Q1 - In what way does your media product use, develop of challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film goes along with quite a few of the thriller theories we looked at and the codes and conventions we studied.
One of the main theories we use is Bonitzers idea of partial vision. We used this to fit in with Carrolls theory of creating questions and suspense. Throughout the whole clip you never see our characters face in full focus so you cannot see his emotions etc. An especially good example of this is the scene where the character walks down the stairs. You only see the bottom half of his body, mainly his feet and then when he turns the corner you only see the back of him, again not seeing any emotion, and protracting the outcome.
We also go along with Chestertons idea of bringing excitement in to every day urban life.You can tell the film is set in todays times, from the bedroom setting as it looks like a modern house with the alarm clock, and the fact that the character is in a school uniform, giving the idea of every day life and showing its in an urban landscape. Then with the story line, going into school, (every day life) and then the killing happens, this is the 'excitement'.
Although not shown in the opening, during the rest of the film, we scripted for an essence of a romance between the main character and one of the girls to show up, this relates to Frye's idea of how thrillers are similar to romance fiction.
We also have the idea of crime and a villain in our thriller, with the main character going in to school to take students hostage and kill some,with the use of a weapon. This relates to our research as many said they connect thrillers with murders etc. It is also connected to Carrolls idea of moral factors and creating suspense of if the hero survives.
Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents numerous social groups.
First of all, we chose to use a male for the main character, as this goes along with the norms of most thrillers we looked at; the murderer or main 'bad' character were usually males. We chose to do this as the story line was quite violent, and males are more stereotypically known for being stronger, tougher etc, so it was easier to show the emotion of the character being angry from body language as we didn't show his face throughout the film.
We also represented young people, as the main character is of schooling age, and a majority of the characters are the same age at high school. This was represented by costume, with the school uniform; blazer tie, school trousers, shirt etc. We also showed this through hair etc as he had quite a scruffy look to give an average representation of this age group.
We chose to do this, as our film was targeted at mostly 15-30 year olds, and a majority of these are currently in or recently been in some form of education and so can relate.
We also represented religious groups, as Terence's mother is highly religious, so we represented this through discussions and activities she undertakes which are shown throughout flashbacks etc in the film.
We also represented the working class and upper working class/upper classes, as these are the main class groups that attend the comprehensive high school that we feature in our media product. This was quite simple to do, as they are the classes that form the majority of our culture and so the actors could simply be them selves, we just had extra items like the costume and setting etc to show these were the classes represented. We chose these, as our target audience is made up of from these classes and so can relate so aspects of certain characters.
We represented the Northwest as a region overall, as it is more known for being working class which works with the classes represented, but also as we are a low budget British film it is important to represent the region and so this is easily shown simply by the characters accents and some colloquial language they use specific to the region, this just gives it a more intimate and realistic feel that the audience can relate too. The area is also represented by the settings throughout the film, as the north west is best known for a more industrial landscape with more houses and factories rather than modern sky scrapers etc.
Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
When researching the distribution of our media product I looked at a number of low budget distributors. I mainly looked at the best known ones, Film4 and UK Film Council. Both are relevant to our product as they specialise in helping create and promote low budget and short films from different regions around the UK. After researching them both, I decided to concentrate on the UK Film Council; http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/.
The UK Film Council is a Government project funded by money from the Lottery. They fund short and long films and help distribute them to a wider audience.
I thought the UK Film Council was appropriate to our media product as while researching, throughout their website they often mention how they are keen to ensure that British Culture is shown through the film industry with their help. i feel our products fits in to this as our product is filmed around normal working class areas of the Northwest, and therefore represents this region, and as it is filmed in a school, shows part of the culture of Britain.
They fund all genres as long as it represents economic, cultural and educational aspects of Britain, and therefore our product would be able to fit in to the catalogue as it features education, religion etc.
The UK Film Council have funded a number of successful films such a Nowhere Boy which was shown at the London Film Festival and Fish Tank which has recently also been awarded a BAFTA.
review from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/10/fish-tank-review
Q4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for our media product are males and females ages 15-25, this is because from our audience research these were the ages ranges that said they would enjoy our type of film the most. Also, the fact that we gave the film a classification of age 15, due to moderately violent scenes etc, this is how we decided the starting age for our target audience although we also expect some younger to watch it but not the majority. We also decided this range of ages, as the film is based around characters in education, and our chose target audience will currently be in or have recently been in some form of education themselves.
Below are some images of the type of people in our target audience, as they are in the ages, and go to school etc.
Q5 - How did you attract/address your audience?
One of the main ways in which we attracted our audience was to create characters and settings that they could relate to, as we were targeting quite a young audience and our story line used characters based around this age.
So, for the film we decided to have a number stereotypical people/groups that the audience could associate with from settings like school etc, we included :
Stacey - The pretty popular girl
A group of popular boys - the bullies that would feature in the flashbacks
A group of bitchy girls - Also bullies in the flashbacks
Stereotypical teachers - glasses, tweed blazers, shirt, tie, strict.
And the setting we used is in a school, so many people can relate to this fact.
However, at the same time as just using characters the audience can relate to, we needed to make our clip exciting to interest the audience. In our opening clip, we used a lot of procrastination, as the whole of our opening clip just shows Terrence getting ready, in the dark giving it an eerie feel and then walking to school. This gives no information to the audience of what the film is about so attracts them as it would make them want to watch the film, also we didn't include any speech again making it seem sinister and doesn't give away any clues.
Although we didn't include any speech, we used some quite dramatic music over the top, which connotes to the audience that its quite a dramatic, exciting film, and this gets them interested in this way.
Q6. What have you learned about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?
3) The film is uploaded on to the screen, underneath are all the clips, and you can go to each different section with the pointer and then edit from there.
4) To get clips on you first need to capture; to do this click file, Capture and then the following screen will come up.
5) This is the capture screen, having put in your tape, you can rewind/fast forward it to the section you would like to capture. At the start of the section you have chosen you click I (Input), and then at the end you click O(Output). It is best to leave a few seconds either side as you can edit it with a finer tool on the main editor.
7) Once you have done this click the In/Out button and this screen will come up so you can save the clip, it will then go back to the main editor.
8) When you are back to the main screen, all the saved clips go into the scroll box on the left hand side. From here you can drag them into the top left hand screen box and edit them further with a finer tool to improve the match on action. From here you then drag them in to the largest box at the bottom with all the clips, and combine them all together. To add edits and fades onto current clips you choose edit and there are a range to choose from there. We added text on top by choosing layers and edited the font to our liking.
Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned int he progression from it to the full product?
Since creating out preliminary product to our latest end product I feel the quality of work has greatly improved as the preliminary product was greatly unorganised, and looked unprofessional.
From the start, although we had created some story boards, when it came to filming we abandoned these and instead went for a 'improvised' approach. Although this can sometimes work out when it comes to general conversation being recorded, it is impossible to create a professional looking product using a variety of camera angles with out sticking to a planned story board. Therefore we didn't film all of the scenes that were needed and so had to edit bits out to make the story work together. In our final task we had a more precise storyboard with more detailed shots etc, this resulted in a much more structured product.
Another error that we made was when filming we only did one take of each shot we planned to do; this resulted in us being left with bad match on action and the camera angles being wobbly etc. Instead for the final product we took at least 3 takes of each shot, allowing us more choice when it came to editing and allowing us to feel happy in the final product.
For the preliminary task we were required to include the 180 degree rule, in this case, where the camera switches to view two characters having a conversation, also filming a character walk through a door. We didn't consider when filming how to create matchon action, making the different shots look smooth so the audience wouldnt notice the change. Instead we had sections where it looked jolty and unproffesional, for example in the conversation.
