will evalutation

it is not showing up on this screen but if you look in the march collum on the right in the blog archive then you will be able to find it.

Final Evaluation - Jess

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

 I feel our media product develops and compliments the conventions of a real media thriller.  I know our thriller has the conventions of a real thriller as it is full of suspense and has a battle between justice and injustice. Our media product was influenced by convention thrillers like 44 inch chest. We interpreted the scene where the main male character is laid on the floor looking as if he has been beaten up. It is clear to see we interpreted it in the scene when our main male character is laid on the car park floor as he has just been chucked out of the casino. 

This is the scene we all decided to base our thriller around:

We chose to base our media opening around this scene as we had researched about it in class; from the viewing in class and our discussion about it, we learned that it made a good thriller as it engaged the audience and made us want to find out what happened and whether he is the protagonist or an antagonist. It also disrupts the structural narrative which allows the audience to see the end before the beginning to make them ask questions and really get engaged into the plot.

• Our aim was to make the audience feel empathy for the protagonist, we did this by the extreme close ups and just close ups on the main male characters face; we were trying to make the audience see the tension in his face and also allow the audience to get the feel of his facial expressions.
• It obviously worked as when I showed our media product to my parents they said and I quote "It was very atmospheric and the non diegetic music really helped build up the tension and that they wished they could watch more" 
 

1. The first still shot is when the audience can here the voices of what might be protagonist and antagonist having a conversation. It was obvious they are playing cards as you can here them flicker in the background, we did this to confuse the audience but also to intrigue them to keep them focused on the story forthcoming. 

2. In this second shot we chose, as a group, to go straight into the disequilibrium where the antagonist throws the protagonist to the concrete floor. This was done as it makes the audience perplexed as it goes straight into the story, at this point they are unaware who the two characters are and whether they have any main part in the story. We chose to manipulate the structural narrative here to get the audiences attention and draw them in so they want to watch more.

3. Thirdly we introduced the first title of our story, we emphasised it with a non diegetic sound that was a sort of heart felt thud which eminated an eerie feel and was done to engage the audience; to build up tension. 

4. In addition the next screen grab was a close up on the possible protsgonists face to enable the audience to see the facial expressions on the main male characters face. We did it to show the concern. We portrayed concern by having the characters eyes point down towards the ground and his face was stern yet a hint of worry was conveyed. We did the shot at a point of view angle so that the audience could see straight into the male characters eyes and each member watching could interpret it in their own way; for example whether he is scared or confident. 5. This next shot was another title as it is just a screen shot it is unclear that it has an animation. The text slides on from each side and meets in the middel; possibly portraying the fight between justice and injustice.

6. This next shot is our title, we placed it on the screen in a shot so it attracted the audiences eye to the appropriate place. It was merely an establishing shot but attracted attention to the main setting of our urban area.

7. I addition this next shot introduces the poker game scene. It engages the audience as they are unaware of what the male character looks like as we made the lighting in the room very dark; therefore the male characters facial expression could not be seen. This engages the audience as they want to see why there is so much secrecy and what he is up too. 

8. In this shot you can see the characters face although it is still unclear as to what his facial expression portrays, which draws the audiences attention to the poker game and whether it's dodgy or not. This shot is a mid close up to allow the audience to see the body language of the possible protagonist or antagonist. When looked at his posture seems very relaxed as he is slouched in his chair and looking quite smug; this will make the audience want to watch more as it is a very different picture as to what was portrayed in the last shot. 

9.This final shot portrays mystery as the male character suddenly opens his eyes to shock the audience as he has been lying there looking dead and then unexpectedly opens his eyes. The audience then realises he is alive and engages them to watch more and find out what happens. The side lighting really helps as it keeps half his face dark to, which may portray that he has a darker side to him; making the audience unsure if he is protagonist or antagonist.

Here is a couple of screen shot examples of the extreme close ups and just close ups on the main male character's face:  

• I feel our use of cross cut editing also helped the audience to follow the plot, yet also  engaged them into the plot so that they wanted to find out more. I think we did this by giving the audience a little insight to the story forthcoming. We showed glimpses of the story like parts of the poker game and when our main male character got beaten up; this allows the audience to get an insight to the story, yet intrigues them as they want to know why he has been beaten up.
•  More over I feel our titling contributed quite a lot to our thriller opening as it helped carry on the suspense. We got the idea from the new thriller out 'Black Swan' which can be watched below. When we watched it we thought it was good as it gave a bit of an insight to the storyline but not enough for us to know what would happens. We liked the sliding effect of the titles and researched into it, by asking our technology man what effects can be used on imovie and once we knew we experimented with all different types of effects. However we didn't position the titles in the same format style as 'Black Swan' as we wanted them on a black screen in the center of the screen to attract the audiences attention to the title; but we also didn't want to attract the audiences eyes to any of the plot of the story as we didn't want to give the whole plot away we only wanted to allow them to get a insight. We emphasised  the titling by adding a non diegetic sound which was deep and low key to build up tension and it also made it more atmospheric.We decided to use a white bold 'Arial' font on a black background to show the contrast between the two characters in our film maybe the difference between justice and injustice. The fact that the titles slide on may implicate the friction between the two contradicting characters and maybe helps give an insight to the relationship between the two characters. 

•  Our film genre was obvious it was a thriller as we included the main conventions of one by using mystery, gambling and dodgy dealings.
• The beginning part of our media opening was just non diegetic sound followed by some dialogue adding to the intensity as the audience has no idea who is talking and what situation their in if any at all. We thought it would confuse the audience yet get them engaged as it gives them the sense of the unknown. This was a last minute scenario as we needed to make up time, but i think it was a brilliant decision as it works really well. It engages the audience as they may wonder what is going on and it grasps their attention. All of our non diegetic sound was produced on 'Garage band' we used garage band as we had learned how to use it in class and we knew how to find what we wanted. However the sound of the dialogue was done on a voice recorder and then we processed it onto our movie. We did have a bit of difficulty however trying to find a good sound for the end shot, but as you can see we overcame this by being more precise on our wording.

 

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

The two characters in our film are representing young males; in our film we have based the two characters around a gambling themed narrative. The main character gambles all his money and loses which leaves him in a huge debt. The two main characters are seen as upper class as they are dressed formally in suits the fact they are wearing ties and smart clothing suggests this but this may just be the persona they want to portray throughout the story. They may actually be working class people trying to get on in life. It is for the audience to decide each member watching will each have their own opinion. We also wanted to convey realism to the audience and by dressing the two characters in smart, formal clothing this is what is perceived as the dress code for a casino.

 

• As you can see the first male character is the male character challenging the main male character. He is distorted in this shot so he is unknown, which builds up the suspense as we have no idea who he is or whether he is the protagonist or the antagonist. The first screen grab was an establishing allowing the audience to see the secrecy of the place, it is informal and very dark to portray that their obviously doing something illegal as they don't want to be seen.

• The social groups being portrayed in our media product are young males, which are maybe desperate for cash and who are just trying to get by in life, or they may be playing for more cash as their professionals and know what they dealing with. The people who are being represented are young males form the age of about 20- 35. This can be seen as a traditional way of representing males as not all young males are out gambling and some women join in in this modern era. We show the representation of young males by the use of our camera work and by using the elements of elements mise en scene. It is clear to see this when we shoot a long shot on the main male character being chucked from the casino and onto the concrete. This may portray young males are always getting into scraps and are always gambling as they have no money and no job.

• I think we have targeted are audience well as this is likely to appeal to the younger male audience, as it includes the conventions of a thriller as it includes some violence, it's got illegal dealings and some aspects of mystery. We decided to represent a male character this way as it is recognisable to our young male audience, this is how young males are perceived in the traditional way.

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

With much discussion we decided as a group that we would release our media product on a Wednesday as it is a low key day with not much rivalry. We would like our film distributors to be 'soda pictures' as this institution are based in the United Kingdom. This is highly beneficial as it would make distribution of our product easier as the financial costs won't be as much.


4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience for our media product was aimed at young males age group is around 12+. We chose to target our audience young as it therefore broadens our audience. We feel young males would really enjoy our media product as it is about crime and mystery, which is specific to young males in this modern era. We decided to use a 12 certification as it is has no bad language, it has nothing unsuitable included in it throughout the whole plot and the material is suitable, in general, only for those aged 12 and over. We want to show our media product at 'The Duke of York's' cinema in Brighton. We decided this as it is low key yet a lot of young kids like to go to the cinema so it is a good place to show it.  

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

I think we addressed our audience really well with the camera work, mise en scene and sound.

I think they would enjoy the close- ups on the main male character's face as they can then see for themselves the intensity in his facial expression and in some of his body language. Here is a screen grab of the main male character's body posture whilst dealing in the poker game:
 From this image we can see his body posture is quite floppy and his head is looking down on the floor. This shows his apprehension about what he is doing and maybe suggests a bit of worry that he may lose his bet.
 Lighting:
We chose to have not so much lighting so the storyline was a bit unclear as to where they were and to show the secrecy of the situation. I think we portrayed this quite well. However i think we could have made it a bit lighter as once looked back on it does look a bit too dark. I think to overcome this if we were to do it again we should of have had a bit of frontal lighting reflecting off his face to get a bit more of an insight to his facial expression.

Mise en scene:
Costume:
We chose to dress him in a shirt and tie to give the audience the sense of realism as if you were going to a poker game this is the normal dress code. 
Props:
We also showed the chips in this shot to make it look real as well as that is one of the main props in a poker game.
Colour:  
The colours used are very masculine for example we used colours like; white and black These are considered to be very male orientated colours but they also suggest the difference between good and bad, antagonist vs protagonist. This may actually be giving an insight to the storyline ahead.
Body language:
The body posture of the two male characters throughout were straight back to look professional, yet this may just be the persona they want to give off. The main male character did however look quite worried at some points during the story as he may feel apprehensive about the decisions forthcoming.
Location:
The location most definitely appeals to the younger male audience as it was an urban area in darkness portraying it was late in the night which suggests secrecy.  
Sound:
I think the sound contributes a lot as it a non diegetic sound track, it's a really low, tension building sound; which addresses young males as they like music with a beat to it. The beat occurs every time a credit comes up which really emphasises the build up to the storyline ahead.


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

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to  the full product?
Personally I think we have learned so much as a group in the progression from the preliminary task to the full media product. The knowledge we gained helped us overcome our mistakes and improve highly in our media product. 
Following our preliminary task we overcame our mistakes by the following:
When we produced our preliminary media product we did not have so many clever editing techniques as we were unaware of how to introduce and interpret them into our film. These techniques included:
Titling

How to add in titles: We were unaware of titling at this point and as a result we included a black screen with some red text as a title at the end of our preliminary task. It did not include any sort of special effect and therefore once looked back on we decided to work on this and research a bit more into it, as we could see it was quite an important aspect to a thriller. We researched into it by looking at real media thrillers and considered how they included the text, what effects were seen as suitable for a thriller, what type of body text we should include and what would be an appropriate colour. A couple of  examples of  thrillers we looked at was 'Se7en' and 'Black Swan'. We came up with the sliding technique for our titles as it looked more interesting and engaged the audience. I think we helped engage the audience also as the non diegetic sound we added in to emphasise the titling more and to help build up the tension. The non diegetic sound is a soft but tense beat allowing the titles to stand out.  

 Lighting:
We also learned that the lighting is key when making a thriller as it is a part of the key aspects to making any film. We decided this time to use lighting to light up our thriller a bit more as in our preliminary task, once the class had given their feedback we found out that some shots were too dark. We overcame this by taking a torch with us this time lighting up key features of the male character's faces. 

Costume: 

In the preliminary exercise we learnt that costume is key when shooting a film not only to allow the character's fit in with their context but to create realism for the audience. In our preliminary task we did not consider the clothing as much as we should have and we know this now, so we made sure we considered the clothing and what it needs to convey a lot more during this exercise. 
Therefore we researched into key clothing for poker games and had a look at previous thrillers which included gambling and poker games we looked at the action film 'Casino Royal'  This is the poker scene we looked at:


Once we had researched into it a bit more it was clear to that the dress code for a poker game was a smart black suit, it's very formal and it looks quite upper class. This is why we chose to dress our main characters in a white shirt and a smart tie to keep the sense of realism for the audience. 

Camera work:
It was clear to see that following our preliminary task we have improved our techniques and learned from them. In our preliminary task we only used medium long shots and long shots which did not convey the emotion in the characters but were good as they did show the characters body language. We learned from this how important it was to convey the characters emotions and facial expressions. Therefore we chose to use more (extreme) close ups to relate to the audience and so they can see the anticipation and the tensity in the male characters facial expressions. However I think we did better camera movements in our preliminary as we included a tilt to show authority and dolly, we did not include any of these aspects in our new media product. This was a fault we had in our media product but i think we made up for it with the story narrative and the realism in the film we created for the audience. 

Editing:
Following our preliminary task I think we improved our editing techniques. We did the editing on Imovie HD we did this as it was simple yet highly effective. We used a white fade during all the shots that were flash backs to emphasise the fact they are flashbacks of the main male characters build up to where he had got to. We also included Fade in and Fade out techniques to allow the film to flow.
Location:
The location was a lot better than in our preliminary task as we were allowed to go out of the college grounds to film our media product. It really appealed to our target audience as it was an urban area at the back of a shop allowing us to portray the secrecy of the poker game. It looked abandoned and derelict so for us it was perfect location. 
On the left is where we chose to film our final media product.  



Narrative Structure:
Whilst making our preliminary exercise I was not sure about the concepts of the narrative structure. I feel I have more knowledge on the whole concept of it now and therefore it shows in our media product. We decided to manipulate the narrative structure to confuse the audience and also to engage them as it makes them ask questions like why is he on the floor? What happened to him? This fits the conventions of a thriller as the real thriller film '44inch chest' illustrated. It makes the audience see the end before knowing the beginning so they get engaged in the story and want to watch more, to find out what happened and whether they're a protagonist or an antagonist.