Evaluation

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
A typical thriller movie has suspense, tension, twisting storylines and cliff-hangars, all of which are usually portrayed through music, camera shots, costumes, make-up, dialogue, editing and just basic mise-en-scene. Our movie Stanley Depreto: SERVED RAW uses and develops these conventions in a number of ways. Well firstly the movie storyline is very horror/thriller based, it’s about a secret cannibal who kidnaps young people and eats them, although this sounds more like a horror film to add a thriller element we made it so that in the movie he gets caught and arrested by the police and in questioning he is forced to reveal everything about his victims also causing him to reveal his childhood with an abusive mother, all through very graphic flashbacks.
We used a lot of close-up’s throughout the film which added to the thriller feeling, because it shows the expressions that are going on with both characters.
Our music we tried to build as much tension that we could i.e. when there was a reverse shot of Shannen the music matched what the shot was doing and building up tension. Also as the film developed towards the end after the news caster could not be heard and Stanley was yelling towards Shannen the music was made sinister to match what was going on, on the screen. The music was a mixture of slow, drowny brass instruments, with sharp yet soft piano accompanied by tension building strings, which are all the main components of thriller music according to our research.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In the introduction scene to the movie there are two characters, a male and a female. Stanley who is a mentally disturbed, middle-aged, working-class man. He was abused as a child which was when he was launched into the cannibalistic diet. You can tell initially from the size of the home that he is quite well-off and has some money showing that he is working-class but his rugged facial hair and long grayish-black hair (showing he’s middle-aged) may give off a scary, sinister look. His dialogue and actions illustrates he’s mentally disturbed, when he comes down the stair and licks the girl and then says “you’re not ripe yet.”
The girl is a teenager, who’s just looking to have fun and live life, but also doesn’t look out for danger, which is how she gets herself into the predicament. She was taken when she met Stanley after her birthday party , which is why she is wearing a red cocktail dress. Although the girl is not seen in the movie other than the beginning she’s the one who helps the police capture Stanley.

Shannen

Stanley and Shannen


3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product, and why?
I looked into several different media institutions many of them being from Hollywood or bought by a Hollywood and I could see the film being distributed by either Universal or Working title. However I mostly see it going with Universal for a multitude of reasons. American can reach to wider range, and also are very daring in what styles of movies they distribute and how they distribute them. However being a British-based film (in that it’s a British setting, actors, location etc) the film is less likely to be taken on. Which brings me to choosing a British company like working title, being a home-grown piece of work it would be easier to get distributed by Working title though they do not have the publicity Americans have. Working title are more known for doing RomCom’s such as Four weddings and a funeral, Billy Elliot, Love Actually. Whereas Universal is known for more of a range of movies, they’ve done films such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Scarface, Jaws and many, many more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoiVEyCosEE
(Video of Billy Elliot opening sequence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQXfBbWgncw
(Video of Jaws opening sequence)

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
When I first started the project I wouldn’t of minded the film going out to 15+ however researching into BBFC Guidelines I realised that the film would probably be rated 18 because of the blood, violence and gore. I don’t feel the film is gender, sexuality or ethnicity biased however I think that males are more likely to watch the film.

5. How did you attract/ address your particular audience?
Our audience was aimed at 18+ aged people, no particular sexuality or gender. I did this by using various research methods such as questionnaires, interviews, text analysis of famous thriller/horror movies like Stigmata and found out many things about thriller/horror films that would help me attract the target audience. I found that viewers think that to make a thriller film successful it would have to have suspense, good characters; I also found that 55% of our poll said they preferred thrillers that were based on true events. So we researched into cannibalism and tried to make the movie as close to the situations we came across in our research as possible. Then finally took everything into consideration and adapted our idea to attract the people who we would want to watch it.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
To get the movie we made we had to a variety of technology in order to create it. Firstly we had to use equipment from the college, for the lighting we wanted to enhance it so we used the 3-point lighting technique, using 2 small lights and 1 large, brighter light. We had the camera and tripod which enabled us to do multiple camera shots. Like panning, tracking, medium shots, mid shots and handheld shot. However doing handheld shots is not as easy as we thought it would be, because it was hard to stop the camera from shaking.
The editing was all done on an Apple Mac computer in a programme called Final Cut Pro. We had to take the tape and log all the shots onto the system separately, then start dropping all the shots in the order we wanted them to go in the final project.

The log machine

However some disagreements went on within the group and editing stopped for a while, but we managed to come to an understanding and carried on with the editing. We got all the shots into the correct places and began adding transitions on sound and slides. A few times we noticed that the sound was not matched together and had to cut out some sound. We then went to a technician and asked how to create our own animation for our logo, at first we came up with an idea for our ‘company’ called Bighead Productions, which was a bear which head keeps growing and expanding until it bursts and exposes our title. However an audience member felt that it was too childish for a thriller/horror movie, so we had to redesign. We ended up using a programme called After Effects to create a text saying ‘Dark Arts’ (which is our new production team name) and make it show up on the screen scrambled and eventually clear to show the phrase, we also recorded multiple people saying “Dark Arts” and then put them all together so that it’s said at the same time as the words showing up on the screen. We also used After Effects to design the credits that appeared. Lastly we picked out the music for the whole thriller piece and found one that matched perfectly.

Editing in final cut pro

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In the preliminary task I learnt a lot, like the 180 degree rule, where the camera has to be in front of the scene and never behind and not breaking the 180 degree line. If it weren’t for the preliminary task I would’ve not learnt about that. I also learnt how to open my creative side when it comes to thinking of ideas. I found out how to do a number of camera shots (over-the-shoulder, close-up, medium-long, tracking and panning etc.) and got to practice doing them. I also learnt how to think fast when it came to mistakes in the film because when we came to watch the film through we found mistakes within the dialogue, the actual shot, and we hadn’t put in a two-shot. So we had to re-shoot and came up with a completely new and improved idea. So I learnt a lot from doing the preliminary that I could’ve potentially messed up in when shooting our final product.

Media final thriller Stanley Depreto-SERVED RAW

Media Evaluation

1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?:


It deviates because the narrative is about a cannibal, which is not what a conventional thriller would be about. The shot where the main character, opens the fridge shows this. Because he is doing an everyday thing but is not a normal person. The character of the girl, I think is typical. Because she is potrayed as the 'victim-like' character. The cannibal character is not typical because he appears normal, while most thriller characters would appear bad in some way. We did pull-focuses of a clock to a cross, at the start of the video, which I think was a symbolic thriller convention. The comparison of the clock (a normal object) and the cross (a religious object) was very symbolic. There were high-angle shots of the killer as he cut the heart. To make him appear powerful. And there were camera shots of the inside of the fridge so we could see what was in it. The sound and editing were very typical of a thriller because they sounded creepy, the sound sounded very threatening and the editing included black-outs and fast cuts. The titles were 'Stanley Depreto served raw' written in red lighting, like a Resturant sign and 'Dark Arts', which were macabre enough to suit a thriller. This language that Stanley Depreto used was very unsettling because it seemed so normal, like when he says 'Would you be quiet, I'm trying to watch the news'. The mise-en-scene was a house, the fridge, the T.V. which were totally different from a thriller's setting. I don't think other thrillers have influenced our work because our thriller is so different from other conventional thrillers. Other thrillers have influenced us in Music, like 'Blue Velvet'.The themes of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' .

2)How does your media product represent particular social groups?:

Yes, gender is represented stereotypically, in our thriller the killer, who is a man, is represented as being dominant and the victim, who is a woman,is represented as being a young party-girl because she is 19 and the man is an old man, who lives alone.The main character,Stanley Depreto, is Italian. Stanley Depreto is middle-class because he owns his own house and was brought up by a middle-class family. Yet he still lives by himself. The red dress represents the girl as a sexy and dangerous character.

3)What kind of media institution might distribute your media product, and why?:

Maybe our film would be made only for internet release because I think it is quite an arty film that would appeal to young people, who use the Internet, to watch films sometimes.Our film could be funded by the U.K. Film Council because they financially support British films.Our film could be distributed by 'Working Title' because they make British films, like 'The Boat that rocked' and 'Ali G in da house'. Our film is similar to these movies because it is an original and creative British film. Our thriller's selling point is that it's a Horror/Thriller so I think our company would benefit from some merchandising, like a Doll, a doll of Stanley Depreto and the female victim character or sweets (that are gooey) like jelly filled boiled sweets.

4) Who would be the audience for your media products?:

Our target audience profile's age would be 15-24 year olds.We decided this because they like action-led film, which is what we consider our thriller to be. We also knew that they were the most frequent cinema-goers. We decided they would be male because men prefer action films, like 'The Dark Knight' and fantasy like 'Hell Boy 2' which are quite dark movies.The target audience said (when we gave out the questionnaires) the sub-genres they would most like to watch was Horror (45%), they thought suspense makes a thriller (35%) and didn't think setting did (10%).70% of respondents liked re-makes of classic thriller films. 55% liked films based on true stories. They thought strings made the best musical instrument for a thriller (75%) compared to 5% for Brass. The rating would be a 15 because our film is quite gory e.g. the cutting of the heart, and has dark themes. The film 'Blue Velvet' is similar to ours because it is a surrealist film and shows a seedy underworld to a place.Audiences for this professional film would be interested in our film.

5)How did you attract/address your particular audience?:

The victim is presented as an independent young woman, which I think would appeal to a Young Target Audience. The 'audience positioning' would be the girl, who they would sympathise with. They would witness Stanley Depreto dragging a knife along her arm and her being hand-cuffed to the stairs.It would gain her a lot of sympathy with the audience. The sound-track created suspense because it sounds foreboding and has a scary, unsettling feeling. The black-outs in the editing give a few minutes of suspense, so you're unsure as to what will happen next. Audience feeback was very positive, people found it genuinely scary and liked the editing.

6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?:

The college equipment enhanced our film with the lighting, which helped create an eeire effect which made our film look more unsettling, to the viewer. The on-camera mic picked up the sound of our main character Stanley Depreto. The camera used allowed us to do close-ups, wide shots, master shots, and high-angle and low-angle shots. We used a hand-held camera for the shot when Stanley looks in the fridge. It inhibited our ideas when we didn't know how to use the editing software, i.e. Final Cut Pro. We had to learn to do such things, on Final Cut Pro, as put in special effects on our video. We also had to use masking tape to stick on our mic so it would stay in place. Our group managed fine with the automatic and manual focus.We were able to switch between the two focuses.We didn't use exposure. The on-camera mic picked up all the sound clearly. We learnt how to use lenses (zoom in and zoom out) fine. Aswell as the hand-held technique. We quickly set up the tripod and dolly equipment , easily. There was one problem on the shoot, when we were trying to get the radio in focus and the cross out of focus. We found this difficult to do. The editing software enhanced our film by building up tension with the music, and transition. It didn't really inhibit our ideas. We mastered the editing software techniques well, we knew how to use fast-forward and rewind, pause and capture. The picture and sound transitions we found useful were black-outs after a close-up on the character's faces and dissolves on the start credits. Yes we were able to use music and sound effects to connote particular moods, like the loud knock on the door at the end of our film.

7) Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?:

We first planned out what our idea would be, then decided our Project Schedule. We gave out Questionnaires and Interviews. The quality of our results we obtained were very high with everyone giving explanations for what they said. We learnt more about what people want in a Thriller from this. Then we did our logo and came up with a name for the Thriller. Then we drew our Storyboard. And the next step was to Film.We went to an Uncle's House to start filming. This took us three days.Then we edited our film. By producing a more detailed Project Schedule we needed to create a Project Schedule for the whole of our project, because we needed to know what needed to be done, when from the start of our project and how, by deciding what exactly needed to be done and when. For the Research Document (Group and Personal) we needed to know what we needed to do: find out what the Public wants in a Thriller Why because we needed to make our Thriller the best it could be. When we needed to do it was before we filmed our Thriller and how was by Typing up Questions and Choices. For the Script Development what we needed do was create a Script for our Film. Why because we needed to know what we would be filming. When, our film gets filmed. How, everyone needs to combine their ideas to create a Script. Yes I feel more confident using the production and post-production equipment, especially Final Cut Pro. I didn't do the Blogging for my Group so I didn't develop this new skill, but I have done Blogging before. I think our organisation and team working was very good. We all worked together well. Our work rate was good as far as everyone is concerned, Kamau was a little slow to start with but he started to work faster. I think our work was very professional. I think our end product was successful in meeting our particular brief. It was scary and had tension like a Thriller should be. I think it compares well to professional products. It has a professional feel.

Final Thriller Opening 2

This is the final opening of our thriller as we had a few problems after uploading it to youtube which we changed and uploaded the video again.

Final Work Evaluation

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

Our work does follow some of the industry conventions however there are some that have not been followed as a method of differentiating ourselves from other works within the thriller genre. A example of this is the usage of credits within the title sequence. thought the industry often the title sequence is cluttered with text. this is usually because in most title sequences not much is happening. for example the thriller panic room the title sequence does not feature any events crucial to the storyline unlike our own work. within our title sequence we have the main protagonist Stanley taunting his victim. As this is important to the story we have decided not to include most of the titles common in films. This I feel is very effective in keeping audience focus on the main action.

With the narrative style by choosing to do it in a non-chronological style built up the suspense. thus helping to build the tension as viewers would want to know how the girl ended up hostage. I believe that this idea was executed in a stylised and tasteful manner. With the audience wanting to not only know how she became a hostage but what happened after he was caught.

Characterisation was one of the big focuses during the development stages of our project. One of the main ideas was to portray the main protagonist as normal. In my opinion I believe this was done well as the audience is bemused as to why the girl is tied up in the hallway before he taunts her. it was deemed that Stanley should be a cannibal following conventions used in most thrillers in which a crime is at the heart of the narrative.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product is designed to represent different social groups in a varied way. When developing Stanleys characterisation we crafted him to represent middle aged men as slightly mysterious. By him being a cannibal it ties in with the convention in most horror films, in which most middle aged men have a deep secret that they keep from society.

The Character of Shannon represents young females as helpless. This is shown through her character being held captive. Shannon is a young girl which is shown through the excessive make up usage (which has been ruined by her crying.) age plays a important part as younger people are represented as people who would prefer to make the mistake themselves rather than listening to somebody else previous experience. This is how Shannon ended up in her current position.

The usage of a northern accent suggests that this is in a northern town this gives the work a regional identity. Shannons physical ability is limited due to her being held capture.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product, and why?

I believe that due to the topic covered by my thriller that it is a very niche market product appealing to people who prefer extremely gruesome films however there are elements of the thriller that would have mass market appeal.

Due to this the best way to distribute it would be via a limited theatrical release similar to that of 'paranormal activity.' With the film going to DVD release and television première earlier than typical films that had a widespread release. This will enable the people from the nice market to access the film if it was not screened in there particular area.

Therefore the film would be partly by private investors as well as independent organisations that are specifically formed for the funding of films. A example film would be kidulthood which was partly funded by the UK film council. I believe the best organisation to approach for partnership with private investors would be film4.

Independent cinema chains may be more interested in distributing the film based upon its unique angle on a taboo topic. it is similar to other films distributed in this way as it appeals to a narrower audience.

The thrillers unique selling point is that it tackles a subject not widely talked about. It brings the subject into the surroundings of the audience in a modern 21st Century home in England. Placing the subject on the doorstep of the reader making them feel more involved in what is happening due to the familiar surroundings.

Who would be the audience for your media project?

The target audience for the film would be primarily male aged between 16 to 40. I decided upon this because of the face that cannibalism is not a topic women would wish to view. The reason for the lowest end being 16 Is due to the fact that Shannon is at that age meaning it would be more realistic thus more appealing to them rather than people older than the characters age. Also target audience research revealed that this thrillers did not appeal to women as much as rom-com or drama. That is why I went with the male market.

The BBFC classification I am hoping to achieve is a 15. I believe that it should be rates ad such due to the fact that it is only the topic that may be found offensive. In which case the person would not watch the film. Within the opening sequence there is no swearing, no nudity, nothing of a sexual context and any violence is not sustained for long periods of time. Thus there is no reason as to why it should receive a higher rating of 18.

'Cannibal holocaust' is a covers this topic however is professional. This appealed to the same audience as our work and as such I believe that people who watched this would also be interested in our work.

How did you attract you particular audience?

The representation of the young girl would appeal to people at the lower end of the target market as they would be able to sympathise with her in the same way as if one of their friends were taken captive by a cannibal. Whilst older members of the target audience would sympathise with Stanley during his normal dull day to day routine. Thus when they find out he is a cannibal their sympathetic position will change.

Other attractions include the usage of thriller conventions to build tension such as music. The usage of music was highlighted in feedback with one viewer stating that the music helped to build tension keeping them on the edge of their seat.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction the product?

The college equipment used I believe inhibited our ideas. Of the set of lights we were loaned one of the bulbs blew. This meant that we had to redo all the lighting to ensure consistency. However it did not inhibit our ideas as we were still able to carry out our needed shots. I mastered the camera control controls as I often help when others were unsure of what to do. My hand-held technique was however not the best and as a result we resorted to using a tripod.

I believe that the editing software limited what we were capable of. I mastered the editing software however with the effects it would have been better is text effects were more profesional. Rather than the 'power-point' type text transitions available. I believe that we were able to use sound effects appropriately to connote the desired mood.

Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We specifically planned the preliminary task using three areas camera work, sound and in shot action. From the preliminary exercise feedback showed that in sound the usage of music helped to build tension. Due to the fact that we planned out every shot the quality of camera work was better as everybody knew what was happening. The in shot action was simple allowing the view to clearly follow the plot.

When we moved on to our final production all the planning was placed into more detail. With a scrip giving information on timings, camera movement and not just dialogue. During our final task we used a project schedule which was helpful in helping us to keep track of due dates and how much longer we may have had. By meticulously planing what we needed to do and when as well as how we were able to operate more professionally thus producing a great thriller.

I feel more confident with all equipment now that we are complete as I have the appropriate experience. I have developed a variety of new skills including blogging and editing. We worked well as a team with everybody working together rather than individually. With the professional working ethic we created a product that meets the brief and is of the same standard as professional products.