Evaluation

Fiona Ward, 12ma.

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

Our thriller has a realistic setting which is a generic convention of a thriller. Alfred Hitchcock's technique of a 'MacGuffin' item, this is where an item is seemingly important to the plotline however it is later apparent that it has little significance. Our MacGuffin is the very first shot of our film of a grave, it grabs the audiences attention and makes them curious to learn more about the plot. Alfred Hitchcock is a good influence for our thriller as he also worked with psychological

thrillers.

We also used realistic costume but using the mask for

the masked character creates an abnormal feel, the contrast with realistic life and the strange masked character creates a gre

ater dramatic impact. The use of narration though our voice over indicates a sub-genre of a psychological thriller. This is because it immediately takes the audience into the mind of the character and the audience becomes involved with the characters thoughts. Our use of conventions indicates influences for our work such as 'One Hour Photo,' because it also uses a voice over to tell the audience the characters thoughts. Other thrillers such as 'The Strangers' and 'Dead Man's Shoes' also use realistic setting but use masks as a prompt for something thrilling about to happen so the audience make a mental link between the mask and suspense towards a bad event. The mask also hides the identity of the character which makes the audience intrigued to see who she really is.

How does your media product represented particular social groups?

Our thriller is most likely to be appealing to white, female or males who enjoy a film that incorporates a lot of thought . Seeing as it is a modern take on a thriller it may be more appealing to a younger audience but still of an age suitable to view the film, as it has aspects of horror. The viewers also need to be mature minded enough to understand the psychological parts of the plot. Family is presented in a stereotypical way due to a mother, father and child figure who all seem happy together. However gender is not represented stereotypically as the woman character is dominant and in control of the other characters distress. The victim being a child, female is stereotypical as she is portrayed as weak and helpless. A female antagonist appeals to a modern audience as it in not a generic convention. Also a parental audience may find our thriller appealing as they can relate to the distress the parents would feel about the kidnap of a child.

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

Our product is unlikely to be something a hollywood company would be interested in as

there are a lot of other products like it, if more aspects of horror were added it may be more likely to be used for hollywood studios as it would appeal to a wider audience and more capable of holding the consumers attention for a long time span. I think our thriller is more suitable to be viewed as a short TV drama. Channels such as ITV would be the right kind of audience for a thriller as it shows a lot of similar dramas such as 'Torn' that has previously been shown on ITV, it would need to be shown after 9 o'clock because this is the watershed period and would ensure that it would be viewed by a teenage/adult audience. The mise en scene of the thriller links to the target audience of ITV as it has a typical street, house and family which the audience can relate too. This could open opportunities for merchandising such as the thriller being released on DVD, or the sale of masks the same as the one used in our thriller for costume purposes. Also if we were to finish our thriller with the parents not finding the child, this cliffhanger ending could lead to a sequel. The style of our thriller is appealing to ITV consumers as the mise en scene creates a realistic atmosphere, we used costumes that mainly reflect those of ordinary life. Camera ang

les such as point of view shots and over the shoulder shots cause the audience to feel involved and creates a sense of immediacy for reactions.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The consumer of our product should be over the age of 12 in order to not cause any distress on the audience, the consumer also needs to be mature minded enough to understand the situation. When choosing an appropriate gender for our product it is more likely to be viewed by females as the technique of inflicting emotion and sympathy on the audience is more likely to be felt by females, as generically the are more emotional and sympathetic. The voice over through the fist minute of the product is voiced a woman, this causes a female audience to relate to the voice and become engrossed with the thoughts of the woman. However the building of suspense is appealing to a male audience as they typically enjoy a product that is exciting. Films such as 'Taken' are similar to our product and this similarly appeals to both males and females as it has different aspects that appeal an

d our enjoyed by each gender.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our audience profile of women aged 12 and up would be attracted to our product through the emotional build up of our product. They will see similaraties in the characters of themselves and might find that the product brings them awareness of the dangers for the vulnerability of children. The part of our film where the child is in the kidnappers house would particularly terrify girls around the age of 12-15 as it would inflict emotion of how they

would feel if put in this situation. They would also feel this way in the part where it is apparent that the masked woman has been watching the family in the forest, this is shown through the point of view shot from the woman, and then the child is grabbed, this would cause the audience to feel involved. The audience is shown from the position of both the masked woman and the child, this creates sympathy for the child but also takes the audience inside the mind and reasoning of the masked woman helping them to understand the psychological parts of the thriller. This has a greater emotional impact on the audience as they know, but not necessarily agree with the masked womans reason for kidnap, the sympathy for her and the child causes the audience to feel confused and therefore reflects its psychological impact.

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

The camera equipment has proved difficult to use due to its short battery life when filming outside, however it is easy to transport. When filming we were faced with the problem of time, filming hours caused us to not have the right lighting for some parts of our film. We resolved this by using an effect called 'image mask' on final cut express which darkened the image and created the atmosphere of night. When using final cut express other effects such as 'wide time' created a blurred slow motion effect when the masked woman grabs the child, this caused the moment to be more dramatic as the wider time span creates more suspense, also as the image was blurry it creates importance of the moment to our thriller. The use of 'fade in' between shots helps create a sense of different place and time and makes the film flow.

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

The preliminary task helped us to gain practice in story boarding, it showed us the average time a shot should be in order to retain attention of the consumer. It also showed us how to develop characteristics that reflect a genre, for example a serious attitude must be shown through body language of a dominant character. It also gave us knowledge that the use of different camera shots and angles makes it more interesting and conveys different positions for the audience. I am now a lot more confident using the equipment after so much practice and i think we have conveyed enough camera skill to fulfill the original task. Our product could of been slightly improved with better organization.