Media Prodution Report

In what ways does your media product use, develop of challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
The aim of our project was to create an opening two minutes for a thriller on a topic of our choice. Our thriller opening was based on a young woman walking down a street alone while being followed by a hooded teen. As she starts to get suspicious she turns a corner into a side street where the hooded teen carries straight on. The only way the woman can get access to where she wants to go with the route she has chosen is by going down an alley. As she enters the alley she sees a gang of hooded men beating another person to death. As she screams out in horror at what she sees the men that have by now beaten the person to death hear her and start chasing her, the woman runs out of shot closely followed by the hooded men. We chose the over 15 age category as this allows violence that may be strong but not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. Frequent bad language can be used, but the strongest terms can only be used in context. This was suitable for our opening as it might have had scenes that would scare younger people.

A thriller is often mistaken as a horror because of their graphic content; Thrillers are often based around a major crime such as murder or mass murder, and are often about the main characters trying to find out why the killer is actually killing and stopping the killer from striking again often putting themselves in danger. They are often set in exotic places such as foreign cities or somewhere along way from civilisation such as a desert or a polar setting.

In the first couple of minutes of a thriller must show the name of the film, the producers and directors of the film and the company / network the film is made by. It should also be a very intense with a lot of action to catch the audience’s attention and draw them to the edges of their seats. This also gives the audience an insight of what to expect in the rest of the film. A lot of tension is often created through the basic filming conventions such as lighting setting and character. The lighting is often dimmed which means that you do not know where there could be a person hiding waiting to strike, the weather is often stormy as well to create a more of an unfamiliar environment. The setting is often in a house along way away from anywhere else, which gives the victim an extra sense of helplessness, as there’s no one to help the victim. The mis – en – scene of most openings are set at night with poor weather either outside or in a dimly lit building, the characters are usually wearing dull dark clothing, there is often slow music used which quickens as the scene progresses. The camera angles used are mainly low angle shots looking up onto the killer and high angle shots looking down on the victim, the main shots used are either mid shots close ups or extreme close ups.

We researched the film Jagged edge where we got the idea of using violence in our thriller opening as there was a killing at the start of this thriller, as we found it really grabbed the attention of everyone in our group and made us all want to watch on. It also gave our group the chance of seeing a good use of mise – en – scene as all of the conventions such as dim lighting, poor weather and visibility and set in the middle of nowhere which gives the character a sense of helplessness. We were also able to see the importance of using mainly close up and extreme close up shots as this really shows detail in the weapons used. The killer is never shown in focus so his identity is hidden causing more tension to be built. The look of shock and horror on the victims face and the use of Point of View shots from the victim to really make the audience feel like they were the character in the film. We also researched Jaws where we found the use of music to be very effective as it really built up tension as you knew something was going to happen soon but didn’t know when. Here we also saw how long shots were also effective because they give a sense of confusion to what is happening from the shore when in the distance you see a shark attacking a person. the suspense created here as the audience wait to see who it is that has been attacked is very effective. As when all the other people have swam to the shoreline you find out which person is missing, meaning he has then been attacked by the shark and the reaction we see from the other characters in the film.

· How does your media product represent particular social groups.
In our opening we used the conventions of setting some of it in an alleyway which isn’t lit well causing tension as it is approached by the character, and having the people seen as bad wearing dark clothes and well covered so it was for them to be seen. At the start we also used a person as a “red herring” as we started with a hooded teen following the eventual victim and get the victim suspicious of what this person is going to do. We use mainly long shots to establish the setting while still following one of the characters, we do use close up shots where necessary such as for a reaction shot when the victim enters the alley and sees a gang beating someone up. We chose to put in the red herring of the hooded character following the girl at the start on the day as we had not planned to put one in but though would create more suspense if we did.

Our piece of media relies quite heavily on prejudices on certain social groups such as the hooded teen at the start. This would cause most of the audience to think he was going to try and harm the girl he was following because teens are seen as troublemakers and would be likely to try and take something for a person who was on their own. Also as the same girl is entering the alley the audience will make the assumption that something is going to happen there which is what we wanted to happen. We chose the victim to be a woman as they are often seen as more vulnerable on their own compared to a man. We used mainly long shots as this establishes the surroundings of the set. We chose the gang beating up the boy in the alleyway also to be hooded because this hides there identity and causes more tension as people do not know how they are going to act. They were also quite young so could be seen as more reckless than if they were in there twenties or thirties.

· What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution that I feel would be most likely to distribute our product is the Internet and DVDs because this is where most of the market is for films in the present. I also feel that internet downloading / purchasing is only going to become more popular as more people discover about internet sites where you are able to buy media products and more internet sites being created for people to buy media products off. Also, as this means our product would be available over the Internet so it will be available to the most people. You could get it advertised easily because you could have it advertised on the web sites it would be sold on before it was released. DVDs are still very popular at present, but with the introduction of Blu-Ray the popularity of DVD’s may drop in years to come.

On the internet just about all the film genres are available on such websites as Amazon and iTunes meaning that our film would fit into being sold on the Internet, as it would be placed in the “thriller” genre on the web page as most films are available now on the Internet. One of the problems with using this media institution is that because there is such a wide range of films on offer on the internet that it might not be able to sell a lot of copies as there are so many other good quality films already on offer.

· Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our media product would most likely be age 15 – 30 because this is the age that most people enjoy watching a thriller as at this age they enjoy being scared and amused by a piece of media. We found this out by using a questionnaire with basic questions such as “What do you Personally Expect from a Film?” About what people look for in a film, whether they enjoy a piece of media that scares them and their age and gender. We also found that people who have had an upbringing where they haven’t been too sheltered are more likely to enjoy a thriller because the graphic content included in it are not as likely to shock them to someone that hasn’t seen this until they watch a thriller. As we have watched other thrillers we have seen that the audience will not mind seeing a bit of blood and violence as these are often seen straight away as these show what the rest of the film is going to be based around.

· How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by using the feedback from our questionnaire to find out what it was that they wanted to see in the opening of a thriller and used some of our own ideas to create our media production. We were then thinking of using artificial sound but decided against this as it wouldn’t be authentic enough and wouldn’t seem real enough causing our piece of media to seem less believable and not as effective for really sucking the audience in. We fulfilled our audience’s expectations by using the answers on our questionnaire’s as guidelines for producing our piece of media.

· What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We have learnt that filming can be a longer process than you first think and expect, and con often be tedious as you have to keep filming the same scene over and over again until you get everything how you want it to be before it is edited. We also found out that it is sometimes better to film more than what you plan on, as you never know whether you might need it to put in between to scenes to make the piece of film make sense. In the editing we found that even to edit a piece of film as short as ours can still take over a day to get rite. You do not truly appreciate what you see on the screen in front of you if you do not try to recreate it yourself and find out just how much work goes into making each scene of a movie.

· Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?From looking back to our preliminary task we can see just how much better a piece of media can be if you plan and prepare for it properly. How, instead of making do with what you have it is better to over prepare with the amount of filming you do because when it comes to editing you find that you don’t have to struggle to make the piece of media make sense. You can put in a piece that means that it can make sense. An example of this that you see everyday in media is when in an interview a shot will be used such as the interviewer nodding to what the person he/she is interviewing is saying. Without this put in the piece of media wouldn’t make sense and there would be jumps in the filming that could confuse the viewer. Also not to rush the filming as sometimes it is better to take a break and think of ideas than to try and make something up on the spot that might not work.