Evaluation - Anastazja Stanowska

Evaluation

 

In my evaluation, I will be answering seven questions which are related to our thriller that I’ve created in my group. I will be answering each question in detail and with different media such as text, video and photo’s. Throughout the production work, all three of us have worked very carefully to make sure that we can make the thriller look as professional as we could. It was very important that we got the opening of the thriller right, because we had to ensure that the genre is easily identified if others were to watch it. We were only allowed to have a maximum of five minutes thriller, which meant that we couldn’t show the whole story that we wanted to, but we had to make sure that the first five minutes are really interesting and catch the audience attention. As we learned about how to identify different genres from the beginning of the unit, it made it easier to understand what we need to include in our production to make it look like thriller.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
At the beginning, before we started to plan or create our thriller, we looked at different types of thriller from all types of years, some which were really old such as the movie ‘Birds’ and others which were more modern such as ‘The Dark Knight’, so it was easy for us to see how technology has influenced the way thrillers are created. The thriller that we mainly liked and got some of the ideas that we use on our thriller was ‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels’, because myself and the rest of my group really loved the opening sequence that was shown in this film; as the shots and effects were used amazingly and very effectively. We also looked at Alfred Hitchcock and the Coen Brothers, which really gave us different idea’s how to present our thriller well. We decided to create a teenage psychological thriller. When we completed our story board and all the planning we had to ensure that we plan everything carefully, because each scene had to be shown clear so the examiner would see clearly that we knew what we wanted to do from the beginning. The title of the production was also included in the planning work, we had to think about it carefully what to name our production so it wouldn’t be misleading but also so it suited the genre of the film which is psychological thriller. We decided to name our production ‘Oracle’ because it created mysteries and a hidden meaning, which we hoped would attract the audience, as it doesn’t give away what’s going to happen, but the word itself When we were completing our story board we tried to think of different types of shots that are used in different thrillers and other films that we watched in class and independently. For example we used a two shot in some parts of our thriller, and we got this idea from the ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’. I think that by using this type of shot it allowed us to show a conversations easily and from who’s point of view its said from, so like at the party scene when Rose is talking to Maddie, but as we added an effect which made all the scene blurry and like it was spinning it showed that it was filmed over Rose’s shoulder so it was her point of view and how she saw Maddie at the time.

My group really liked the idea of how Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in his films, so we decided to do this too when we did our planning. We decided that Jordan would be Rose, which was one of the main characters, then Lauren was Maddie who was Rose’s best friend, and I was one of their friends who got ready with them two and went to the party. We are aware that Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearance in 39 out of 52 films that he’s created, and in every single one he’s only been in the background, so it meant that he was never a main character, however we wanted to make ourselves as the main characters, because we knew what we exactly wanted to achieve in our production and as we all wrote the script, we found it easier to learn it and know how to act it out. I also feel that our thriller relates to Film Noir, because it showed many conventions which are similar to a detective thriller, for example in the party scene the blinds are down, which we done to show that the teenagers are trying to hide the party, because they are underage so they are not meant to be having house parties, drinking and smoking, so by having close blinds, it shows the idea that they are blocking themselves out from the world and enjoying themselves. Film Noir usually always have female characters who is blonde but a little bit dumb, and I think we’ve showed this in our thriller through the one of the characters; Maddie. She’s blond and always confused with what’s happening, she tries to help her friend to stop taking the drugs which shows that she cares and is strong minded, however her friend Rose becomes aggressive towards Maddie after taking the drugs. We also focused on ‘New Wave movement’ which we tried to show in our production. As the main focus on new wave was the long take shots, which we’ve included a few times in our thriller, first time when Rose and Maddie walked home from school, because at this point I filmed them two talking as a long shot for a long time to show their conversations. We also thought about the lighting carefully, because in new wave, the directors didn’t use as much light and it was mostly dark. We had these types of shots in our party scene, because it was shot in the dark with little light, which created a mysterious atmosphere, especially when the two girls are running and screaming in the street right at the end of our production, because it’s unclear who it is but the audience clearly know that something bad has happened or will happen.

At the beginning of the thriller it shows Rose washing her hands which are covered with blood, however then it changed to the previous day. We wanted to do this effect to show how the whole story happened, because we thought that it would grab our target audience attention from the start. When it flicks back to the previous day it says it on the thriller so it makes it easier for the audience to be aware of what’s happening. This shot has shown has established an equilibrium, which helped us set the scene of our thriller, it also made it easy to see who our target audience are as the two best friends are talking about teenage problems e.g. boy issues. Throughout the whole thriller we tried to establish the target audience, social group and the genre of our production so it was clear to understand all these points. We felt that many films have helped us to decide what shots would look the best to set the genre of our production. We used some similar shots which ‘La Haine’ movie has, for example when the boy is looking into the mirror and talking to himself. We’ve used this twice is our thriller; at the beginning of the thriller when Rose is looking into the mirror to show her facial expressions and the details, however in La Haine the camera was directly behind the man, but when we created our shot, we couldn’t do this because the camera would be seen in the background, so we had to film from the side, but it still have a similar effect it showed the action of what Rose was doing in the mirror. Another time when we used this type of shot was when rose is looking at the fake tan in the bathroom and Ivy pops up at the back of her, so it shows two characters through the mirror. We wanted to use this type of shot to show how Rose wasn’t paying attention and got scared, which also added an effect on the audience at they get shocked of Ivy appearing on the scene. Le Haine also helped us understand how to focus on rules of thirds, which we’ve tried to include in our thriller for example in the scene where Maddie is asking is Rose wants a drink in the kitchen, and also at the beginning of the production when Rose walks down the stairs before she meets her friend Rose. The screen shot below shows both of these shots where we’ve tried to keep to the rule of thirds.

We also tried to think about the 180 degree rule, which seemed to work very well in more of the shots that we filmed, however I think we’ve broken the 180 degree rule, which wasn’t intended, but at some points when we filmed we completely forgot about the fourth wall. But as our whole group has realised it is really hard to keep to the 180 degree rule. One of the times when we broke this rule was at the party scene, because the establishing shot showed only 3 walls, however later on in the scene the fourth wall was shown when people we’re talking. There were many other thrillers that we watched which gave us many ideas such as Barton Think and The Dark Knight, as both of these thrillers had amazing shots that we felt would work well if we used them on our production, for example the establishing shot in The Dark Knight, as it shows the whole scene of where the scene has been set, and we tried to do this in our production when we showed an establishing shot at the beginning of the film of the school to show that the first part is set in school, then we also added an establishing shot at the party scene to show what’s happening from a long shot. All of these films that we’ve watched and the different conventions that we’ve learned about have definitely helped us produce a good thriller. We tried very hard to use different types of shots and angles to show that we are capable of producing good thriller with interesting shots such as long shot, mid shot, over the shoulder, high and low angle, two shot, tracking shot and panning shot.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our production represents a particular social group which is a middle class social group, because of the scene and characters that we’ve used.  When we planned our production, we felt that it would be appropriate for us to focus on audiences ages 16+ who are middle class, because myself and the other two members of our group our middle class, which meant we found it easy to show the social group in our thriller. We have created a stereotypical image which shows how teenagers can get out control and do stupid actions, for example murder. As both of the main characters Maddie and Rose are shown right from the beginning of the sequence, it make the audience aware that it’s set in a typical modern day, and the girls are shown as middle class because of their costumes and props that they are wearing and have with them. When the girls get changed into their party clothes, they are still shown as middle social class, because they are wearing party clothes; however no one is overly dresses, as it’s a teenagers house party. There are other characters in the party scene, however they are all shown as middle class too, because there are no characters, especially boys who are dressed down, for example a stereotypical ‘chav’ who wears baggy jeans or tracksuit bottoms , trainers and a baggy top. The location also really helps set the scene and what types of social group that this production would attract the most. As the house is very clean, big and has modern furniture, it’s clear to see that Rose is an upper/middle class character. If the scene was set in much more rough areas such as park or filed, it would be understandable that they are lower class, but because both of the houses that have been shown on the production are upper/middle class, I think it mostly attract the same type of audience, because they would be mostly interested in watching this type of thriller.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our production was very small as we didn’t complete the whole movie, because our production required us to produce the opening five minutes of a thriller, which is what we’ve done. We created our production with our own equipment and scene’s which mean that it wasn’t don’t professionally but we tried to make it look as professional as possible. We created this opening sequence for our A-Level, which meant that we didn’t have a chance to be able to distribute the thriller. If we were to distribute our thriller, there are a few media that we could use to make our thriller well known. This would have to be done for free to all the public, because we’re all not financially secure to be able to distribute our thriller in media institutions. However we would be able to distribute our thriller to social websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to make the thriller well known to the public. Online websites like Youtube would also be very good to distribute our production on, because many people put videos on there every day and mostly young adults like us search and watch different video’s on there. Facebook and Twitter would be the best two online ways in which we could distribute our thriller, because as our target audience were similar ages to us, which means that people who use social networks would be interested in watching it. It would be easy for us to get many people to watch the thriller to make it well know, because each one of us have many friends on Facebook and Twitter which means that we could post the thriller online and get our friends to spread the word and share the thriller to their friends. If we were to make our whole thriller and wanted to distribute it properly then I think that Warner Brothers Entertainment would be a best company to promote our thriller on, as they are a very successful company and have produced many thrillers which all are very well known. As our thriller is aimed for teenagers, this company would be good to promote our thriller because they have made films which were aimed for teenagers and young adults.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
At the beginning on this production, our group has decided that our social group that we’re mainly going to target is a similar are to us, so 16-18 year olds, because we are the target audience, so we know what teenagers are interested in. We think that our thriller fits for both genders and mid class teenagers. I think that our thriller wouldn’t be appropriate for lower than 16 year olds because of the strong language content that is used in our thriller, also there are scene which would not be appropriate for young children to see, as the party scene and the characters smoking weed and drinking. The main storyline is that some teenagers drink and smoke week then bad accidents happen, people become violent and some fights get out of hand. Throughout the first five opening sequence of the thriller that we created, it show that teenagers are irresponsible and crazy when they are drink under age. The characters that were in our thriller worked really hard to get the right type of message across to the audience about the types of people they are and how they behave. There was different types of areas that we had to remember about to show clearly that the characters were teenagers, and I think we’ve done that very well, because at the beginning we have shown an establishing shot of their school, which means that the audience straight away knew that the scene is set in a school so teenagers and students will be involved in this production. We outline that these teenagers are crazy and like to party by the types of clothes and conversations that the girls had whilst walking home from school. In the first part both of the girls are wearing smart clothes as they were in school, the only part that gives away to the audience that they are outgoing girls is that they are having conversation about boys which shows that they clearly care about their looks and their relationships. When we shot the scene in the Maddie’s house, we wanted to carefully choose the right camera angles and shots to show the typical stereotype of how some teenagers act before getting to a party. At this scene the girls are getting ready and pre drinking for the party, whilst getting changed too. At this point teenagers can relate to this scene, because typical group of friends get ready together before they go out for a night out. I think that the party scene particularly relates to teenagers and shows strongly underlines that the production that we created is specifically aimed at teenagers, because of the low lighting that we used throughout the scene, and the type of clothes that all the characters are wearing. For example Rose is wearing a very short skirt and a small crop top, so she’s dressed up in a way which she knew would attract boys.

How did you attract/address your audience?
As our audience were our age it was easier for us to target the audience, because we knew what our age audience like as we are the same audience. So we mainly focused on teenagers, and all the characters that were in our production were teenagers. I think right from the beginning of the production the audience could see that this film involves teenagers, as the two best friends Maddie and Rose were walking together at the end of school, having a typical teenager conversation about their issues and boy problems. As we aimed to target our production for audience ages 16+ meant that we had to ensure that CLAMPS were important in this, as teenagers care about their looks and clothes that they wear, so we ensured that both of the characters have lots of make-up and appropriate school uniform. The settings that we’ve used attracted the audience, as in the scene where the girls are getting ready for the party; they are all talking about how they want to drink their sorrows, which some teenagers could relate to easily in their everyday lives. The different scene’s that we did use, were school, Maddie’s house, Rose’s house which was the party scene and the outside when the two girls were running and screaming right at the end. I think that costumes related to the audience well, because all their clothes were casual, but at the party scene the girls we’re hardly covered up, which is what stereotypical young girls go out like to parties, because they feel more attractive when they are wearing hardly anything. We felt that our production Oracle linked well to one of Alfred Hitchcock quote’s which is; ‘Ordinary people in extraordinary situations’. I feel that this quote links well to our thriller, because the story that we tried to make was about ordinary people, in extraordinary place, because not many parties end up in murder, however we wanted to show how some teenagers can get under control if they drink underage and especially if they take drugs. I felt that the party scene in particular related to our target audience, because some teenagers would be able to relate to the film. Both of the girls look really friendly and innocent, so the audience aren’t expecting anything bad to happen, however when Rose kills her best friend, it’s still unclear to the audience who kills who, in till the next scene when Rose is washing her hands in the bathroom which also links back to the first scene, as we tried to show the story about what happen the day before. The fact that Rose kills her best friend at the end of the five minutes makes the whole thriller mysteries, as the audience aren’t aware why she has done this, they only know that she took drugs and is drunk; which my whole group felt that it made the whole thriller more thrilling, because it covered the conventions of a psychological thriller. The murder part is also a big shock for the audience, as no one expect Rose to be an ‘evil’ character in Oracle, because she starts off being very friendly and acts like she’s interested in her best friends problems. I felt that our thriller Oracle, could be easily related to Barton Think and No country for old men, because in both of these opening sequences it’s unclear what the whole film will be about, which attracts the audience, and as we had a girl killed in the first five minutes of our production, it engages the young audience as they want to find out what’s going to happen next. Overall I think that we attracted our target audience well, because we included all the conventions that teenagers would be interested in, and the script and story line itself is quite interested which some teenagers could relate to, and there is a scene of tension on the audience as they are unaware of what’s going to happen next.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think our group learned a lot from the preliminary task, because we had some problems with filming it and when we did, we got told that it didn’t look like a preliminary, which meant that we had to shoot again. The first time when we did it, we tried to include many different shots to make sure that we understand how to create different shots and camera angles. We used high angles, low angles, two shot, over the shoulder, which we felt that worked well in other films such as La Haine and Barton Think, so we thought we could try these out and see how it would work in our production.
The first preliminary task that we completed was a girl walking into a room, and meeting her friend Lauren in the class. They have a conversation, Lauren is having a house party, but her friend calls her house ‘skanky’ so she gets upset. Then on the next scene Lauren walks over to her other friend which has already been waiting but Lauren is angry and she starts telling her friend what has been said about her. So her friend walks off to sort the problem out. However we didn’t have the chance to film the last bit. However we have used so many different shots in this preliminary, such as close ups, high angles, long angle, two shot, over the shoulder and extreme close up to show when Lauren is running. When we started editing the preliminary together, our teacher told us that the preliminary had to relate to the genre that we are going to produce for our production which was thriller, but we didn’t know about this, so this meant that we had to re shoot our preliminary. So we decided to re-shoot it again, and as we had to relate it and base it on a thriller, we decided that the main story line that we made was that a girl runs into a room and creeps around secretly to find someone, when they find that person they don’t fight but the girl tries to find out the information that she needs, however the other person is foreign so they can’t answer their question. Their partner who has been looking for the dealer then runs into the room and says that they’ve found what they’re looking for. When we finally got to edit this preliminary, we didn’t have any problems. But as we were all completely new to the Mac’s, we had to experiment with the different effects that Final Express Cut has. When we finished the preliminary task, we were really happy with the final outcome, as we tried to use different effects such as echo’s on the sound to create the genre of the production. So from creating a preliminary task, we found it much easier to film our production, because we had more ideas of what storyline to do for our thriller and we were had more experience on the Mac’s, even though all of us we’re still very unsure how to use them and didn’t experiment with enough effects to know which ones will work best on our production. As we had experience with the camera that we used for preliminary, we just went with using the same camera, which was my camera Nikon D3100. We use my tripod to help us film some of the shots, so there wasn’t any movement or looked like hand help shot which was good because it make the scenes look professional. Overall I think that after so much research, re shooting and planning we’ve done a very good job of creating the preliminary and our final product, because we’ve put so much effort and time into this to make it work properly, even though there might be some errors which looks unprofessional I am very proud of what we’ve produced. I feel that we’ve used many different types of conventions, camera angles, and planned out the CLAMPS very carefully. The only area’s that I’d say are negative about our production and the whole process of making it, was the amount of time that it’s taken us to shoot every scene and the editing as it was hard to get use to and understand the software. However it was still fun and interesting to open our media and film institution knowledge, as I’ve looked as so many different producers, directors and films overall. If our group was to make this production again, I think the main areas which we’d have to take in consideration is the CLAMPS, because in some scene the lighting is not very light, which makes it difficult for the audience to see the characters. Also we’d have to ensure that all our props are correct, for example it’s important that when the characters have different props such as phone and folders, it’s important that it’s in the same place every time we, re-shot.  

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The Video below answered this question.

By Anastazja Stanowska