1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our Media product uses existing media conventions regarding our main character. The antagonist in our film is a professional, smartly dressed man- this conforms to media conventions of thrillers, as men are usually the antagonists. We can see this is evident also in Silence of the Lambs. On the right is a photo of the main character from Silence of the Lambs, he is the antagonist. He is usually smartly dressed, and reflects a similar appearance to our antagonist. This creates tension, and plays to the audiences existing expectations. The audience will not suspect the character to be an antagonist at first, however as the film progresses it will start to become evident that something it twisted, and the psychological side begins to be revealed- this causes tension, suspense and mystery, and hooks the audience.
We also demonstrated sound use of existing thriller conventions by conforming to the structure and order of the opening credits. This makes the opening credits systematic and highlights the importance of the main characters by displaying their names early on in the credits. By making our production company name feature second in the credits, it increases importance, and thus sticks in people's memory's, furthermore, creating effective advertisement for our production company, and spreading our company's influence. In the majority of thrillers, the opening credits are in the same, particular and precise order. This is shown in the left photo (above)- a shot taken from the thriller film Phone Booth, it reveals the consistent use of a thriller convention through the credits, identical to ours.
We developed media conventions by making our antagonist also his own protagonist. I believe that by doing this it increases tension and suspense, however it also causes the audience to sympathise with the antagonist, which is unusual in other thriller films, as we have adapted our main character to be his own protagonist- 'his own worst enemy.' This adaption enables the audience to form an opinion on the character, and it evokes emotive thoughts, thus causing the audience to form a relationship with the film and making them want to watch the film from beginning to end. In comparison to our developed convention, the antagonist in the girl with a dragon tattoo is not his own protagonist, he expresses no sign of mental illness or mitigating circumstances. This causes the audience to have an instant hatred and negative opinion of the main character, the antagonist. I believe that by having an antagonist that is his own protagonist, it causes more controversy and gives our audience more to feel and talk about, also adding the whole psychological element. 
One way in which our media product develops the forms and conventions of real media products is close ups. We used a range of different close ups which are usually effective in existing thrillers, because of this we decided to develop the use of close ups even more by introducing a high angle shot, that is slightly off centre. I believe this adds mystery, as by focusing on the ringing phone, it emphasises the importance to identify this particular subject, and effectively creates mystery and enigma in the audiences mind. By using a slightly higher angles shot it enables the audience to see the whole face of the phone, this outlines to the audience that something if mysterious at this stage in the film, and that the phone call signifies psychological revelations of certain characters. However the audience do not know at this point that anything is unusual, so it creates more tension and mystery, and causes the audience to ask questions. 
We challenged existing media conventions by using light, sunny shots. Despite our film being a tense, mysterious psychological thriller, we have challenged the existing use of dark, misty and rainy shots, by making our whole film sunny and bright. We believe this creates a shocking, and mysterious effect, as the mise en scene we have used does not suggest that anything bad or scary is going to happen in the film. This feeds the audience with a false sense of security, and sets them up to believe one thing, but then tackles their expectations further on in the film, when the psychological suggestion starts showing through. In the majority of thrillers, the tension and suspense is gained through dark, gloomy locations- this is evident in the shot above (right) which is taken from Terror Train. The opening scene begins in the darkness, with mist emerging, however we believed our thriller ultimately created more suspense and tension throughout by sticking to sunny locations. 
We Challenged existing media conventions by challenging existing genres. We have made our film resemble similar television programme's like, The Bill, CSI etc. We thought that by doing this, it created more action and tension. Although we have made a psychological thriller, we wanted to add elements of action to engage the audience, and make them want to watch it more. As you can see from the above left shot from The Bill, they have got similar lighting and settings as we do. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? http://nfgssupernova.wikispaces.com/
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
- The audience for our media product will be a women named Catherine, she will be 25 years old and live in London. Catherine works as a lawyer, and has an excellent reputation in her profession. She enjoys reading action-packed thrillers, and also watches lots of other thrillers. However she prefers more intellectual thrillers, so, in particular psychological thrillers. She likes mystery and suspense, because she enjoys reading into things, and thinking about the motives, and reasoning's behind everything.
- Catherine will enjoy going to museums, and art galleries. She enjoys science, and watches many psychological experiments on the television. She will enjoy our film, because it is based around an antagonist that has split-personality disorder. She will be attracted to this, and want to find out more.
- She has a Blu- ray player, and spends a lot of her money on DVDs. She's got a reasonably expensive apartment, with an led flat screen television. Catherine goes out shopping with friends quite a lot, and spends a lot of her money on meals out, and cafe trips with her family and close friends. Because of this, she is most likely to notice film adverts and posters out in the city of London.
- Catherine is an Atheist, and does not believe in any higher, divine being. She is for the development of Science, and in particular human psychology.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
- I have used a variety of different technology during my whole research, planning, and filming process. For my research and planning, I began using websites like Wikipedia to gather audience information, and thriller conventions. I learnt to pick out the most relevant and specific points and information to help me develop my ideas for our thriller. I made sure that I gained a substantial amount of research, so that I had plenty to base my thriller film on.
- I watched existing thrillers on youtube, to get an idea of effective shots, scenery, costume and makeup. This then gave me a basis to make my film. My aim was to create an effective, but more importantly popular film, that attracted my target audience. I learnt that I could view useful tutorials on youtube, to help me with different editing techniques, like transitions, and tampering with saturation levels. This was a very helpful resource, as it gave me the required skills to edit myfilm, as well as accessing relevant research for my film.
- I also used blogger to record all the research and information I found out, so that I could then refer back to this when I felt it necessary, as it was stored digitally. I made individual posts on blogger, and titled each stage of my whole filming process, so that I could differentiate between each stage, being: Research and Planning, Filming, and Evaluation. It was useful to have all of my work on one website, as I could then access it very easily, when I improved and adapted things as I acquired more information. I had never used blogger before, so at first I found it difficult to grasp the concept, but it wasn't long before I was using it with no problem.
- Once I had sufficient research, and once I knew I had enough information to make my film, I began getting the filming equipment sorted. I made sure my HD Camera was fully charged, and my tripod wasn't broken, so that it would enable me to shoot stable shots. Before filming I got a handle of how to use the Camera successfully, and familiarised myself with how to use it. I took photos, and did short clips of filming to make sure I was ready to film. However, the preliminary task helped me grasp the basics of how to use the Camera. At first; as I have never used a HD Camera before, I found it very difficult trying to understand what each button meant, and how to view previous shots or film. After the whole preliminary task, I felt confident in using the camera again.
- When I began filming, I found it very useful that the Camera stored small digital clips, instead of having to do a constant film, with no breaks, as this would be very challenging. The first few shots of our film that I took were a bit wobbly and not as effective as I first expected and wanted. However, after a little practice my shots began to look more professional, and thus more effective. As my confidence grew, my shots became better, and after a short amount of time, I was learning to do a variety of different shots, for example, close ups, long shots, canted angles and tracking. All of these shots were very useful to learn, as a great deal of them were included in my film. I also learnt that lighting and location played a massive part in every shot. Once I had identified this, I began trying to use my new knowledge to perfect each and every shot.
- An online programme I learnt how to use was Prezi. This was a very useful website as it was a much more interactive and exciting way of sharing my ideas and it proved to add a variation of graphics to my blog. Whilst doing my evaluation, I used Prezi for question two. At first I was slightly apprehensive, as I did not know how to use the programme very well, but I watched a few tutorials, and began structuring my Prezi. In the beginning it was very frustrating, as I kept forgetting what different techniques were, and what they meant, however after five minutes I got the hang of it, and started really enjoying a new way of presenting my work.
- Final cut Express played a vital part in the making of our piece, as it was the programme we used for editing scenes and cutting parts of our footage. I had never used Final cut express before, and the programme was entirely new to me. However, once I began familiarising myself with the different techniques, and processes, I found it a lot easier to grasp. Eventually, after a few tutorials and relevant research I learnt how to add music to my film, how to add cross dissolves and fades, how to lower saturation, how to lip sync speech, and audio dubbing. Overall, these were all very important techniques to learn, and I found them very useful, and effective in our film.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
No comments:
Post a Comment