By Katy Ward

MEDIA EVALUATION

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

As our group we became hesitant on whether to go ahead with either a war, political or psychological thriller due to there being mixed ideas within the group. We then all sat down and had a full discussion on which thriller would be the best as a result we then came to the conclusion that psychological thrillers are the most common kind of thrillers; to make something “original” would start to become overly complex and hard, which made us then decide to go with a war thriller due to you only see a film of this kind of genre be realised every once and so often. To then make everybody happy with our final result we mixed it in with psychological genre which can be seen as fighting the conventions of a war thriller due to war films do not normally have a psychological aspect to them; they are not usually based on the persona’s past events and the traumatic aftermath such as flashbacks of certain events as seen in our opening film, they are more than likely in most cases to be based on a past event that happened in real life history such as the whole of world war II as a film

As our group had then decided on a final genre for our opening, we then began the research which is where we found what type of costume we would need, which we tried to base on “Saving Private Ryan” due to it being one of the most famous war films along with Forest Gump and then also looked into modern costumes that we be needed for the psychological part. We then did the research of age, race and class within different war films; we found “age of heroes” and “inglorious basterds” which one had the rating of 15 and the other 18 due to the violence being stronger in the second. Therefore as a result to this we decided that the best possible certificate for our film would be 15 due to the film having barely an violence in it, however there is a torture scene but it isn't to the extreme that it would need to be certified to the age of 18.

Referring to what conventions we decided on whether to follow and challenge were, we took the conventions of how “Saving Private Ryan” was constructed as a basis to work from, we then combined are genre with the sub-genre of Psychological by adding a psychological basis to the storyline which was the flashbacks used throughout the opening film, which personally I think make the opening of the film as affective as it is which is just after the explosion of the front door of the house opposite him.

CONTINUED…

As we looked into each genre of film we then came to the conclusion of what would best suit our film and how it would help us find a better understanding of our audience such as having the younger persona in uniform not the old man otherwise it could potentially confuse our audience on what is going on within the storyline.

Another thing which we included in our opening film was the jittery/shakiness which is used in multiple media products however we were inspired the opening of American Horror Story due to how the title sequence is presented, we all liked the idea of how it worked as well as it fitted into our idea of flashbacks due to it looking as if the audience is entering the mind of the persona and is living the flashbacks themselves therefore creating the atmosphere that we intended to create throughout the opening of mystery and suspense as well as the upsetting and uncomfortable side creating attention to PTSD and making recognition to a younger audience that it is not an easy thing to go through as well as deal with.

Another way in which we create intensity and mystery throughout our opening is that neither of our characters have any dialogue throughout the whole thing, which makes the audience want to know what he is going to say once he does speak. As well as the persona is not greeted by any realistic people he is only greeted by a figure of his imagination/memory which also creates tension within the audience as you do not know who is greeted by in his flashback, is it him or a friend from when he is at war? Which then makes the reader want to know more leading onto them watching the rest of the film that is it made as we leave them on a cliff hanger as well as they are left with the question, will he ever be helped as he is alone in the house throughout the whole opening.

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

We decided to present the old generation as the stereotypical weak and senile, however the way in which we presented them was in a way to give the younger generation connotes awareness onto why the older generation can be senile/depressed due to past events that they have had to experience as they did not have a choice of war. This therefore in some aspects creates attention to society that it is not the individuals fault always for the way in which they act sometimes it is the past dawning over them.

Another way in which we presented the stereotypical ‘old man’ was by making our persona move around in a wheelchair as that represents how old he is as his body has become as weak as he can be seen to be, as well as when he does move around he moves at a very slow pace which most old people of this age are known or shown to be like. As well as throughout the opening the man is alone the whole way throughout as they are also stereotypically shown as most people see them as crazy and do not want to go near them, leading them to have nobody, alone and eventually go even more insane.

Another social group we showed was from history that the persona of war was at a much younger age than we would expect today this is because at the time of war they were desperate for soldiers, therefore men would leave their wives and possibly never come back and young boys such as teenagers were sent to go out and fight for their country even though they did not have a choice in whether or not they had to do it which then reinforces the trauma of a soldier and the war.

We used a close up when he was looking out of the window to look at the house across the road to present how old are persona was supposed to be as you can see in detail that he has wrinkles typically known for an old person to have as well as pale complexion and the grey hair which connote old age, therefore this shot was used to represent the persona’s age.

CONTINUED…The last social group we were going to present was doctors/nurses which are they to help old people when they are either sick or in a retirement home, however we wanted to use a nurse as woman are stereotypically known to be more caring therefore this connotes that they are going to be the type of person to work in a care home in which are narrative is supposed to be based. As well as when we did research into the ‘nurse’ itself the majority of the images were in fact woman therefore creating some basis of the stereotype. However we did include this character due to complications with getting the outfit, as we did not want it to look unofficial along with getting someone to play this role with the schedule that we had started become hard and was delaying the process of production.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

Firstly, an institution is a company that in which distributes a media product that would go into cinema’s either globally or nationally which then after that gets dispersed into DVD for audience consumption. Therefore, the reason in which we would need an institution for our media product and not institute it ourselves is for that when the film has been pitched/discussed with an institute they can then discuss further whether they would go ahead with our film and whether they would help fund the production.

From research within the war thriller I found three films and found what each of their institutions were so that I could find out which one was the most well known/ used due to the audience being more comfortable/appealed by a more recognisable institution. The three films that I researched into were:

• Imitation Game• Saving Private Ryan• Forest Gump

When I looked into these I found Paramount Pictures which was most common out of the three due to it being used for both Saving Private Ryan and Forest Gump, DreamWorks Pictures which was only used for Saving Private Ryan, The Weinstein Company and Black Bear Pictures which were both only used in Imitation Game. Which as a result the most mainstream company that distributes the genre of war thriller is Paramount Pictures which would best for our film due to our group only being beginners in the film industry therefore resulting in our film getting a mass audience of as many people that appeal to the genre. The reason in which I would not pick DreamWorks for our opening film is due to the fact that it is usually related to Disney, therefore creating a childish atmosphere before the film has even started, as well as it opposes what our film is as the film can be taken quite emotionally due to the trauma involved. However, as our film company begins to progress within the film industry I think that the best thing we could do was begin to use less mainstream institutions such as the Imitation game does so then the institution gets more recognition due to the mass audience, then our film company gets a higher pay from the institution due to the benefits for the company.

CONTINUED...Therefore, going onto the psychological aspect of our film I looked into two which were:

• Shutter Island

• Identity

• Inception

When I looked into these films both Shutter Island and Inception both use Warner Bros as well as Paramount Pictures; then making Paramount Pictures the best mainstream institution to use for our film opening as they cover both the psychological genre as well as the war thriller. However, from the research Warner Bros is only used for the psychological thriller, not the war thriller therefore it would not suit our film. Where as Identity used Columbia Pictures which is also typically known for the psychological thriller as well as being one of the mainstream institutions therefore has a wide audience. Along with Legendary Pictures also one being massive within the psychological genre as well as it is typically known for the Sci-Fi genre, however they are also one of the mainstream companies however we could not use them to distribute are opening film due to them not fitting both genre criteria.

However once the film has been distributed the next question is whether it goes straight onto TV for people to watch or whether it goes onto DVD then bought in supermarkets mass produced. Which I think that the best decision would be whether to how big the audience would end up being due to if we mass produced DVD’s and the audience was only to a small amount then we would be in loss of money due to the lack of interest within buying the DVD’s and low audience, however if that was to happen then we would distribute it onto TV screens such as Film4 or Sky movies due to the known audience so that our movie would then get publicity which we could build up until it has a big enough audience and demand to then put onto DVD so that there would not be a loss within the production.

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?Our audience that we have targeted to achieve to range was from teenagers who are into the genre of war thrillers; leading onto an audience of the older generation who have experienced war themselves on many different fronts such as being a soldier, an evacuee, etc. The reason in which we decided to target the teenage generation is for the reason in which that they are the most common people to go into the cinema nowadays, along with couples and so on therefore we would achieve the highest possible audience if we targeted the people who are known to go in the cinema often. However I don’t think you would catch a couple wanting to watch a war time thriller, therefore this generation was the best to target as the views along with reviews would be at their maximum that would then lead onto a further and bigger audience if most of the reviews turned out to be positive, whether it was on the teenage scale or older.

Following onto are targeted audience of the older generation, we decided to target this audience as they have experienced war themselves so therefore they would be able to relate to the content within the film. Also this then leads onto that it could give the audience of the comfort due to the recognition of the PTSD and that they are not alone, that there will be other people around them experiencing what they are going through, therefore then making them leaving the cinema with a happy overlook on their life as well as the film as a whole.

So as well as having a mixed genre thriller we also have a mixed audience film, however the audience is not that hard to mix as long as you attract them both to actually watching the film then it is beneficial. As well as having a mixed audience is beneficial due to the audience then being of a bigger number, then leading onto more reviews etc.

CONTINUED…As from our survey we came to the realisation that the most common audience that was going to criticize our film was to be 13-18 year olds due to this age group being the 60% of the people that we know of that watched our film opening, however there is still another 40% of an audience which is nearly half of our audience which means that we cannot only aim our audience to this age range we would also have to aim it to the 25ish% of 45-60 year olds and the 60+’s which is around 10-15% of our audience.

Overall, this means that we should put an age certificate of 12A on the film however for our film to carry on we would need to set it to an age certificate due to violence and torture scenes. We would then have to make sure that our film would still attract and entertain our 45+ year olds due to them being such a massive part to our audience as well as mixing it with the 15-18 year olds as both halves of the audience make a massive impact to the number of people who view it, which you cannot loose either of them due to also lack of money to the institution and industry itself.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?There were many ways in which we could of attracted/addressed the audience that in which were aiming to get to see our genre of film, from the thumbnail that we first see before they click onto the beginning of it , the slogan/speech that draws the audience in when they see an advert for it then to how are film poster was portrayed, such as did it have the right/wrong things included onto it to fully attract the biggest audience of the genre that we could get.

Therefore we firstly attracted our audience by the discussion of what our film would be called and what would best fit the film/genre that we had made, once we had all agreed to the name we decided to a suspenseful film name as if the title was not named properly people would not be drawn in properly, this process took quite a while as we kept overthinking and making the title distant from what the film was actually about; we then decided to have a conversation with our teacher who made us realise how complex we were making the name process and helped us choose a much simpler and more effective name of “conscience” as throughout the film you experience the persona’s conscience and past.

Then going onto another way in which we addressed/attracted our audience was by on our film poster we included the persona of war time period on the front cover; this would automatically draw in the war time era audience due to them not actually having to look fully into what the film is about to whether or not they like it due to the subject being within the advertisement it already gives them a clue/overlook into the film. As well as, the tones and colours of the poster create in itself an atmosphere for the audience due to it making it look interesting and some what seems quite dark which in some aspect the opening film sequence can be looked upon as quite eerie and dark for the persona.

Another way in which we attracted our audience was by drawing them into our story by having no dialogue, which I have talked about in a previous slide how that as there isn't any dialogue the audience then wants to know what happens next and what happens when he is met by somebody or when he talks.

CONTINUED…Within our survey we decided to include the question of asking our audience what drew them into watching our opening film so that we would have a factual response to what actually brought our audience to watch it. However, this then made a wide range of answers from the look of the film, such as the thumbnail and that it could help them out within a subject that focuses on the same points that are focused on within the film itself. Then some answers did not really match up with the questions such as the music as you cannot draw an audience in with music as they only look at it to begin with, they do not automatically click on everything that is shown to them. Then some irrelevant answers such as ‘brother’s beautiful work’.

However, overall from the responses of our survey we came to the conclusion that our thumbnail and the story line are what best drew in our audience of what we achieved.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?Before coming into A level and picking Media as a subject I had not had an experience with any of the technologies that we had used throughout the process of production apart from the mac books which we used to blog and keep our updates on, however I had only had partial previous use with it. At the beginning when we began filming the 180 Degree angle we were using a tripod and Canon 650d giving us basic lighting, sound etc. As well as in our 180 degree angle there was only sound effects included within it there was not a soundtrack behind it, which made less tension and quite quickly would be an audience bored as there was not enough used within the 180 degree angle to make it anywhere near a film.

As a result we learnt from this and used a soundtrack throughout our opening film, however that was not the only sound we used as we still did include sound effects such as water running and an explosion. The soundtrack we used had to fit what was going on along with the genre of film so we decided we would use a typical world war II song, we therefore did some further research and got down to the decision of ‘run rabbit’, ‘white cliffs of dover’ and

Once we had started filming I realised that lighting is a major factor to the image that appears on screen, such as if the lighting is not right or used properly it can give the wrong message or can just make the filming look highly amateur. How the audience can get the wrong message by using the wrong lighting is by if you use high key lighting which we used to present the ghost of war that stands over our persona as he is a spirit therefore he would be an aura which would glow which connotes to our audience that the persona on screen is not living, however if you used this when you were supposed to use low key lighting it makes the audience interpret good intentions when if fact the producers were trying to connote bad intentions and the same if was the other way round. In our final product we used reflectors to achieve the light on the spirits face which we used the white side of the reflector making harsher light as it was necessary, where as we did use the reflector on other persona however we did not use as harsh light as it was not needed.

CONTINUED…Therefore when it came to editing our footage we firstly organised it into files from day 1 to day 5, this allowed us to edit in a faster pace each week which therefore allowed us to improve it once given criticism from each other as well as our teacher. However, we could have improved our time limit by editing in school as we would have been able to edit a lot faster. The software we used to produce our product was final cut pro to edit the main footage such as the shots shown In the view finders which are shown in the images. We used this editing software as for the past few years mainstream film companies have used this software to product their own films. Then we used after effects to create visual effects such as the explosion of the front door of the house. The reason we used this software is due to it allowed us to use masks which are additional layers on top of a frame, which allowed us to add extra light to the house which integrated the explosion into the scene.

We used aspect ratio to create the iconic film bars on the top and bottom of the frame this created a cinematic feel to the audience therefore keeping them gripped into the film. This therefore thought me how to make a professional product which an audience of the genre would want to see as well as that I used to think all the filming was edited within one software, however now I have realised how much can go into one scene.

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

I have learnt how soundtracks can develop a product into something so much more substantial due to in are continuity task we did not have a soundtrack only sound effects, therefore this time round now we have a soundtrack, as well as that it fits in with the genre of the film opening we made (due to if it didn’t it would not make sense therefore leaving the audience clueless and confused) it makes our final product fully developed compared to are continuity task. We has also developed a much bigger understanding of camera angles and when it is best to use each shot, as in our preliminary task there was only varied camera angles, where as in our final piece we have a varied amount of angles and there was no unintended shakiness we only had the jittery which looked shaky for affect.

Also we have learnt about typography, as in which font is best for what type of media product we are making as in our 180 degree rule clip the typography seemed quite childish and amateur due to the writing being yellow and taking up the whole screen this would not have been effective in our film due to the serious tone we wanted to express. This then required us to research typography on war films and how they interact with the scene such ‘Se7en’, we also combined conventions from psychological thrillers due to their text is not static it is consistently jittering. The reason in which we wanted to combine this is due to the psychological take on our war thriller this was a big improvement from our preliminary task as our did not link with our film. Often our text was too big of text as well as bold, which is seen in our preliminary task along with our rough cuts this resulted in the text being to pushed into our audience’s faces, this therefore takes the audience away from the action on screen leaving them clueless to what has just happened within the narrative.

We also improved the pace of our editing compared to our preliminary task cause we paid more attention to the length of each shot, this then gave us more time to work out what needed to be added and taken away from our product. From this I learnt that if the pace is not at the right speed such as when our persona looks out of the window we continuously kept getting the timing wrong as it was kept for too long which bores the audience and draws them away from the film, however when the pace is right it draws the audience in throughout the film.

CONTINUED…Within in our preliminary task we had substantial amount of continuity errors such as the lead us to seeing one of the characters weapons switch hands this can take away from the action which is on screen as in real life the other persona would react a lot quicker than what was on screen. This continuity can distract the audience and break the tension which has been built up purposely.

Our camera work in the preliminary task was seen to shaky however this was our attempt of jittering which is screen in products such as ‘American Horror Story’ this heled us learn that we had to make the jittering/shaking more distinct compared to the smoother shots in our final product to achieve this we went fully hand held instead of using an X-grip.

To improve our camera work to something much smoother we used the wheelchair as an improvised dolly and to further stabilise the shot we added a stabilisation filter in post production, this worked by removing excess movement at the top and bottom of the screen so that the middle of the frame was completely still. I learnt that this then contrast in shots creates a matter of tension because it exaggerates the hand held shots.