Evaluation - Samantha Hayden

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

Conventionally, our media product uses typical characters with the antagonist (the estate agent) being male and the protagonists being ordinary citizens, drawn into danger by accident. There is fast-paced, frequent action involving the young girl being chased and eventually murdered. This introduces suspense and captures the audience's attention. However, it is not set in a typical location such as an exotic foreign city; it is set in a quiet English village that is hiding a secret. The fact that the village has a secret also ties in with typical conventions of a thriller as they often involve mystery, with the protagonist foiling the antagonist's plans. Our antagonist is a serial killer, a common criminal activity of antagonists. I would compare our product to Se7en (Kyle Cooper) as it involves a similar serial killer and also uses non-linear editing to intertwine the actions of the antagonist and protagonist.

A diverse range of camerawork is used in thrillers to see the action from different angles and also to ensure plots are not boring. We used a variety of angles and shots including close-ups, long shots, pull focus and panning. The theme music is only featured whilst the first scene develops with the planning and killing of the young girl. By using it only in this scene it adds to the tension and creepiness of the sequence. With regards to mise-en-scene, the protagonists are dressed in casual clothes, symbolising their status as ordinary citizens, whilst the antagonist is wearing a suit and tie, signifying he is the dominant 'bad guy' and demonstrating his position of authority in the village.

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

The protagonists are middle-class, white characters living in a small English village. We used an Oriental-Asian antagonist as his ethnicity, as well as his disability, gives him "stand-out" qualities. It makes him 'the other' and therefore a suspicious character. Typically 'bad guys' are shown as disabled because, despite efforts, disability is not seen as the norm, therefore he would be seen as strange and creepy. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise), although not a thriller, is an example of a film using a disabled main character whom everyone fears. Although he is middle-class, his occupation is one associated with power and dominance, typical qualities of, not only a male character, but also of an antagonist. However, the occupations of the family go against stereotype as the husband is a stay-at-home writer and the wife a senior nurse. Although nursing is a feminine occupation, with the husband at home writing, she is the breadwinner. During the sequence, she tells off one of the children whilst the husband stays quiet, showing she is also the main carer for the children. This character would be described as post-feminist, a modern woman, a working mum.

The young girl at the beginning of the sequence is shown as innocent and vulnerable. She is a white, middle-class ten-year-old as this age is just young enough to be scared by things in the dark. Any older and it wouldn't have had such an effect on the audience of urging her to run faster and get away.

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

Our thriller would be an independent film for UK theatrical release as well as TV, DVD or the Internet because it can then gather a wide audience of not only the general public but also potential distributors. It would be funded through money from the UK Film Council or the British Film Institute (BFI). It would be distributed by TV companies that are involved in film such as Channel 4 or the BBC as Hollywood distributors, such as 20th Century Fox, would not be interested due to the lack of 'Hollywood stars' and input of big production companies.

The main selling point of this product is the twists that come later on in the film. Also, the fact that the audience knows very little about what's really going on would attract distributors' attention. Merchandise related to the film such as T-shirts, collectibles etc would be sold pre-release to build up a 'hype' amongst our target audience.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our product is aimed at young (15-35 years), British males and females. We found people outside this age bracket had little interest in thriller films as well as realising the subject matter typically contained in thrillers may be too mature for younger audiences.

We found the colour black was conventionally associated with thriller films, but respondents were interested in films set in an unconventional location such as a workplace, as it would be more realistic and easier to identify with. Respondents to our research did not produce a unanimous answer on whose point of view they would like the film to be centred around i.e. antagonist or protagonist. Most respondents agreed on a male villain and as our sample was representative of gender we concluded this would appeal to everyone.

The sequence is likely to attract a British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) rating of '15', making the film viewable by all of our intended audience as well as giving us some lee-way to include scenes of a more violent nature. However, as the techniques used may be imitable and the rest of the film is likely to include scenes of graphic torture, it may be classified as an '18'.

The target audience for Se7en is older than as ours as it carried a BBFC classification of '18' and is mainly aimed at males. Although our film is similar, we felt through findings of our research that our audience would be mixed gender by around the same age as Se7en's audience.

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

Our main characters are in their late 20s/early 30s and are white British. Using this profile our audience would be able to identify with the protagonists even if they are a bit younger as the family represents a common/nuclear structure which everyone can relate to. The sequence does not fully explain the family dynamics, but shows a postmodern diversity in the couple's occupations and roles within the family. They are shown as 'good guys' straight away through actions such as holding the children's hands and standing together like a tight-knit group showing their love for each other, qualities that everyone can relate to. Through the dialogue they are seen to have pride about themselves, as shows when the mother tells the boy off for commenting on the estate agent's disability. Suspense is essential in a thriller and we achieved this through realisation of who the estate agent is by showing flashbacks of his crime the night before intertwined with the arrival of the family to meet him.

Finally, we found through an audience feedback survey that our thriller was received well by our target audience of men and women aged 15-35 years. It attracted most interest from this age group but more interest from women than men.

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

When using the equipment, I learnt that to capture clear dialogue, without road-traffic noise, we needed to hold the Senhauser gun microphone closer to the actors. Also, the tripod we used had no spirit level so some of the shots we got were at non-intended canted angles. However, we did not use these clips as they looked unprofessional. I learnt that when using a camera with manual exposure, such as the Canon XM2 that we used, the exposure need to be reset a lot to reduce glares from shiny things such as one actor's leather jacket. As the camera had manual focus as well as automatic, we used this to our advantage and learnt how to do a pull-focus. With regards to lighting, we learnt about positioning and how to make shadows the right height and in the right place.

When using the editing software 'Final Cut Pro', we found it was useful for creating superimpositions as we could create them in another program and then just place them over the top of a video clip. It was hard to learn every technique that we needed to edit our film properly, but after many tried we worked out how to make the software work for us. For example, we had a problem with the sounds recording on some of the clips, but a cross-fade transition on the audio helped us to make it sound more professional. As our sequence involves flashbacks as the family is arriving, we made the flashback clips black & white by using a desaturation effect to distinguish them from the clips happening in the present.

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

Through the preliminary task we faced many problems such as finding a suitable location, working out where the 180-degree line was, not researching the characters and not using specialist equipment such as a gun microphone. However, we did draft a script and storyboard to guide us and found we could not have filmed without these things. Also, with none of us having filmed before, we had a big problem with composition and filming enough rushes to edit.

There were fewer problems with producing the final thriller sequence as we had learnt to plan in detail, therefore everyone knew what they were meant to be doing. With regards to camerawork, we over-filmed, ending up with around 40 minutes of film, which gave us plenty of rushes to edit. We also had a better idea of where we could film from and where we couldn't. This made things a lot easier and made us realise that we should film each shot from different angles.

We did have a problem with the sound as we didn't use a gun microphone in the preliminary task so we had no experience of how to use it correctly. However, when we got to editing we were able to use the theme music to cover up our mistakes involving dialogue. Also in editing, we had learnt from the preliminary task that dialogue did not have to be over the video clip is was linked with. We therefore used voice overs to make the final scene flow smoother and quicker. We also found that over-use of transitions such as 'cross-fade' did not give the sequence the 'thrill factor' so we did not use them except at the beginning and end.

As we used professional actors in the final product it was much easier to film as they had experience in front of the camera. The props used were thoroughly planned, so when we came to filming we had no panicking about what was meant to be where. As for costumes and make-up, as the characters we just ordinary people, they wore their own clothes with guidance from us.

After having two experiences with producing a sequence I feel more confident using the equipment and editing software to my advantage. By learning how to use blogging sites I now feel I could create a professionally looking blog, incorporating a house style to ensure consistency. I think we worked well as a team, everything was completed by the date specified on the project schedule and every contributed to ensure a successful outcome. When comparing the final product to professional products there is an obvious difference, but had we focused on the problems earlier I think it would have looked more professional. An indicator of our success is that it attracted the interest of our target audience and most viewers understood what we were trying to put across.