Our final film.

 

Evaluation- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the fill product?

This links to the idea of our continuity task and how we learnt to record things in a way to make different things be depicted in different ways such as power and movement. The way we recorded it was a POV shot which allowed us to be ‘on the same level’ as the main female character however it meant that the audience could also understand the demise of the male character at the beginning of the clip. The continuity task also allowed us to understand where we might need to change our scenes in order for it all to ‘flow’. By this I mean that there are no errors with missing parts of scenes and there are no shadows or anything that could affect the quality of the film. Creating the continuity task also allowed me to add smooth transitions between scenes as well as changing the pace in which the film is presented by adding different speed transitions and cutting at certain points of the film. The stops and starts in the continuity create tension towards the building in our film which means that the audience could keep up with the pace. Also the continuity task allowed us to understand that the characters have to be wearing the same clothes whilst filming which we found difficult as we mainly had the time during school which was unlikely for us to be wearing the same clothes as the day before. I think that progressing from the continuity task to the actual film was a big step however creating the continuity task allowed me to understand all of the editing software and being to know how I would need to film my introduction to make it a good quality film and appeal to its target audience.

Evaluation- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt that using a camera to make different shots is more difficult that it seems and that using a tripod will help to improve the quality of the film. However we did not get to show this in our film as our film is recorded by hand and in a POV shot which means that the quality of the film might have been affected. By using our editing software we have been able to enhance this and add effects to the movie. Also the fact that we could add music in the background allowed us to show a sense of professionalism and depict to the audience different things about what the film is about and allow them to create an understanding of the film themselves, leading to the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, (the need for self-affiliation). I found it hard to edit my film however with the help of my group and the software that was available to us it made it easier to work out exactly what we had to do in order to make it to the best standards we could achieve.

Also our ability to use the internet and Blogger helped us with our research and planning and allowed us to change and improve our blogs as and when we needed to. This was convenient in that it meant that as our knowledge of media expanded, the quality of our research in planning did also meaning that we had planned everything down to the last detail and we were ready to move onto filming promptly, allowing me to let my peers access the process and feedback on progress as we made the film.

Another part of the research and planning was storyboards- this allowed our group to see exactly what we had planned to do and how we needed to do it. By making a shot and prop list it also allowed us to be resourceful and ready to make our film. The shot-list also became useful when we realised we needed to re-record scenes so as not to include continuity errors and make our film the best quality possible.

Evaluation- Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

We hope that both sexes will be attracted to my film by people of all ages about 12. Also we hope that people who are generally interested in Thriller movies would be attracted to it as it is  not like the normal thriller movie however the whole point of a thriller movie is to move away from the normal and expected, and subvert to typical conventions of movies. We conform to this idea in many ways.

One way we conform to this is the fact that the roles of men and women are switched and you can see both sides of the story from a third party prospective in that the clip is filmed in a way so that it is like the view of another person who is not actually seen in the film. This could be depicted to be many people however it could also be seen to be nobody related to the film at all. Another way that our film conforms to typical conventions of a thriller is that the introduction is presented with eerie or unknown music. We have related this to the film by making the cuts in the film sync with the beats in the clip which allows the audience to understand the pace of the film and how this links in with the ‘path’ that the film takes following the woman. This idea could link in with the male target audience and make them question whether men are fascinated by women having more power than them even though men are seen as the superior sex.

Evaluation- How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted a target audience by making it involve ‘them’. By this I mean we gave them a story which they could directly relate to or make a connection with due to people in their lives relating to what goes on in our film. This is why we decided to call our film ‘MI Sixth Form’ because it directs our film to students of all ages, that could be either going into sixth form, or having come out of it. It could also link to those who might not have anything to do with colleges directly however they might understand sixth form/college life due to TV shows such as Hollyoaks which is set around a sixth form and university or Waterloo Road which is set in a secondary school.  This makes a recognisable location (a school) allowing the audience to know all of the different kinds of emotions felt whilst at this location. We hoped the audience would feel a sense of mystery and danger.

We also decided that by switching the superior/inferior roles, that this would attract our target audience as both sexes would be able to relate to the idea of switching their roles and how the other sex would feel in the role of the opposite position.  My film does not however appeal to younger children- this would be shown in the fact that the certificate is higher than an age group which would be classed as ‘children’. The idea that there is a perception of violence means that the certificate would have to be at least a 12A this is why we have chosen this certificate for our film.

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

Media institutions such as ‘Miramax films’ are an example of a company that could distribute my film as they create films similar to mine which are also within the same genre. An example of a film similar to mine which they distribute is ‘Kill Bill’. ‘Kill Bill’ is similar to my film as it also depicts the woman to be the superior sex and this film would relate to mine in that she is out to kill people, (Bill), which is the atmosphere created within the 2 minutes we have  created in our movie. By a large institution such as ‘Miramax films’ distributing my film it would lead to larger companies being interested in showing my film. Companies such as LoveFilm and Sky would be inclined to want to show our film on their websites/television solely down to the distribution company name and brand. We would hope that our film would then go on to be sold on DVD’s and Blu-Ray disks creating a global audience for our film and leading on to making a profit from the movie. This would mean that our target audience would need to have a disposable income meaning that they could have to be C2 or above.

Evaluation- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents women and men in society however they are not represented in a typical way; this is typical of a thriller movie. In my film I have represented men to be the inferior sex as opposed to women being the less superior gender. This is typical of a thriller movie as the target of a thriller movie is to make the audience unaware of exactly what is going on but let them piece together the plot of the film. This is similar to movies such as ‘Kill Bill’ (2003) where the introduction of the film a flashback form the past, then it skips forward and backward in time.

It could also be said that it depicts teenagers and students to be unpredictable and unknown in that you would not expect this from a normal teenage school girl. It shows us that the understanding of teenagers of today could be completely wrong. Male teenagers are seen to be dominant, violent, aggressive and unpredictable. This contrasts the observation most people make at a glance of a teenager as in my film he is illustrated to be weak and it is the female who is seen to be the violent one. 

Our characters were dresses in smart/casual clothes. We thought this would be appropriate as these are the kinds of clothes that we are obligated to wear to school thus allowing our target audience to feel the same way towards the characters and how they come across. We did not use any props in the scenes of the film- this allowed the audience to piece together, for themselves, what has actually gone on.

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

My media product is about a woman who is an assassin in a school. This conforms to conventions of real media products as thriller movies are known for being ‘different’ and subverting typical conventions of normal films. It develops the idea that women aren’t quite what they perceive to be. They are perceived to be weak and vulnerable compared to the strong and quick male. This can relate to a thriller movie from the 2011 movie called ‘Hanna’ where a young girl is set out to kill the people who killed her mother. The idea that my media product has quite an upbeat background soundtrack to it, I think, is atypical of a real thriller movie of today as the idea of a thriller movie is to disorientate the audience which is normally shown by slow and eerie music.

The fact that my media product is clearly set in a school also subverts to conventions of normal thriller movies as most thriller movies are set in an unknown place so as to get the audience to question what is actually going on and that they should feel a sense of self-affiliation towards the movie. However, I think the fact that the characters stereotypes’ are opposite to those which they normally are, the audience can relate to the characters in a way that they do not normally. By this I mean that the male audiences can relate to a more victimised male character but also relate to the strength of the female and the female can relate in the opposite way. This creates mystery to the plot of the film and therefore applies the Barthe’s Enigma y by presenting the audience with puzzles to solve and questions to ask.