GCE MEDIA STUDIES EVALUATION
At the beginning of the course we were asked to create an opening scene for a film. The film had to be at least 2 minutes long and had to be a thriller. In order to complete this correctly we had to ensure that we attracted our target audience, which in this case we decided to be teenagers, by using media techniques.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convections of real media products?
Once we were given the task, we figured out it would be easier and more effective if we chose for our film to attract the attention of teenagers, from this decision the first thing we decided to do is interview fellow students in our class on what they expect to see in a thriller and what will encourage and interest them, but most importantly, given that it is a opening scene, would want them to continue watching the film. From the interviews we were capable of choosing what thriller sub-genre we would like to complete once we found out that the most popular thriller sub-genre to teenagers are Horror Thrillers and the best way to hearten teenagers to the film is through the use of suspense. The plot has a very common approach to most horror thriller film this way people understand from watching the opening scene what genre it is. The storyline itself correlates to the popular 2004 horror film The Grudge. However our opening scene challenged expectations because we have included an all black cast, the reason why we done this to avoid the general use of a white casts, also to refrain from the 'black guy dies first' stereotype seen in films such as 'Night of the Living Dead' and 'Scream 2' . This also allowed us to expand our target audience.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The best way for our film to illustrate a social group is through character representation, which we can embrace through use of mise en scene. The way characters are represented is a big part of attracting audiences the way we incorporated this is through the way the characters interact with one another and the way they dress throughout the opening scene, knowing that our research showed that films represent teenagers to be heavily involved in drugs, sex and violence so included this as much as we could in the opening scene. Knowing that we included an all black cast we tactically dodged a common stereotype of what race dies first seeing that no matter who dies there is still a remaining character representing the race allowing us to steer away from any negative criticism or unexpectedly offending the audience.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
One way we chose to publicise our film is through social networking site Facebook, the reason to why we chose Facebook is because it is popular with teenagers and both genders therefore we can get a variety of feedback from our targeted audience which has proven beneficial.
The distribution of our production is based on the Internet due to the fact that it is noticeable that we do not have the sufficient funds to market it on a global status and in a cinema as such.
Another reason why we uploaded it onto social networking sites and YouTube is so that we can create a buzz/fanbase that would attract a media distribution company to invest in improving the film so it could potentially be to the desirable standards of a cinema film.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The range of the target audience for the product was 15-24 year olds but primarily we wanted to attract young teengers, seeing as from our research we identified that it is 15-24 year olds that are mostly interested in watching horror thrillers. The film rating for the film is 15 this way anyone from 15 years old onwards can be allowed to watch this film maximising and reaching our target audience in the best way possible.
How did you attract/address your audience?
One way that we attracted the target audience is by making all the characters involved in the film based on the target audience age, this way the audience can have more chance of relating to the story and the characters. All the while we were inputting the opinions we received from the research on what teenagers like to see in a horro thriller, such as suspence, violence, and drugs. Which we tried our best to include. Another way we targeted our target audience is to publish the film onto the social networking site Facebook which really common with people from the age of 15-24. Also Facebook can be easily accessed seeing as many people now have internet access in their household making the opening scene easily accessible. The film was then uploaded onto YouTube which is also used by a wider range of teenagers and adults. All these techniques we used proved successful seeing as we now have a view count of over 100 in a couple days and a lot of feedback and comments on Facebook. I also created a film cover thats goes well with the film using Adobe Photoshop CS4 to use for advertising and by giving the film a source of branding and recognition therefore when people see this particular cover they can immediately link it to the film that we created.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The filming allowed us to learn how to use the media production software Adobe Premiere, which we used to edit and alter clips so that they were in good standards to complete a finished product. The knowledge gained from the project was used to complete all the preliminary coursework and finish our media project. Another program that I learnt to use during the creation of the opening scene is Celtx, this program allowed us as a group to make storyboards, plans, and create a calendar which enabled us to know what we needed to, when to do it, and how we will work together to complete the particular to the best of standards.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
The media course allowed me to learn a lot about the many aspects of Media, especially when entering the course I had no clue that media production had so many theories and techniques such angle shots and character representation. All of this has to be involved appropriately in order for the product to comply to the quality of the industry. It was after the preliminary that we started to actually use the Celtx application this allowed us to stay organised, which is one thing I learnt is really important in media production because there is so much to take into consideration such as the editing, filming and planning and if it is not organised appropriately the final product would not of been as successful as it is at this date, and fortunately the program allowed us to do all of this at once.
Jeremiah Kalukembi