AS Media Evaluation

AS Media Coursework Evaluation

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

• Our product used enigma code, in which 2 cases of its use are quite obvious. Enigma code is used in a few films such as The Usual Suspects, The Machinist and Dark City. For example, in Dark City, the protagonist wakes up to find a murdered body in his room, while he is completely unknowing of the elaborately orchestrated plan that he is an integral part of. We are not aware of whether he did kill the woman or not, but as the film progresses, some gaps are filled, whereas others are left open, creating an enigma code in the plot; who has framed the protagonist, or not?
• The use of the bag that the protagonist, Dwayne, is carrying at the beginning is fought over by Dwayne and the henchman, without its contents being revealed. The second use of the enigma code is that Warren Grey, our main antagonist, remains completely unseen in the beginning of the film, and if it were to be feature length, would remain veiled, creating a sense of foreboding and suspense. Enigma code is an important structural part of many thrillers, and can be a part of labyrinth plots. The audience are hooked by the mystery, our natural curiosity for finding the truth drives the audience to keep watching to find out who does what etc.
• Our use of the protagonist/antagonist element was quite clear cut. Our peer evaluation feedback said that our use of clothing and props made the differences between the protagonist and antagonist very easy to distinguish, which in some cases is somewhat formulaic, but 9n our case, we needed a distinguishable difference between the good and bad characters. Dwayne, our main protagonist in the opening minutes of our film has stolen something of value, and is trying to keep it from the henchmen, who press him for it. The henchman wear dark clothes, with high collars, to show their dangerous. Dwayne is dressed in normal attire for a man, which shows his vulnerability and everyman desperation. Also one of the henchmen is smoking, which shows how different he is from Dwayne, who is on edge, while the henchman is relatively calm.
• The three narrative stages of a thriller are equilibrium, disruption and resolution. While ours lacked the equilibrium, as the opening is fairly brash and violent, the disruption occurs within a few frames of the film starting, with the introduction of the henchman. Later on in the film, as part of our synopsis, Dwayne is killed. This means the resolution will come later on, and could not be included in the first couple of minutes, but the opening certainly left plenty of room for a resolution to be made. An example of a film opening in a fairly disruptive way is The Fugitive, where Harrison Fords’ wife is killed during the credits, in black and white sequences. The rest of the film is one long, complicated resolution as he battles to find the one armed man who killed his wife.
• Our use of camera work represented a watchful eye over proceedings; it didn’t delve deep under the surface, but didn’t remain as a detached voyeur. Our use of the high angle shot as Dwayne runs down the alleyway is meant to represent a CCTV camera, or Warren Greys deadly gaze. We also kept the shots tight, and near to the actors, or in some cases, allowed the actors to walk/run towards the camera, showing that there is a trap. The use of an alleyway as our setting meant that we could create a sense of no escape from the tight confines of the alley. We didn’t use low key lighting, and instead opted for natural light, as it was during the day. To create harsh shadows or shadow veiled characters would have been unrealistic, and created a sense of misguided style to make our project more glitzy. Furthermore, our peer evaluation supported our views, by saying the use of natural light, was good, although I can see how it could be perceived as lazy. Although low key lighting is a significant contributor to the mood in many thriller films, to create a sense of danger and evil charisma, it seemed somewhat out of place for our opening sequence.

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

• The 3 characters in the opening sequence are Dwayne, and the 2 henchman. Each one is depicted in different ways. The first henchman, who engages Dwayne in a rough and tumble conversation is dressed in a slightly overbearing, black trench-coat, with his hands dug deeply into his large pockets. He smokes, and seems comfortable with the whole situation. He is the typical henchman; charismatic, risky and threatening. His body language is fairly relaxed and at ease, while his facial expressions express an underlying desire to get the bag back, even if it results in a blood-spattered ending. Henchman 2 displays similar characteristics, as the patrols the end of the alleyway with a pent up angst. As a result of these henchmen, the main villain, Warren Grey, is portrayed as a ruthless man, who doesn’t hold death and destruction far up on his own moral code, without even appearing on-screen. In many ways, the henchman are the product of a thriller stereotype; tough, strong but ultimately flawed, as is shown when Dwayne escapes by catching the antagonist off-guard with a heavy punch to the chin.
• Dwayne is very much on edge, tensed up, and scared. Judging by his reactions to the henchman, he is aware of the consequences of his robbery, but he is still defiant in the face of danger. Like many heroes in the thriller genre, he is resilient and strong, but is not invincible, which is a typical characteristic of heroes such as Bruce Willis in Die Hard or Christian Slater in Broken Arrow. The camera work in our opening also represents Dwayne as vulnerable. It is hot from above, and with the henchman in frame, to suggest he is under the influence of Warren Grey, and that the henchmans presence is always felt when he is in frame.
• In general, all the characters are White, of British origin, and are around the early-mid twenties of age. This is also typical of the thriller genre. For example in Transformers, the 2 main leads, Shia LaBoeuf and Megan Fox are young adults. It is unusual to find an older action hero like Sly Stallone on John Rambo or likewise; it is uncommon, so we opted for the more typical age of the characters.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

• There are vast amounts of media distributors, ranging from small scale setups to huge companies. 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros are probably the most famous. Some companies such as the aforementioned Warner Bros would be a bad choice, as they have released films from The Maltese Falcon up to the Harry Potter franchise. They have also released films such as Zodiac, Run Fatboy Run, Get Smart, Inkheart and Under Siege. Most of their releases are high profiting comedies, action thrillers or romances. They would not undertake our film because British film is still conquering the United States, with the exception of Slumdog Millionaire and a few others. Our film centres around revenge, but the concept has been done before, albeit not in the same way, but the key points are relatively similar.
• A distribution company that would fund and release our film would be Delanic Films, who are an independent film distributor operating out of the UK and Ireland. Their films include Freebird and Swing Vote. The founders are Joe Simpson, who has worked for MGM and Columbia Tri-Star, and Glyn Allanson, a veteran in the advertising industry for 20 years. They use British actors such as Gary Stretch, who has been in films such as Rock N’ Rolla and Dead Man’s Shoes, a film by Shane meadows, who is a British director.
• Delanic Films are also represented at the Toronto Film Festival, so they could show our film before a wide release to acquire information on the general publics opinions of the movie. This is a good way of seeing if a film will do well. Generally they do, as they are selected before their showings, so only the best get through.
• Delanic Films could acquire the licence to exploit the film. The producer is paid for this right, and after the film is produced, and then the marketing will sell the film to the audience. This can be done via billboards, radio, television, trailers in the cinema, buses, and magazines/newspapers. Websites can now create quite a large gathering for a film through use of Internet trailers, viral images and actor/director/etc interviews. Also, they can premiere the film at the Toronto Film festival, which would drum up interest if it’s a great piece of work.

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

• The audience for our product would be males aged 18-30. This is because males in this age group enjoy action/thriller films such as Transformers, Die Hard or Reservoir Dogs(which was an independent film). As our product falls under the general thriller outline, then we must aim at the most productive market for the thriller genre. Also, the leads are both males, and the 3 characters in the opening sequence are ale, so they’d be more willing to grasp the concepts of the film perhaps more strongly, so it would resemble a manly ensemble cast such as the one in Snatch; Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Benicio Del Toro. The film made a $20 million profit, opened at over 1000 screens, and re-ignited British cinema.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• Our film opens with Dwayne running down an alleyway, with several cuts to various angles, which is snappy and fast paced. The dialogue opens with some strong profanity, and there is some violence with the punch. Crime is a theme raised by the opening, typical of many old and modern thrillers ranging from The Public Enemy in 1931 to 2008’s The Dark Knight.
• The music we used is intense and throbbing, setting the mood nicely for a tense, taut thriller. The camera work is uncomplicated, which allows the audience to immerse easily into the story. It also raises a few questions of what’s to come. Why has Dwayne robbed someone? Does he get caught? Repercussions of the robbery? Who is the employer of the henchman? What did he steal? These questions all create interest, and the use of the enigma code means that the hooks are into the audience early on. The worst thing you can do is bore your audience, so it is important to grab them early on and never let go.

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

• During the preliminary, I had minimal exposure to the technology we used, so during this task, I filmed as much as I could, despite being in the film. I learned to set up the tripod, attach the camera to it, and manoeuvre it. I also learnt how to set the white balance, which was always difficult because the cameras we used on each filming session was different, so each camera worked in a different way.
• Other technologies I encountered include: the Apple Mac, the editing software and music software on it (although we didn’t use GarageBand, I still used it up until the change of plan that meant a musician would orchestrate our music).
• I learned the basic controls of the editing, how to cut sections, and how to raise and lower sound levels, although the more complex techniques I didn’t need to use, so therefore had no need to grasp, but I still need practice before I’m a decent editor.
• During our first shoot, we didn’t set the white balance, in a bout of laziness and haphazard sloth. Unfortunately, not till we went to edit the footage did we realize it was tinted blue, for some bizarre reason, so we had to re-shoot that part again. Since then, we have always made sure the white balance is set properly.
• Our peer evaluation said that we didn’t use a wide variety of transitions. Personally I felt like we didn’t need a fade, wipe or any other fancy transition that would add nothing to the narrative. The fade is quite a slow transition, so it wouldn’t fit in with our theme at all, and the wipe is quite a wacky way or transitioning, and our project is quite serious. Other transitions may have been added, but would have been unnecessary. However, our transition to our credits was quite plain, a cut to black with the words floating on screen in blood-red, so we could have been more inventive with the use of music or graphics.

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

• Our biggest improvements were with the camera framing and our match-on-action. In our preliminary our framing was poor and our match-on-action wasn’t sharp enough, the 2 shots didn’t correlate smoothly.
• There are 2 match-on-action shots in particular that I think the group achieved very well. Firstly when Dwayne is running down the alley it cuts from a LS to a high angle shot. We edited this part very carefully, so even his footsteps matched between frames, and he was in the next shot where he ended in the last. The second shot was when the first henchman rounds the corner, and then it cuts to in front of the henchman. We paid attention to which leg I walked off of before the cut, and the distance I covered being shown as I walked around the corner, so it would match with the next shot.
• Our framing was also tight; we used long shots, OTS’s, and mid-shots that concentrated on the character, and not the extraneous material behind or around them.
• Also, I think the whole group knew how horrifically basic and mundane our preliminary was. The music was tragic, our dialogue was boring and our use of the ‘After a long winded chat…’ screen meant that our peer evaluations were cementing our own thoughts about our preliminary; it was very bad. We spiced up the dialogue to resemble a typical gangster conversation, and it worked out to be essentially the characters repeating the same basic phrase under different guises. We also got a musician to make our music, which was a real problem in our preliminary.
• Another valuable lesson I’ve learnt is that preparation is vital. Last time we charged in like supercharged army, whereas this time we got our props and actors well before we started to shoot, but we did have some problems with the props, so it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. It is difficult to organize a set group of people at a certain time when they live in different areas and are free at varying times. It is difficult at best. I felt we worked around that well, although our amount of re-shoots nearly escalated into a farce, but we managed to wrap it up nicely.
• Furthermore, our editing was supreme compared to last time, as we’ve all gotten to know the controls of the software.

Posted by Michael McGroarty

my evaluation

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

The thriller Genre in the film, television, literature and too and extent the gaming industry, is one that has been around for a long time. This is a genre that creates Suspense in order to ‘Thrill’ the viewer. Writing and Directing a thriller is often quite a difficult task for some, as it can often change and become more of a horror, or on the other end of the spectrum, it might simply not be thrilling enough. The difference between a horror and a thriller is that horror movies are often more shocking, whilst thrillers are subtle, if we look at Se7en, a very popular thriller, which tells the tale of a gruesome killer, and how the case is solved. This film could have been written in a very different way however, as this story could just as easily have become a horror, or a thriller, depending on how the film was made. Thrillers are often told from the detective’s point of view, as opposed to a horror, which is mainly at the victim’s point of view. This often leads to the stereotype ‘trying to beat the detective’ feel, that many thrillers obtain. However, in several thrillers, protagonist can be the victim, although often is not at direct peril, or is not aware that he is.

In our thriller opening (‘Warren Grey’) the main character for the first part of the film, has stolen a bag, thinking that this was just an ordinary bag, and therefore not thinking so hard about the consequences, however, the contents of the bag are particularly worthwhile to a powerful criminal, who has most of the city’s cops on his side. Following the opening of the film, the boy is murdered by the criminal. The boys father, who is a cop, Then struggles to comprehend who and why this has happened to his son, As he works on the case, he unravels his sons life, learning of his life of crime. These twists are typical of the thriller genre, and make for a more interesting film.

In our opening, we shot the scene by Daytime, although this made it easier to shoot, it could have come out much better if the scene was shot at night, as this adds slightly more suspense, due to the things associated with night time. It would also have made it easier to use low key lighting, which is also typical of thrillers, and makes the film more suspenseful. We could also have chosen a better location, As the one we chose didn’t really fit the scene, We were originally aiming to shoot in a alleyway with high walls, to add a constricting feeling to the shots, making you feel for the boy who was trapped between two threatening men, however, we were unable to shoot at the location, and opted for the other alleyway instead.

The thriller genre is one that often keeps with fast cuts to keep the momentum of the film continuing, We attempted to replicate this, which worked well for the first part of the opening, as the shots of the thief running were cut well, and added a strong pace to the film. However, the transition of frames between the Running shots, and the Shot reverse shot, did not work as planned, with both characters seeming teleporting to different locations, This made for bad continuity, and although we attempted to cover this up, it did not come out as well as intended. The shot reverse shot also turned out well in my opinion, As it kept the pace high, with the camera often shown over the shoulder of who was speaking, this added for good reaction shots of the characters. All of these shot types added for the thriller effects, with a fast pan to add to the pace of the film.

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

In our opening, There is a Young boy wearing a black hooded top, Trainers and jeans, He Reacts aggressively to the man asking him politely to give him the bag back, All of these things suggest that the boy is inline with the Stereotype of teenagers, However, Without these things, The scene would not have worked properly, As he might have listened to the man, and realised he was in well over his head. The characters ignorance was his fatal flaw, making him vulnerable when he could have escaped the situation easily. Although this representation is negative, You can also empathise with him, with the fact that he does not understand his trouble. You can however see the boys worry, as he is holding the bag close to his body with one hand during the conversation, seemingly protecting it, this shows that he is worried they will take the bag by force.

We chose to have the character as a teenage thief, as we intended the target audience to be mainly teenage, and therefore able to relate to the main protagonist, However, by making him slightly bratish, he would also appeal as a character older audience, who may dislike this type of person, as he is in a world of trouble. Older audiences would also be able to relate to the father, who is the protagonist for the second half of the film, He is shown to be a strong person, whose life is falling apart rapidly, They would therefore empathise with him, As a strong man whose life has taken him years to build and perfect, is being destroyed. Seeing strong characters fall down can really make you feel for them, as they are thought to be the most likely to get through the problems in life, and are often people you look up to in life. The Teenage audience could also relate to him, As They can see the genuine love for his child, Whom children crave from their parents, Especially around the time when they do not show it.

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

When a film is made, The Producers / director must choose a company whom they feel will distribute to the best standard, Often in Hollywood, several of the big name brands could be chosen, such as 20th century fox or Paramount, however, sometimes for 1st time directors, this is not an option, as these companies will not risk the money involved if the director is not well known and accomplished.

Here is a list of all of the Distributors of all of the United kingdom’s film distributors.
http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/distributors.html

When choosing a company, you should choose those who are most likely to make more money, since it is in the distributors interest to distribute the film to the best they can, you need not worry about the amount of work, however, if you have to pick a smaller company, pick one that has distributed a film of the same genre before, and preferably one with good reviews.

Due to the low budget our film would be made on, Guerrilla films might be a good choice, since they are renowned for distributing independent films. Since they are good in this area, they are probably going to be able to advertise this film well on a low end budget, this would be perfect for us.

A bad Distribution company for our film would be Squirrel films, as although fairly well known, this company specialises in children’s films, which is probably one of the furthest genre from a thriller, and would need to be advertised differently.





Above is an example of the two genres, and there respective advertisements.

4.What type of audience is your thriller targeted at?

With our thriller, We decided to aim it at the target audience that we know the most about, teenagers, as teenagers we felt we would know what people our age would want to see over what a 40 year old would want to see, So we decided that it would be a good choice, however, I also feel that the thriller would suit well to males around the age of 40 as well, As they would be able to relate to the father.

The thriller is mainly a masculine production; It has high paced scenes with aggression shown through body posture, language and violence. These are typical of masculine films, although also not exclusive; I feel that although aimed at a masculine audience, there is no reason as to why a feminine person would not enjoy this film, as it portrays a father’s love for their son.

The Boy is also wearing typical teenage clothing, this allows people to instantly know what type of person he is, however, to teenagers, this could also tell them a lot about his personality, and also about what sort of background he is from. Because his clothes are neat although not too expensive looking, you can assume he is from a middle class background.

Thrillers such as the usual suspects, Are often fast paced at the start, and then have a slowdown in the middle, which tells the story more, this is a necessary part of the plot, and in my opinion adds to such a great film, as they are kept guessing at who did it, however, to your stereotypical teenage boy, they may get bored, because of the lack of action, whilst in a film like Fight club, which is very psychological, although also very violent, they are more likely to stay interested.

5. How did you attract your target audience?

During the opening of the film. The first shot is of a man running at high pace, Followed by fast cuts, which leads into an explosive dialogue, this burst of high pace at the start of the film is very grabbing toward our target audience, this entices teenagers, and makes them eager to see more action.

6.during the editing and filming of our opening, I have learnt much about how to operate a video camera, as well as a great deal about the editing of film and sounds whilst I have been in the editing suite. A list of equipment we used in overall production is

A Tripod
A Digital camera
A Video camera
Lighting ( although not through our production)
IMovie
IDvD
Garageband

Whilst filming our production I learnt a lot about camera operating, such as where best positioned a camera is for shots.

The main developments I have had during the production was practice with Editing software with Imovie, I did most of the editing although the group would come also to help with decisions with shots and order ect.

I now feel comfortable using Imovie to create continuity in a film, The two main problems being mainly due to a lack of footage, and I feel that the first few frames flow together nicely. I also now understand the proper use of transitions between frames, as well as how to add titles and credits. I also learnt much in Garage band about the use of Foleys.

We also used a Digital camera during our production, we used this to take stills of the set, and of us operating equipment.


We used a Dictaphone to do the voiceover, as we felt that a microphone would enhance the voice, and that it would not sound right. This was fairly simple, and did not take a huge amount of time, however, if given the chance to do this again, I would have possibly used a microphone, as this could of given us better control over the sound.

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

During the filming of the original opening, we made a lot of mistakes during filming, mainly with continuity, we have learnt from this, and it has allowed us to make the intro much more efficiently, Due to us understanding the rules of continuity, such as the 180 degree line.

I have also progressed a large amount in the use of editing software, this is due to me having more of a backseat during the preliminary, but taking a more predominant role in the editing of the final product, I was really glad about this, as I found I progressed well, and even with flaw in continuity which was mainly caused by camera work, I feel that this was done well.

Media Studies AS level foundation portfolio, main task

The Evaluation


1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• Our media product “Warren Grey” uses some of the conventions of a real thriller, such as:-
 A protagonist (The man with the bag)
 An antagonist (Warren Grey )




 Both there roles are vital to the storyline, as the protagonist has taken the bag that belongs to Warren Grey, as he is trying to stop Warren Grey’s madness behaviour and stop him from becoming more of a villain than he already is. And as usual Warren Grey isn’t happy about this, and he wants his property back, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes. This storyline is typical of a thriller because it leaves the storey line open to many different outcomes to create suspense. This is done through camera work, mise en scene, sound, and editing.
 We didn’t use low key lighting, as this would of created the wrong mood for our thriller. As this is suppose to be in the day, as you can see from the picture above we used natural lighting.
 Our thriller conforms to the standard narrative structure. (Equilibrium, disruption, and resolution) even though you don’t get to see the resolution as it’s only the opening sequence.
 The narrative is being driven towards solving the problem of the stolen bag.
 Our product also conforms to the structure of oppositional characters, good vs. bad.
 The product can also be a linear sequencing, because all the events that happen, are in order they are all course and effect, rather than things happening for no reason.
 We used enigma codes in the narrative to raise questions to the audience, and make them think what’s going on. Such as Warren Grey says “ I have no problems digging a whole for you” this line is going to raise questions and make the audience feel worried for the other character.
 We used these forms and conventions to make our product seem like a real thriller.
 Our Opening sequence is similar to other thrillers, such as ‘What Lies Beneath’ as our music starts from the very beginning, and the tiles show in between the images of the sequence. This creates enigma and tension because the viewer wants to know more of what’s going on.


2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• Our media product represents the social group of typical British ‘dodgy’ dealer, and then the problems that arise within that social group.
• Warren grey is represented to the viewer as being the dangerous one, who nobody messes with unless they want trouble.
• Everything about his character is represented in this way, for example with the use of mise en scene, costume plays a huge part in Warren Greys character, if he didn’t look dangerous, the viewer wouldn’t believe that he was, and then the product wouldn’t work. He maintains the look of being mysterious as he is all in black. We decided to make his character seem this way right at the beginning of the planning stage, costume decisions can be seen below on the blog, under costume and location ideas.


• Also body language helps to represent his character to the audience as he has his hands in his pockets, as if he is dangerous and a ‘dark’ character not to be messed with.
• Camera work and positioning in the frame are also key to representing Warren Greys character as the camera angle is a long shot, its keeping the audience a safe distance away from them, which helps the audience to realise he’s a dangerous character, and also the main character because of the positioning in the centre of the frame, making him seem more powerful and important in the frame.
• Also Warren Grey is walking into the darker low key lighting, from high key lighting which creates tension as the view instantly recognises something bad is going to happen.
• We decided to represent Warren Grey In this way because it made the sequence feel more realistic to have one main powerful henchman, to give the film some depth and overall structure to it. The representation of his character is a negative view, of this social group, but it wouldn’t work the same if he was represented in a different way, because then the audience wouldn’t identify with him as being the bad character.



3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product would be icon film distribution, ( www.iconmovies.co.uk) because they not only produce and distribute mainstream films, but also independent films, so we could start by distributing our product in Art house’s at first until we have a fan base, and once that has been established we could then move up towards the mainstream cinemas. To create a fan base, trailers would probably be the best way to go as we can use the main star to attack the fans.
• Another reason why icon film distribution might be a good choice to distribute our product is because they are a UK based production and distribution company, and so they are more likely to want to be involved in our product because its been produced in the UK.
• Advertising and Marketing are also going to cost a lot of money, so buy icon distrusting our product in art houses rather than independent cinema’s is going to save a lot of money. We could use advertising such as:
• Posters at bus stops/train stations
• Magazines and Newspapers
• Local Radio stations
• Word of mouth (probably the best one)
• And packaging
• These forms of advertising are enough to get our product noticed and talked about, but still in budget for an independent realise at an art house.
• Choosing a distribution company such as icon is better than approaching a company such as 20th Century Fox, because they are such a well know distribution company they are not likely to want to distribute our product.

Icon will need full licensing from us to distribute our product.



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

• The audience for ‘Warren Grey’ would be mainly young males, starting from 18 upwards, the main target audience would be (18 to 24 year’s olds) as from the very beginning there is some strong language.

• I think this age group would be suitable for the thriller because audiences of this age have shown great interest in similar films to this thriller such as, The Usual Suspects directed by Bryan Singer. Audiences that have enjoyed films like the usual suspects might enjoy our media product too because it includes some of the conventions of the usual suspects, such as low key lighting (natural lighting), enigma codes, and standard narrative structure. Also audiences that have enjoyed ‘seven’ and ‘What lies beneath’ may enjoy our product because the music in the opening sequences, help to build tension and suspense, like our product does. They also make the audience want to see what the films about, without the opening sequence telling the whole story. Which I think our media product does.



5) How did you attract/address your audience?

• At first before we began to discuss our ideas for the thriller, we thought about what makes people want to come and see a film. We came to the conclusion that to attack our audience we needed to have tension in our thriller
• and enigma codes to get the audience thinking about the narrative, and want to find out more about the characters and what was going to happen to the. And so the audience would be intrigued.




• We used narrative that might intrigue the views, so that they would find Warren Greys conversation with the protagonist enjoyable, and really want to keep watching to find out what happens in the rest of the film. We also used a high angled shot, so it looked like the protagonist is being watched from above, like on a CCTV screen. This adds tension to the sequence as it raises questions, and makes the viewer more involved with the character as it’s like they are watching him from above too. Which puts the audience at an advantage over the character.







6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
this product?
• The technologies we used to create the thriller were:-
 A digital video camera
 A digital camera (for photographs)
 Apple Mac (computer) and software (imovie) for editing
 A digital dicta phone
 USB memory stick
 Logic Pro to create the sound at the begging of the thriller
(music was not created by any of our group, but a music student)
• The first thing I learnt about the camera was the importance of the white balance. – When we first started filming I set the white balance on the camera and then began to shoot the first sense for the thriller. But by the next shot the footage wasn’t turning out the right colour, the screen on the camera looked slightly blue, and it ruined the second shot. I realised the white balance needed to be set each time using a white piece of paper, so that the camera could identify what white was.

• Secondly I learnt in editing how to cut each shot, to make it shorter, I had to press the ‘apple’ key and ‘T’ to split the shot where you want it to end, and then I pressed the ‘apple’ key again and ‘X’ to delete the part of the shot that wasn’t needed.
• In our peer evaluation a couple of people mentioned that we didn’t use any transitions to follow shots, which we didn’t use. I think it would improve our product a lot if we had, had used a wider variety of transitions between shots, such as fade out’s to show the passing of time, which would of made the thriller keep better pace.
• I’ve also learnt about sound, diegetic and non diegetic on and off screen. The music that we had created for us, was suppose to be parallel, so that when the opening sequence began, and the viewer could see the actors, the sound was parallel with them. But through a mistake with editing the music plays all the way through the opening sequence, and so it no longer matches with the characters movements as it should have done. I think changing this would improve our production a lot.


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

• From our first preliminary task, a lot of the peer evaluation’s we got back, said roughly the same things, so it was clear what we had gone wrong with the preliminary task, which make it easier to address what we needed to change as a group to improve for the full product. The issues that kept being mentioned were:
• Framing - because we didn’t have our main subject in the middle of the frame.
• The dialogue wasn’t very interesting
• The music that we made didn’t really fit with the sequence
• And the match on action came in slightly too late which really let the preliminary task down, as the peer evaluation showed.

I think we have improved with the framing and positioning of the characters for this task, because the main characters are in the centre of the frame.

We have made the narrative and the dialogue a lot more interesting that our first preliminary task, because we realised how important dialogue is to the audience to add tension, and meaning to the scene.

I think our continuity has improved a lot too, because we’ve kept everything within the 180 degree rule. And shot reverse shots were maintained keeping both characters on the right side.


• I’ve also learnt that it’s very difficult to get a group of people organised to meet at a certain time, in a certain place to get things done. We kept having to film on different days because the actor we had couldn’t make some days, and other times one or all of us couldn’t make the same day to film.
• I’ve also leant the importance of editing; editing a product right can make all the difference to it, by adding in transitions, and music, and just simply by cutting out small sections of shots can make the whole sequence seem so much better.


Posted By: Jo White. 10:19pm

AS Media Coursework Evaluation

AS Media Coursework Evaluation

The short thriller sequence created for media does contain elements that you would find usually in real media products. For example some aspects that are used in big thriller productions were included in our finished product.

Some of the most common conventions of thriller are creating ‘enigma’, this means creating mystery and making the audience puzzled and questioning what is going on. This basically makes the audience want to find out more about what is happening, one film, which does this well, is ‘Seven’. The beginning of the movie with the credits is a short montage of the antagonist making a scrap book with pictures and notes of people he maybe killed or is going to. This undoubtedly gives the audience an idea into the mind of the antagonist and does create enigma surrounding the character. At the beginning of our short sequence there is a voice over of the main antagonist talking to one of the ‘heavies’ just before it cuts to the heavy walking, the voice over is non diegetic sound and cannot be heard by the character running down the alleyway. The name of this main character is Warren Grey, you don’t see this character at all and this is what it would have been like if it were longer creating mystery around the main antagonist probably until the end of the film. This is similar to The Usual Suspects with the character Keyser Soze where it is not revealed to the audience who it is until the very end of the film. So we as a group decided to have a mysterious character who is not revealed to the audience in the sequence.

Restricted narration in thriller movies seems to work well in creating mystery and suspense due to the fact we as the audience do not know much. Again an example of this would be in Seven where we as the audience don’t know much about the antagonist or his motives for the killing. This keeps the audience on edge and creates a very tense atmosphere. Also the features of mise en scene like cinematography which is for example lighting and colour a lot of thriller movies tend to have low key lighting when setting the mood. Our short sequence though did not have low key lighting since it was shot in the day time, although for costume we dressed the ‘heavies’ in the black jackets compared to the our other character who is just dressed in normal clothes. We also included other conventions from the thriller genre like the POV shots from the heavy when he gets punched and POV shots from the other character showing the audience that he is trapped. The setting for our sequence was suitable it was a series of joining alleyways in which the character was trapped and could not escape from. Although it was not a dark alleyway it still gave the feeling that the character was in danger because he had no know where to go.

In our peer evaluation the feedback was that we had good pace to our story line, good setting and the costume was very effective. Our use of sound with images sounds good and builds tension. Also last comment, does it work as an opening to a feature film narrative the answer was that it raises questions. The story could have easily carried on and left a lot to the imagination of the audience.

The three stage narrative structure of the thriller genre is equilibrium, disruption and resolution. Our short sequence definitely included disruption and but the ending didn’t show resolution but left room for a bigger story to unfold which would have a resolution showing clearly the confrontation between the antagonists and protagonists. Our sequence contains a linear narrative with there being no flashbacks but a simple story which is being shown to the audience, there could have been flashbacks if the film was longer and the story could develop more.

Our media product clearly represents two different groups of people, this is represented through the characters with elements of camera work and mise en scene. The gender clearly being represented is male, for age all of the characters are supposed to be adults age 20 plus. For ethnicity it’s white British, the characters represented are clearly of different social groups. The main character, which we could call the protagonist, is clearly different from the heavies. This is represented through what they are wearing e.g. he’s wearing a hoody, jeans and trainers etc. the heavy characters are typically wearing their black jackets. Many films always give the typical representation that the heavy characters in films are always stupid and are just there for show. Through our product and dialogue we didn’t represent these characters in that way or how they usually are in films.
Our audience for this product would probably be typically 16-25 age group because obviously there is some swearing and if it was longer some more action scenes with violence. Also mainly aimed at a male audience due to the fact there wasn’t any female character in it a female audience couldn’t sympathize with so mainly male audience. The characters in the sequence would also attract this kind of audience due to the types of characters represented. These kind of characters are not gentle there is direct competition between characters and has a very male dominated atmosphere to it.

These screen shots show a clear representation of two different character types represented by costume and dialogue. With the villains character being represented as more ‘villainous’ and the other character being represented as more of an ‘everyday’ person.

When distributing media products like ours which is a thriller it would be very important for us or anyone to choose a distribution company that would have the best interests for the product. For example it probably wouldn’t be best to get Hammer Horrors to distribute it as they distribute horror movies or even an international distribution company which deals with mainstream products. More like a small time distribution company which likes to deal with more low budget films. For example Icon film distributors they specialize in mainstream and independent releases. So this means that they would be able to distribute and would be a good company to do so as they also do mainstream releases so they are most likely to be a good, reliable and professional company.
There are three main stages for distributing products the first stage is licensing where the distributor will need to get licensing to acquire the legal rights to exploit a film. This means paying the producer for this right for theatrical, DVD and then TV release.
The second stage would be marketing the film, this would be done to coincide effectively with competition so releasing a thriller product like this it would be good to do so when there aren’t as many other movies from this genre to compete with so it has the best chance for success.
Step three would be printing and advertising, examples of ways in which it could be advertised would be using different kinds of billboards like for example at bus stops and on the sides of buses so the public are made aware of your product. Also other media aspects like radio, magazine and chat shows where there is an audience paying attention to you talking about your product and try to make it as appealing as possible to it’s audiences. Also if it is a mainstream product you could use merchandising e.g. children’s movies getting deals with fast food restaurants like McDonalds where there are toys being made to get children interested in the movie. Although this would not be suitable as suitable for a thriller product, the best way to advertise this would probably be to have trailers in arthouse cinemas and launching a billboard campaign at bus stops etc.

Also another good company would be Optimum Releasing who have distributed a well known Shane Meadow’s movie Somers Town. So this would be good as they have distributed products that you have heard so again they must be interested in releasing independent movies and are not concentrated on one genre of movie in particular.

Based on what our sequence is about the gender that it would mainly appeal to would be male due to what the whole film would have been about. Also the strong male characters being represented.
The audience we would be attracting with our product would have enjoyed
Many other media products like for example thriller features like The Usual Suspects and Seven. These types of movies are very good in creating enigma and both use restricted narration in the story line to keep the audience interested in what is going on and makes them want to know more. Similar with our story line there is a villain that would be kept a secret from the audience so if audiences that liked the plot to films like these would have been interested in what was going on in our plot.
The screen shots below show some of the aspects from other similar movies like the British ‘gangster’ movies with the heavies typically wearing the big black jackets and also the fight scenes showing the character being punched

There are many reasons why an audience who enjoys thriller movies would enjoy this due to the fact it does include key conventions that you would find in most thriller movies. For example it raises a lot of questions and would have the audience wanting to know the answers to these questions like for example the evil villain talking in the beginning of the sequence. Also the different types of camera work included like all the different long shots, low angle shots and the quick whip pan which is the POV shot after one of the characters gets punched. It is very much subjective camera work, which is, used throughout the sequence to really give the audience a sense of what the characters are feeling. also some of the elements of mise en scene like the costume which was tried to made to look as real as possible for the heavies wearing there black jackets like you would usually find in a Guy Ritchie movie. Throughout the sequence we tried to create a sense of panic amongst the character who is running at the beginning also along with the fast pace editing to create a sense of panic with one of the characters. Also other key themes of a ‘gangster’ movie shown in the screenshots also mixed in with the thriller conventions of there being a secret villain with the screenshot of the character running away from the villains henchman.

The technologies we used was the camera, tripod, Apple Mac computers and the software to edit all our footage together. I learned all the procedures you need to go through before you even begin filming for example setting the white balance on the camera so the camera can recognize different colors. Also the editing software for example uploading all the shots from the camera onto the computer. Although I didn’t gain as much skill as I would of liked to when using the editing suite I mainly put in my input into what shots were to be included and what shots were not to be included. This I was mentioned in about the editing by our peer evaluation when one of the credits comes in to early in the sequence this should have been changed but was overlooked as there was a deadline.

I feel I have progressed greatly from our preliminary task which I felt was not up to it’s full potential. In the preliminary task there was no real plot or story to what was going on. Now that we are now aware of thriller conventions and conventions of other genres it is easier to make it a lot more appealing to the audience. For example restricted narration was not used or enough types of different shots to make it more interesting for the audience. also the editing was significantly better which was probably due to the fact we had a lot more footage to use in the editing suite, like for example the shot reverse shoot in the alley is a lot more sophisticated than what was previously done in the preliminary task. Before we would have OTS shots from a character which was talking and looking back it would have been better to have the point of view from the character who was being spoken to. So details like this is what was greatly improved on and what made it that much better. Also continuity editing was improved upon when the character is running through the alley and then turns the corner it looks good on camera. But in the preliminary task the continuity was not as good as we tried to do match on action with a character walking up to a door and then a shot from inside the room and the character walking in but this did not work. Also construction of characters was greatly improved e.g. by the costume that gets them into character so the audience know and are aware of different character types whereas before we just kept our characters in normal clothes. So these are all the aspects that have been greatly improved upon since the preliminary task although there are still certain areas of this task which could have gone a lot better and will know what to improve for next time.

By Tom Cox

Peer Evaluation

For the group i have 3 information sheets, for our peer evaluation, and Tom C and Tom B have the other 3 sheets to upload.

Key for marking criteria:- 1) = Excellent. 2) = Very good. 3)= Good. 4)= Ok. 5 = Poor.

Overall for holding a shot steady we have been given '2' And one '3' this was because there were some parts in the sequence that should have been steady but werent.

For camera framing we have been given '2' and the overall comment was that we did keep the main characters in the frame.

For using a variety of shot distance as appropriate overall was also a '2' and the overall comment was that we did have a few different shots but we could have added more.

For shooting material appropriate for the task set for a thriller the overall comment was that it felt more like an action film / thriller. But wasnt really fast pace enough. for this we were marked a '3'

For the use of mise en scene lighting and costume/props we were marked "1/2" and the overall comments were that the lighting we used was very good and worked well with the setting. And the costume we used was good and suited the sequence.

For the way in which the product was edited we were marked a "4" overall, as most people thought we should have used a wider variety of edits, rather than just cuts. I think this is a good point raised as the thriller would have benefitted a wider range of edits instead of just cuts.

For the use of sound overall we were marked a "4" as everyone had noticed that the soundtrack played all the way through the film. Which ruined the pace of the film. And was also a mistake as the music was not suppose to play all the way throw, it was just suppose to be at the start of the credits. This was a major let down for the sequence. And also we needed to of used a punch sound to improve the contunity.

For the titles we also got marked a "3" as we had our names at the begining and it didnt really look proffesional enough to be a proper thriller opening.

Overall our thriller opening was marked a "2" for weather it worked as a thriller opening, because of the voice over, which made the viewer want to find out more.


Posted By Jo.