Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
Technical Difficulties
Some technical difficulties that we happened to encounter was that when filming some shots there wasn't enough light in the scene and the space was too small for us to put lights in there also we found that the camera would run out of charge quickly which meant that we were against the clock. Also when it came to editing Premiere Pro was sometimes hard to understand when comparing it to iMovie which is more simplistic but less effective. We also had to work on the same Mac every time we edited our film because it was saved to that particular Mac which made it hard when for some reason we couldn't use it. In addition sometimes we found that when it came to editing the clips that we filmed they were alot darker and quieter then we thought so we had to edit them which altered the quality of the footage making it look terrible, this then caused us to re-film these clips.
Software and hardware
The software that we used was Premiere Pro. We decided to use this because we found that you could do alot more with it compared to iMovie. One problem with this software was that because it was so advanced we found that sometimes we didn't know what we were doing so we had to look at YouTube videos explaining how to use it. We used my own camera which is a Nikon D5200, with this camera we found that it was easier to use because i already knew how to use it and the footage that we filmed with it was high quality, which made out end product look professional.
Shots and edits
One shot that I was really proud of was the close up of the murder weapon which is being dropped by the hooded figure, we decided to use a slow motion effect on this shot because we thought that it would emphasise the importance of the weapon. We found that it was easy to do this on Premier Pro and looked really effective. I also really liked the way that we edited the shots of the man tying his shoe laces, what i mean by this was that we edited them together so the action of his hand would flow smoothly through the two shots. I like these shots because we managed to cut the clips accurately to make them flow.

Improvements
The improvements I would make to our product are edit the shots so they are more effective and snappy, grabbing the attention of the audience. This would also make our product seem more appealing and would include more conventions of the thriller genre.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?
When deciding what type of film we wanted to make, we found that our decisions were influenced by our own age group. Because we are 16/17 we found that we were naturally attracted to films that were most commonly associated with our age group and those of which we found appealing, we thought that choosing a genre of film this way would make making the film, and coming up with ideas a lot easier, in addition we thought that it would be easier to make the film opening/story line attractive to us because we would be seen as part of the target audience. The genres we found that were more attractive to our age group were either rom-coms or thrillers. In the end we decided to chose the thriller genre because we thought it would be easier to make it appealing and exciting to the target audience. We also wanted to target females in our target audience because we found that thrillers were popular with males but not females and we wanted our film to be a film that was different. We made our film attractive to females by having a female main character, she is also being presented as being the protagonist of the story. We thought by having a woman in our film that our film would be targeting females because they would be able to relate to them more then a male viewer would.
We also thought that by having an interesting storyline we would attract more people. When choosing  our storyline we wanted it to be something that was different, that is why we decided to have the main character being crazy and slightly mental. We thought this wouldn't be expected by the audience and therefore would be really good and would make the film attractive. When looking at characters in our film we had both male and females which attracts a wide range of people.
The shots that we have used include a close up of the main characters eyes looking straight into the camera which makes it seem like she is looking directly at the audience and therefore make it more appealing because she is literally staring the audience in the face, which directly addresses the audience. There is also a point of view shot which puts the audience in the characters shoes which I think allows the audience to feel what the character is feeling and then again directly addresses the audience.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 1

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

Narrative

Our narrative uses a non linear structure which isn't as common as linear. Our narrative is non linear because as you can see in the opening you see the killing which is stereotypically in the middle and if it would have been in the middle then our narrative would have a linear narrative because the climax would be in the centre of the story. Our film has the climax at the start and then the rest of the film includes the resolution. We challenged the conventions of a linear structure by adding flash backs in the opening while she is developing the photo, you see what she thinks is a killing. This highlights that our narrative doesn’t have a linear structure. Our film is in chronological order but then again we challenged the conventions of the stereotype by adding flashbacks. We liked the narrative that was used in the film Identity which in the opening shows the audience a lot of different information to do with the film and then spends the rest of the film explaining the pieces of information that was introduced to the audience in the opening, we thought it worked really effectively and creates suspense and confusion. We also challenged the stereotypes of the thriller genre by having a female protagonist, but then it also conforms to the stereotype by having a male protagonist. We also really liked the idea of our main character turning out to be mental unstable which in some cases could imply that she is the antagonist of the story and therefore again challenged the stereotype of the thriller genre. 

Sound

Within our opening we have included eerie sounds for example dripping water which we think creates suspense, this therefore conforms to the conventions of a thriller because the sounds within a thriller film are supposed to create suspense to the audience. We also used the sound of the camera clipping which links to our narrative because our main character is a photographer. By using this sound I think it makes our film challenge the conventions of real media products because I think photographers aren’t normally seen in thrillers but then again there has been occasions where photographers are in thriller films as stalkers and therefore they become a convention of the genre. The music we have chosen for our opening I think conforms to the stereotype because it creates suspense and entices the audience because there is a climb in the music when the title of the film in introduced to the audience. 

Location

Our opening starts off with the photographer in the darkroom we think the idea of the darkroom conforms to the stereotype because it is a dark and unknown location, it also has the typical red light which suggests to the audience that something bad is going to happen. The darkroom is also quite a secluded place and it’s also very mysterious in the way that you don’t know what is going to happen when developing photo which adds to the atmosphere and adds to the suspense of the opening. So having our opening partly set in a dark room conforms to the stereotype of real media products. We also used a park as the other location, I think this challenges the conventions because a park is typically scene as a happy and bright place where children can play together, but within our opening we have completely subverted the idea of a park and made it dark and almost abandoned which then helps it meet the conventions of real media products because it is almost scary and that makes the opening climatic.  

Editing

Within our editing we decided to make our shots snappy to create suspense and builds up tension for the audience this is a convention of real media products and we found that when we used this technique in our opening it really attracts the audience and makes them aware that it is a thriller. We also added a red tint on the darkroom scenes which adds to the narrative and the colour red is a convention of the genre because it denotes danger and death. 

Shots

We used a lot of close up shots which is a convention of real media products as you can see in the opening of the film Identity. Close up shots create suspense and almost makes the shot more personal. There is also a point of view shot that is used in our film which is another convention of the genre, this shot puts the audience into the characters shoes and allows them to be more effected by what happens in the film. We have tried to use a range of shots throughout the opening to our film. We have used long/establishing shots to introduce a setting which is a stereotypical shot to use.

Credits and Titles

We went for bold fonts for our titles and the name of the film because we wanted it to stand out. We liked the idea of the letters coming one by one in the title of the film as you can see in our film, we got this idea from the film Identity, we thought it would look quite effective. We also used white font to make it stand out against the background and we liked the idea of the film Shutter Island’s title, with it against the plain background. I think by doing this the audience notices the title easily because there isn’t anything else to look at.  

Post Production: Editing and sound