Evaluation 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film we decided that we were going to use teenagers or people in the same age group as our target audience. We ranged the characters ages between 17-20 to represent the difference between the ages and what they would be like in this situation.

We did not have a representation of a killer because it isn't a social group and therefore we chose the killer to be a stereotype in our project. The killer is male so we made him dress as if he were rather messy and careless as most boys don’t bother with what they wear and how they look. Although we made him wear dark clothing to ensure that it fits with the scene.

We decided that the 4 girls who are the best of friends would need to have all different personalities to be able to represent a larger target audience, we also thought that for these girls to be talking each other that they would either need to have known each other for a long time or that they are outsiders of their age group and found comfort in each other.

Megan plays Scarlet in our film and this character has the personality of a grunge girl. This means that she likes a lot of the gothic things but isn't a full on goth and her make-up is the thing that suggests this most in the beginning of the film. Although her party dress (if you saw her in it) could also represent the grunge look and it shows that she was still in the process of getting ready at the time of her death so isn't in her party dress.

Chantelle plays the role of Eva who is the mature one of the group, this is because she is the eldest and she cares about the rest of the girls like she would her own sisters (which becomes more apparent later in the film). You can tell that Eva is rather sensible because of the clothing she wears and the audience can tell that she is the leader because she is the one that starts the phone calls to the others girls.

Kimberley's character Cassie, is the youngest which is noticeable because she tries to pretend to be older in the way she dresses, this would normally be classified as what a 'slut' would wear to a party. This represents the girls that feel like they have to fit in or girls that like to go out wearing short dresses or next to no clothing because of what she is wearing and who she is with.

The last girl in this group is me, and I play Riley who is the girly girl out of the group which is mainly shown by the teddy's in the background of her room although they are tucked away, none of the other have any teddy's. It is also shown that she is rather girly because of the ways she dresses, this shows that even girls who are nearly adults don't have to be embarrassed that the have teddy's in their room and would relate to this character.

These girls are also university students of which go to frequent parties in their first year, this allows them to try and make new or more friends that could help you in your courses. One of the reasons that we decided to use this as a base is that on a big scale, no-one would notice if a couple of outsiders were getting killed because no-one really knew each other that well unless you joint the university at the same time as your friends. However when there is only a small group of you and one gets killed, it begins to worry the rest of them, more so if a friend had just gone missing.

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

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our group chose to have Summit Productions produce our film because it is a Thriller. Summit usually produces film that have the genre of either fantasy, romance, thriller and horrors and sticks to the conventions of each one. This is one of the reasons we chose Summit as when we tried to challenge the conventions of a Thriller it proved to be too difficult for our capabilities and therefore we thought that we needed a production company that usually sticks to all the conventions. Summit productions usually hire young actors, for example 'Edward Cullen' in 'Twilight' was 17 and therefore thought that this would be best because the age range of the first set of characters in the beginning of the film were 17-20.

All the films that are produced by Summit Productions have good feedback and we thought that our film was good enough to match the expectations of other films that Summit has produced. We like the films that Summit produce as a group as we have all watched Twilight and therefore would like to see other films that Summit has produced. This is one of the reasons we chose Summit because they have produced good films that people in our target audience group watch and we hoped that they would do the same thing and watch other films that the production company has produced because they liked others.

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

The genre we chose was a Thriller.

A thriller is a genre that revolves around anticipation and suspense. The aim for Thrillers is to keep the audience alert and on the edge of their seats. The protagonist in these films is set against a problem – an escape, a mission, or a mystery. No matter what sub-genre a Thriller film falls into, it will emphasise the danger that the protagonist faces. The tension with the main problem is built on throughout the film and leads to a highly stressful climax.

Although at first glance our film doesn’t look like a Thriller because it is a few girls getting ready for a party, but with the title ‘Who’s Next?’ you can see that there will be anticipation as the film will follow through what each girl does when they find out that one of the group has been killed. This creates suspense as when the second girl dies, the other 2 decide that they need to escape the grasp that the killer may have on them.

Our opening shows some of the conventional characters and others that will be revealed at a later time, most of which go with the general character conventions of a thriller.

• Law enforcement officer
• Stalkers
• Criminals
• Psychotic
• Innocent people in the path of danger

The iconography isn’t apparent within the first two minutes of our film and therefore we have challenged the conventions but they also go along with the traditional conventions later on within the film which would have been showed if we were to film the whole thing.

• Weapons
• Tension building music
• Fast paced editing
• Low lighting

When we were writing the script we wanted to put the shadow of the killer in the doorway to make it look creepy and it looks like he was just waiting to kill her. However this plan fell through when we realized that if the shadow was on the floor that Scarlet would be able to see him in her mirror so the hand was a better choice. At first we made it so that the hand was just in the shot but when we played the footage back it was hard to spot the hand so we then changed it so it interlocks with Scarlet's footage with the added sound of a single drum beat which helps add to the suspense of seeing the hand on the door. The hand makes you want to protect the innocent girl who is sat at her desk without a clue of what is happening, and that you wish to scream and shout at the screen until she hears you.

In all other Thriller films there is a suspense and a build up to seeing the dead person and therefore we needed a variety of shots that indicated someone was dead but not who until you see the whole body laying on the bed. Although you don't see the person straight away, the audience will realize that it must be Scarlet because the hand on the door was between her shots and she didn't answer her phone when the others called her.

At the end, the title comes up as the killer is walking out of Scarlet's house as the visual then fades to black and it looks like the writing has been written in blood because of how dark the writing is. The writing is also written in a shaky font which gives a creepy feel to the audience because of the fact that maybe the killer doesn't know what he is doing next.

Evaluation 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

Music:

When looking for the music, we thought that we needed something that would fit with all the personalities but it also needed to be quite upbeat because they were getting ready for a party. Most people who listen to music whilst they are getting ready for a party would find something to get their mood up so that they get into the party sprit. We found that the music that would best fit this would be Decode by Paramore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRPbiPauOo
After this we found out that most people liked the music because although the band is normally what everyone would like, they said that it fits the scene and the type of film.

Costumes:

For the costumes, we decided to make them match and represent the characters personality because the people watching the film wouldn't know what the personality is without us telling them or representing them in some way. The costumes attracted the audience because each of the dresses were from a different store and are quite popular and most girls would like them or would have seen them in stores. The costumes got no feedback from where we posted our final product.

Set:

The setting is bedrooms of which is a typical place for girls to get ready for a party when there is a possibility of having other people walking around the house. The reason we chose bedrooms is because they could also represent personality type where as a bathroom is normally blue or white and doesn't fit with the personality types that we had in mind when looking at it. Yet again, no-one commented on the setting in writing however a few people have said that they fit the same personality type that we were trying to show.

Props:

Most of our props were essential to the making and the linking of the scenes together and whilst making a thriller film. The fake blood could attract people with media knowledge or someone with artist views that would like to see how it has been placed and used within the film. Some people like to see murder films because they like the excitement however because we used a knife, this is a personal way to kill someone which could add to the original excitement. The mascara could be another way to attract the audience because it could be the same brand that they use.

This is the feedback that was specific to help us with evaluating our film and looking over the parts that we could have made better if we were to re-do this task.

 

Vicky Bray-Wade 
its very good I like the build up and the split screens on the phone scene. like the drama of the girl laying still and the person walking away makes you wonder "is she dead?" and "who is that?" x

Kieran George Tyler
It's really good
The costumes fit the characters well.
The idea is a little simple in my opinion, but it gives the film potential to go almost anywhere from here
It is also quite well edited - you don't notice you many cuts. The only one I would change is the jump cut when one of the girls is talking on the phone (maybe re-film that shot and do it all in one, rather than two takes) Also the props were good because they looked very convincing (for example, you know that the girls are on the phone to each other, even though it was filmed at entirely different times) 
The camerawork was quite varied - shots were from different distances and focused on different details
The sound was also very good - clear speach, you can understands hat the characters are saying all of the time
All in all, a very good film for AS - I look forward to seeing your A2 project 

Connor Thompson

I was just thinking you could vary the camera shots, instead of having pretty much medium shots and close ups. Could try some extreme close ups, POV, over the shoulder and perhaps a Low Angle? Also, I'd say throw in some more cinematography skills, like pans, tilts and zooms! It's good though, just include them and it will make it 100 times better

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

This is our discussion about what we learnt from the Preliminary task that we made sure wasn't a problem in our final product.

Evaluation 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Originally, before we started filming or even thinking of ideas on what to do we thought which was the most common age group that would go to the cinema? We figured out that it was most common for people aged 16-24 to go to the cinema to watch films and we planned our ideas for the film around this.

We also had to link in what both boys and girls would like to watch and found that a Thriller would be better to make for multiple different reasons. After knowing what genre of film we were going to create and what age group we were going to aim it at, we thought of our idea.

The people we had planned to like our film were both boys and girls aged 16-24 for a range of different reasons because different types of people like different types of things, which is why we also added the different stereotypes and made them outcasts of their age group but friends otherwise the film wouldn’t be what we wanted it to be.

The reasons they would like this film are below (and shown in a previous blog).

Girls.

We have targeted 16-17 girls because they mostly like to go to parties or aspire to go to them when they enter university. This is the stage when they are going through sixth form or college which could be a stressful time and they like to have fun. The girls in the film are also young actors and are based to be from this age group. Within the ages of 16-17 you are stereotyped into a specific category and where each of the girls are the outcasts of their age group with different personalities and that is why they have become great friends. This may help boost confidence of those girls that feel they are alone.

We have targeted 18-24 year olds because they are the most common ages to go to the cinema, we have adapted the start of our film to target them as the actors are young and they are playing as young girls. Another thing that would appeal to this age range of girls is the dress sense because they are all different styles which are popular at the current time. The girls in the film are meant to be girls at university and college who tend to go out to parties frequently.

Boys.

In general boys are attracted to anything that may give them an adrenaline rush which is normally action adventures, horrors and thrillers. Our film should also appeal to girls which makes it easier for the boys to take their girlfriends out to see a film that they would both enjoy. If the boys did use this as a date film, it gives them the chance to console their scared girlfriends during and at the end of the film if needed. There is also a sexual nature to the film which would appeal to the boys because they are attractive girls going to a big party and there will be girls of all different natures. This could include some ‘slutty’ girls like the character of Cassie going to the party.

Is this still the case?

When we uploaded the video to our Facebook pages, we got quite a few likes which were mostly our friends who are roughly the same age as if give or take a few years. This means that our target audience of 16-24 has hit especially in the lower end of our target audience, although there were likes from the top end of our estimate. We also had comments from a much older audience who are mainly our family members also liking our opening. This suggests that when you target a specific age group, there will be the odd people outside of this age group who would also like to watch this type of film.

Evaluation 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We have learnt how to set up the tripod properly because at the start when we were filming the preliminary task, we didn’t have access to them and therefore didn’t use them. When we were filming the mise-en-scene talk, we needed to use the tripod because there was nothing to rest it on and we thought that it would be a good idea to learn how to set it up before we started filming the scenes. This has helped us to make sure that the camera is still so that it looks like a professional film in the end, however the tripod also made parts of it look rather jumpy and no matter how many times we re-filmed the scene to get it right, it still jumped.

We had to know how to navigate the cameras to find what we needed and to make sure what we had filmed looked okay at the end of the day instead of forever going back and forth. We learnt where to find the albums to watch back what we had just filmed and this helped because it helped us to see what went wrong and what we could have done better in the same day as the original filming. The main worry that we had was the memory card because at one point it had gone missing and we weren’t the only media class using this set of cameras.

We used the iMacs for multiple different things, for example; the bloggers, uploading footage, editing, and creating music. The iMacs have different icons then a normal computer or laptop which meant we had to know what we were looking for when using them. We hadn’t used Final Cut Express, GarageBand or iMovie before so when we knew what the icons were, we were knew where to find them.

The icons we used most frequently on the iMacs were 1-Finder, 2-Safari, 6-iMovie, 7-Final Cut Express and 10-GarageBand as shown in the above picture.

This is how Final Cut Express was set out and we had to look at all the different tools whilst trying to edit. At first, we were always getting messed when editing our preliminary task but when it came to editing the final product we had got used to the set out a bit more and found it easier to use. We learnt where everything was and for some things that we didn’t know how to use we tried to find it on YouTube as a tutorial. Whilst using Final Cut Express we had to figure out how to separate clips and cut them so that we had a film that flowed well. We also had to find the different effects and how to add the text, which we didn’t find until closer to the end of our project and we then we tested which would fit better with the nature of our film. We also looked at how to unlink the video and the audio so that we could delete some of the audio and replace it with music. Another thing that we learnt how to do whilst using Final Cut Express was putting two screens on at the same time which was rather difficult to begin with as we didn’t know how to set it out properly until looking at the tutorial on YouTube.

We rarely used iMovie but we had to use it as a transport to put out footage onto final cut then to revert it back to our final product. We learnt how to import on a big scale so that we didn’t spend all of our time trying to upload our footage into final cut. As we rarely used iMovie and didn’t keep up to date with how to import the footage every time we used it, it was like it was the first time.

Before we did our preliminary task, we were told to mess around with GarageBand and try to find where everything was situated. I didn’t do very well with this as I am not someone who can tell what sounds good and what doesn’t. This one the main reason that I did not try to create the music that was added in to our finished product, Chantelle and Megan did this for our group.

During the course of our coursework we didn’t have to learn how to use YouTube or how to navigate and find the things that we needed because as teenage girls we were already used to this. We had to create a YouTube account so that we could get feedback on out finished product once we had uploaded it which some of us already had and knew how to use. In the end we didn’t get any feedback from the video on YouTube apart from other people within our class at school which meant their views were biased, although we did get quite a few people who watched it.

Chantelle’s YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPR3x750Xs8

Facebook was similar to YouTube, none of us needed to learn how to use and navigate Facebook because we all had a Facebook account to start with and knew how to do everything we needed to upload the video and ask people for feedback, again we didn’t get very much of it.