Jamie's completed evaluation

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

During the planning and execution of our thriller opening, we have aimed to offer something perhaps a bit different to what is considered as the usual conventions of a thriller film, without distorting it so much that it is unrecognisable as a thriller. There are many aspects and traits of a movie production that move a film into the thriller genre.

We took the type of narration we would use in our opening into great consideration. We were unsure of whether to make the narrative restricted or unrestricted at first but eventually we came to the conclusion to use a blend of both. The fact that we allow the audience to see the murders occurring instantly puts them in a more knowing position than the main characters, making it unrestricted narration. However, this is all the audience get to see which doesn’t really put them in a better position than the detective characters. The thinking behind this was making the audience believe they are more in the know and in a more powerful position than the characters, when in-fact they know just as much as the seemingly clueless detectives. I think we have pulled this off well.

We used as many of the elements of mise en scene as we thought necessary to try and impose our own vision of a thriller onto the opening. The settings for the murders I think highlight this. In this case we couldn’t stray to far from the traditional conventions of a thriller with regards to mise en scene.

The shot above, as the final shot in our opening, was designed to leave the audience in doubt about the tone of the film they are watching. The setting we found is very typical of a thriller film as it is in the middle of a very isolated, sinister wood. Our way of making this particular scene unique and adding our own convention to it was including an interesting shot of the attacker approaching the victim using a POV shot.

A way in which we attempted to challenge the usual conventions of a thriller film was through our use of sound in the opening. Through our research prior to production we noticed that most thriller films tend to open with a soundtrack over the top in order to set the mood. We aimed to set the mood through the use of diegetic sound. Despite a small amount of mood music featured at the beginning and the end of the piece, the two minutes comprise of diegetic sounds only. This allows the audience to feel more involved in the film as if they actually part of it.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

During the planning and production of our thriller opening, we had to take into consideration the types of social groups our characters belong to, who is being represented by our product, how and why.

In terms of representation, we particularly focused on the use of gender and age. Generally, thriller films feature young adults as they best represent the target audience of the genre. With this in mind we decided to use me and Will as the two detectives who are the main characters in the piece. We thought that two young, contemporary adults would appeal to the audience and be easily likeable characters.



As you can see here Will's character is shown as a 'cool' young male and we have tried to emphasise this through the use of mise en scene and camera work. The shirt he is wearing helps with his casual look as does his seemingly laid back body language.

Our choice to make both of our decective characters male was done to help emphasise an element of chemistry between the two. We felt that their relationship and the way we wanted them represented would not filter through to the audience unless they were same sex.

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

We came to the conclusion that we would want an independant film company to distribute our product to the public as this would be a cheaper method than trying to go mainstream. We would have to consider how we would go about marketing our product the public. As it is only a small scale film and we would be using an independant company to market it, who would not be able to afford to use TV campaigns and other ridiculously expensive methods, we would aim to use methods such as:

• Local newspaper adverts
• Fliers and posters in the area we are showing the film
• Using methods such as 'word of mouth' (which are explained on this website)http://www.launchingfilms.tv/marketing.php?video=1&autostart=1

The website above also explains many other methods of promoting and distributing a small scale product like ours. The home page is http://www.launchingfilms.tv/

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

We discussed what sort of target audience we would be aiming for with our product in detail and based it on the research we had already done on thrillers. Our product is aimed at people in the age range of around 18 to 30 or just people who have a strong interest in the thriller genre. This is because our research indicates people in this age range go to the cinema more than any other age group. Also we felt our product would not appeal to the elderly as the characters would seem somewhat alien to them and they would find it hard to relate to the film. We decided not to target a specific gender with our product as we felt that it has something to offer for both sexes.



We feel that the people who will enjoy our film would be people who are fans of the Saw series or Se7en as (without ripping of the themes and ideas or these films) our film comes into the same sort of category in which the film follows two dectectives trying to track down and capture an elusive murderer on their first case.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I think the audience we have targeted for the film would enjoy the product we have produced for the following reasons:

• The main attraction that the audience will enjoy is how in your face our opening sequence is. Whereas traditional thriller films will build up the general plot of the film over a long period of time, we have made our opening so that is imposes many questions into the mind of the audience from the off. The murders featured right at the beginning of the film sets a template for all these questions to unfold thoughout the rest of the film and this will engage the audience.
• The two decective characters I believe offer a lot of appeal to the viewer as, as I stated previously, we have fashioned them as young, contemporary and likeable characters from which the viewer can relate to and become attatched to.
• Despite not being a major focus of ours. The two soundtracks we have at the beginning and at the end of the sequence would draw in the audience and help them relate to the situation better. The piece at the beginning is fairly light hearted and sets the mood for the detective scene thus making them more likeable characters. The piece at the end of the sequence is very sharp and shocking which we included in order to highlight a feeling of tension and severity within the audience.
• The above point links to how we have done the credits. We gradually enter the cast via credits and finish of with a very vivid black on white shot of the title which add to the mood we have created in the sequence. This helps to engage the audience.

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

Before we started the product, I had a rather limited understanding of a lot of the technology we used throughout production.

• I have developed a good understanding of how to create and mainpulate a blog format piece of work. I have found that displaying my work in a blog format is far more interesting and rewarding than the essay format i was previously used to and did not enjoy. I found that inserting screenshots and using simple things such as bullet points both improves the quality of my work and makes it more user friendly.
• My knowledge of camera work has been improved throughout production as I have used it to perform shots that i previously never would have been able to do such as POV shots. (Would be a screenshot of our POV of the murderer closing in on victim but unavailable)
• Through the use of the editing suite, I have found that there are many aspects of all films that are produced through the use of editing and not just done at the time. I find that editing enables you to clean up parts of your piece that perhaps you are not 100% happy with. For expample, we felt that one of our shots that were meant to have low key lighting and required a dark tone to it was too light so we toned down the lighting on it using a tool on the mac we were using.
• Finally we used a programme called Garageband for the sound on our product. I found this programme enabled you to create moods and atmospheres that you wouldn't be able to naturally. This is either through the use of soundtracks or sounds put over the top of an action for emphasis.

Back when we did our preliminary task last year, I had no idea of the depth of detail that goes into every little aspect of producing a good quality film. So many things need to be taken into consideration in every single shot and frame. I have progressed greatly since this task.

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

• One of the main points I have picked up since the preliminary task is how important camera frame work is. In the preliminary a lot of our shots had too much excess in that wasn't necessary and made the shot look scruffy. In our thriller piece, we took great care not to repeat this mistake.
• In our preliminary, we took little care over developing the characters featured in the sequence. Since then we have learned how aspects such as camera work and mise en scene can be used to develop a character and manipulate the audiences view on a character. This is evident in our thriller piece.
• After our preliminary task, we had yet to learn how to use sound editing to improve our work. However, we were then trained in how to use garageband which has allowed us to add extra diegetic and non-diegetic sounds to make our productions better.
• My use of the equipment in the editing suite has improved greatly since the preliminary task as we used more advanced software in the thriller task and we had more time to explore everything that it can do and this benfited our work greatly.
  
  

Will Price's Evaluation (not finshed, more will come!)

The Evaluation of Will Price Writer and Director of SEE ME









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

Real life film makers use many aspects of media at their disposal to ensure engaging and exciting narration so as to keep the attention of their audience.

One of these many aspects used is of course camera work, this is practically essential for engaging film making as you cant just film an entire film at the same angle for fear of the audience inevitably getting bored and drifting into a slumber. Our piece makes as much use of camera angles as we possibly could, trying to mix up the angles for dialogue so as not to keep on repeating ourselves with the same shots and using a wide variety of distances. One thing i am particularly proud of is that instead of most thriller films like ours are almost feverish in their attempts to try and throw in as many different ways of dying with different shots as possible. Our extract although it does contain a variation of camera angles, for the deaths themselves the positioning of the murderer is from exactly the same position throughout (behind the victim) but the camera works around them. This helps the audience not only understand the villain as a person but also allows them to observe how she works from several viewpoints and thus quelling any doubts about how the murder is performed. This is good as it mingles in rather well with seeing the persons reactions from each angle, almost like a motion replay of the murder for the audience only with different people, allowing the audience to compare the shocked reactions.

I would also like to point out how quick the murders themselves are performed, despite the lead up to the murders, the act itself takes less than one second, to me, we were trying to present the idea to the audience that life is incredibly easy to cut short and extinguish, you don’t even have to know who the person is who extinguishes it. A slightly depressing thought to build a film around but definitely a solid point of ideology to use. The best example of this to me is the final murder of the opening which is mostly taken up by a POV shot of the killer creeping up on the victim. You don’t even see the victims face, all you see is the back of her head then the quick and clean cut to a long shot of the murder itself which is barely a second.

Another way our work differs from mainstream work is in the sound work. There is very little non-diagetic sound in ours. There is hardly any background music apart from the beginning and end of the extract, we did this mainly to simply allow the audience to sink into what’s actually happening on the screen more, instead of filling it with music that would distract from the action.

Another way our piece seems to challenge conventional methods is how the villain is represented. In most mainstream thriller films the villain is portrayed and has some sort of motive or even a few clues. Our villain however is pretty much the exception to this. Hence the title ‘SEE ME’ implying that the villain wishes to be recognised but is concealed by the mask which he wears to murder his victims.

What Social groups are represented and how?

The number of social groups represented in our thriller are numerous. Ranging from sex to age and even class. The representation is as follows.

Age:

The age of the 2 main characters are obvious but they represent what we perceivewhen it comes to young people of around 19-25. On the one hand we have the costume of both characters, it is very modern and derives from the modern youth culture of bands such as N-Dubz and the modern day dress style of people such as John Rocha. There are certain labels featured throughout the thriller that reflect the modern world that is now even more a part of youth culture in that one of the cops is seen to be reading Nuts magazine, this represents the younger generation in that they are far more open about their sexuality nowadays and thus would not mind being seen with a porn magazine. Age is also represented by the first victim who is clearly the oldest character. The clothes that she wears are very buisness like and produce an aura of power, this exploits the stereotype of experience over youth however we quickly destroy this image when she is killed and is diminished to a shocked expression similar to the others.

Gender:

There are also representations of gender hidden within the thriller in the form of narrative and storyline. Namely, that all of the victims are female. This is a simple use of the stereotype of women being dependant on a man to keep them safe and that they a vunrable and weak when on their own, this is something regularly used in the media in general so we thought that it would be the best way to convey the helplessness of the victims if they were female so as to fully exploit the stereotype.

Class:

The representations of class are small but effective. The two cops are supposed to be from different backrounds, one from more of a middle class background and the other from a more working class background. The ways we represented this was in accent, one of the cops has a much more middle class accent and gives the impression that he is the more intellectual of the two, the other cop however has a more working class accent which exploits the stereotype of working class people perhaps being less educated than most. Another way class is represented is again in clothing. On the one hand we have the more buisness like shirt, tight jeans and smart jacket, on the other hand however we have the more working class loose jeans and hoody.

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

I think that we would be looking for an independant film distributor for our film, admittedly there are many to choose one but i think that we would benefit from a company such as Guerilla Films or Verve Pictures. It would then be down to them to establish a release date for the film and the negotiations to release it in cinemas as well as showing it to exhibitors.

What would the audience be for your media product

The audience for my product would be mainly in the demographic of teenagers and the younger generation, not so much the middle aged and elderly generations as the characters are far too young for them to truly relate to them. Our thriller is about 2 young cops trying to solve their first case, this i think is something that many of the young generation could relate to only in a different context as every one of us has had to complete their first assignment or first day at work. Other thrillers that are slightly similar to ours is Zodiac and Saw.

How did you attract/address your audience

The main attraction to our target audience is that the main characters themselves are young, this makes it far more easy for the audience to relate to the film and thus draws more and more of the younger generaion towards it. If it was just the traditional two seasoned detectives it wouldnt be as interesting to the younger generation as it would be if the two cops were around the same age as them.

Another point that would keep the audience interested and make them enjoy the film even more is how the plot is told. It doesnt mess around with too much backstory, it merely reveals the bare essentials such as the fact that they are hunting down a murderer, it does this through the use of flashbacks of the murders narrated by one of the main characters. Another way this film would entertain the audience is that the characters themselves would remind them of themselves slightly, especially the 2 main characters. One is very hardworking and down to earth where as the other is much more laid back and almost non-chalaunt in his wok, a clash of personality similar to that of the 2 main characters i Se7en.

There is also the fact that the serial killer in this film is so illusive, leaving behind literally not a scrap of evidence behind him, save for the body. This is something the audience could relate o also as we have all had problems and puzzles that seem to have no answer, thus the audience would find themsleves practically egging on the cops throughout the film.

The clothing worn by the 2 main characters would also get the audience on either of their sides as they are from totally opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one hand we have the rarer more extravogant and well set out smartness of a jacket with stylish John Rocha shirt and on the other hand we have the more common dress of a hoody and jeans.

I think that the music used in the opening would also help the audience enjoy the film, as the audience would be younger and the younger generation always enjoys the almost pop-culture greatness that is the generic eighties cop music. It presents them with the image of Starsky and Hutch.

If you watch the opening itself i beleive that it poses more than enough questions for the audience to want to keep o watching and get the answers. Questions like do they catch the killer? Who is the killer? Will he kill anyone else? What is the significance of those killed? These are all part of the Enigma code to try and lure in the audience to the rest of the film. This is a technique regularly used by normal crime TV series such as CSI.

Yet another way that a film draws the audience into the rest of the story is through the titles. Many of the thriller films of today have incredibly complex and visually stunning titles such as Old Boy, our titles however are'nt nearly as advanced. Ours are simply an easing into the cast list as they appear and a flash of the title of the film at the end with a sound effect. The title was intended to shock the audience as well as intrigue them as to the purpose of the sound and the relevance it bears to the film. Had we dedicated more thought to it however we could have possibly devised an entire new cene especially for the titles, maybe with the camera at a POV angle as it is attacked with the credits on what is attacking it. Upon reflection, this certainly would have made it a much more engaging sequence.

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

The main thing i have learnt is that the technology may be absolutely incredible but it is still only as good as the person weilding it. The technology we used is as follows.

Video Camera: The camera wasnt exactly much of a problem to operate it was trying to find which places would glean the best results for the angles of the shots.

Final Cut Pro: This was by far the trickiest part of the technology we had to master. Using it really did makeyou appreciate the seconds as we found ourselves watching the same second over and over again for a whole hour just to make sure we couldnt edit it any more. One thing we did note however when we watched it on the big screen for the first time was how many sounds the computer simply failed to produce.

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

When i compare the final product to the preliminary product i do feel a strange sense of pride in that i feel that we have definitely improved it. The camerawork in the preliminary was quite dull, it had far too many long shots with nothing happening and in some places was quite juddery. The final product however was far smoother with shorter cuts, more character establishment and far better lighting and continuity. In the preliminary task there was totally unpredictable background noise that wasnt edited out and the lighting changed regularly in the same scene and often juddered away from what was going on. All of these issues have been addressed in the final product and we actually have much more of story.

Georgia Worsfold's Evaluation

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

There are certain techniques that are used within thrillers, they are used for all the right reasons to frighten the audience.

• The camera work and editing.

• This is very important, as it shows and highlights the tension within the thriller.

• Lots of quick cuts sets the speed, this can put the audience on edge as they have to pay close attention to what is happening.

• For our product we did a lot of clean cuts, we did this to make the pace seem faster. We had a splash of white light in between the flashbacks, so it is easy to recognise the difference of the past and the presence.

• I think this worked very well as the light doesn't distract you, it just gets you ready to watch what caused the deaths.

• Different angles can play a big part, as they can unravel parts of the storyline, they will give you a different perspective of the character and you will be able to understand what sort of person they are and also what situation they are in.

• Also the distances used in camera work will show the emotions of the characters, e.g. close up of a persons shocked face.
  
• We tried to use as many angles and shot sizes as we could without going overboard. At the end we got an extreme long shot of one of the victims necks being broken, i think this worked really well as showed you exactly where the character was, and how helpless she was.

• It also let you see how effortless it was for the character to be killed off. As well as the profiles of the characters.

• (Below is our extreme long shot).
• 
• For the lead up of this shot, we hand held the camera and walked up to the victim using a Point of view shot (POV), this gave the audience a clear view and idea what it was like for the 'villain'.

• We got some feedback from another group about this shot, and they thought it was really good.
• The camera movement we used was quite simple.

• In one of the shots we used a pan, to show where exactly the character was heading to, if we didn't do this and she walked off screen. Then was in a car, it would confuse to audience as to how she got there.
  
  
• Overall the speed in thrillers will change a lot, there tends to be a build up to the main part of the film, to make the audience think of what might happen and to create suspense. Then it tends to gets faster, for example, when someone gets attacked.

• To create different speeds you change how you cut. For our thriller to look fast we used clean, straight cuts, so it then changes fast to one shot to another. If you wanted a slow speed e.g for a romance, the dissolving shots together will make it look slow.

• We used this technique with the fast cuts to create the fast tension. The shot we used this in was with one of the victims who was walking for her car. She was walking to her car for about 10 seconds, the fast cuts, made it more interesting and made the tension build up as she looked in a hurry.

• We used cross-cutting between the different locations. So we kept going back to the original scene after showing new ones.

• The credits we did were simple, we chose the font, colour and size we wanted then put the names in places which could still be readable and that would also not cover up any important props.

• The sound.
• Sinister music starting to play once the 'villain' comes onto set is very typical, but it works, as it builds up tension in the audience as they know something bad is going to happen.

• The soundtrack we used was sinister music.

• We used a 'Buzz track' this is a low level background soundtrack.

• We used this as one of the victims walks up to her car, this sets the mood, as it makes the audience alert to the change in sound.

• Mise-en-scene.

• This involves the setting, lighting, the props used, costume, make up, colour and also body language and movement.

• The setting.

• In almost every first shot the setting (the location) will be seen.

• It will tell a lot about what will be happening throughout the film. It will in someways decide how a character will act. E.g. if it's cold or hot, the characters body language will change.

• We used four different settings in our opening thriller.

• The main setting was the 'office' which is where the two detectives outlay the murders that have happened.

• Unfortunately we couldn't get hold of an actual office, so we had to settle for a school classroom.

• The other three settings were based in dark or classic scary locations. Such as woods and alleyways.

• We also went for another shot which has been used in the past (a person go's into their car, then suddenly the villain appears in the backseat).

• We couldn't shoot this at night time (which would have been good as it would have made it seem more scary), so we did it early evening instead. Never the less this worked out reasonably well.

• Lighting.

• Generally in thrillers low key lighting is used, it creates shadows, which can cast darkness upon objects and people, making them more threatening.

• This is used as it creates the mood. Darkness signifies depression, anger and loneliness etc. These are all common traits that are used in thrillers.

• Darkness signifies depression, anger and loneliness etc. These are all common traits that are used in thrillers.

• Low key lighting could be used in advantage to hide the villain from both the audience and the characters.

• For our product we used low key lighting in the flashbacks to make it look more sinister. We didn't use as much low key lighting elsewhere as we wanted to show the difference between the different locations in more ways than just the different rooms.

• We wanted to show the difference through lighting and sound etc.
  
• The lighting in the office, is natural day light. It allows the audience to see everything, nothing is hidden.
  
• In the car, the lighting is extremely dark, the only source of light is coming through the windows from outside. I think this works really well. I think this because you can't see much and this is good for when the 'villain' comes from behind the backseat, as you don't see them before.

• Props.

• The props we used were very simplistic and minimal.

• We used simple props such as a phone, writing folder, magazine as well as the main prop which was the mask. This was a very important prop as it hid the identity of the murderer.

• It also made the murderer look much more creepy than what they would have if you saw their face. This is because it allows the audiences imaginations to think of what they look like.
  
  
• Costume and make-up.

• For the two detectives, we used smart/casual clothing.

• The clothing for the first detective you see (Will Price) wears a smart shirt and jeans.

• He's the detective which takes the job more seriously, so we showed this by dressing him up in more smart clothing than the other detective.

• To show that his job comes first, his hair is relatively messy, his shirt is creased, as if he just got out of bed to go to work. Or that he's had the investigations on his mind.

• Jamie Simmons who plays the other detective, doesn't take his job seriously, we showed this through his clothing as he wore a tracksuit.

• The clothing the first victim wore (Sarah Price) is smart. We wanted her to look like a business women on her way to work.

• Her make-up is minimal, again to show what her job may be (professional).

• This shows how easy it was for people to find out she was gone, that she didn't turn up for work.

• The last murder wore casual clothing, to show that she was just taking her dog for a walk.

• We didn't want her wearing bright clothing as we wanted the shot to seem quite dim and for it to be as scary as possible.

• We also thought bright clothing would distract the eye too much, for what we wanted them to see. (The death).

• Narrative.

• 'A story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.'

• We did not film in order of the sequence.

• We filmed the murders first, then we filmed all of the office scene.

• Our opening is told through a lot of imagery.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• Our product has both males and females.

• They are mainly teenagers.

• The ethnicity of them all is white British.

• The main characters, (the detectives) are both represented differently.

• Both are made to seem older than what they actually are.

• We’ve made one to look quite responsible. We showed this by the costume, with putting him in smart clothing.

• Also we got a close up of him. We did this as it showed his expression, which is serious. Again this shows his commitment and responsibility to his work.

• We represented him like this as we wanted the audience to warm up to him. So then they don’t see detectives as bad people.

• This is a positive representation of younger detectives as it shows dedication, also his voice is quite upbeat even given the fact that the subject is about death.

• The other detective doesn’t seem as reasonable and doesn’t seem to care much for his job.

• We showed this through sound, via his voice, it was quite rude and in a hurry. As if he had better things to do.

• We also showed this through mise-en scene, the props. We used a magazine, which shows he is distracted from his work easily.

• This is a bad representation as it shows that he’s not interested in making a difference.

• Seven.

• The film Seven involves two detectives which we have based ours on.

• In the film Morgan Freeman has been represented as a very smart person, who takes pride in his appearance with what he wears.

• However Brad Pitt plays a character that doesn’t seem to care as much about his professional appearance and wears what we could imagine he would comfortably wear outside of work.
  
  
• He chose to present the characters in this way as we wanted to show the different types of people who could be in this line of work. E.g. Not all just neat professionals and not all unprofessional workers.

• We wanted a variety of the types of people in our product.

• We also wanted to do this as in most thrillers, there is a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine.

• So we wanted other people to relate this to others they have seen.

• Audience

• We have targeted our product at teenagers and early 20’s.

• The characters help target to this audience because of the age they are themselves. They are also teenagers.

• So this means that there is more chance the audience will understand slang that they may use and also how they act with situations and can relate to them better than what middle aged and older generations would.

• The clothing worn by the characters are of the fashion that is worn by this generation.

• So when seeing this they will think that the product will be for them as the people in it are like them.

• The characters fit into stereotypes of what men and woman would ‘normally’ wear.

• The women in our thriller opening wear slim fit clothing which reveals their figures. This is what woman always have worn, so it fits in the stereotypical clothing that women wear.

• The men wear clothing that is baggier, that doesn’t show off their figure.

• It shows that men go for comfort rather than fashion.

• Which accounts for the saying woman go by ‘Beauty is pain'.

• So this shows that women care more about their appearance than what men do.

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

• Film distribution is when a company or individual takes the final product of a production company and distributes (deals out) the product to cinema’s who will show the product to the audience. Also for the product to be put on DVD and Blue ray etc.

• So a film distributor is the final act between the product being made and the audience seeing it.

• I think our product should be distributed by a distributor who deals with movies of the thriller genre. Such as, Saw and Hostel.

• Therefore they will know a lot about how they should sell out the products and advertise them in ways which have been done before.

DreamWorks SKG would be one good distributor for our film as they distributed ‘The Ring’. Also Screen Gems would be good as they have dealt with Arlington road.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

• The audience for our product would be the younger generation, between older teenagers and under thirties (18 – 25).

• This is because of the age of the characters which are around this age too.

• Our product is aimed at both male and female audiences. we have done this by having both male and female characters in the thriller openings.
  
• These both mean that it is easy for the audience in this age range to relate to the characters.

• After asking family members I found out that the age group ranges from 18 – 24 of who watch thrillers such as SAW and Hostel.

• The certificate rating of the films is 18. This shows from what age the demographic starts at, from the media’s view.

• (Click on the link to view trailers of SAW and Hostel, to see what the films are about).

• How did you attract/ address your audience.

• How we presented the characters was important e.g. if you was just flicking through cannels, the imagery alone has the capability to make a potential viewer stop and see what they think of your product.

• This is why we decided to have two different costumes for the detectives as this means more people can relate them at least one of them. The smart one or the casual one. Depending on how they are themselves.

• Again the use of imagery keeps the audience interested.
  

• Because throughout it changes scenes, young people are known for getting bored and restless easily. So new locations makes it more interesting for them as they can explore them at the same time the characters do.

• The flashbacks also are a means of information to them. They’re telling them exactly what has happened, without boring them with the details being told by one of the detectives.

• Also the more characters revealed to them visually is more exciting, as they are able to compare themselves to them.

• As there is no speaking in the flashbacks, this allows them to think of what they would do if they were in the situations. They can take in the information whilst thinking to themselves.

• The mask which keeps the identity of the murderer a secret makes the audience want to find out who is behind the mask.

• Therefore they find themselves watching to see if it is anyone who they may have already seen, or if it is someone entirely different.

• The not knowing, keeps them on the edge of their seat watching to find out more.

• The audience would enjoy our film as it slowly reveals clues.

• The clues will be about who the murderer is and why they are killing these people.

• They will also enjoy the film as it is set in 2010. So they will understand everything that is happening and being said.

• The information throughout the film is told through a lot of imagery. So the audience doesn’t have to pay close attention to what is being spoken.

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

• For the filming of our product we used a camera, which allowed us to take the shots we needed.

• We also used a tripod, this is what we put the camera and holds it still.

• Using the tripod made it much easier to hold the camera still and get the shots we wanted.
  

• It also helped with height, as he could get high angle shots without any trouble.

• Using the camera was much harder than what I thought it was going to be.

• This is because you have to focus completely on what your doing, because if you move a tiny bit, you will jilt the camera. This is very obvious to the eye and can ruin your shot.

• Before doing media, when watching films I didn’t think about the amount of work that has to happen during filming and how they put the shots together.

• For the editing of our shots we used Final Cut Pro.

• Final Cut Pro.

• 

• This program allowed us to pick and change the order of the shots we took.

• By using this we were able to add effects, credits and also add the small amount of sound needed.

• From using Final Cut Pro I learnt how easy it is to make your simple footage look such more exciting.

• I also learnt how to use the software with not much experience with it, so I was extremely pleased with how easy it is to use.

• I think overall I worked quite well in the process of making our product. I did some research for the product and did the storyboard. The things I think I could have improved were my blogging and meeting the deadlines. I think I should have spent more time on blogging and reviewing the progress of our work throughout.

• As a group I think we worked well together as we all decided what we wanted to do for our product. We also chose the roles easily without any arguments.
  

• Unfortunately as a group I don’t think we met deadlines very well. This was due to our difference in timetables. We only had a few lessons a week where we were all free at the same time.

• However we did make the effort to meet up after college hours to get the work done, which shows commitment to our work.

• Again I think we could have handled the blog better and worked out together who should be posting what. After a while we did get a bit better at doing this. But I think we should have started this earlier for the blog to be better.

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

• Looking back at the preliminary i think individually i have achieved a lot as well as in a group.

• Firstly i think our awareness has got much better whilst filming. We don't only look at the characters and worry if they themselves look okay, like we did in our preliminary. But now i take in the whole shot into perpective.
  

• We tried to make sure as well as possible that all of the objects etcin the background should be there. It was very hard to do this as we had to film in a classroom after than an office. But we moved all of the desks and chairs to make an open space.
  

• In the prelimary we did not do this. And this resulted in having stacked chairs in the background, which did not look like a professional workplace like we wanted to create.

• Our camera work has only improved a little bit, we still have some jilts throughout. Also our continuity editing has not got much better as there is still some problems with takes not lining up and also the volume of background noice from scene to scene.

• The part of the camera work that has improved is how we have cut it, In our preliminary the there was a lot of long shots, but this time we made sure we did many different shots. Including using different angles and shot sizes. Such as an extreme long shot and an close up.
  

• Although we have not achieved our full protentional i think as a group we learnt how eachother worked during the process and helped eachother with the editing and filming.

• I think this showed through our storyline. I think our story came together really well and it is also believeable, which is very important. This is because of our storyboard which we spent some time on creating.

• In our preliminary we did not know how to edit sound at all or even put the footage in order properly.
• I think we have achieved a lot through our editing as we upgraded in the programme we used. In the prelininary we used a simple editing software and in our thriller opening we have used final cut pro to edit it.

• We were able to add a soundtrack to our opening as we were taught how to do so. This made it much more interesting as it had music playing throughout parts of it.

• Another technical skill i think we have improved is the lighting. We took more notice of it and was able to make it low lighting which set the scene much better. As it suited what the thriller is about.
  

• Overall i think we did improve. But we improved on certain parts such as the editing rather than the whole product.

• (Unfortunatly i have had some problems with my template and it may not publish my work neatly with bullet points and spaces etc)