1: In What ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our thriller we incorporate many different conventions of modern thrillers. The slow paced walk of the unidentified man walking towards the body is generic as this is seen in many psychological thrillers, this shows we have meet the specific criteria for a psychological thriller. Also in psychological thrillers the identity of the killer is not revealed until the end of the film whereas our thriller reveals the identity in the first few minuets. This challenges the conventions of thrillers as it does not leave the audience guessing the identity of the killer instead they want to know how it got to this point. The conventions of our thriller such a mystery to help uncover the sub genre witch is a psychological thriller. The conventions that appear in our thriller help to reveal the sub genre as they give a view of the story line and the conventions appear in other psychological thrillers such as 'Silence of the Lambs'. Through are thriller we were trying to modernize such classic films like 'American psycho' and the novella Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our thriller the representation of gender is mostly towards the male gender as there are no women present in the opening of it. The age that is represented in out thriller is young males between the age of 16 and 18. You can tell this by the dress of the actor and the setting which is a college room. the social classes that are represented in our thriller is that of young working class
student coping with a set of problems.
As gender is not a central theme in our thriller their is no conflict for power between the sexes in the opening due to the fact that only men appear in it.
This links to are target audience by appealing to the male population that would go to view a thriller.
3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We believe that our thriller could be produced by a major Hollywood studio because it incorporates a lot of conventions that you wold expect to see in a psychological thriller while at the same time keeping the audience guessing to what is happening. From the thrillers that we are aware of their is nothing that is similar to are thriller opening.
Our thriller would not be suited for tv because it is not a common story for a thriller as they are mostly fast paced as the slots for tv are short and our thriller is slow paced and takes a while to start up.
Our thriller could be an art house film as it has the individuality that art house films posses so would therefor appeal to the community that enjoys them.
The thriller we have produced could be an internet only release as it has the qualities of individuality and that is mostly what you see on the internet people expressing their individuality.
I think that our thriller would be passed over by a big Hollywood company and be picked up by a small british film makers as it is simplistic and relies mainly on the actors and not big special effects as it is just a room with a cloak for a prop whereas a big budget studio would have gone all out for it.
4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target age and gender for our triller would be males between the age of 15 and 18. We believe this as it is a psychological thriller so would appeal to the male population as it is a thriller that revolves around the themes of murder and mystery witch are common traits in thrillers that appeal to men.
Our thriller is similar not to a film but to a novella called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as it contains the possibility of a split personality and the conflict going on between the characters in the book. This novella appeals to readers of mystery and conflict as this book is filled with it. Our thriller is also similar to the film saw as their is a very deep sense of mystery around who is committing the murders and what while the outcome will be. this thriller also appeals to those interested in plot twists and mystery but also incorporates gore witch are thriller does not.
5: how did you attract/address your audience
Our psychological thriller will be attracting young adults around the ages of 15-18 years old. This is because this wouldn't attract younger audiences or older also we have used people in the film around that age so the audience will have that connection with the film as a teenager is in a lead role for the film. The gender I would want the film to attract would be even in both genders because people like psychological but is also a specific amount of people that can watch a psychological thriller.
I think in our film there isn't alot of sequences in our film that will terrify any gender because it isn't a scary film it is a thinking film which gets your mind working like how does this specific idea happen in the film. We used a variety of shots so it would keep people interesting instead of using the same shots and if we did we would split them up so it isn't a continues. We used alot of point of view shots so the audience who would watch the film would feel like the killer in the film which is a good idea because it isn't used in alot of films because it is only used in specific genres of film like horrors and thrillers and fantasies.
They audience are asked to be put themselves in the shoes of this teenager who has just been killed and you are the same person who has just killed him which show like he has killed a copy of some sort and you wouldn't know if he is real or not so not only do u see someone dead you are portrayed as a killer as well which I said before I think is a unique thing to do.
I think it would have a pretty big impact because you are seeing tow people that are the same and we end up seeing this person being killed and we want to get the audience asking why was he killed ? Why is there two of them? if those two questions would be asked it means we have met our target audience who like that genre of film which is a psychological thriller. we create suspense by the type of music being very slow and fits in with the type of story line like it is very emotional piece of music with pianos and light taps of drums in the music symbolically using them as walking and a heartbeat to show that the killer is nervous and doesn't know what to do next so he basically panics by putting the jacket of the body and running. Also we create suspense with the editing using fast and slow paced editing like when we go over the body we go very slowly to get a look at what he looks like and we use slow pace editing when he is walking to the body and elevating the camera to look at the body but not to show his face as that would give the plot line away. We use fast pace tense in some parts to show his anxiety to get to the body and cover it so no one can see it we showed this when he was walking to through the first door and into the room.
6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
During filming we had some problems with the camera as we had to film it holding the camera so the film came out a little shaky which doesn't look good when you are trying to watch the film so we had to make the camera as still as possible during filming. This also meant though we could be flexible with filming like being able to get the correct camera angles as we used free hand but this did make filming alot longer as we would have to re film bits as it would com out unprofessional and we want maximum as possible marks we could get for it.
During the filming period we had wasted alot of film time which affected us slightly also we have finished it but the tape got damaged when we filmed so we had to rush it which would effect the film slightly as it looks rush which would mean we would have to put more time into editing the thriller than filming it so i had to use my knowledge of editing and try and do a good job on the film. Programs on the macs like Final cut pro would hep with editing the film garageband would help with music and getting the right type of music for the specific genre of thriller and the music turned out very good for my first time also we used livetype to do our credits and title. With all the programs we had hardly any problems the only problem was Final cut pro as it took along time to edit the work and i had never used it so it was complicated to do but it was very useful and once you know how to use it is very easy to use.
What i have learnt about editing on Final cut pro it takes a long time to do but is very useful when using there wasn't particular effects i used all i wanted to do was get a mix of fast and slow paced editing in the film to create suspense and to show the mis en scene to give the audience and idea of where the film is being set and how the background looks like is it dark or not which it was dark to show the killer didn't want anyone seeing the killer hide the dead body I enjoyed using garageband alot because it was easy to use to create a very good supspecfull piece and fitted in with the film very well and i was surprised hoe quick i did the music as i was new to using this software so i was kinda thrown into the deep end also time was another factor cause i had wasted alot of time i had to rush the music and had to get it perfect first time as we didn't have alot of time till it had to be handed in. Live type was also very useful program because it made our credits look professional and was very useful to use all these programs enhanced our film and without this help full programs i think we would got a low grade for the film.
If i didn't use garageband i would of used a different program that used music on the mac or I would of got a piece of music off the internet which was copyright free source.
7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel ?
To get a idea of what genre of which thriller to use we basically did a questionnaire to get a idea what target audience we will have and what type of genre we will be appealing to for our thriller like how old what sex the person is and what thriller they would watch. With the storyboard we had an idea of what we will do so we drew it out then when we had finished the film we just print screened the images of the thriller to put on the storyboard which was easier and better to do. We knew what shots we wanted and discussed where they would be put in order for it to make sense we captured all the shots we had done and basically deleted the ones we didn't need which would make the process quicker which made our work alot easier to do.
I didn't have a great knowledge of camera shots just basic ones like long shot close up and mid shot. So doing point of shots was new for me and the turned out very well on the film which was relief also shots like panning shots and tracking i also didn't really know and they also worked very well in the film. So they would of improved dramatically form the first time i did it so that is another thing I have learnt.
I am really confident using all the equipment again and i enjoyed using them like garageband as I had great success with the music as it suited the thriller perfectly also final cut pro i liked using as it made my life easier and made the editing better than using windows movie maker. I don't think final product will be a great success because we had wasted time and the work is probably week but is good so i hope it will get a good grade as we have both work really hard over the last few months to get it done.
