1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our project represents the main character to be a young adult around the age of 20-22, of the working class. You can see this by the clothes that he wears and the lack of hygiene within his room as you can see in the beginning of our thriller opening. We've created this character to be portrayed as insane, lonely and depressed. This was shown through musical choice and the blurred vision throughout the piece. There is also a female character who's briefly shown in the filming, she's 19 and you can see that also through choice of clothing but this is all the information gathered from this.
Social Class-
We used the idea of 'social class' in our thriller as we thought our male character would have been easily identified as a working class citizen. This is because of his clothing range - a white t-shirt and jogging bottoms which makes him look casual and carefree. This is also shown in the bedroom scene of the thriller. His bedroom; was unnecessarily messy and unsanitary, showing that he doesn't look after himself properly, showing the state he is in, yet still manages to have a roof over his head. The female character is unidentified, the audience would probably come to the assumption that they were companions (intimately) so it was likely that they'd be of the same social class.
Representations of Male and Female characters-
The 20-22 year old male character is represented as a typical lazy messy guy who doesn't care about anyone or anything. We created this, not only through editing but whilst we were filming. I found it interesting trying to put my mind into someone elses shoes which meant that we could play around with the character whilst shooting the thriller opening. He's also represented as a depressed figure throughout the whole piece. This is created by the use of facial features, the glum look on his face in every scene shows that he clearly is not in the right frame of mind to do anything. By adding non-diegetic music, this helps the audience understand what's going on in his mind and also re-in forces his depression and loss of humanity.
Through the use of editing, we have made some scenes blurred which show that he's unstable and unfocused which is hopefully how the audience perceived this.
The female character has been made to look the opposite of the stereotyped girls I'm thrillers usually. Which gets the audience to ask questions as to who she may be and what she may be doing within the film as she only appears quickly, in the mirror as the male character puts his head into the sink to wash his face. As this moment was all in the male characters head, it creates an unsettling atmosphere.
By having an Asian play the main character, we have broken the stereotype as directors would usually stick to the normal white or black ethnicity. I haven't seen many films where Asians have played a protagonist, they are usually perceived as the villain during films. Another example of an Asian playing the protagonist is 'Bend It Like Beckham' directed by Gurinder Chadha- the actress being Parminder Nagra was a main character and this was one of the only films I have seen that involves a good Asian character. Only I'm the last 10 years have Asians been seen as good rather than evil and villainous.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
As our film is a low budget film, we would hope that our film would be released straight onto the Xbox as its more than one platform or straight onto DVD rather then going through the cinema. This is because we aren't a Hollywood or Blockbuster film, therefore we are unable to advertise as much as bigger films. The likely hood is that the advertisement for this film will be posters, internet and a trailer.
Film 4, are a company that air films that they have approved and been involved with throughout the ideas and the making of the product.
They also sometimes air low budget films, this way we would be able to send off our product and they would consider showing our film.
You could also put it straight onto Netflix for viewing which has become a very popular way of getting low budget films on air.
4. Who would be the audience for you media product?
Because our film is a certificate 15, this means that we would want mainly males with an age range from 15-18 year olds to watch our thriller.
We made it a 15 as throughout the duration of the film, it becomes slightly more thought out and anyone younger than 15 would struggle to grasp the context of it. Usually, in a rated 15 film, graphic can sometimes be very high and violence and sexual scenes are included in many films which is not appropriate for anyone under the age of 15 as clearly it is unsuitable.
"No one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 DVD. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under the age of 15." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We hope to attract/address the audience by the use of our sound and editing work from the opening scene. We've tried to create a sense of mystery and enigma to draw the audience in by making it silent with non-diegetic music. The music is very depressing and gives you an idea of loss and sorrow, which could suggest something about the character.
When I asked a few people about what they thought of our opening scene, here's what some of them said:
-" I love the water scene, it looks so realistic."
-"I really want to know who the girl is and what she's doing."
After showing a few people, I asked what they thought we could have improved on. I asked this because it could have given idea's to us about what wasn't quite good enough. Some people said that the lighting changed throughout the piece, but unfortunately we were unable to fix this as there was no time to film any more.
This is the trailer for 'Silence of The Lambs' - the audience would probably be attracted by not only because of the genre, but possibly because of the actors fans. It is likely that if there's a popular actor playing a large role in the film, their fans will watch to see them. The music within this is also sinister which if you're into thrillers, it could give you an idea whether you would enjoy watching this particular film.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a lot on the journey of creating this opening scene of a thriller.
- The use of the MAC, which before I found difficult to grasp, but after editing the film and putting things together, I now understand what's what and how things actually work now.
- Using most of the camera and filming equipment, before this project, I'd never been left on my own in a group to successfully create an opening scene for a thriller without any help in class, it's helped me to become more independent with my studies during media.
- Green Screen, although we didn't use green screen in our piece of film, we learnt how to use it and edit it onto the MAC's and make it look realistic which before I would have found difficult.
- I was unable to use 'Blogger' before we started this project, I've never been sure how to use blogs but whilst learning over the course of working through the thriller, its become easy and I'm able to work much more sufficiently.
- Even though we did not use garage band in our actual thriller, we used it for our preliminary task which before doing so and practicing, I found it much easier to use and get the hang of, rather than struggling, i kept at it and eventually gained more experience.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progessin from it to the full product?
I have learnt to make sure at all times, that the head doesn't leave the shot unless its meant to or done for a specific reason.
I have learnt in much greater detail the camera shots such as close ups, medium shots and long shots to form a better product when we were creating our opening scene.
Also I learnt to manage the timing when we were filming, whilst we were doing the filming for the preliminary, we found it difficult getting it in on time and actually finishing up and editing, this time we managed to get the majority of it done in time rather then it all being rushed.
Before, in the preliminary, we did not check for our lighting, instead we used natural lighting which effected the outcome for our piece.
The preliminary was much more simple to create, it was three different shots:
-Shot Reverse Shot
-Keeping the 180 Degree Rule
-Match on Action
Still we found it difficult to complete as there was only two of us, whereas in our final production, there was three of us and it become easier to control who does what and when we would get things done. The final product was much more intense to finish and complete, there was more than just editing three shots together, it was two minutes worth of filming yet it all come together and looked better than expected.
My computer has stopped working and my iPad wont let me scroll down to finish writing, I'll complete it over the weekend, sorry that it's really late!
ReplyDeleteNicole Newman