In what way does my media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media project, followed the conventions of a real media product in a number of ways.
- It displayed credits, producer, editor, music and casting director.
- It introduced the audience to the main characters in the story
- It prepared the audience about what they should expect and displayed the main themes that arise in the film
- The genre of the film is clearly presented. (Action thriller)
- We used fast paced mysterious music to suit the the dark, gloomy and suspensed atmosphere.
- The main themes which we used as a foundation, can be found in many thriller films. The themes we followed were lust, revenge,bullying, lies and puzzles/clues.
- We also followed the conventions of real opening title sequences by using the conventional colours you would regularly see during a thriller movie. Red to represent danger, love or blood. Black to represent sadness and loneliness. Flashing strobe lights which can help to create confusion and mystery.
How does my media product represent particular social groups?
In our opening title sequence young adults ranging from the age of 17-20 are represented. They look like an average teenager who could potentially be a student or beginning their working lives. They are all wearing casual clothing with a preppy, college student style. We have been unbiased in the way we have presented the young adults, we have not put them in a good light nor a bad one. I guess it has been left to the audience to make up their mind after watching the complete film.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
- Vertigo films is quite a new established film distribution company. They first set up in 2002.
- They have distributed a number of films of different genres, One that particularly caught my eye was 'the children'. Like our media project it is a thriller movie featuring the younger generation.
I think they would be good distribution company because although some of their recent film projects such as 'street dance 3D' have been shown on the big screen, not all of their projects make it to the cinema. I think that because of the simplicity of our opening title sequence and having to rely on the resources and programmes available in our college, quality of our opening title sequence is not to the standard of many other thriller films shown in the cinema. Our media project should be for home entertainment purposes only.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience age for our product would be 15-24. The reason for this choice would be because after carrying out research i found out that this is the most popular age group which is in demand to go to the cinema. Also the cast within the production lie in this age category.
We want to target different friendship groups within this age category. firstly 'couples'. A lot of people go to the cinema with their partners or on dates.
Another target group would be peer groups. College and university students would be a good target audience. They tend to analyse and review films when socialising together. This could help with advertisement and popularity.
We will target males. They tend to like watching thriller films with a lot of action, blood, and gruel scenes.
We will also be ttargeting females. They tend to like going to watch thrillers for several reasons. one being that they know it attracts a large male audience and two they like the sense of excitement and anxiety they get when watching this genre film.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I think that we attracted our target audience by using characters in our product similar to them, they will be able to relate to our characters. We also used locations that young people would come across everyday such as flats and alleys. As well as this we used a 'grime' backing track in our sequence. 'grime' is a genre of music a lot of young people listen to at the moment.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a number of things about the technologies used. I didn't realise i would need to use so many just to produce a short opening sequence. Some of which i have used before on a regular basis like 'google' and 'microsoft word' and some of which are completely new to me such as 'adobe premiere elements'. I think i will start to use some of the technologies i wouldn't normally use alot more often.
I used google as my search engine. I was able to carry out a lot of research and find images to help me with both my prelim and final task.
I used windows live hotmail to send and receive emails to other members of my group.
Microsoft office publisher was used to create slide shows and mood boards. Some work needs to be more visual therefore using this piece of technology is a wise choice.
1001 free fonts was a website i used to get different fonts to fit the thriller theme.
Microsoft office word was a technology i used to paste pictures, print screen, make notes, jot down ideas and any other written tasks.
Slide share is a technology i used to update my Microsoft office publisher work. It enabled me to upload any slide shows i produced onto blogger.
YouTube is a technology i used to find other thriller films to analyse and get ideas for my own media project. I also used YouTube to find helpful videos on camera angles and previous A-level media projects.
A video camera was used to record any footage that we would need for our projects. We captured all action needed and also took some still images using the video camera.
The camera was used for taking any still photos that would be helpful to us. Particularly possible locations of where to film, evidence of us working and pictures of the cast in our final project.
Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task helped me learn how to organise the time we had more productively. i knew what was expected and all the research we would need to get to our final project. Having done a synopsis, script, timetable and storyboard for the prelim activity i understood what exactly i needed to do for the final project. It made it slightly easier too because i didn't have to keep asking my teacher what certain things meant. i could use my previous attempt as a template.
