Media Product Evaluation

Callum Hall

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

Before creating my media product, I researched films in the same genre to gain an understanding of the key conventions I should include in mine. Two films which I analysed were Psycho and Sin City. Psycho is completely in black and white which I think is effective as it creates a sense of mystery and darkness, so we used this concept in my flashbacks for the same effect. Psycho also uses non-diegetic music generic to the genre, which we included in our thriller opening as it creates a tense and suspenseful atmosphere. While analysing Sin City I noticed that this thriller film is also in black and white but certain parts are in colour, we believed this was effective in terms of a thriller film so therefore we decided to add this convention in my media product. The inspiration we got from this concept becomes evident in my thriller opening as some scenes are in colour, while the flashbacks are in black and white to add a sense of mystery.

Psycho

We used a similar shot to the one in Psycho to introduce our antagonist in B/W

My media product does however challenge certain conventions of this genre. A lot of thriller/horror films begin with setting shots to create an atmosphere, with little action and slow-paced editing. My opening challenges these conventions as it begins with instant action and fast-paced editing, this unsettles the audience as they have not been introduced to a setting or any characters so ultimately left in mystery as to who the characters seen are and why they are introduced instantly with no identity. Another convention which my media product challenges is that in a lot of thriller films the definite protagonist is introduced before the antagonist, while in mine the character who appeals to be the antagonist is the first character to be introduced, but as the audience do not know who this character is then they are left unsure as to his ambitions.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

After watching and analysing a number of thriller/horror films, I noticed that a lot of antagonists in these films are male as males are stereotypically strong and authoritative. Therefore we decided that our antagonist would be male, this makes our media product give a representation that males are strong. However all the victims that are murdered are also male, this gives off an opposite representation that males are infact weak. No females feature in the opening of our media product, this could suggest that they are seen as unimportant in the plotline of our film. On the other hand, it could suggest that as none of the victims are female, then females are strong characters.

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

If I was to make my media project into a full length film then I believe the sorts of distributors that would distribute the film would be the likes of Paramount Pictures or Hammer Film Productions. This is due to the similarities between my film and films previously distributed by these production companies.

Firstly Paramount Pictures distributed Psycho which I see as the main inspiration for my media product, mine bares a resemblance to the conventions shown in Psycho so therefore I believe that my film would be suited to this production company. Also audiences to films distributed by Paramount would be the right sort of audience to my film, rather than Hollywood production audiences.

A death scene from Psycho, a film produced by Paramount Pictures.

A death scene from my thriller with a similar atmosphere.

Secondly Hammer Film Productions would be another ideal production company to distribute my film, this is due to the history of films that have been distributed by Hammer Film Productions who have a reputation for gothic horrors. Some films that have been distributed by this company are Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy, these films use similar conventions used in my media product. These films are in black and white, use a lot of generic non-diegetic music and feature murders, my thriller is similar so therefore I believe this production company would be ideal to distribute my film.

A scene in Dracula, a film produced by Hammer Film Productions.

A similar shot in our film which also introduces a threatening antagonist and also in B/W

Who would be the audience for your media product?

After researching classifications on the BBFC website, I decided to classify my media product as a 15 due to; Horror and Violence. I think this is a good classification for my media product as it features horrific and violent scenes but there is no particular gore or graphic scenes which would bring the classification to an 18.

If this film were to be distributed, I believe the audience would mostly be males aged between 15-21. This is because of the genre of film which tends to have a male-based audience, also the actors and characters used in my thriller are between these ages so it would be right that this film attracts these sorts of ages.

We classified our thriller as 15 due to the ‘Horror’ and ‘Violence’ guidelines in the classification.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Initially we attracted and addressed our audience during the planning stages of our production with questionnaires about our storyboard and rough drafts. This stage allowed us to identify our target audience our thriller would be aimed at, here we found that an audience of ages 15-21 would be suitable. We also found that the majority of this audience were male who had a keen interest in thriller/horror films, this was good for us as this is the sort of audience we initially planned on aiming at.

In order to gain further feedback, we posted our thriller intro on Facebook in order to receive opinions to document. This was extremely helpful as we received a lot of feedback, which was mostly positive but there was also some negative opinions so this allowed us to re-edit and re-evaluate our product.

Some of the comments me and my group received after posting our media product onto Facebook were:

- “Really good nice work for your first proper film.”- “That’s well good it actually scared me a bit with the

music and the black and white display.”- “Also the last shot is the best, good quality camera

work throughout.”- “That’s actually pretty good.”- “Good use of different camera angles and shots, nice

delivery throughout.”- “I like the tension and suspense which is built up by

the music and the variety of different shots however it could be seen more as a short film than a thriller opening.”

- “I think the shot of the male character running up the stairs could be shorter, as it is too long, however the use of the low angles are really well thought out.”

This sort of feedback made us feel confident with our thriller opening, and the negative comments we received were constructive and allowed us to go back over our product and edit bits which were negatively commented on.

These are the videos we uploaded in order to receive feedback.

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

Throughout the process of my product, I have learnt a lot of skills and a lot about different technologies in putting my product together. I have picked up a number of camera skills involving shot distances and angles, also skills involving the camera equipment. Since our continuity task, I feel me and my group have all largely enhanced our camera skills and these are evident in our final piece. Aswell as camera skills, I have also learnt a lot of in depth editorial skills using Premier Pro. This is the program we used to put our product together, during our continuity task I had a basic understanding of this program but now I feel that I have drastically improved my editing ability and have learnt a lot of new advanced skills. My editing has improved in terms of sequence smoothness, use of cuts, shot transitions, piecing of the non-diegetic sounds and overall editing ability. Another program I have used during the process of my product is After Effects, with this program I learnt a lot of animation skills. I used these new skills to animate the title sequence which I felt improved the overall complexity of our product. I feel that as a group we have raised our standard of work, we often re-shot scenes if we felt we could do better and we went through our sequence many times to edit and cut parts until we were confident with our final piece.

Previous title sequence which was basic.

New title sequence with animation, used with newly learnt editing/animations skills.

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

Reflecting on our preliminary task, I feel we have significantly progressed from this task to our final media product. During our preliminary task we spent a lot of time planning and not enough time filming, so by the time we had completed our planning we were left slightly clueless with the camera and the time we had remaining to complete our task. Our limited skills became apparent when we had to re-shoot a large part of it due to unsteady shots, overall our preliminary task went well but we learnt from the mistakes we made and we transferred this new knowledge into the production of our media product.

When we started off with our thriller opening, we were organised with our planning and the process was successful and fluid. Then when it came to the filming we built on the experience we already had and developed our camera and editing skills, which are presented in our final piece as it is a lot smoother and well produced than our preliminary task.

Overall I believe that individually and also as a group, we have all progressed and have learnt a lot during the production. Our final media product has turned out to be a success and we have created this product to a high standard due to the skills we have all learnt along the process.

Preliminary Task, basic skills.

Final Media Product, advanced skills.