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.