Evaluation script Media
In what ways does your media product,
use develops or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I realised that certain aspects of my
opening to my thriller would have to be similar to that of someone established
in the thriller industry and I chose to use conventions that the director
Alfred Hitchcock used, I studied him and his thrillers and saw ways that he
used these conventions and I tried to put those into my thriller while trying to
make my thriller have its own identity in the industry. The ways I think that I
used these conventions was I used suspense in my film rather than surprise
which Hitchcock did in most of his films I also used small sharp cuts from shot
to shot to build suspense. But I used slow motion to make the dramatic parts of
my thriller more intense and dramatic to the audience. I think these conventions
helped to give my thriller its own image rather than a copy of a Hitchcock film
How does your media product represent
certain social groups?
I feel I have used the stereotype
that people assume teenagers to be in my thriller for example reckless which is
shown by the gambling at the start of the opening as the titles come onto the
screen, also rude which is shown by the small amount of language that is used
in the opening to my thriller and I think I have shown them as being rebellious
which is a common assumption that teenagers are rebellious in my thriller the
teenager is being rebellious against the law by committing a crime.
What type of media institution might
your product is distributed by and why?
I think that my thriller would be
distributed by Studio Canal who distributed most of the films that Alfred
Hitchcock made during his career as a director. I think that they will
distribute my product because it is similar to that of a Alfred Hitchcock film
in most of its conventions which I mentioned
earlier in my evaluation and it also has its unique conventions that
make it different from his films which are also mentioned earlier in my
evaluation.
Who are the Audience?
The audience for my thriller are
people between the ages of 15-22 in the A and B social groups because I think
that some of the language involved in my thriller is too mature for people
under the age of 15. And I think that the A and B social groups will be able to
understand and follow the storyline from the start to the finish of the
thriller because they have to make the link between the opening shots of them
playing poker and the fact that the person dead is the one who won the hand at
the start of the thriller which may be a bit more complicated for someone lower
down the social ladder to make that connection between those 2 sections of the
thriller.
What my screening taught me?
What my screening taught me was that
some of my shots were 2 long for example before the screening I had 1 long shot
of my 2 actors walking away from the house and after showing it to my audience
they gave me the feedback and I have now broken down the walking parts of my
thriller down into small shots of different angles so that the viewer doesn’t feel
that one shot is there for 2 long.
Also I found out from my audience
that they thought my thriller needed more dialogue or music and afterwards I added
the song to the start and more suspense style sounds such as the heartbeat
which I thinks builds tension and make my thriller better than it was before I also
added slow motion to give it a dramatic effect and so the audience know that
that part is important in the thriller.
What have you learnt about technology
in the process?
I have learnt that the sun affects
the way that people are seen on the camera and this caused me too have to
refilm all of the parts of the actor by the window to make sure that he was
visible from the start of his section to the end. Also I learnt that the macs
can work at times and other times choose not to work which I overcame by saving
my project a lot and making sure that I didn’t lose any of my work on the
thriller’s editing. Also I learnt that burning my project to a DVD would take a
long time and that I would have to allow for this time when trying to budget my
time so that I could hand my project in on time.
What I have learnt from doing my
preliminary?
I have learnt from my preliminary
that certain shots work for a thriller and that some do not I think I found out
that close ups worked in my preliminary and I transferred that across to my
real thriller which I used when the actor is opening the door which is a similar
shot to the one that is used in my preliminary, also from my preliminary I learnt
that certain editing effects would work well in my thriller and I used the
letterboxing effect in both my preliminary and my actual thriller because I believed
that it worked well in both and therefore I used it. What I also learnt form my
preliminary was that I didn’t want much dialogue in my thriller because I thought
that I could build suspense by not using dialogue because I think the dialogue
in my preliminary was not very good. Also the preliminary was very good in it
taught me that certain things I would have tried to do in my thriller wouldn’t
work and therefore there was no need to put them into my storyboard because it
would just be changed when it came to filming and editing.
What would you do differently if you
could do it again?
I would choose a different actor to
play the role of the person who dies because I feel the way that that person
acted it was not very good because they did not portray any emotion or facial
expression in the filming despite being asked to do so and I feel that limited
how good my thriller could be and him not doing so I think damaged the quality
of the thriller because if he had acted it better than my thriller overall would
have benefited from that. What I also think I would do differently is the
location because I think that if I had a different location I could have maybe
chosen somewhere that was a bit more gloomy and dark instead of the place that I
did film in because it was quite bright and open and after thinking about it
next time I would want a gloomy and closed area because I think it would suit a
thriller more than where I filmed my thriller. What I would also do differently
is that I would try to avoid using the macs because they gave me problems
because they kept crashing and made me lose some of my work on thriller and
then I had to spend extra time replacing what I had lost when it crashed but I did
find a way round this and it was to keep saving my project so that I could
limit what I would lose when it crashed.
