Rebecca And Milena: Evaluation

Evaluation Questions

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

Our thriller follows most of the typical generic conventions of a thriller. The main conventions that are used in my thriller are: there is a crime in the core of the narrative, extraordinary events happening, themes of identity (which also cause tension in uncovering the killer), a protagonist with a tragic flaw and the tension increase at the end of scenes (this can be seen in our opening).

Many of our scenes have been influenced by other thrillers and therefore they hold many of the same generic conventions that have been used in the previous thriller. This can be seen in scenes such as in the opening where the protagonist is walking through the basement with the sense that somebody is following her. This is a very common scene in thrillers as within itself many conventions are followed such as the darkness and the vulnerability when her back is turned. There is a lot of use of darkness in our opening as it gives a sense of mystery and it almost feels, for the protagonist, as if she has been deprived of a sense. The last scene of our opening was influence by a movie called ‘Devil’ that was recently in the cinemas. A scene in the movie influenced our opening as their use of light and dark was very effective. This scene, the protagonist runs into the cupboard which is pitch black and tries to light her lighter in order to eliminate some of the darkness. When she does this the face of the antagonist is visible behind her. And the candle is blown out. This is similar to the scene in ‘Devil’ as the light goes off and then comes back on again and the face of the devil can be seen behind one of the main characters.

Also, we challenged the conventions of a typical thriller through the choice of costumes and through the choice of antagonist.

The costumes symbolize the values of a character as well as their roles in the movie. The antagonist is wearing only white which represents purity and innocence. This causes the audience to question whether or not the ‘antagonist’ is truly the bad person in the situation. This is clear as the protagonist is wearing only black. This emphasises her depression and her mental state of mind but it also represents evil. The audience may question whether there is a darker side to this character in the opening. [Include the photographs of the costume of antagonist and protagonist]

The choice of character to play the antagonist also subverts the genre as it is not conventional that a young girl plays the role of an antagonist. It is usually expected for an older male to be a killer rather than a young girl.

Also, we challenged the conventions of a typical thriller through the choice of costumes and through the choice of antagonist.

Within most thrillers, the theme of ‘revenge’ seemed quite popular. We used this as the basis of the mindset of the antagonist; a plot of revenge. Also, the use of the young girl being the antagonist was influenced by many movies such as ‘The Ring’ and ‘The Exorcist’ as this has developed into a frightening characteristic.

Lots of scenes and convention in our thriller were influenced by a wide range of other thrillers. The main four are: ‘The Exorcist’, ‘Paranormal Activity’, ‘Devil’ and ‘The Ring (2)’. These are big influences for our movie as they all come underneath the same sub-genre as our thriller: a paranormal thriller. This can be recognized through the camera techniques that we had used. We used mostly hand held camera which is the same technique that is used in other movies such as ‘Paranormal Activity’. Also, our use of ‘night mode’ gives an effect of paranormal presence. The plot of the movie is also an indicator that the movie is based around the subgenre of ‘paranormal’ as the antagonist is supposed to be dead. Therefore, she is in fact a ghost or some sort of spirit that has come back to haunt her killers.

‘The Ring (2)’ is also a very big influence in our opening as the scene when Samara is climbing up the well has been used in ours. She crawls up it with incredible speed. This will be used in our opening when the girl crawls down the stairs. A similar scene also occurs in ‘The Exorcist’.

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

There is not a huge range of social group represented in our thriller. The opening consists of two characters, one is an antagonist and one could be considered as the protagonist in this opening sequence as well as a victim. Both characters are female and quite young. The antagonist in our thriller is a young girl while the protagonists are the girls former killers, which is a slight twist in the plot. They are represented as typical teenagers that come from working class families in Britain (therefore they are British teenagers with a few that may look as if they come from ethnic backgrounds).

Gender representation holds a major role in the conventions of this genre as it makes an impact on the way that the audience views the movie.

In our movie, gender and age are not represented in a stereotypical way. This is because the antagonist is female which subverts the conventions of the thriller genre as it is expected that the antagonist is an older muscly man that is undoubtably capable of murder, rather than a young girl that is expected to be young and innocent.

On the other hand, there is some gender related conventions included in the opening as the protagonist is also a young teenage female and it is expected that, in a thriller, the victim will be female as females are seen as more vulnerable that males.

The target audience that we are targeting our movie at are 15-24 year olds mainly of the male gender. The choice of social groups and the gender of characters was developed in order to best suit this target audience. The opening will be appealing to this audience as the characters that the movie consists of are of a similar age to them. This will appeal to them as they can relate better to their state of mind and they have the same interests as the characters. Also, as this is a British movie and it would more likely be viewed in Britain, the characters are also British. This is effective as then the viewers, of what ever age and gender, can put themselves in the characters shoes. Also, as the movie is targeted at a male audience, the opening may appeal to them as it is female dominated and they might find this more interesting.

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

There are many types of media institutions that could distribute our media product such as major Hollywood studios, or it could be a TV movie or an internet release. Each of these has their own advantages and disadvantages based on our target audience and the conventions o the genre included in our opening.

Our opening could possibly be distributed by a major Hollywood studio as our movie comes under a popular genre and there have been many movies quite similar to this one which has been distributed through Hollywood studios such as ‘The Ring’. The similarities our movie has with these movies would make it quite popular with viewers. On the other hand, it may not be popular with viewers as there is not a well known acting cast. Also, it isn’t a very usual genre to be distributed by Hollywood therefore it is unlikely.

There are many reasons why our movie would not be a TV movie. This is due to the target audience as the age rating is 15. This would mean that the movie could only be shown at a certain time on TV (at a later time) and therefore this will decrease the amount of viewers and the amount of interest shown to the movie as older viewers may not be interested in the thriller genre. On the other hand, this could also be an advantage as this is the time that the target audience are most likely to be watching TV and it would then target them. Also, a TV movie would not hold the same amount of viewer interest as a Hollywood produced movie.

An internet only release would be quite effective as movies such as ‘Paranormal Activity’ have used methods by releasing a clip of their movie on the internet to see the audience’s reactions. This gained their interest. Our movie is very similar to ‘Paranormal Activity’ and therefore it would be a successful way of promoting this movie. Also, the internet is mostly used by teenagers as this generation is better acquainted with this technology and they are more likely to watch movies on the internet than an older age group.

We decided that the best way of distributing our media product would be through the internet as it is a great way of reaching our target audience and it would also be a cheap and extremely effective way of advertising. By releasing a small clip of our movie it would hopefully increase audience interest and therefore also increase the amount of viewers.

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

After a considerable amount of research into potential target audiences we finally decided that we are targeting our movie at the male gender of the ages 15-24.

We researched the website ‘Pearl and Dean’ which specialises in advertising new releases and deciding the suitable ratings and target audiences.
‘Pearl and Dean’ decide on target audiences by comparing to a movie that they consider similar to that one.

We researched the target audiences of two films, on ‘Pearl and Dean’ that we believed are similar to our opening and plot. The first film that we compared our movie to was ‘Paranormal Activity’. This showed that the main age range of viewers was 15-24. The majority of the viewers were of the male gender. Our second movie comparison with ‘The Ring’ also had a majority of viewers aged 15-24 but it had a majority of female viewers by a slight majority.

We also made a questionnaire that we handed out and we received the results that the majority of viewers for a movie of this genre will be males aged 15-24.

The minimum viewing age is 15 as it contains a lot of violence and killing. There is also quite a bit of moderate language. The viewers cannot see the killings otherwise it would be rated 18.

The plot of this movie appeals to teenagers and young adults, which is who the movie is targeted at, as it revolves around a group of teenage hit and run drivers who kill a young girl that comes back from the dead for revenge. This plot will appeal to them as the main characters are their age and therefore they can relate better to them. It also makes it much more interesting to watch.

Also, our opening is a paranormal thriller which is usually targeted at a teenage audience. The violence in movies such as this one and others of a similar genre are found to mostly appeal to the male gender rather than the female.

The ratio of male and female saying 'yes' when the question 'Would you prefer to watch a romantic film rather than a thriller?'.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our movie is targeted at a male and female audience (mainly the male gender) of the ages of 15-24. Therefore, our age rating for our movie is 15.
This movie would not be suitable for anybody under the age rating because there are a lot of scenes with violence and a lot of moderate language. Young children would especially not be suitable to watch this as it is quite jumpy and there are a lot of gruesome scenes that may affect them. Also, the scream at the end of the opening would not be suitable for young children as well as anybody that has a heart condition. People that suffer from epilepsy and cannot withstand flashing lights would also not be recommended to watch this film. On the other hand, this movie is suitable for both the male and female audiences although this genre would typically appeal to the male audience more than the female.
We have included many different types of camera shots that would appeal to the audience as they include conventions of the genre and they therefore would appeal to the audience. Certain shots that we have included such as the mirror shot are typical thriller shots and they are extremely effective as the audience can see things that the character can not, such as the antagonist pop up in the background; there is an element of dramatic irony.
We also included some hand held camera shots that look as if they are filmed from the antagonists point of view. This gives the effect to the audience that there is another presence in the room; the antagonist is nearby. this adds to the tension of the audience as they are on edge as they expect something to happen. Also, the point of view shots from the protagonists point of view expects the audience to emphasize with the character and to put themselves in her shoes so that they can feel her fear.
Also, we did not include any credits in our opening because we believed that it was more effective without it. The audience also believed this as we showed them two versions of our opening, one with credits and one without, and most of them agreed that it looks better without the credit as the tension builds better without it being intervened by them.

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

The filming equipment had many advantages and disadvantages. We used a tripod in certain scenes which was useful as it was easy to turn the camera smoothly; it was especially useful for certain filming techniques we used such as panning around the car in the beginning of the opening. The tripod was also more practical than hand-held camera it needed to be kept still. On the other hand, in certain scenes in our opening it was hard to film as we needed to film on the front scene of the car. The camera had to be kept steady but we could not fit the tripod in the car. This was a problem as we had to try our best to keep the camera still, without the use of a tripod, and still make the shot look professional. Overall, the tripod was not very practical in our filming as most of our shots were tracking shots or shots that needed to be taken from an angle that the tripod could not be adjusted to. Also, the camera had a useful effect for our genre which was ‘night mode’. This was useful as it was extremely effective for our genre as it gives an effect of the paranormal.

We faced a lot of problems throughout our filming especially in the first take. First of all, we had to rely on many people to do our filming such as availability of both of us as well as the availability of the location of filming. Therefore, we had to work around this and we could only film on certain days. The second problem was that we could not book a camera and therefore we used our own camera for the first take. Unfortunately, the footage got saved on a mini disk rather than a tape and it could not be uploaded onto the Macs. The only way to solve this problem was to re-film the footage on a camera that saved onto tape. Another problem that could not be solved was the extreme weather conditions which caused travelling to be impossible and this delayed our filming once again.

The editing software ‘Final Cut Pro’ was an extremely useful software to use as there was a huge range of different ways to edit our movie and many different effects and transitions to use. When we first used this software we did not know at all how to use it but by the time we had finished editing our opening we understood how to use it very well. There were a few problems with the software. For example, when we added a clip in after the music had already been uploaded onto it we found that the sound shifted and was out of sync. We had to put it back into place every time we edited a slight part of our opening. Also, importing our footage was quite difficult as every time we uploaded we had to rewind in order to get the whole shot in. Also, when uploading it kept skipping frames and therefore we had to restart capturing that shot. It was a lot harder to use than other software that we had used in the past such as ‘iMovie’ although Final Cut was a lot more effective for our opening.

‘GarageBand’ was also a useful software for our opening as there were many sound effects that we used on our final product for certain moments to increase the suspense. It would also be good software to create a soundtrack for our movie but we researched other sounds and we decided that it would be more practical, more professional and it would also save a lot of time. We found a clip on youtube.com and we converted it into a mp3 through a website called mediaconverter.com.

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

We did a huge amount of planning to prepare for our thriller and each part of the planning benefited us in a different way.

We researched into the genre of our movie. This was important to create a better understanding of how a thriller is constructed to include all of the conventions of this genre. We researched into many different movies that had already been released that also came under the genre of a paranormal thriller. We also researched movies that had a similar plot to ours. This helped us develop a clearer and more detailed plot of an overall movie as well as a detailed opening sequence. It is extremely important to understand the conventions of a thriller as this will help us construct an opening that will be clearly recognizable to the audience as a thriller opening. This is also important in order for it to appeal to the target audience. Through this research we also took certain ideas from other movies and included this in our final opening. We also created an idea for the overall plot based on ideas taken from other thriller movies.

We also researched into target audiences as it is important to have an understanding of what appeals to certain age groups and genders. This also helps us create a movie that will appeal to this target audience through conventions of the genre.

We created a storyboard and a screenplay as a part of our planning. The storyboard we created helped us a lot as we created a clear visual image of the plot and the types of shots that we were going to use in our opening. The screenplay also helped us develop a clearer image of the opening. It helped us understand what each character did in each shot. It is more detailed that the storyboard and we used it as a script when we filmed our final piece. Both the storyboard and the screenplay helped us develop a thorough and detailed plot of the full movie as it is easier to visualise with images and a script in front of you.

We have learnt a lot about the uses of different shot types during the process of filming our opening and we have improved on many different types of shots. We are now both more confident in experimenting with different types of shots as we have used a variety of different shots and filming techniques throughout our filming and most of them worked well in our final piece. When we edited we experimented with the shots we took and if we didn’t like them we simply did not include them in our opening. This was a very good learning process. We learnt that the panning technique was a lot harder to do and make look professional without using a tripod so this piece of equipment was very useful in this shot. Also, in our preliminary task, when doing a point of view shot, we had the camera person hold the camera next to the actor while they were in action. We have learnt that point of view shots look a lot more effective when the actor is holding them as then the audience can see what the actor can see.

Overall, we both believe that our final product is extremely successful although if we had a bit more time we could have improved it a lot by including a lot more reaction shots and a point of view shot from the protagonists point of view. We believe that we have successfully created an opening that appeals to the target audience of males of the age 15-24 and that we have included many conventions of a thriller. Our opening may have even frightened a lot of viewers!