanted to make and then developed them to suit and better our feature film.
How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?
In our feature film the social group which we tried to represent was a group of teenaged boys who were united through their passion of an outdoor sport. In the opening to our film the viewer is able to see that the two teenagers shown in the film are friends and also enjoy the outdoors experience. From the opening of our feature film the viewer is able to understand that something out the normal is about to happen because the teenagers find a dead body on floor. The viewer is unable to see the problems which lay beneath as the strength of their friendship group is about to be seriously tested through trust and strength. The friendship of the group is about to be tested by a psychopathic killer who stalks his targets.
The social group which we have represented is unusual in a thriller film because from the research which I did, I discovered that the social group usually represented is young couples of ages between 21-25 and groups of friends of ages 21-30, for example ‘Wrong Turn’ and ‘The Strangers’.
What Kind Of Media Institute Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?
Our initial idea of using a big distribution company, for example Paramount was scrapped as we believed it was not necessary because we are a small budget production company. We decided to use Film 4 as they are a British film company owned by channel 4. The main reason we choose to use film 4 is because they have worked with a lot of low budget film producers and by distributing the film in the right way have turned the film into a massive international film, for example, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Film 4 would be the ideal company to distribute our film as they have the required knowledge to get the film into the British film industry which is where we want our film to be shown. Also Film 4 would also have the required experience to get our feature film into the market on a low budget which other big companies may not be able to do because they do not have the experience on how to. To see more information about distribution companies please see our slide show production pitch.
We wanted to create a low budget thriller film with not well known actors to increase the realism of the film as a thriller. Using known actors can detract from the film as the viewer may be unable to take the actor seriously in the role they are playing. Also being a low budget production company means we have control over what type of film we make and also who stars in the film. Because we would need to receive ‘patchwork funding’ from different sources we would be able to retain control as no one funding company would have majority control. (This is the same way ‘looking for Eric’ was funded).
Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?
As discussed earlier in are group blog the target audience for our feature film would be teenagers between the ages of 15- 18. I believe this would be the most appropriate audience for our film as my researched showed this is the main age group who will regularly see films in the cinema. As we are a small independent low budget film production company we do not need a big target audience to try and recuperate the money invested to produce the film. Also having a smaller target audience means we are able to concentrate specifically on the target audience meaning we are much more likely to attract the audience.
How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?
To attract our audience we used characters which represented the age group we wanted to aim our film at, 15- 18 year old teenaged men. This was important to us because we wanted to use characters which the audience could relate to so having characters of the same age group as our audience was important. We also thought carefully about the name of our film and how the audience felt about our title. We decided on the title deceased. Lastly the distributor we decided on was important because we wanted to choose a distributor who has experience in distributing thriller movies. Film 4 have distributed ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’.
From comments I have received about our product it seems to me that the audience responded well to our product. The comments I have received seem to suggest that they like the way in which we canted some of our shots to make and ordinary shot seem creepy which helped add tension to our film. Also the audience has been kept guessing about what is going to happen next as many questions have been left un answered, Who was the body, why was it there, who was the killer and what is going to happen next. To read the full comment click here.
I looked at and commented on Jake and Conners Film and also Judiths, Hannahs and Alice’s film.
What Have You Learnt About Technologies From Constructing This Product?
Since the beginning of the project I have learnt many different techniques which have helped us construct our product. For example to get the require point of view shots we first tried to hold the cameras whilst riding the bikes which meant the camera was never still. To get the required look we wanted we then set about using a helmet cam which meant the camera shot where ever the eyes were looking which made the movements of the camera more realistic because the camera moved much more freely just like your neck would.
The lighting which we used in our product was all natural which hindered us slightly because no two days had the same level of lighting which meant that our two minute film does have some lighting level changes.
The camera which we used was good and had the ability to perform all the effects which we wanted and the camera also had a built in microphone which wasn’t the greatest and in hindsight I wish we had used a external microphone to capture sound which the camera’s microphone didn’t pick up. The best piece of equipment we had was our tripod which although weighed a lot was very sturdy and was very smooth to use which meant we could follow the two characters smoothly and without the camera moving in sharp movements.
The biggest hindrance towards our product was the use of Garage Band which me and Oscar could not use as we found it to complicated and to time consuming. I Believe that that it would have made a product better if we had been able to create a piece of music specifically designed for our product but in the end we had a use a number of copy-right free music and edit them together which proved to be a lot easier and saved a lot of time and I was very happy with the final piece.
Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?
Since my preliminary task I have learnt many different techniques which have helped improve the quality of my work. Click here to look at my preliminary task. I believe doing research and having the knowledge of which shots to use helped me create a product which looks more like a finished product rather than a rough quick film which is what I believe my preliminary task looked like. Having the experience of doing a preliminary task before are final product helped me get advice on problems which had arisen. I was able to get the advice to eradicate these problems and make sure they did not arise again. The biggest technical skill which I have improved is the ability to look at the mise en scene instead of just what is happening in front of the camera. Having the ability to look at the big picture has helped improve the final product as it has enabled me to give the final product a better flow.
I have improved in many ways since doing the preliminary task but I found that on our final product it was easier to film as we had taken care and time in our planning so we knew what we wanted before we went to shot. This helped save time as we did not have to sort out problems on set. In my preliminary task the viewer was able to see were the clips of the film had been inserted which meant that there was always a jump at each cut. Since the preliminary task my ability on the I-Macs has improved to an extent were I can see which clips would work well in a sequence and find a way of editing the together to give the final product more of a flow.
The biggest problem we faced was being in a small group of only two. This made the pre-production work harder as we had to do more work between us and if one of us was unable to shot at a certain time we couldn’t film. Although we were in a small group we did manage our time efficiently and we managed to stick to the schedule we had set ourselves. With out the schedule we would have been unable to tell if we were far behind or ahead of what we needed to have done. Overall as a group I believed we worked ok together, we both put forward ideas which helped make are final product and we managed to stick to a tight schedule.
Adam Tugwood 