Evaluation of my media product

Evaluation

Our media product follows the conventions of a thriller as the normal protagonist is an innocent, young female and the antagonist is an older male, my product follows this it also follows the convention that the antagonist is stronger than the protagonist, we also incorporated information of the antagonist as in some thrillers the antagonist is a stalker we used that in our product by creating a miniature shrine of the protagonist and placed different snap shots of pictures of the protagonist during the chase scene to shed some light on the antagonist like in ‘Cape Fear’ (1962) in which the antagonist starts stalking his victim. We also used suspenseful, unnerving and intense music during the title sequence this is to build up the tension before seeing any action. In our product we have a chase scene which is a common scene in the thriller genre as the protagonist is on a mission of escape which is almost impossible for the protagonist to do for this scene we have incorporated a dark and slightly aggressive piece of music to match the pace and feel of the chase and to add tension  the chase. For the conventions of a thriller there is normally a murder shown which is what we incorporated within our product with our protagonist getting murdered. Another convention we followed was that thrillers take place in dark, remote and unpopulated areas so we used a walkway by a canal under a bridge also for our media prodcut our opening there is no dialogue we only hear a little of ambient sound which is the protagonists and the antagonists footsteps and the birds and the opening ends at the scream of the protagonist. In some thriller openings a murder is shown which in our media product we have included. We challenge conventions by showing our antagonist in the opening sequence as in the thriller film genre you either see the antagonist later in the move or not at all. In our media product represents young, white females as that is our protagonist which is conventional for the thriller genre and our media product also represents an older white male which is conventional for the antagonist in the thriller genre stereotypical stalker/murderer wearing hoodies, jeans. In our product we did not include another ethnicity group as our protagonist or antagonist just like in ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’ (2009) which is a Horror/thriller film where the main roles of the cast are all white.

 

Our media product is a smaller independent film so for our media product we will need a media institution that has released successful British thriller films so the media institution that might distribute our media product would be e.g. Momentum Pictures which is one of the leading independent motion picture distributers in the UK and has distributed films like ‘Dead Man Down’ (2013) which was released early America this year, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (2009) and ‘Insidious’ (2010). This would be an institution that could distribute our product as it is both British and a Thriller. Another media institution that could distribute our film is LionsGate as it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America and the seventh most profitable movie studio, they have released thriller films like ‘American Psycho’ (2000) and Saw The audience for our media product would be people over the age of 12 as the film the film rating for our film would be a 12 as it contains moderate violence. Many thriller films are rated either 15 or over e.g. ‘Along Came a Spider’ (2001) which is rated 15 and also ‘Below’ (2002) which is also rated 15. To be rated as a 15 it could include strong violence, frequent strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence, discriminatory language or behaviour and drug taking. We aimed for any gender as it’s a thriller film mainly males they may be the majority of the audience, we aimed for any ethnicity group even though we only have one ethnic group involved in our product. The social classes our product would be mainly aimed for middle class and those below it as our product is a small independent film and person in upper class would mostly be expected to watch a big budget film with A-list actors involved.

To attract the audience would be from the music and the titles of our opening, as our music is unnerving and suspenseful it would draw the attention of the audience also the title of our film is in a different language and straight to the point of what the film will consist of. Also to attract the audience for our film we could do viral marketing getting inspiration from the viral marketing campaign of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012) where they had bat drawings around the world, we could have little pictures of our protagonist around the world and then posting where the pictures are on a website and when people find them send a picture into the website also we could have the trailer pop-up when you go on a website such as Yahoo also we could put teaser trailers and the official trailers online. With inspiration of 'The Dark Knight Rises' we could have a product such as they did with Moutain Dew help distribute our product, this would help attract the teenage audince. We could also put on websites fake police reports talking about the killer and the murder to get people interested in the plot of the film. Another way of attracting the audience would be to use QR’s which would normally be on a poster and using a phone app scan in the QR and it would direct you to a website which could consist of the trailer of the film and advertisements for the film. Also we could do traditional marketing where we could have the premiere in London and other big cities, radio interviews with the cast, the actors or directors going on chat shows or interviews in hotels, magazine/newspaper articles on the film, also advertisements on bus stops. If Momentum Pictures did distribute the film they could have their owner Entertainment One help promote the film.

 Using Adobe Premiere for the editing of our media product we learnt how to darken the shots we filmed to make it look like it was filmed in the evening also using the audio transitions when we faded the music also turning the ambient sound down during our chase scene and adding in music, also the best transition to use when fading (Cross Dissolve) in and out of our titles. When looking through the filming we did, using Adobe Premiere we learnt the best transitions for our shots by splicing and putting together shots to see how they looked. Using BlogSpot we learnt how to input videos from YouTube and pictures and screen grabs into our blog. We used a Sony HD camera 1080p and we learned what camera angles and what movements looked best for our scenes, and if to zoom in and out of shots.

Looking back at my preliminary task in which we didn't really know how to operate a camera or which shots would look best for our task, for our media product operating the camera was much easier than before and we applied that in our media project by knowing what camera angles and movements looked most effective for our genre of film. With a good knowledge on the 180-degree rule was very good so we could not confuse the audience if we didn't stick to the rule we applied that to our media product by when filming the side view of the actors running we only filmed on one side and we did not switch to filming on the other side of the actors. From using Adobe Premiere for our preliminary task we had a good idea on what effects and transitions to use for our scenes and importing the music to see what different effects and transitions sounded best.