Charlie's Evaluation

Question 1

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

Cross-Cutting

A typical convention that we used in our production is cross-cutting. It is very common in Thrillers to cut between two different scenes, we have used screenshots from The DaVinci code to show an example of cross cutting that is used in a real production. In the introduction of The DaVinci shows it cuts between the beginning scene in the art gallery straight to the presentation. Two different places with different mood. We used cross cutting because we thought it would be an appropriate way of showing the two different characters and by cutting between them we know it is in the same time frame. It was also a good way of introducing both characters and making the link between them apparent very quickly.

These two pictures show how we used cross cutting we went from the scene on the computer to introducing the second character outside.





Shot Composition

It is common in Thriller films to use shot compositions in order to give certain characters mystery. Having a more mysterious character can be effective when you want to build tension, sometimes the less you know about a character the more you fear them. In the opening scene of The Usual Suspects the villain you are introduced to has a hidden face.

We used shot composition in our Thriller by hiding our 'bad' characters face. We thought by using this we would we able to make him a more feared character and it would help build the tension of this character and his approach to the other character.


Conventions we developed in our production

Crime and espionage
A highly generic theme that is used in thriller films is crime and espionage. When creating our film we decided to use crime and espionage as a key theme and we developed on it throughout the opening. The first way we created the theme of espionage is through our characters. One of the characters is an agent we made this clear by giving him a official look. He wears sharp, dark clothing and seems confident and direct in his actions. Another way in 
which we develop the crime theme throughout is the approach on the character. We see the character getting closer and closer to the other character throughout the opening, then the character reveals a gun and it is suddenly more apparent that a crime is going to happen. Although we never reveal any crime in our opening the way we developed the approach of the two characters makes it clear that it is going to happen. They use this same concept in phone booth, there is a connection between the two characters throughout the whole movie and it is based around a crime that is going to take place but you never actually see on happen.












Protagonist and antagonists
One of the generic roles of the protagonist and antagonist in thrillers is to have the antagonist hunting down and trying to kill the the protagonist. We followed on this theme but tried to develop it further. We showed how it is generically displayed in The Shining. The antagonist is clearly trying to kill the protagonist and it is clear in the picture that she fears him. The way we developed this was by making it clear that the antagonist was out to kill the protagonist but instead of making him fearful we developed it further by making the protagonist more casual and prepared for the murder. When the antagonist approaches him with the gun he is prepared and calm




Conventions we challenged in our production

Night Time
A common convention in thrillers is that they are mostly set at knight time, particularly the parts where most of the action, crimes of other key events take place. This is because is adds a darker mood, the audience might know a crime is about to happen just because it is night time. The Dark Knight is a perfect example parts of it are set in the day time but parts where the action happens (When he is Batman) are always at knight time. The way we challenged this was by having our introduction, where the key event and crime takes place during day time. This was a good way of challenging a typical convention and adding more of a surprise to the events.








Structure
A typical convention of a thriller opening is to start off with a  key event such as a crime and then use that as a trigger of events building up to the ending. The DaVinci code is an example of this, it starts off with a murder at the beginning and then leads on to other events. We decided to structure ours differently by having our ending at the beginning. We thought that doing this would leave more questions about the beginning.       We also did not reveal any actual crime as such again leaving questions for the audience.







Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
To present my answer to this question I have created a Prezi showing all of my points.

How does your media product represent particular social groups? on Prezi

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

We have worked as a group to answer this question and presented on a Wiki. To read our answers follow this link.

http://nfgsaltair.wikispaces.com/

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

We decided the age of our audience would be between 12-25. Apart from slight scenes and suggestions of crime our film is appropriate for the younger audience above 12. This is also supported by the gaming themes and action that we thought would appeal to them. However it would also have more mature themes which would attract an older audience.

The production is aimed directly at males. Nearly all the themes displayed are that which interest men so it would not be a big hit with women.

The audience would obviously be movie fans. They would like Thriller movies and enjoy films such as The Dark Knight and The Departed. The most obvious hobby of our audience would be gaming but they would also have hobbies such as cars and shooting.

The audience would not necessarily have to be a fan of cinema as we do not intend to make our a cinema release but they would have to spend money on things such as DVDs and watch tv.

We have aimed our production at an middle/upper class audience. The audience will have to be fairly clever to fully understand the movie. The movie will be mainly sold in areas such as Cambridge as this is the kind of area where we could find this audience.


Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
To present our answers to this question we have annotated the video of our final production.




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

Throughout the process of constructing our product I have been introduced too and using a range of technologies some of which I had previous knowledge and some that were new to me.


Websites and software that we used

• YouTube
• Final cut express
• Blogger
• Prezi
• Macs

Equipment that we used

• Video Camera
• Camera tripod
• Charger
• Lighting

Blogger
Before starting our production I had never used blogger before. But throughout this course this is the website that we used most. I used it to record every bit of preparation we did and now evaluation. During the creation of the product we were using blogger all the time and it taught me a range of skills. It taught me how to create blog posts and to insert media such as pictures and embedded videos into the posts.

YouTube
YouTube is a another website we used a lot
during the production, we used it to upload
our preliminary task, final product and
annotating our work. YouTube is a website
I already had knowledge of before I started
our production. I already knew how to do the
basics such as browsing and uploading.
Through using this website within our
production I have learnt other skills on this
website such as how to annotate videos.





Macs
Before starting our production I had only ever used PCs. Through the processes we used in our product I became more acquainted with the differences between the Macs and PCs and by now at the end of created our production I now feel that I can use them as comfortably as I can use a PC.









Camera/Tripod
A key part of creating our product was using the camera and tripod to film. I already had simple knowledge of how to use the camera but through our production we had to use the camera and tripod in different ways to make different angles and shots. I now know a lot more ways to manipulate the the tripod to position the camera at different angles.








Audit
This audit shows my opinion on my ability using the technology before and after the production.
                                          Before                After
YouTube                              7/10                   9/10
Final cut express                   2/10                   7/10
Blogger                                4/10                   9/10
Prezi                                    4/10                   6/10
Macs                                   3/10                    7/10
Video Camera                     6/10                    8/10
Camera tripod                     5/10                    8/10

This audit shows that I have made clear improvement on all of the aspects of technology we used through out production however it still shows that there is room for improvement particularly in specific aspects such as Prezi.


Question 7

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

This video is our preliminary task with annotations analysing how we have progressed since we made it.