Evaluation

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

Our media production utilised various techniques and conventions of real media products, for example; we followed the rule of continuity editing throughout to maintain a coherent narrative. (example)
Like conventional films we introduced our protagonist at the start of our opening credits identifying her as the central character and as the one that the audience would empathise with. We also emphasised that the male was the more dominate character.

In this scene from the film 'Hostel' it is clear that the victim is female and the villain, who has apparently tied her up, is male.

Whilst filming we used a range of various shot types including:

Long shots for orientation and to establish mise en scene


Close ups to illustrate emotion/reactions

Point of view shots to include the audience in the narrative

When setting up the composition for our shots we concentrated on having things symmetrical and framed correctly; this gives the shots a formal style.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product doesnt concentrate on representing any particular social groups, however we do have a traditional representation of gender. Binary opposition is seen throughout and this intensifies the power of the male character and the weakness of the female. The canal sequence, in itself a bleak and isolated location highlights the current issue of women alone and their safety in public.

The mise-en-scene of the opening sequence hints at the stereotypical idea of working class in the manual labour industry. Features such as graffiti and old derelict factory buildings (which are typical of towns in North West England, such as Leigh) suggest that it's more of a working class area. Therefore our project may perhaps reflect negatively on such areas, implying that they are not safe.

Films such as This Is England use mise-en-scene to create a sense of working class Britain.

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

A film of this genre, horror/thriller/gore would be likely to be distributed LIONSGATE which was the film distributor for the 'Hostel' and 'Saw' films.

However, our film is of a very low budget and was completed within a short space of time therefore it would be distributed on the internet where a wide variety of people could reach it. This would be a cheap option for advertising. It could also be marketed by independant film distibutors such as these:

http://www.vervepics.com/

http://www.guerilla-films.com/

http://www.sodapictures.com/

http://www.axiomfilms.co.uk/

As opposed to commercial cinemas such as Odeon or Vue, independant art house cinemas have a strong following of our target audience, for example 'The Corner House' in Manchester.

4. Who would be the audiences for your media product?

The targeted audience for the film is 18 - 25 and is influenced by films such as 'Saw' and 'Hostel' which are typically student orientated. The characters in the films reflect the target audience by age, personality and stereotypes. Even though the males characters personality is displayed to be immature and child-like, his implied age is older than the female character. This reflects the target audience's stereotypical view that older working class males objectify young women.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our antogonists mannerisms are meant to be implicit of the fact that he has psychological issues and driven by insanity. This attracts the target audience because it links with previous professional films such as the psychological thriller, 'Psycho'

As the lead character is a teenage girl, our target audience are able to relate to her situation. As the relationship grows between the audience and her, the audience become more emotionally involved with the narrative and therefore are attracted to the film.

6. What have your learnt about technologies from the process of contructiong this product?

During editing we discovered that because of the camera used the lighting was effected as the camera adjusted to the light when shooting from different angles. This was because the white balance on the camera was automatic and it couldn't be mannually altered

an example of (an initially unintentional) change in lighting

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back through our preliminary footage we realised the importance of the 180 degree rule, as it maintains continuity. During editing of actual production we noticed that we had crossed the 180 degree rule line. To rectify this we shot the sequence again to ensure that this time the 180 degree rule line was not crossed, therefore the sequence flowed more fluently.

180 degree rule demonstrated

Aniya, Hannah, Beth and Luke.