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

My media products challenges the conventions of a real media product in a unique way. Through its mise-en-scene for example. A typical thriller is normally set in open landscapes, dark forests or abandoned warehouses. one half of our media products is set in a populated place with a lot of lights, surrounded by trees and animals, this is unlike the conventions of a thriller and so challenges the conventions of a typical thriller.

However the second half of our media product uses similar techniques of a realm media product. Our cinematography includes long range shots to suggest to the audience how the main character looks so vulnerable in such a open space. Our mise-en-scene for the second half is much darker, open and lifeless which suggests something completely different to the first half. We did this to try and develop on the typical conventions of a thriller and to make our media product something differently and create a false image of what is going on and make them think differently.

Here is a screenshot of the location for the second half our media product. As we can see its very similar to real media products, a wide open location with not a lot of light and not much to it, this is very similar to a real media product "The Hills Have Eyes". The screenshot below is one taken from a part in "The Hills Have Eyes" it makes you feel that the character is alone in the dark where they could be anything, this is typical of a thriller conventions as thrillers are designed to make you think of what is going on and what could happen. This is a great example of how they do this through their mise-en-scene and cinematography. With our media product we designed ours similar, to make the audeience think of what is going on and what could happen, following similar conventions of a typicla thriller but yet challeneging them to try and create something unique and interesting.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents particular social groups in a specific way, one being the main character. Through what clothes he is wearing and how he acts, this represents a particular social group of how a teenager is seen as wearing hoodies, low jeans and looking pretty messy. Furthermore through the environment we have used represents the type of social groups that may be seen in these places. Late in the evening and hanging around town is typical of groups of teenagers with the hoodies up, our character represents a teenager criminal and this is also seen from the diegetic language used in our media product. This represents particular socials groups such as teenagers, criminals and others that would watch it. Many people assume that a teenager with their hood up and hanging around town must be up to no good and is a criminal, we used this in our media product to suggest to the audience that our main character is of that social group, however of course it is not true that he is a criminal but to the audience we do get this impression.

Through our music we also represent a more younger generation, we used a drum and bass remix in our media product and this is very popular with older teenagers, like that in our media product. This represents a older social group of around 15+ as they are a lot more likely to be able to relate to this, through the clothing and music, the way they talk to their friends and the type of place they hang around. 

Here is two screenshots of both the actor in our media product and a real media product, this gives us an example of how we stereotyped and how well they compare and represent social groups. the one on the right is the typical stereotype and the one on the right is what our actor looked like to represent this type of social group. As we can see they are both with their hoods up, are of young age and in both films uses popular music of young teenagers, this works well to respresent social groups of teenagers. Both our media product and theirs main social group are older teenagers who can relate to what going in the media products through the characters, music and narrative.

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

The type of institution that would distribute my media product would be not such a well known institution and one that specialises in smaller movies. When looking at top thriller media products I found that the institution that distributed  the popular movie "The silence of the lambs" was an institution called Orion. They are best known for their old classic styles of thriller movies which we have based ours on. Orion are known for their hollywood quality movies set on a low budget but yet not making many blockbusters, furthermore they are well known for their good work on thrillers. I believe my media product to be set on quite a niche market of young teenagers that would enjoy thriller and it seemed logical that as Orion specialise on small market thriller at a good quality it would be best for them to distribute my media product.

Who would be the audience of your media product and why?

The audience for our media products is like to be late teenagers, this is for several reasons. By the narrative of the story is something that is more common with teenagers aged from around sixteen to nineteen, they are a lot more likely to understand what is going. The actor is also a late teenager and many other teenagers would be able to relate to him. Through dialogue and clothing is quite typical of a late teenager who would be able to relate  to it well. If i was to give my media product an age certificate I would have though it to be a 15+, this is because of the drug reference, language and what would happen in the rest of them media product, being a kidnapping and further violence. I believe an older audience would be able to follow what is going and would be able to pick up on what is going on during my media product. Typical thrillers are normally based from late teenagers to old couples, many people enjoy watching thriller movies because of the suspense that is created and the mystery of the story. Thrillers are quite a broad audience until it starts going into more sub genres such as sci-fi thrillers where different people would be interested. We would like the audience to be more aimed at late teenagers as what happens in the narrative is something that can easily happen in late teenagers lives.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through similar ways to that of top media institutions. We used questionnaires in order to find out what part of thrillers they like and what they don't like. Through using questionnaires we also was addressing the audience by getting them more aware on our media product, we also distributed different posts on our individual blogs about our media products which was as great effective way of attracting and addressing an audience.

We also used a popular method that top media institutions use which is a focus group, this is a method to get a more specific opinion from well experienced thriller fans. We understood what they liked best, what works well in thrillers and what doesn't work so well. Through this we managed to address a more smaller market to get their opinion, after we had done this we distributed questionnaires to get a wider opinion on thriller. Through my focus groups and questionnaires it allowed me to attract my target audience and to get them aware of what is happening, I also got to found out what the majority of people enjoy about a thriller and from this I incorporated this into my media product.

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

Constructing this media product has helped me to learn a lot more on different technologies. The editing software we used on the Macs known as "Final cut express". By constructing my media product I leant how best to use this software, how to create the best effects and manage different videos clips as well as music samples. I also learnt how best to use a camera and many different effective camera shots that can be used. I also used a tripod which helped greatly to create the camera steady when filming. Here is an example of the tripod we used, with out it our shots would not have been steady and they may be quite shaky.

These three different things have all been learnt only because of constructing my media product, I learnt how to use these things effectively to help construct my media product. The editing software was a great help to creating my media product as it allowed me to create effects such as fade transitions to make my media product run smoother, to dim the sound of the wind hitting the camera and to make effects such as "echo" which created an effect that made things be seen as if in a drunken state which was a great effect for our media product. Here is an example of the shot before we increased the lighting and added the echo effect. On the right is the shot after we added the effects, we can see theire is a difference and it helps to create the illusion for the audience on how the main character must be feeling and what is going on.

Without the help of final cut express I would not have been able to make our media product look professional and run smoothly, it helped great with adding titles, continuity and differerent effects. We often used the colour editing part to increase certain colours throughout our media product, this was to attract the audience's attentions and to make things stand out. For example when the main character starts to dial the numbers on his mobile phone we made the phone stand out and we reduced the reflection of the camera behind it. Here is a screenshot of the colour editing software we used often for great effects. To the right of the colour screenshot is evidence of us using final cut express to edit out media product, you can see how we learn about changing the audio and how we positioned differerent fade effects to help make the ransition from differernt shots run smoother.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I can see I have developed in many different aspects. One being the quality of my editing skills significantly improving. For example with my preliminary task I did not know how to place titles or music into my media product and now I know how to do both these effectively. I can see I have learnt how to make a video run smoother through different effects such as fade in to drip dissolve, these different effects make my media product look a lot better and professional. Here is the example of the lighting in our preliminary task, as we can see its not great and it not quite as bold as our full product. Below this screenshot is a shot from our final media product, as we can see colours are more vibrant as we learn where best to position ourself to take full advantage to get the best quality pictures.

I have also learnt how best to use a camera for things such as cinematography. With my preliminary task i used very basic shots such as close ups and 180 reverse shot. I have developed from this and used many more different shots. I also learnt how best to film certain things and where to position the camera to get the best of the lighting available and for things such as protection from the wind. I believe I have learnt a lot in progression from my preliminary task to the full product. I learnt how best to use music in a video sequence and how to control it so it fits well with that is going on. Many different techniques to improve the quality of my work from cinematography to editing skills.