Product Evaluation Q1

Evaluation Question 1

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

Example and Description	Explanation of how it uses, develops, challenges conventions
Title of Film	The title of our film is ‘It never happened’ this title suggests that the two characters in the film didn’t want people to know what they did and they wanted to keep their murder a secret. We decided to do this so that the audience had a slight knowing of what the film was about. We decide to use the same convention from a film that we were influenced by. The film “I’ll always know what you did last summer” was an example of the type of film we wanted to create. The title suggests that something bad has happened like in our film title.
Location/ Setting	Our film starts off in the forest, like in most murder films this is a typical setting. To get the feeling we wanted we decided to use the same setting as in the other thriller films that use that similar scene. The film ‘The Hunger Games’ is a great example of what type of setting we were trying to create. The woods we are using a quite dark and mysterious, we decided to use the same type of setting that was used in the ‘Hunger Games’ as it would work well with our genre of film.
How the characters were introduced	We wanted our characters to be introduced after the title sequence; we wanted this because it would be able to add more effect for the viewer. This gives the viewer more suspicion to who the boys are. We got the idea to do this from the film ‘Hot Fuzz’. We were influenced by this film because they had a murderer that was not known and you had to guess who they were. I our film we decided to introduce the characters quicker so they audience were only wondering who the killers were for a short part of the film.
Genre	Our film has been based around the thriller/ social realism genre. We had been influenced by other films like ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Seven’. Both of these films are surrounded by murder and lying. We felt that this would best fit our film. In seven there has been a murder and the film is about covering up the murder. Then in Kidulthood it is an extremely social realism film. The film is showing the day life of a London teenager. We decided that these two films really highlighted our film and could come out in the opening scene.
Costumes	The costumes that we got our actors to wear were really influence by recent television series. We really wanted to make our film suitable for a social realism film. To do this we needed to make our characters look as much like modern teenagers as possible. The two TV programs that we decided to get our costumes from were ‘Misfits’ and ‘Skins’. These two series are the most modern that we could find. The costumes that the characters wear are really up to date. The clothes that they wear are the type of clothes we want our characters to wear.

Product Evaluation Q2

Evaluation Question 2

 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Before we started film our opening scene we thought a lot about who we wanted our characters to be. We were thinking of a lot of different social groups that they could be from and for each group we would have a different costumes and the film would be different for each one. The first group we decided to use was a low class group at the low end of the socio-economic table. Their costumes consisted of tracksuit trousers and a black jumper or jacket. We got this idea from a film like ‘Attack the Block’ (top picture) because they have got the older fashioned clothes in their film.  However just before we started filming our opening scene we decided that we wanted to go for a more modern look and to have our murders higher up the socio-economic scale. By doing this we haven’t followed a stereotype, we have taken the costumes from a different film like ‘Green Street’ (bottom picture) where their costumes look more in-line with modern fashion. By giving them this costume change we have completely changed the socio-economic group they would be seen from. We have challenged the normal way of making the lower end socio-economic groups look bad, we have made the higher classed groups look bad this time by making the murderers look like they are from the wealthier groups.

Product Evaluation Q3

Evaluation Question 3

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

During the production of our film we did some research on the companies that would be willing to distribute our film under their name. To find out the types of film companies that would do we had to do some reseach on the films that are in our genre. After a lot of research we found some distribution companies that would be willing to have our film under their name. the first one is 'Revolver entertainment', this distributer has been involved with our genre before and has had films like 'Kidulthood' and 'The Imposter'. We decided that this company would be good for our film because they are involved with the thriller genre. The second distributer we thought would be good to cover our film was 'Pathe' we decided to go with this companie because they are quite a well know company but still take on low budget films. They would be able to do a lot of funding for our film, however they do not particulary fund thriller films. We decided to go with these companys because of their background and the type of films that they have distributed in the past. We felt they were the two distribution companys that were the best suited for our film.

Product Evaluation Q4

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your product?

The audience that we have decided to target our film at is teenagers, mainly male teenagers. The genre of our film is thriller and social realism. We have decided to pick this genre because this is the genre that our target audience would want to see more. The film has been targeted at this audience because of the type of characters that we have got in our film. The two murderers are typical teenage boys, you are able to see this because of the clothes that they are wearing. The age group that we would expect to see our film and have targeted our film at is from 15-18. We also targeted our film at the middle class and working class social groups. We decided to do this because in other films the murderer comes from a lower class social group and we wanted to challenge that. The characters that we have are normal boys that live a normal life. They go to school, have friends and do other normal teenage boy activities. The reason we wanted to have the characters like this was so that they could relate to them and then when they relate to them the film become much better and they would enjoy it more.

Product Evaluation Q5

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience has been brought forward by the type of characters that we have created in our film opening. As our film is a social realism it means that it is able to really interact with  the audience of our film. Because our film has been based on a stereotype of a teenage group coming from a well off family it is not normal for this stereotype to be used. The stereotype used is normally of a poor family. This is attracting the audience more as they would want to know what these boys have been perceived as. We wanted to make our audience of the film the same as the characters in the film because we felt that this would be the most interesting for the audience. We also decided that our teenagers were going to be modern than in other films, we did this because we felt that this would also attract our audience more than if they were wearing old fashioned clothes. By doing this we are challenging the conventions of poor family's that have raised murderers and thief's. We wanted to stop that stereotype by making our murderers come from well off family's.
To address our audience with our film we wanted to be able to tell them about the film in ways that they would see the most. We decided to go with most social networks and to put up posters promoting the film in areas that teenagers would visti the most. These places are like gyms, supermarkets and other social areas. As a low budget film we couldn't do as much advertsing as the blockbuster films but as our audience are teenagers we flt that the social networks would be able to do the same affect. We used most social netwroks like FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube.

Product Evaluation Q6

Evaluation Question 6

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

Planning

During our planning and research stages I have used Blogger to keep and see later all of my information and research that we have found about what we can do for our film. I have also use blogger to be able to show all of my stages of production like when we choose the music, do more editing and change the shots that we want. I also used a social network, Face Book, to keep in touch with my other team members and organise when we will be filming and editing. I used Google and IMDb as my research engines to be able to find other films that were similar to our film and I could make comparisons to. To find similar films I researched thriller films and horror films. I also got ideas of different filming techniques and methods from YouTube that we could use in our film. We used a Canon camera to take pictures of the different locations that we were going to film in.

Production



During our production we used a Canon legria FS200 which is a handheld camera to capture all of our shots. To capture the sounds we used a Rode Microphone. The camera is a good quality and is able to capture all of the movements that our characters created. The microphone was also able to keep up with the camera. Even though quite a lot of our film has got a quite sound of just the background noise in the forest. We then used a Camlink tripod to capture the still shots that we needed.

Pre-Production

After all of our shots had been filmed there have been a whole lot of programmes and websites that we used to edit and make our production the best it could be. To do all of the editing we used a programme called Adobe Fireworks. With this we are able to do all of the editing that we needed to. We were able to make our film the right lenght and to make all of the approprate cuts.

Product Evaluation Q7

Product Evaluation Question 7

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I have noticed a large change in the style of filming and being able to notice when the different types of shots are needed. I think I am able to realise when a cretain shot is needed. I think during the editing I have learnt a whole new set of skills that are able to help in futrue editing. I feel that since the preliminary task I have been able to use editing tools alot easier and quicker. I am able to notice more mistakes in my work and I am able to make changes to that.

The biggest difference between the prelimenary task and the main task was the amount of shots and length they would have to be. Unlike in the prlimenary task the main task needs sound, mise en scen and more editing in it.

 At the start of making the main product we created a storyboard and on that story board we had created our entire 2 minute opening scene for our film. What we soon realised was that to make the full length opening scene there needed to be alot more shots and they needed to be longer aswell. From here we went on to make more clips and do alot more filming. Our first cut was average and we hadn't filled the full 2 minutes. So we quickly learnt that there needed to be alot more than what we had. After the second draft we started to look at music and editing in more detail. We soon found that the music needed to be a bit quieter than i was so that we could still hear the footsteps and the noises around the boys. From the editing I learnt that you constatly need to check through what you have done so that you know it flows and runs smoothly. After a lot of shooting and using different shots we noticed many different things going wrong with the camerawork. These problems were because of lighting and the area that we filmed in. We soon learnt that we needed to dot he filming at similar times so the lighting was right and the continuity was correct. We couldnt have it daytime in one shot then darker in the next.