1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product incorporates generic conventions from real media products such as the professional film, Taken, a crime and action thriller, we developed ideas through the generic conventions of Taken. The film uses typical generic conventions to emphasis its sub-genre for instance short duration shots highlighting urgency and point of view shots so the audience can relate to what is about to happen. The film shows a clear antagonist and protagonist (which we have in our film) and the narrative is in an ordinary situation where extraordinary events occur... Therefore, in our production we used this to help make it fit well to the sub-genre. For example at the beginning of our opening sequence we created suspense, excitement and tension to the viewer through short shot durations, handheld camera shots and on specific scenes adding a blurred effect. Also, for the music in our production we wanted to add anticipation to the viewer like the way we felt whilst watching other crime thrillers. These were all ideas used from real media products, showing an indication that our use of conventions have been influenced by films like Taken, Eagle Eye and Disturbia. In certain scenes of Disturbia the shots have been edited into a blurred vision which gave us that particular idea, and in Eagle eye the music felt spine chilling and that’s how we wanted our music to be portrayed in our opening scene.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product is aimed at youth social groups, who go out socialising, underage drinking, partying etc. This is represented in our opening sequence during the flashback where you see the two naïve girl characters that have been drinking and are just spontaneously having a fun night out. The two girls are portrayed in a stereotypical way, they are very vulnerable and silly when it comes to getting into the strangers car, like two young girls would be like underage drinking in the realistic picture. The boy character challenges the stereotype as you would rarely see a young man take two innocents girls on a night out especially as they are both around the same age, and same social group. However in some aspects the young man does conform as he is the dominant one and is the one in control of the situation. This links into the target audience because it explains to the youthful groups that this could happen and could be seen as a realistic theory. The media product is more pushed towards this social group because through our research and personal view we can see that this would be something that they are interested in and a film that they would want to watch.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe that this could be something that could be produced by major Hollywood studios and other big production companies such as 20th Century Fox who have produced worldwide crime thrillers. The reason for this is because our idea stands out from other crime thrillers and it is appealing to youth social groups and they are the main people who are interested and go to the cinema etc. Our media product is similar to existing worldwide crime thrillers such as Taken and Disturbia, and both films have been very successful and popular. In the opening scene of Disturbia the music is contrapuntal which is the opposite to our opening but through our research we decided that music that compliments with action conforms with the audience and are more likely to be interested. I believe that if our media product was to be released it could be as popular and could offer franchise/ merchandise because as seen from other universal crime thrillers like Taken, people our interested and merchandise like dolls and t-shirts are sold worldwide. Our media has realistic characters that can make ordinary people put themselves in that position which makes our film better than others.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our media product is suitable for both genders. The reason for this is because the narrative is about two girls being abducted, therefore is not pushed towards one gender. For our primary research we conducted a questionnaire to discover the expectations of our target audience. We discovered girls would find our media interesting as they enjoy going out socialising, underage drinking and doing spontaneous things therefore could put themselves in the position of the two vulnerable girls in the film and decide what they would have done in the situation. Boys on the other hand, would find narrative attention-grabbing because it is a crime thriller and discovering through our primary research if boys were to go to the cinema they we most want to see crime thrillers or another type of thriller. We also used secondary research to find out more about our target audience, we used the Pearl and Dean website to find out about the audience of crime thrillers from looking at the results we discovered that crime thrillers were most popular between the ages of 15-24 and 25-34. The gender ratio was more popular with men than women; however, the percentage for women was still high showing us that both genders would enjoy the film due to its sub-genre. Our media product also raises awareness to the audience, like professional films such as Taken the youth generation can learn something from it.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by using results from our primary and secondary research. This helped us come out with our audience profile and who we wanted to be interested in the film, we discovered that both genders aged 15-24 would find our media product most interesting and would want to watch it. There are particular points in our media where it would appeal to those certain ages, for example during the flashback the two girl characters have been drinking and are singing, messing around and not really thinking about what they are doing. This could scare and worry the target audience because they can picture themselves in that situation. We thought carefully about our camerawork during our opening scene, we used a lot of point of view shots so the audience could relate to what was happening, we also did a lot of short duration shots to emphasis the panic and tension the girl character was feeling. Another technique we tried was putting the camera out of focus to show the girls blurred vision, to show that perhaps she has been drugged. For the mise en scene we created a stereotypical look for both girls, for instance, heels, short skirt and lots of make up etc. We wanted the audience to relate so that it gave off a more realistic feel. In the editing process we had no soundtrack music in the flashback so we could just hear what the girls were saying and how the boy approached them, this was to show realism but also some aspect of raising awareness. We used all these four micro areas to attract and addresses are target audience.
6) What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing the product?
I have learnt how to use and do a variety of technologies from the process of constructing the media product. At the beginning of the production stage in the preliminary task we used a canon video recorder and tripod; we were then able to be more creative with our real project. This was one of our strengths because throughout the production of filming our media film we thought back to the prelim and what worked well and what didn’t. A weakness of the camera equipment was when we took it out to film and the tape didn’t work, this was a big disadvantage to us and the shooting schedule was delayed and our availability became a struggle. After this happened we made sure during the editing stage that we were more organised and gave plenty of time and space for mistakes if they were made. During the editing stage I learnt lots of new techniques on the editing software – Final Cut. After having a taster of how it works during the preliminary task it was much easier to use, we were able to be creative with our work changing the speed of each shot and using the razorblade tool to cut and paste different shots in the timeline. We found Final Cut very useful for creating our overall mise en scene, adding special effects for instance in our flashback scene we blurred the shots to emphasis the fact that she was dreaming and also in other shots we added brightness to enhance the daylight. When it came to making the soundtrack we created on the software – Garage Band. It was a useful programme for creating a suspenseful soundtrack because we could go through each sound effect we wanted and cut and paste or slow it down, making it sound the best it could be. The challenges we faced using the Garage Band software was that it was hard to certain sound effects of the exact shot type we wanted it, so as a group we went through the film and wrote down the exact time where we wanted extra suspense.
7) Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back to the preliminary task it was challenging and all the equipment seemed overwhelming but now after completing the full product I feel a lot more confident in using all the tools and different software. During the planning stage it was difficult to put all our ideas into one film, we carried out lots of research (primary and secondary) to find out who liked our ideas and what type of sub genre we wanted to go for. I evaluated all different types of thrillers and thought what was different about them, what was most popular etc. All the planning really helped when it came to coming up with a storyboard and presentation. We had an idea of what would be interesting to the target audience we were edging towards; for instance socialising, partying being spontaneous etc. After coming up with the storyboard and presentation we as a group completed an animatic. This was where we videoed the storyboard to how we would want it to be for the real product, we took to account timing, speed, how creative it was and even what sound effects we wanted then in their. In conclusion, it is clear that I have learnt a large amount from the start of the project to the finished cut. I know a lot more about the different software’s, the camera equipment and the amount of time that has to be planned.
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