In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We established our genre as a thriller in the opening by using conventions of thriller films such as low-key lighting in certain scenes such as the one where the killer puts on the mask. We also incoorporated the convention of a male killer though we developed it by having two. We challenged it by also having a female killer. This hopefully would give the audience the idea that anyone can fall into a murderous state of mind, hopefully making it more sinister. Having three killers rather than just one built on this idea as it shows the extent in which people can be influenced by their peers as one of the killers must have inititated the idea of the crimes and the other two followed.
Another convention of thriller films is the innocent victim(s). The victims in our films fit this convention as they are just ordinairy school kids but we developed on this as there is a whole classroom full of victims and although not all of them would play a largely significant part in the full plot, more than one or two would so it would stand out from the norm.
We incoorporated the enigma code into our film in scenes such as the three killers becoming two, and then one. This hopefully leaves the thought of wondering where the other two have gone in the audience's mind.
Although we wanted our film to be original and stand out from other thrillers, we felt it important to include some conventions of thrillers so that the audience would immediately know what genre it was.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
All the characters in our film represent the age group of between 16 and 18 so the characters are all relateable to the target audience of 15-24 year olds. Both genders are represented equally as there are both male and female killers and victims.
The killers could represent the social group of outcasts as their behaviour points towards someone with mental health issues, a minority group that is often discriminated against in society. These types of people have often been in the news for committing similar crimes, more so in America such as the Virginia Tech Massacre and the Columbine High School Massacre so our film would relate to real life events and people that know about these events would be more interested in the characters in our film.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The basic idea of our film is similar to some produced by major Hollywood studios such as the Scream franchise and the large amounts of editing we used is more like the amounts used in major studios. In this way it would be that type of institutuion that would distribute our film. However, because it is a British thriller with a non-existent budget, it would be more successful if aimed at purely a British market, so it would be more likely that an Independent British company distributed it such as Film4. There isn't a huge amount of well-known British thrillers being produced so ours would stand out and not have many competitors.
It does offer opportunities for franchise as its similar to the Scream films which there are currently 4 of. Lots of merchandise is sold relating to these films as well so there is potential for this too.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our primary target audience is 15-24 year old males and the secondary is the same age group for females. The reasons for this are that they are around the same age as characters in the film so can relate to them and it hopefully makes it more sinister as it suggests it could be them in that position of the victim. Similar films are the Scream films which appeal to the same age group because of their use of young actors, who are often well-recognised by the target audience, playing characters of roughly that age group too.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Scenes showing the victims in the classroom would be built on during the whole film and this would hopefully give the audience the impression that it could be them in that position, making it more exciting and scary.
Our target audience is the technical generation so we attracted them by using lots of effects in our opening as well as characters of that age group as both the victims and killers. Our film relates to current events that may be of interest to our target audience such as the High School and university massacres in America that happened within the last few years. We could have done more of this with the camerawork as most shots were fairly simple though we did use a wide variety of shots.
Our audience will relate to the film because of our choice of mise-en-scene. The killers are dressed in hoodies which are typically associated with gangs and youths though often its just a fashion statement and not intended as a threatening look. People who wear hoodies have a bad reputation and this is down to the people like the killers in our film and not just anyone who wears a hoodie. However, we had the killers in hoodies more to hide their identity than to make them look like stereotypical youths.
The soundtrack we used would attract the target audience as it has a modern, technical sound to it. The use of effects on the text would attract that age group as well.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The camera equipment we had was good because it was very simple to use so we didn't waste any time having to work out how to use it. The only problems we had was the CCTV style shots. The tripod wasn't tall enough so we had to put it on a chair. It took a bit of time getting it in the right position as we didn't want it looking wonky but we eventually did it.
The Adobe Premiere Elements editing software we used had some good effects which enhanced our thriller. It looked more professional after we added things like the fade and dissolves. We replicated the CCTV style shots to make it look more like CCTV. We wanted to put four different pictures in but the technology didn't allow us to. The only problems we had were getting the credits to look interesting because the effects didn't work very well on them because it was just a black background. We used the earthquake and ghosting effects but they didn't look as dramatic as we hoped they would.
We chose a soundtrack that was used for the 'Seven' opening. We managed to get parts of it to fit well with the actions in the opening such as the music speeds up at the same time as the zoom out speeds up. It was hard to get it to fit the diagetic sound with the non-diegetic as neither could be too loud or too quiet.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the prelim to the full product?
I learnt how to use all the equipment to better effect in this task. I also became more confident in experimenting with things like camera shots. The most important thing I leanrt was how important the planning stage was as we didn't spend enough time on every aspect such as the storyboard and it didn't cause us too many problems in this task but on a much bigger product it would have done. If we didn't have a detailed storyboard the whole process would have taken a lot more time. My use of shot types like match-on-action improved during this task which reinforced how you can keep filming and then just edit out the bits you don't need to make match-on-action shots smoother.
Overall, I think our opening is very successful. Although aspects of it may be confusing to an audience as we might have taken the enigma code too far, the use of camera shots and editing was successful and I think we generally overcame the problems pointed out to us in the test screening of the rough cut.
