Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 6

Question 6 – What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

All of the different types of technology we have used to create our media product so far have been completely new to me and so I started out as a beginner and had to learn along the way. This was the same for the other members in my group and so, in a way, this was good because it meant we could all work together and get to grips with the task ahead as a team, all at the same level. We started our blogs first and, instead of throwing ourselves straight into it, we each spent about an hour in class just becoming familiar with the website and the tools in which we used to achieve good blog posts. for further help in using blogger I used:


http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/blogger/ 

We worked out how to position images, change styles of fonts and the basic formatting skills for blog posts, this didn't take very long to master however and we felt like naturals already. After a few weeks of uploading posts and all of our research, we thought that including videos in our actual blog would help make it more interesting and set it out from some of the others. None of us knew how to do this however and so I researched for online tutorials and step by step instructions on how to upload videos onto Blogger. It was fairly simple in the end and we managed to include YouTube clips of existing thriller films which helped to aid our research and emphasis the points we were making.

As well as learning about the blogging world we also had to embark on a seemingly tricky journey to film our opening sequence, even though there were a few problems at the start we accomplished it fairly successfully. The equipment we were using was, once again, new to all of us and but this was exciting because it meant we were able to do something new and learn new skills. We had a DV camera and a tripod. The camera wasn't anything special as it didn't have high quality resolution of image and it also picked up all background sound but we worked it to our advantage. We ensured that we only had sound we needed in each scene by filming in quiet locations and if we couldn't do this then we decided to just mute the sound in the particularly noisy scenes during editing anyway. In terms of clear image and lighting, this was an obstacle. In our shooting schedule I made sure to plan it very carefully with all the timings and filming periods so that we could have as much or as little light as we needed. For example, for the graveyard scene, it needed to be a summers evening but because we were filming during winter we had to shoot in the afternoon otherwise it would get too dark for us to carry on. Apart from this the camera worked wonders and we were able to edit some of the lighting in some scenes, for it to look darker, after filming as well. The other piece of equipment we used was the tripod. It was not in good condition because it had been used a lot by previous students and so was quite worn out. The screw which enabled it to become taller or shorter was stiff and so at times we had to balance the tripod on a chair or try to hold it steady. The top of the tripod which allows the camera to pan across a shot was also loose or even at times quite stiff. This took up quite a lot of filming time because one of our shots was a pan across, following the husband, who arrives home and walks through the hall way. In the end we managed to get it to work but only with a clicking sound going with it and so we were a bit disappointed with it. We decided to cut that shot out of our opening sequence and just show the husband taking his coat off. This means that the initial plan from the story board had been altered.

Our media product wouldn't be anything without sound. We needed a musical score to play in the background for tension to be built up. We used the website “Free Play” to source some copyright free music and sound effects. It took a long time to find the right kind of music we were looking for because there were just hundreds of tracks to choose from. We had to type in key words such as “murder”, “tension” and “eerie”, into the search box to find the music and yet sometimes the tracks didn't have much relation to those key words so it could get frustrating. We spent a week listening to music and eventually downloaded six different tracks to mix and match throughout the opening, title sequence. Then was the next challenge, adding all the music we had gathered together to the footage we had edited.

During the time of editing the footage we had tried to use a variety of different cuts for example a quick cut montage for the murder scene. This meant that the music had to be synchronised with the timing of the film and this was quite hard. I had to cut a lot of the music and then re-position the introductions of certain sound effects and fade certain parts in and out. I spent a lot of time doing this because it needed to be just right in order for tension to be built up, for there to be audience expectation and for the general flow of the opening sequence, depending on whether it was a fast or slow scene. Once I had worked out how to use I-movie and how to use the tools to achieve certain affects then it was easy to use. I managed to make different shots seem faded or darker, an example of this in our work is, during the flash back, a special effect transition has been used to exit and enter a different scene. I did this with the music as well by turning up the volume in some areas or by overlapping two different tracks. 

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From the research leading into the filming and opening sequence of our film we researched and felt that the perfect audience for psychological thrillers was between the ages of 18 and 29. Whilst researching we found that the number of male viewers is much higher than female viewers. During the planning of our opening sequence we tried to make sure that we kept to the codes and conventions of thriller to be able to fully engage our thriller audience as they have been successful in achieving this target audience. Being only 16, 17 year olds, my group and I thought that it would be a bit complicated reaching this target audience. Although our original target audience was for those 15 and older, meaning films under the BBFC guidelines, hard narrative of the film. As our film does not fulfil all the criteria for 15+ film drugs, frequent use of strong language, violence, adult themes strong sexual references and nudity without graphic details can be used in our film and could be seen by the target audience. As our aim was an opening sequence and not the full film, our timeframe was 2-3 minutes which enabled us to introduce the film which would then lead up to bigger things as we are setting up the main narrative. The rating would be lowered as if it was being advertised to the general public. 

The main protagonists of our opening sequence are all middle aged characters as they are placed in situations which 15+ year olds would not understand or be able to relate to because they would often occur later on in their adult lives such as affairs (which is part of the narrative). Unfortunately this might be a downfall when it comes to achieving our primary target audience which we initially aimed for. However, those who will watch our final product will be of a different type of audience compared to the young adults set out to try and appeal during our planning and research. With our new secondary target audience we aim for middle aged men and women to view it, making it an equal target profile. Our editor Lydia pointed out that one of our main reasons for changing the target audience would be that “middle aged adults are less likely to seek out films that scare them and that are disturbing which are what the younger generation tend to go for". We plan on still having elements of thrillers which create suspense through the use of our score. For example when the lead male protagonist (played by Simon Duncan) wakes to his wife, yielding a knife, about to kill him, the score leading up to that part becomes jumpy and tense which sets the mood. The use of the knife has an inter-textual reference to Hitchcock, in the 1960 well known thriller, 'Psycho', shower scene where the knife is the key prop used in a brutal murder. The use of intertextual reference to such an iconic film our older audience members would know the film quite will making them want to watch our title sequence thus attraction them. As it was a popular film many are able to make the connection to the knife and Psycho also giving it a shack factor but ask it is familiar to them.  Our slightly older characters and target audience members are of the same age will be able to relate with the characters on screen, relating and sympathising with them, depending on the situations they are placed in.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1