Evaluation Question 7

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

Underneath is a link to my Preliminary task and its evaluation; I did this with a different team to the one I was in for my main task and the time length for the main had to be 2 minutes long. 

My Preliminary Task

And here is my recent product, my main task. 

I have improved on a lot of skills since my preliminary task, some being my communication skills as this time we had longer than an hour to film our product and we relied more heavily on our team members to work together to get the shooting and editing done, I have improved my team skills as well because of this.

The creativity in this 2 minute film opening was a lot more detailed, because we had more time to add techniques and story line where as in the preliminary we didn't. The 'Panning' technique of our main task was also a lot better and longer in caparison to the preliminary task one.

Our main task started a nice steady pan at: 0:44 - 0:57
The preliminary task started a pan a shaky pan at: 0:38 -0:40
When these are compared, you can see how our techniques have improved since then, to help create a better final product, this is an indication of the progress we have made with techniques.

Soundtrack was also added to our Main task as an atmospheric influence, this made the movie seem more professional as well. We did not have time to add that creative process to our preliminary task because creating a sound track on soundtrack pro would have taken too long. 
Similar creative processes between our products would the use of match on action, both scenes showed great match on action this can be saw at 0:06 on the Preliminary task and 1:06 on the Main task.

What have I learnt during the course?

Since taking this course, I have learnt the technical aspects of how film productions make movies, I have gone through the research and planning structure which taught me camera techniques, editing techniques, rules and script writing rules along with other things, this all prepared me for when filming, I had 2 smaller other shooting stages which helped me handle equipment and learn how to edit sound and film on the Mac software. Which prepared me for the main task. 
What i personally learnt doing this course was that it takes team work to make your product and all the other blog posts relating to your final product because you're only as strong as your weakest link when working in a group. It also takes communication skills as this is import when in the filming stages, not just communication with your members of your group but with your actors and class as well. A great opportunity to communicate was when we pitched our idea to our class, we took the role of "presenters" at trying to sell our movie plot line.

Evaluation question 6

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience ?

A way we attracted our target audience and caught their attention is by displaying the typical themes of a Thriller movie, which is what our target audience will be interested in and seek out according to the gratification theory, according to it they will seek out what they enjoy in movies specifically, so we adhered to what they are most likely to like in a thriller. We used tension music, fast shots and a threat of violence from a mysterious antagonist, we also subverted a stereo type to make the movie more interesting as well, this will draw the audience in with its unique twist.

If we were to have created a trailer this would all be displayed in it in a way to catch our audiences interest and be hopefully what they are looking for, unfortunately a barrier to being a small movie producer like us is we don't have any money to get big named Actors to feature in our film like other big studios have the advantage of doing. This is of course a barrier to attracting our audience but if our audience is seeking a fast paced, jumpy, tension music filled film with interesting subverted stereotypes, who the actors are won't matter.

Movies with similar themes to ours would be Source code, Die Hard, Wall Street:: Money never sleeps and Enemy of the State, all the movies have a similar aged target audience, have fast paced cut shot action scenes, a threat of violence from an antagonist, tension music and interesting main characters.

Another draw back we encountered with our low budget movie was although we had regular movie filming equipment it wasn't as high spec of that of big movie producers, some have electric powered tracking dollys to catch moving action this makes for a better shot, and would have come in handy for making the perfect shot of our protagonist running, it was hard to film just pushing the dolly along the track as the timing had to be right. We also didn't have as many hands to man the equipment so it took more time than it would if it were in more experienced hands too, this all is a barrier in the technical element of making a professional movie. 

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The BBFC classification of our product is 12A, it is the most appropriate for our product because strong language can be used but it would be infrequent and violence would be permitted as long as it wasn't dwelled upon. This gave us a little free range with our dialogue and violence if we wanted to do so. 

Our typical audience member, will be a working class male round about 18 years old of no certain ethnicity, but this film is up their street because they will be at that social age to go to cinemas with friends and will be into such genres as thriller's, horrors, comedies and action. Films like 'Die hard', 'The wolf of Wall street' and 'Money Never Sleeps' will be their favourite films. They will be a typical school boy just starting or in the process of doing A levels, with low income as they will only have a small low wage part time job, we're thinking band E income which is around £3000 a year, which works out as £250 a month or £62 a week. They'll have found out about the film through social and media sites like youtube and facebook, and will most likely have gone to the cinemas to watch our movie or watched it on an approved media streaming site as this is what our target audience member will frequent. 
We expect them to look similar to this, this is Jamie Stewart.

Here is a snap shot of the audience profile from Pearl & Dean's website. It's a Thriller just like our movie, 54% of the audience is males which is what we are expecting for our movie. The age range 15 - 24 is the highest viewing range with 38% of people being around this age, our expected age range is 16 - 21 so our film may similarly have this high percentage.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

Just like the James Bond thriller movies, our media product starts with tension music and follows straight into the action, this follows the accepted convention of thriller movies as straight after the ident of most thriller movies it goes straight into the plot of the action. Another example of a thriller movie that does this is Die Hard 4.0, the opening of that goes straight into the action of a man hacking a system a similar opening to our own product "Hacked" see below for the comparison.

Die Hard 4.0 opening scene of a Hacker

Our media Product "Hacked" opening scene of a Hacker. 

Another convention of thriller films is it puts it's titles in the 'downtime' of the action this could mean it can be put on a blank shot like in Die Hard 4.0 or over a non-action shot, as we only had 2 minutes in which to show off of our thriller we put it in the non-action scenes so as not to waste time, as you can see on your left, there is a still from our product. 

The tension music i mentioned earlier, is there from the start of our movie and builds in hope that is raises tension for our audience and makes them wonder what will happen next. This is an accepted convention in thrillers as the music is a key part to a thriller movie, with the right soundtrack it can build tension, suspense and a scare factor.

We challenge the convention of a thriller by subverting one of our characters. Our protagonist is a hacker but does not wear or act like the stereotype of a hacker, he is crossed with a 'chav' persona and so has the attitude and clothing of one. Usually a thriller movie keeps to it's identifiable stereotypes but we decided to challenge the convention and made our main character an intellectual 'chav'. 

You can see the convention of a typical hacker in Die hard 4.0, this hacker is always relying on other main characters to protect him and get him round, but our hacker being crossed with the chav stereotype takes care of himself by trying to escape and run from his antagonist, this isn't common in hackers as hackers are perceived in the media world to be 'nerds' who are weak and defenseless against their antagonist.