Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There are many various parts to our opening that are often found in thrillers, there is a murder during the opening with the death of a random stranger, this was done to create mystery for the audience, making them wonder why someone would do that and if they had any motives behind the killing or not. This makes the murderer a powerful character, as with the addition of a masked face, the identity of the character is concealed creating an even greater mystery behind them. However, in the last shot of the murderer he is unmasked, not showing his identity but still wearing a hat on his head, this shows how casual he acts after committing a murder.
There is also a contrast in areas used, with the outside field where they are running quite happily in the bright surroundings, to the forested area which is drastically darker, showing a distinct contrast towards how safe the person who has just entered the area feels, with this strange unclear setting.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We decided to represent teenagers in the opening of our thriller so this way we could show a lighter side to the dreary news you hear in the media with all the negative impacts that they have been receiving. We decided to show the teenagers running through the fields showing innocence in them, but then when they split up how they’re actually quite vulnerable. The scene also shows how united teenagers are as well, when the teenager that carries on running notices that his friend is no longer running behind him, he starts heading back to find out where he has got to, portraying teenagers in a more positive light.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A distributor like Optimum Releasing would be the most likely distributor for my product as they have worked alongside the production company EM Media, who helps create films made in the east midlands, which is the place where we have filmed. This distributor would also have the necessary resources to be able to market the product and also get it into cinemas for the film to be shown nationwide, with a possibility of an international viewing if the film is proven to be successful.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience for this product was the male teenager market, as our sequence contains action during the scenes within the forested area, with the chase and eventual kill of one of the characters, which would appeal more to a male audience than a female audience.


How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted the intended audience by adding action to our sequence, with the chase through the trees which lead to the teenager falling over and then being trapped by the masked figure looming over him as he tries to get back up. I feel this attracted the audience we targeted because male teenagers are often known to like chases with action in them.
We also used a mask to conceal the identity of the murderer, this would have appealed to our audience because of the introduction to a horror-thriller style within our project, as from the research we did on our questionnaire we found the more popular films were those that contain a horror element within it.
Most of the design behind the mask was taken from the film The Orphanage, when looking at the design of the mask used there we decided it would have been a good idea to add a similar style to our mask, as it was quite creepy. Here is a link to the trailer for the orphanage, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trL-n4PzcIk , this trailer convinced us that this was the route we should take with designing our mask.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Firstly, I have learned to always have one or two extra batteries with me while filming, as the cameras we were using were unreliable and drained the battery quickly, causing the filming to take longer sometimes.
Also, I have been able to expand my knowledge on editing as I’d never edited two pieces of film together, but was able to incorporate colour editing skills I previously knew about into the project, but was able to gain a greater depth of knowledge as it wasn’t like changing the colour of a still image as the colour was constantly changing as the camera moved, meaning a different edit was needed in some areas.
Finally, I have also learned about the amount that gets cut out during editing, shortening all the scenes we had created, to give a better flow to the sequence, this meant we had to add in extra scenes within the opening to be able to make up for time lost.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learned quite a bit about all the content that needs to be put into a sequence just to get it to two minutes, which was harder than I thought it would have been, during the preliminary task the footage we created a conversation which seemed to be long enough on paper but then when it came to filming it took half the time to act it out than we thought it would have done.

Audience feedback
For the audience feedback I asked two people to give me feedback into what they thought about the opening and what could have been changed if I were to make any improvements.
The first person who looked at my work suggested that some of the parts in the forest could have had an increased pace to it, as the action was a little bit too slow for them. They also suggested that the scene where the masked person takes off his mask should be redone, so that the mask is thrown into the trees and not thrown at them , to fall on the ground outside of the woodland area.
The second person also mentioned that the pace in the woodland area was a little bit too slowly paced and that the sequence should have been sped up. They also mentioned that the ending could be made longer by having the killer walking down the long path to his easy, calm escape.
I also asked them for points that they liked the most about the sequence, both responded to liking the masked person, both saying they liked the mystery created due to not being able to see the killers face throughout the opening.
One of them also mentioned the ending, they liked the way that the previously masked person doesn’t answer the teenager who’s coming back to find his friend, they liked this because it added a lack of care within the character.