First Draft Evaluation

Evaluation

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

As a group task, our group decided that we didn’t want to make the storyline obvious so we chose an idea of having flashbacks throughout the film so the viewer would gradually understand what has happened. The idea of this was to make the audience seem confused and question the film, this will then build up the suspense as they are wondering what is/has happened, we chose this idea as it is a mystery and we were sticking to the thriller genre. Our ideas first came from the film “Fargo (1996)” which starts off with a long opening of a car slowly driving past, our idea was to have the woman walking slowly through the fields on her journey home, by having a long opening of an object or person moving slowly, and it makes the audience wonder what is happening, by having this shot at the start it didn’t give away any of the storyline. We then included small fast paced flashbacks throughout the video which would made the audience confused as they are wondering why they were put in and wanting to watch more, but as the film goes on the viewer should be able to understand what has happen as more of the flashbacks are shown of the night before. Some/most of the shots that we decided to use are used in real media products, for example using a close up shot and then quickly cutting to a long shot makes the audience wonder about what happening and what shot will come next. Most of the long shots we used were on the actress walking, these shots were from a far distance away and usually lasted more than 5 seconds, and this might mean the audience were wondering what she looked like, what she was wearing and where she was, as the setting around her was open spaced. After the long shot we quickly used a flashback of a close up of her legs and her tights getting ripped the night before, we used this so the audience were less confused about the rips in her tights as she was walking through the fields.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
As a group we didn’t really involve many different social groups in our footage as we just have a women and a man. I’m sure we could have involved more social groups in this project but we had a time limited of 2 minutes and didn’t want to make it more complicated than it already was. As the woman is the main part of this and is the one who is getting raped, this could show that women need to be careful and watch out most of the time, we used the rape scene and the women as the main parts of our footage as it was easy to follow and many other thrillers use the same idea as it sticks to the thriller genre closely.

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

I would distribute my film to working title. This is because working title has got lots of back up from Universal as they own working title. This could help my film be larger and be put into more cinema’s and earn more profit as universal can help fund working title for equipment and actors etc. This will help make my film and any other films I make in the future larger and be better quality as the company can afford more expensive equipment and better know actors and actresses. Working title are a smaller company that work to make films in the UK and have more UK actors in, this would help with my film as they are based in the UK. With the backup of Universal this would help my film as if they enjoyed the film it could have a possibility of going into cinemas in America as Universal own multiplexes over the country, but not only that they could also distribute the film even better in the UK as they will have more money to make Trailers and adverts etc, to make the film get out and make it well known, this will help as more people will be watching the trailer and will be teased by it and will end up watching it when it is out in the UK. As the company is located in the UK this will mean it is easier to communicate with working title and easier to make plans about meeting, filming etc.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience that our media product was aimed at were for people who like thriller films that have changes in them and that are suspenseful. I think that the audience for my groups product would vary in ages, ranging from 16 + because it contains some violence in, the audience would also vary between genders because some people enjoy different types of films, and enjoy different genre’s and different types of thrillers. Because the age certificate will be around 15/16+ this means that the target audience for age will be above that age, as you can’t watch it otherwise. But even though the film has that age boundary on it the majority of the watchers will be around 18 – 25 as the younger adults may prefer scarier/thriller films that older people. Even though both genders might like this product, it will probably be pointing more towards the male gender due to the men not taking any harm to the product as the women is being raped, but women could also be interested with the product because it relates to the women in the majority of the film, but the women might also like the film as the majority of the film involves a women/girl.


• How did you attract/address your audience?
Our project was aimed to keep the audience attracted to the footage and audio by making the footage suspenseful and making the viewer to keep watching the footage so they watch it until the end and find out what happens, I think that the project we have made does this well as we have include footage from the night before which is fast paced footage, this makes the suspense build as we kept putting short flashbacks of these short fast paced clips throughout the video to build even more suspense and let the audience to want to watch it until the end so they know what happens. The video might be confusing to some viewers as at the start of the video she has ripped tights, and in the middle of the video in one of the flashbacks you see the guy ripping her tights, this shows that it was the morning after when she was walking home and the flashbacks were from the night before.


• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As I myself had never used a video camera, tripod or the editing software, this project was big as I had to learn how to use all of these new things all at once to be able to film and edit the work, but I was able to learn how to use these very quickly as we got taught well. At the start I could barely work the video camera properly, but I learnt quickly as it was pretty simple to use, also the tripod was simple to use as I am good at finding out how to work things on my own. At the start of the project I had no idea on how to work with the editing software Adobe premiere pro, but now I can do all sorts, I can use the software well and use many of the effects, I can also make titles that are still and that roll of either side, I can also mess around with the lighting within the footage with the lighting effects edit, this allows you to change the colour of the footage to what colour you want, but I’ve only used it to change the footage slightly darker. I have also learned how to separate the audio files from the footage and how to separate the footage from the audio as this was what we needed to do in our project.



• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary task I have learnt quite a lot about using the equipment and software we were given to use, not only that but also using a decent well lit location is vital. I have learnt and have got a better understanding of how to work the camera and the different settings are possible, I have also got a steadier hand on the tripod when panning and tilting, this will make the video look better as mostly all pans and tilts are smooth. The main thing I have learnt is about the editing software, my knowledge on how to use the software has expanded as I have used to for longer, I now know how to use titles and how to make them fade in and roll of the side of the screen etc, I have also searched through more of the effects and have a better knowledge on what effect to use, I also know how to select the audio if I just want that, or how to select the video file only. I have also learnt more about planning and testing, if you are using locations outside, it is always best to test before as you might not get the image or footage you want to get due to the weather/time of day, also if you get the correct lighting for the location and what you want it will/can make your footage more interesting as the viewer can understand what is going on and have a good view about where she is and what she is doing there. But, one of the main things that I have learnt is that it’s better to work in smaller groups when you are making small clips, as you won’t need a group of 4 to make a 2 minute video as at least 1 person in the group will be doing nothing.