Harry Buckle - Evaluation

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

As a group, we deiced that we would base the film around "Bill", a recently ex-patient of an insane asylum, which he was sent to by his family. We ended up drawing some inspiration from Norman Bates for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". To pay a homage to the film, we put Bill's victim in a shower.

Shot 1

shot 2

shot 3

shot 4

shot 5

shot 6

shot 7

shot 8

Shot 1

• We used the radio to connect the different shots with a sound bridge, showing that they are all related to each other.
• The use of a western themed piece of music contrasts the scene, as you would normally hear a similar piece in an action film, rather than a thriller.
• This, accompanied by the pencil scribbling and the shower running, are the only sounds we use in the extract. This helps emphasize what the camerawork and mise en scene is trying to show.
• The radio also might make the spectator ask "how is this relevant to the film?" or "does this connect with the protagonist?"

Shot 2

• We used this to establish the doctor's work place and set one of the two scenes for the spectator.
• The uncaring nature of how the doctor throws down the medical file shows that the patient is a pain to deal with or that the doctor disliked him in someway.
• It is clear that this is a doctor due to his white laboratory coat.

Shot 3

• This POV shot is to establish the hallway of the house and set the other scene of the film for the spectator.
• The messy floors show a struggle or a form of obstacles to slow someone down.
• The slow, yet jerky movements display a fatigue about whoever the point of view is from - which is presumed, by the spectator, as the protagonist. This shows that the girl or someone else may have slowed him down.
• The loud, muffled sound of the water from the shower acts as a marker to where the camera is going to go.

Shot 4

• This shows that the protagonist is looking for something/someone, but, as said earlier, the loud pour of the shower is an indicator to them to where they should go.
• The struggle is still shown in the room through a larger mess. This displays a larger struggle in that room than one in the hallway.
• The cameraman does not look all the way around the room. this shows that there might be someone else in the places he didn't look.
• This all helps set up of an additional character to enter later on.

Shot 5

• The form shows the name "Bill". This helps establish Bill as an important character, or even the POV in the other scene in the film.
• This shows a end or beginning to the relationship between the doctor and Bill.
• The Pencil scratching can be associated with scratching on a chalk board which is known to be unpleasant.
• The jerking movements can be seen as nervous twitches of the doctor, due to working with mentally unfit patients.

Shot 6

• The doctor smokes to show that he is under stress.
• The little amount seen of the doctor's face shows that he isn't important to the story.
• The dull colours of the room emphasize the brightness of the cigarette end.

Shot 7

• The doctor's frantic scribbles at the end shows his urgency to finish with Bill.
• As the camera slowly zooms in, it helps frame the signature.
• The less we see of this scene, the more mystery is created about the doctor and his relationship between him and Bill.
• Although the signature is scribbled on, the rest of the form is neat and efficient, reflecting the Doctor's personality.

Shot 8

• The source of the pounding of water is reveled, showing a girl.
• She has clearly been in the shower for a lengthy time, as she is drenched with water.
• Her hunched over posture shows vulnerability and fear.
• She is an enigma to the spectator, as it isn't clear how she got there.

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

• The Female character: A 15-17 year old female. She is, admittedly, portrayed as weak and defenseless in the few seconds we see her. We chose to show her as the victim as it is normally the convention of most thrillers that the young female character is the most defenseless.
  
• The Doctor: A late teen/early 20's male. His portrayal is as a bystander rather than a actual character, but he can also been seen as jumpy or nervous. About what is unclear.
  
• The POV character: A 17-19 year old male. This is presumed to be Bill. A strong and powerful character and the polar opposite to The female character. While this character's appearance is unclear, we can still see what he is like through his actions.

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

I see our product as an Independent film either shown on Arthouse cinemas or in a Film Festival. Its low budget would only be enough to distribute around the UK. To achieve this we would have to use a distribution company like ICA or LionGate Films. Another way to distribute our film would be through the internet. This would probably be easier as it would cut out the Distribution and Exhibition part to the process of getting the product out to the spectators.

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

I see our certificate as 15+ as our product would use gratuitous violence for certain scenes. I feel that our actual audience would be 17-24 year olds (young adults). I see this as our audience because of of the adult themes and the complex narrative. I see male audience members being a slightly larger percentage of spectators than female members as they are more likely to be fans of violence.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through the use of enigmas, restricted and complex narrative, for example the radio and the female character in the shower. The lack of dialogue also was used as an enigma in this.

We addressed our audience by using the POV shots of the unknown character to put them in his view point and sympathies with the character. Also, the female character looking up in the last scene causes mystery in the story.

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

http://vocaroo.com/?media=v0v33k4WLcqLLZnf4

Please excuse the low volume and the delay at the beginning.

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

• Editing:- I have learnt a lot about editing during this time period. While the preliminary task was filmed quickly, I feel that I didn't got involved enough during the editing. In this task, I feel as if I have achieved this as this was a bigger project because of the the gain in creative freedom I have gained.
  
• Time Management:-
  I feel that the preliminary was taken with less severity than this task and, as such, our time management to an avoidable hit. But, in this task, the stages of making the product was a lot more organized than in the preliminary task. This is due to the substantial knowledge I gained from the mistakes of our preliminary.

Josh Godlington - Thriller intro evaluation

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

• The radio in our intro acts as part of a soundbridge which helps create tension through what is played on the radio
• The radio itself becomes part of the iconography as the music that is played from it goes along with the pace of the intro and therefore becomes more recognisable
• Enigma is created along with the music playing as there is no dialogue so it becomes the only thing we can truly hear except for any diagetic sound made by the pencil writing or the sound of the shower

• The shots where the unknown character is writing in the file is important as it creates enigma as to who is this character and what is he writing about
• This is an element used in many intro to thrillers
• The file shots also do not show a clear protagonist/antagonist 
• The shots also have a restricted narrative as there is no clear plot indication

                                                                                                                                                      

 

• The hallway Point of view shot uses thriller conventions by again creating and using enigma and restricted narrative
• The elements of mise en scene add to the shot like the clothes and other objects
• The scattered objects and clothes show the some type of antagonist had been there or that they were looking for something
• It adds enigma as it isnt clear why it is like this or what they were looking for
• The Point of view element of it is also creating mystery as it doesn't show clearly if it is the point of view of an antagonist or a protagonist

•  The shower shots ask the question why is she there, how she got there and if she is an antagonist/protagonist
• Because she is in a running shower, sitting in a a curled position she shows her self to be a protagonist but a more of a vulnerable protagonist
• This is where the soundtrack cuts as the atmosphere of the scene becomes integral

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

• Our media project would aim more for the early to late teen audiences due to the characters

The unknown character

• The unknown character who is imlpied through the file shots and the point of view shots in our storyline is meant to be a male character maybe around the age of 17 - 20 
• Although the forms dont really show what the character is about, they are meant to be medical forms which say what was wrong with the protagonist

The female character 

• The female character is shown to be a protagonist but a vulnerable one
• Her positioning in the intro shows her to be a victim of this unknown antagonist

  

• The way that the seen female and the unknown male characters are represented would attract the more early to late teen audiences as i feel it shows that people close to or even at their age are vulnerable and can still be affected by problems of their own minds 

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

• I think that a British film instituition would distribute our film but more especially an independent British film instituition as the independent film companies help get the more small homebased films get distribution
• I feel that because of its low production values, I think it would be harder to get it distributed to America because even their standards in the American independent market are very high
• But because of its low production values, it shouldnt mean that it wouldn't get distributed because i feel that it should get picked up more because of its plot elements and its "British" thriller elements.

4. Who would be the audience for your media project.

• Similar to how does it represent social groups, I feel that who we represent in the film would be our audience as they would be able to associate more with it.
• also, i think that the audience that independent british cinema brings in because as of more recent there have been more and more younger film makers and actors so it has become a market to the younger generation aswell as any one who prefers british film

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• We attracted our Audience more through the use of mise en scene as it is of course what you see through out the intro
• The house- what our audience like about the house interior was the idea that some one had been there but had been there to do more than trash the place
• The clothing on then floor had shown appeal with our audience as they liked how it was more modern like jeans and t shirts.
• This shows that it would have appeal with a younger audience as it shows that it represents them.
• Sound - The sound of the intro is an original piece so in that the audience recognised it as something original and new instead of using a song that they may of heard on the radio over and over again.

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

• Sorry for no recording, audio on recording was very low but i wrote what i was going to say

• When we came to film our thriller intro, i feel i learnt a lot about how to actually film it through framing. One example is when we were filming the desk shots. We had underanticipated how close the desk was to the wall so it made the framing more close then i think we would of prefered. The point of view shots of the hallway were also a learning curve as they were probably the hardest to film. Editing showed itself more when it came to it especially during the final cut process where you can see how frustrating and slow it can become. The sound editing was perhaps one of the easiest parts as i had done it prior to the thriller project.

 

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

• From doing the preliminary which was purely just to show our knowledge of film techniques and how to do them, i don't think i have just learnt more but improved on techniques that were used prior
• I have learnt more about white balance and how even if you say you are going to fix it in editing by adjusting the levels, it can still have contrast problems and saturations in the final piece
• I have learnt more about continuity and how it can ruin the flow for an individual viewer watching it and how continuity also is more than what is on the screen but the flow of the story which our media thriller piece is more based on its back story
• One thing i think i have learnt is the use of the soundtrack and how it can tell more of the story where in our preliminary we used soundbites from garage band for our soundtrack where we have progressed where we have made our own soundtrack.
• We had also tried to become more organised. This allowed us to have a better workflow for example when two of us when off to edit the film, the other two went off to post on the blog.

Michael Maddock

The Evaluation

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

• (Radio Still) The music, generally in thrillers the music fits perfectly to the actions on the screen. In my thriller we use contrapuntal sound challenging the norm of thrillers. This is good because it catches the viewer’s attention and maybe they will want to keep watching to see if there are any more interesting features.
• Editing, like many thrillers the editing in my thriller opening is key to drawing in the audience and making the feel for the rest of the film. We decided to use parallel editing, in doing this we hoped to quickly draw the viewer in. And in turn this fitted with the conventions of a thriller opening.
• Dialog, The opening shot of the thriller doesn’t have any dialog this is common in quit a few thriller as it creates tension and after all tension will keep us watching.

• (Shower shot) Normally in a thriller their would be music were the first bit of action is but we challenged this. When we get are first bit of action there is no music just the shower noise, The shower noise is louder than normal and this creates the atmosphere were as we believed and the audience agreed music would of destroyed this atmosphere.

• (Writing Report) In are opening nearly every other shot is a man writing a report, we never see his face and in these shots not a lot is happening. I got the influence for these shots of the film “girl with the dragon tattoo” were an old man receives a letter slowly undoes it, reads it and cry’s. In doing this in creates a sense of wonder and so we want to watch on so is a common convention of thriller openings.

• (Flooded bathroom) Often in thrillers their isn’t a cut when the action is about to happen but we challenged the normal thrill opening and decided when are first bit of action happened instead of just letting it play we would cut it. Just as we enter the bathroom and have a real sense of atmosphere it cuts to the report writing. The report is closed and we feel like the opening is over before it’s started but then it returns and we see the girl in the shower.

• (Smoking) In many thrillers there are clear protagonists and antagonist are film is the same. We have a protagonist in our opening scene but its hard to tell who is who and we wanted it this way. By having the man writing the report in a slightly run down office with low key lighting smoking a cigar we are confused if he is good or bad and what his significance in the film is. I believe this develops the conventions of most thrillers.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• Main mail unseen character- One of the main characters in the opening you never see. He is about 19 years old recently railsed from caier or a mental hospital. As we don’t see him but still want the viewer to build up a picture of him we had to use editing and camera work to give him a personality. We used the camera as his eyes instead of just having an actor to create an air of suspicion and interest. We wanted to make him look unstable maybe being drunk, high or just panicked and angry. So we slowed the footage down and blurred it slightly. The way he is stumbling through the house gives of the impression he is looking for something or some one and we later find out he is. He is made to look bad even evil and this is exactly what we were after.
• Female- Are female character is around 17 years old, middle class and white British. She is represented as a normal innocent female. Wearing every day cloths, jeans and a T-shirt. When we first see her she is fully dressed cowering in her shower with the male looking at her. By having her cowering it shows she is submissive and a weak character. We deliberately made her this way because we wanted to create empathy with the audience. One of the main reasons she is like this is it makes the male character look worse as he is praying on a helpless female were as if she was a hard male then we wouldn’t seem so bad.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?• I think that if our thriller would be distributed it would be shown in small cinemas across Britain. Because it is a low budget film there would be no money for feather advertisement outside the UK. I believe that our thriller could be digitally distributed. It would help access for those who don’t get a chance to see it in cinemas.
• I believe that our thriller could be distributed by companies like Seven Arts Picture and Revolver Entertainment or other small independent companies. Seven Arts Picture as it is an independent motion picture production company which helps in distributing low budget films. It distributes films from different genres. Thrillers which were distributed by this company are A Broken Life (2008), Knife Edge (2009) and Shooting Gallery (2005).


4. Audience-• The audience for my short horror film would have to be 15+
• Having my film as a 15+ fits well with the thriller convention as they are often rated 15+
• Although the opening shots have nothing to make them a 15+ if the film was to carry on then it would quickly start to become more intense and only suitable for viewers over 15.
• I believe this film would attract both males and females, slightly more towards males as they seem to enjoy thrillers a little more than females
• Our thriller is available to audience over 15 years old but our target audience are within 18-35 years old both males and females. I think that movie we had created would be suitable for a wide range of audience as it is a medical/scientific thriller which I think would attract different kinds of people. When we first decided on our target audience we thought that they will be around our age (17-19 years old) but know when we did it I think that it would be more suitable for an older audience as it is contains lots of themes which could make the younger audience confused or bored.
• I think that that our film will also appeal to people outside our target audience, especially older than 30. Although you would have to be 15+ to see this in cinemas under 15s may watch out film but I don’t believe they would enjoy the scientific or medical aspect of our thriller. Also it could be hard to understand the theme. I believe that people older than 30 would like our film as those are usually educated people with interest of the world around so they would be interested in our story.


5. How did you attract/address your audience?
• The audience of my film would enjoy it because;• Camera- The sense of tension created through the use of camera work that fits with the stereotype of camera in some other thrillers. An example in the shot bellow-

(THE HALWAY EYE SHOTS)
As you can see having the camera at eye level and then adding the slow motion blurry affects wondering through the house creates the idea that the camera is a person. And in this instance that person is main character drunkenly stumbling through the house trying to find his sister. So by doing this the audience would be attracted and drawn into the rest of the film.

• Cloths- In the film we wanted to keep it looking simple, modern day cloths on are female, Jeans and T-shirt. We did this so the audience would focus more on her and why she is in the shower rather than how she is dressed. Also most people dress like that so it keeps the sense that this could happen to them, witch keeps them on their feet and in doing that attracts them to watch the film.


• Props- In the house scenes we placed cloths and other objects on the floor to make it look like the house had been trashed.
(HOUSE TRASHED)

This is attracting my audience as we want to know why this person is in the house and what is going to happen in the rest of the film.

• Lighting- We used low key lighting or natural light in our shots. For the house scenes we generally used natural light, and this makes it look like any old house and that attracts the audience as it could be happening in the house next door and this just makes the film seem even more realistic. In the other shots we used low key lighting so it looks more dark and suspicious. This leaves us with a sense of wonder, and is key to making the audience keep watching and enjoying the film.


• Themes/Issues-Editing- For the audience to truly enjoy the film it had to have an interesting opening, so we used parallel editing. It cuts between the man writing the report and the exploring of the house. And by sutauly getting faster towards the end of the two minuets the audience are getting more anchus to what is going to happen. We also when for a not to common thriller theme, that way the audience wouldn’t have seen any thing to much like it but still had the re a shorance that it was going to be a thriller and cover issues thrillers would usually cover.

• Sound- We went for contrapuntal sound in our film as we believed and the audience agreed that it gave it an edge and would make it stand out from most other thrillers. We also used a sound bridge between shots, in one of are first shots we see the male who writes the medical report turn on the radio and the radio noise continuous through most of the opening.
Having the music stop and re start creates tension and that’s what the viewers want, then when the music stops completely and we can hear the shower we are just waiting for something to happen.

• The Audience would enjoy all of the above because they make the film a Thriller, and that’s exactly what they expected to watch.


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

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

• Camera- Although when we made the preliminary I had used a video camera before I didn’t know how to set the white balance and didn’t know how important it was. By the main task the whole group was confident using the camera.

• Editing- When we edited are preliminary task are cuts were all straight but with the main task we played around with the transition a lot to find what worked best.
We also changed the filters in the main project in the office shoots to make it look like a different time and location, This is something new we learnt just from looking at final cut pro and messing with the setting something we wouldn’t of had the confidence to do in the preliminary.
Another little editing technique we learnt, we could make affects happen at a chosen point and control the intensity and how long they lasted. We did this in our opening shot were it comes in from white and the white sticks to some of the objects longer than others giving the shot a interesting feel.

(An effect, fades in from white.)
• Sound- When we made the preliminary sound wasn’t really a big part of the film but after research we realized how massive background music was to film. So after lisining to lots of different types of music we decided we were going to do something different, we wanted digetic sound for the man writing the report with a sound bridge to the hall way scene. We also composed are own music and fixed it together on garage band. Using affects like radio noise, we would never have done this in the preliminary task as we didn’t believe it was important.
We also used phoney affect to enhance are film, We learnt how much making certain sounds louder than other can make so much tension.

• Organisation- In the preliminary we weren’t very organised, No one really had a job and we didn’t take it really seriously. We tried to make it slightly funny and although it was ok we could of made it better. So this taught us we had to allocate roles and stick to them.
This worked, we all did our roles and if we got stuck we knew it was up to us to sort out that problem and not leave it to some one ells.

Adam Marshall- Evaluation

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
 When deciding what we wanted to do for our thriller there were many things that we had to try and get into our piece, this included particular techniques in using the camera, types of editing, and trying to make the opening as gripping and anticipated as an actual thriller movie.

What did we want in our thriller opening?

• Our group knew right from the start that we wanted to have some sort of psychotic mental patient in our opening, from there we started to build a story about this antagonist that would make the audience feel some sympathy, but also fear as he is unstable and could kill in a heartbeat. We took some influence from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in this part.

• We also knew that we wanted some sort of mystery within the opening, and we then decided that the doctor who is filling out the medical report could be part of that mystery, we decided never to show his full face, it could be because he has a big part to play later in the film and giving away his identity would ruin some twist within the film. 

Nine different shots from our opening and how they show the conventions of thriller.

Shot 1:

• Establishing shot, shows work place of the doctor
• Typical office environment gives us the impression that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, this builds anticipation of where this story could be going.

Shot 2:

• First shot of the doctor, and the old fashioned radio, this looks out of place in the office as everything else is modern and new, this gives us a clue that the doctor is quite an abnormal character, this could be in a positive, or negative way. It starts to make the audience wonder if he is an protagonist or antagonist.
• The doctors face is not shown in this shot to start to create some mystery in this character, the audience should want to know what he has to do with the story and ho he influences it. 
• This shows the use of restricted narration as we are not seeing the whole story.

 Shot 3:

• The close up on the confidential sticker also gets the audience wanting to know more about what is the report about, and why is this doctor in particular dealing with it.
• This shot is also meant to stand out and catch the audiences attention, it is different from the other shots as it is a big close up on the writing and has some significance within the story.

Shot 4:

• The doctor is filling out a complex report in this shot, this creates more mystery about this character and how he is linked with the patient.
• The doctor is also very efficient in  completing the report, he completes it in a machine like manner.

Shot 5:

• Here we see the doctor signing the report, this could create some mystery around the character, he could be mentioned further in the film and the name would have some meaning to the audience.
• The doctors face is still not being shown, building more tension and mystery.  

Shot 6:

• The anticipation and mystery over the doctors identity is almost revealed in this shot, the bottom half of his face is shown, perhaps so the audience may recognize him later in the film

• The smoking of a cigar also tells us more about his character, he is smoking inside whilst working, this is not a usual characteristic of a doctor. 

Shot 7:  

• This is an establishing shot of the girls house, we can tell through mise en scene that it is an old fashioned house that would be owned by quite a rich family.
• However we can tell straight away that something is wrong, the sound of the shower in the background is the only sound effect. All the clothes on the floor tell us that there was some sort of struggle.
• The camera movement also makes it seem like a first person shot, perhaps the antagonist who is looking for someone

Shot 8:

• Here we see an upturned chair, yet a sign of more struggle adding to the tension of the scene.
• The dark room also makes the room seem intimidating.

Shot 9:

• This shot has some enigma as the girl is sitting fully clothed in the shower, the audience can tell straight away that something's not right.
• The camera is suddenly still, a first person shot,  the antagonist has found her, she looks up and the shot cuts to black.

  

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


In our opening we only ever see two characters, the doctor who fills in the medical report, and the girl sitting in the shower. Even though we don't know much about these characters, we can already tell that they are socially different.

• For example we tried to portray the doctor as a traditional middle aged, middle/upper class man. He has a job that is well paid, he seems to have been in the same job for a long time as he finishes the medical report in not time. If he has been in the same job for the majority of his life, then we can assume that he has a rather high status within this job, and that is why he has his own office. He also smokes cigars, which are a lot more expensive than normal cigarettes, this also shows that he has a lot of money and is respected, he is quite clearly a character with authority. However, there is something odd about him, we never fully see the doctor, this was done to create some mystery in the opening, to get the audience thinking, maybe he's helping the protagonist of the film, or doing anything he can to stop him/her.

• The girl sitting in the shower is portrayed as a stereotypical woman, emotional, vulnerable, innocent. The high angle looking down on her also portrays that she is meant to look as small and inferior as possible.

  She seems to be middle class, as she is wearing a button shirt and black trousers, this could mean that she is some type of business woman, we also see that the interior of her house is old fashioned but rather expensive, this backs up the idea that she's middle class. However her house is absolutely wrecked, there are clothes all over the floor, upturned chairs, a total mess, it looks like this there was some sort of struggle, (similar to 44 Inch Chest, ) the shot of the camera tracking down the hall gives an idea that we're looking through the eyes of the antagonist, who is after this woman.

Shot of wrecked room, from 44 Inch Chest

I think that both characters are represented mainly in a positive way, there is something about the doctor that is mysterious, this could be use of restricted narration as we don't know the doctors full story. The female is definitely represented in the stereotypical "damsel in distress" idea of a female character.

Both characters are represented with the use of: camera work, mise en scene, editing and sound.

Camera work:

Whilst filming we had to consider how different types of shots and shot sizes would help represent the social groups of these two characters. 

• There is a high angle shot showing the girl in the shower, this could be done to make her seem fragile, small or inferior, it is a mid shot so that we can see her curled up in a ball, perhaps scared for her life.

• There is a big close up at eye level of the doctor smoking the cigar, we have done this to show that we are exactly parallel to what he is, we are on the same level as this character and should be able to see his point of view well.

 

Mise en Scene:

• The make up for the girl in the shower is purposely smudged and made to look like it's running, we have done this to make it look like she has been crying, perhaps due to fear, and is starting to lose her sanity.
• As the doctor walks into his office, he switches an old fashioned radio. This thriller is not set in the past, so we have made this character seem quite eccentric, this could also be backed up by the smoking of a cigar, and writing a report with a pencil.

Sound:

•  The diagetic music that the doctor puts on is some kind of country/western music, this also adds to the idea that he is quite an odd character, but is obviously very successful and well off.
• The lack of diagetic sound for the girl in the shower is used in a way that should build tension. With the shot where we see her in the shower, there is no sound but the running water, strangely enough this also helps create the tense atmosphere.

Editing:

  All the transitions in our piece are cuts, at fairly regular shot lengths, the only way that I can think of describing how this shows the personality of one of the characters is that all the shots for the doctor are at a very average length of time, there are no really long cuts and no really short cuts. This could show that the doctor is a very organized person that does his work in a particular way, he knows exactly what he is doing and is comfortable in what he does.

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

Firstly we need to know the three stages of making a film, these are:

1. Production- This is the actual making of the film, filming, editing etc.
2. Distribution- This is making a secure placement that the film will actually be released and successful.
3. Exhibition- This is when an audience can actually watch the film, in cinemas, DVD, the internet etc. 
   

The distributors get the legal rights off the producers to advertise the film in any way possible, such as advertisements, posters, internet hypes, billboards, premiers. They also help distribute hard copies of the film to exhibitors (cinemas), create downloads for the film on the internet and on mobile phones, and selling TV advertisements to companies for them to show.

Some distribution companies that are commonly known are:

• Warner Bros.
• Paramount Pictures
• 20th Century Fox
• Optimum Releasing 
• Lucas Films 

I would personally get our thriller distributed by Paramount Pictures. I would do this because they are a very well known company who distribute films very successfully, the hype that could be created with a company as successful as this would certainly mean that both producers and distributors would make a huge profit. I think our film should be a mainstream release that is in most of the multiplex cinemas around the country. This is the sort of film that Paramount usually helps release. I would also have lots of posters and bus banners used in the advertising scheme, and some internet pop ups (though not too many as the audience may find them irritating).The film should also be distributed when the DVD comes out, this should be a mix of hard copies and online downloads, obviously the download would cost some money, but it would have to be reasonably cheap so people are less likely to illegally download it.

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

I think that our film will have some scenes and themes that would not be regarded as suited for younger viewers, therefore I think it should have a certificate of 15 years and over. The idea of a psychotic mental patient would not be ideal to show a child. Our film would be for people who are really into the idea of mystery and tension in a film. The average viewer would be from the age of 15-30 and i think both genders will be able to enjoy it. Males would enjoy it for some of the gruesome scenes and action, and the females would enjoy some of the mystery and trying to work out what would happen. I think that anyone over the age of 40 might not enjoy this film as there is some scenes with blood and gore, and they could find it offensive. 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• One way of attracting our audience was the use of some realistic characters that they could relate to. The audience is far more likely to enjoy the film if they can relate to some of the characters in the film, they would feel more emotionally attached to them, for example the shot of the doctor at eye level shows that the audience is ob the same level as he is.

• We also attract the audience by making the audience aware what the film is about from the very first scene, as soon as the medical report is seen with the "confidential" sticker on the front, it shows that the film is going revolve around a person who has some severe problems, as its a thriller film people would probably jump to the conclusion that it's about some sort of psychopath.

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


Here is a link of me explaining all the different technology I've used and what i have learnt about them: 
http://soundcloud.com/thecrows/ste-013


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

 

  

• In the first two shots we can see the difference between the two titles of our pieces. The title for our preliminary task simply wipes across the screen in with the black background and white text. It gets the message across but it's not that visually pleasing. On the other side we can see the title for the thriller opening, this took a lot more time and effort, we had to look through lots of different title sequences until we found one that we thought could relate to the film in some way. We all agreed that this particular title sequence could be portrayed as the writing of the medical report.
• The next two shots show how our framing has improved. Even though we were meant to film the lower half of my body in this shot for the preliminary there is a lot of empty space to the left of me. We can see in the shot for the thriller opening that the girl in the shower is directly in the frame, there isn't too much empty space to the side of her or above her. The framing has improved a lot since the preliminary.
• These two shots so our attempts at making some interesting shots that would stick in the audiences minds. In the preliminary we tried to duplicate the typical "stand off" shots you would find in a western film. As you can see our idea way put across but the camera needs to be in an extreme close up so we can see the emotion in the characters eyes. For the shot of the doctor we also used a quite common shot of an eye level big close up on the character, positioned sideways on from the camera, smoking a cigar. I particularly think this shot is proving that we have improved our skill because we managed to get the exact shot we wanted an it went really well with the rest of the opening.
• The next two shots show how we have tried harder to improve the mise en scene within our video. The only props I can see in the shot for our preliminary is the chair in the corner and the one I'm sitting on. The costume I'm wearing could also have had had some more thought put into it. The shot of the hallway also shows how much more effort we went into for this compared to the preliminary, we placed the clothes in certain points so the camera could get through without any problems, and the shot still looks great.
• These last shots aren't brilliant at showing camera movement as they are just pictures, but the movement in the preliminary was just the camera zooming out, it wasn't steady and the zoom was too fast. However when we tried a gradual zoom in another shot it worked really well, the framing worked and everything stayed in focus.

 

GarageBand- Adam Marshall

For the rest of this double lesson we plan to start on sound editing in GarageBand. Unfortunately josh forgot his guitar today, so we can't record the soundtrack, but we will be able to start putting some diagetic sound in such as tuning a radio, and the sound for a shower.

Final Editing- Adam Marshall

Today we have been doing the last of our editing, we had to cut a lot of footage down as we found out that what we thought was our finished film was about three minutes. Luckily there were a lot of shots that we could cut excess footage off, there was also a shot that we got rid of. We did this because the shot held no meaning and it didn't look as good as we had hoped, i think this was the best thing to do as it also cut a few seconds off.
We also increased the speed of the title so the overall time was greatly reduced, we had some experimenting with this as if the title was too fast then it wouldn't look as good. Once we got the exact speed we wanted it also took a large chunk out of this.
Eventually after cutting a lot of the clips down, we got the whole piece down to about 2.20 which is in the margin we were allowed. I think that all the cutting we'd done has improved the overall piece because it now seems to flow a lot more, it is a lot smoother. 

Final editing

Today we are getting the final bits done on our final edit before we go into Garageband to add sound effects and our original soundtrack
Overall the complete project should be finished by friday in our double lesson.