Media Evaluation

Media Evaluation:
In the build up to creating my final media thriller, we watched already existing thrillers to gather inspiration and analyse the conventions of the openings to see what was effective in them to help us when creating our thriller. We watched the openings to The Shining, What Lies Beneath, Seven, Psycho and many others.

Some conventions that we found frequently occurred when watching these openings were: An Establishing shot to show us the place of action, the setting, the time and place and setting the atmosphere for the rest of the film, dark lighting to set the mood of the thriller film, titles popped up in all of them. Sounds were over emphasized for the ‘thriller’ (jumpy) effect, we found that there is always a victim and a killer with a simple beginning, middle, end format to the film keeping it straight forward and understandable for the audience when watching, the plots in the film are usually very simple stories but dramatized by the effects and camerawork used.
I tried to use some of these codes and conventions of existing thrillers so it would keep in line with the quality of thrillers that are being made professionally.

The main inspiration for my thriller was ‘What lies beneath’ because I felt as if it give off a great eerie mood which I wanted to create in my own. The things that really appealed to me when watching it were – That it was set in a house with a girl being alone, the tense feeling around the film, the over emphasized noises that created a awkward atmosphere, the use of house props+ lighting that are familiar to everyone and the audience can relate to it. Also I thought the feeling of emptiness and being alone really well so I used this theme in my own. All of the conventions listed I thought worked well in that film so I decided to work with them when creating my thriller opening, using the basic techniques used in ‘ What lies beneath’.
Even though my thriller opening does fit with typical conventions of a thriller by using its conventions, it also challenges real media products in the way that it is not an obvious thriller genre until watched thoroughly when real conventions (Variety of camera angles, over emphasized noises in the film, quick cuts, music that creates tension, the use of typical props, mirror, knife etc) are noticed. In addition, it challenges the camerawork and angles of already existing thrillers by keeping the shots tighter rather than loose and by creating different angles to excite the viewer when watching.

When creating the thriller opening many things have to be thought through before going ahead and shooting, like how is the media product we are going film represent particular social groups. The character, girl that stars in my thriller is 17 so therefore I believe that the thriller opening that I have created could be aimed at a teen and above audience because of the relation of audience to the character, she is also a normal everyday girl so that everyone could identify and relate to her. Also the gender audience could be an issue when creating a thriller but I believe I have equally balanced the genders and the main character is a girl and the killer is a man so could show diversity in gender rather than just appealing to one. Another representation that has to be taken into consideration is racial groups as this is very important when marketing the film. The girl that stars in the thriller is of a mixed origin, as it is not purposely aimed at a particular racial group. I purposely didn’t use any religious themes or props in the thriller because I didn’t want it to be restricted to what audience could watch it. I am conforming to standard representations that are made in films where the evil killer is the male and the victim is a female.

Media institutions and distributions are a big deal when marketing a film as they can make or break a film as such. I would like to distribute my thriller film worldwide as to prevent piracy so to give everyone the same opportunity to watch the thriller, like Indiana Jones was released like this and because of this style of release it prevented all piracy and illegal downloads etc. Also thinking of the financial side of the business a worldwide release of a film would maximize the profits for the film. I would not choose to release it over the internet (you tube , my space) because some people may not be able to gain access to or be familiar with it therefore again I feel that would limit audience figures. I would also like to distribute my film in all cinemas allowing everybody with their own choice to get involved.

After researching many institutions and distributers I have chosen Maple Pictures to distribute my media product because they have had many successful films and people may associate the name Maple Pictures with already existing films that have done well on release so if ours is distributed under this name people may use this association and think the same.
Maple Pictures successful films: The haunting, Transporter, The Spirit, Crank etc these films show how many films have done well under this name and also these films star some of Hollywood’s biggest names including Jason Statham who is a well known British actor and does well in America too.

Attracting audiences and ratings to do with the thriller is another big theme when thinking about films and marketing. I would make the rating a 15 because it is not scary enough to become an 18 but I wouldn’t take a 12 year old to see it because I believe if the film was taken further it would have blood, killing etc which I don’t think is suitable for a 12 year old to watch. I would say that the market for our audience would be older teens from 15+ so that they could sympathize and relate to the girl in the film and also this age would appreciate the content and storyline of the film. The class of our audience could be both working and middle class as it is set in a flat and she is a normal girl so I wouldn’t think the upper class would watch something like this is they had a choice, I made the thriller with this in mind. I don’t believe that by doing this I am losing a great audience because others would be attracted to it. The audience I have chosen is mainstream rather than a niche market because it is easier to appeal to a wider audience rather than using specific criteria to appeal to a smaller audience.

A typical person who would fit into my target audience would be a older teen (16/17) who was at college and had interests in thriller/horror films and in their spare time likes to go out to the cinema with friends etc.
Attracting audiences to come and see the film is very important as this can be done in a variety of ways, if done well then is very successful. I would market my film by TV advertisements because the majority of people watch TV and I would choose to market it on prime time television because that’s the time that most of the public watch TV so therefore more would see the advertisements and be tempted into going to see the thriller.

Another way I would market my product is by putting on a trailer in the cinema before already existing films because it would be shown to cinema lovers who go to the cinema and want to watch a film, also lastly I would advertise it on social network/ internet sites because there is frequent use of those by people of 15+ who I have aimed my film at. There could be a link to the trailer so that anybody can gain access to this trailer.

When creating this thriller opening I learned a lot about technologies from the process of constructing my media product. I learnt a hell of a lot when creating this project, as everything was new to me, so as I went on in the process everything I learned was new and effective for me. I filmed most of the footage for the media product so I found that I had to get to grips and practise a lot with the camera for example: recording, tripod, moving it, angles etc. When all of the footage was filmed when then transferred it into an application called Final Cut Pro where most of the cutting and editing was done to produce the final clips. I found final cut pro easy to use and simple to understand one the technicians had demonstrated what to do. After using final cut pro to edit the piece we had to add sound so we used an application called Soundtrack Pro to create the music that fitted with the piece we created. After the sound and the moving image were created to top it off and make it look like an already existing thriller we used a program called live Type to make the titles for the beginning of the opening. These were the basic Apple Mac programs that we used to create the final product. We also used an Internet based site called Blogger where we recorded the filming process and practically wrote a diary on our progress when making the thriller. We commented on what happened in the lessons, what we did to film, edit etc and overall what we learned from doing this. After finishing the media product I posted on the Blogger website so that people looking on the website could see what I had created again giving more people the change to see the opening. I believe by doing this the Internet could widen the potential audience for the product.

Looking back on the build up to of this project we did many exercises and practise films etc to gather experience for when we created the final product. We did a match cut exercise where we had to make a practise film using match cuts and go through the same process and edit etc the film so that we had experience when doing our final one. I found helpful that we had practise sessions with the camera to get us familiar with the use of it and also the tripod. I also found that storyboarding and the postproduction exercises that we did really helped in consideration with the final product. I believe now looking back at it that the planning in the build up to this product was critical because it laid out a plan of what we had to film and we made a schedule on where and when we was going to film to we had a set criteria and plan for all of the days of producing which really helped.