Evaluation - Podcast: Adaora

Evaluation - Personal Write Up: Adaora

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

As a group we had to make decisions on what genre we wanted the film to be based on. Some of my group members leaned towards physiology horror however I was more convinced we should do a thriller film. The thriller film would have included usual jump scenes and predictable ending. After discussing as a group that we should make a psychological film we had to do some research. This included watching different trailers in order to conduct ideas on how to begin to make a trailer. The main film that inspired us was ‘The Gift’ this was a psychological film where a man wanted revenge on his former classmates.  We were challenged by attempting to develop an original plot for a psychological film as most ideas vary around the same ideas. Most media companies use the same plot but change a few things an example of this would be the film ‘Paranormal Activity’.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product only represents the concept of gender in this particular social group. This is because our films plot is about a young male named Daniel who wanted revenge on his classmates, a particular classmate named Sasha. The gender representation in our film is that Daniel had power over Sasha, as you can see in the print screen this is a POV (point of view) shot. Daniel is in a position which makes him look more superior to Sasha. He is seen standing looking down at her and she is looking up to him. This is the typical stereotype where people comment boys are stronger than girls. This comment can be made because Daniel kidnapped her, tied her up and then killed her. Furthermore at the end of the film Daniel crossed off Sasha’s name showing that even after her death he still has power over her. At the beginning of the film Sasha was portrayed as the antagonist because of the verbal language she used against Daniel in the first opening of the scene however this soon changed when Daniel kidnapped her, Daniel then became the antagonist.

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

I have done some research and have concluded that the most popular institutions in the UK are BBC and Film Four. Before making a film, we would have to pitch our idea to the institution seeing if they would produce the funds needing to make this film into something huge. If our film was at a high standard rate it would be shown to a cinema in the UK and would then be sent to a few cinemas in America to see whether people enjoy this film, this idea then sets what fate the film has. Whether it will be shown in a national or international cinema. After being in the cinema it would then be released in shops and be sold on DVDs allowing people to have access to the film. Due to the fact this is only 2 minutes of the film we could distribute the film to a company like YouTube this allows us to upload the film for free without paying a fee for advertising etc. Also YouTube is available to anyone meaning anyone could view our film.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We researched that people within the ages of 18 upwards watched psychological films however we did realise people within the age ranges of 15 + enjoy watching thrillers. So, we decided to base our target audience around our age group. We researched successful thriller films such as ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Final Destination’ and noticed it attracted people around that age range. In a age 15 film there are particular scenes you are not allowed to show. We used this to our advantage by not showing how Sasha died knowing that will would be violating a code as a target audience was aged 15 upwards. If our target audience was only 18 upwards then we would be expected to show Daniel murdering Sasha.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In the two minute opening of our film we tried to engage our audience by using different angles shots in the film. We ensured the storyline was easy to follow, we accepted our target audience to be understanding of the situation as they may have being bullied or may have been the bully or witnessed someone being bullied. This situation would occur around the same age as our main character Daniel was bullied by Sasha. This defeats the theory that boys are stronger than girls because boys are supposedly stronger but Daniel had obviously been affected by Sasha's action which caused him to live a double life in seeking revenge on her.The music also helped build up the tension and to attract our audience in the film. The music chosen was from the Bat Man film. We uses this particular background sound because it gave off that creepy effect and set the atmosphere for the audience. The ending of the two minute film was a cliff hanger, we aimed to make sure our target audience needs were met. This meant including a villain who was male that killed a girl. We dressed our characters in comfortable wear allowing the audience to connect with the characters. At the ending of the film a rose was seen on the table and Daniel sniffed the rose and threw them on Sasha’s dead body. This engaged our audience because it allowed them to see how twisted Daniel really was.

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

At the beginning of the course we were told to make a blogger account, we were told this was were all our coursework would be stored. It was a software that allowed every group member to access this website at home and finish any work they had left to do. This also gave our teacher access to see how we’re progressing. We also used a software called Survey Monkey this allowed us to make surveys to hand out to people in order to get feedback and see what people wanted and how to make our film successful. I learnt that using this software was a great way to make questionnaires, simply because you typed the information onto the website and the website would create a questionnaire for you to either put on a social networking site or to print out. We used USB sticks a lot to transfer data onto the computer. We used the Apple Mac to edit our film on a software called Adobe Premier Pro, the Mac also gave u access to YouTube which allowed us to upload our video. Lastly, we used a video camera to record the film and a tripod to help position the camera still.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel as if I have learnt how to use camera and how to set up a tripod which were the basic steps. Also I learnt how to work in a group with people who I would not really associate with but we were able to get the job done. The preliminary task helped as a foundation, learning how to use the editing software and learn different techniques in order to help edit our film in a more further depth. Adding sound, texts and special effects. I do think overall it wasn’t easy that it was difficult because you have to plan everything out before you can start filming. At first my group did not plan which lead to us having to change the whole plot of our film but after we had planned we were able to make a finish product. I also learnt media is not about recording scenes that you have to research, edit and use different software's such as the Adobe Premier Pro and Bloggers account.

Evaluation - Reflection on finished work

Evaluation - Forms and conventions of media texts

Forms and conventions of media texts from acdproductions

Evaluation - What kind of media institution would distribute your film?

By Roisin

Evaluation - Character representation

Evaluation - Technology Used For Coursework

Evaluation - Target Audience Research Summary

Using the summary of findings which were found through survey monkey and interviews, I have concluded that the audience enjoyed the soundtrack and different angles we used for the film. I interviewed a boy and he said he enjoyed the film however he felt as if there could have been more jump scenes to cause suspense to the film as he felt our film did not cover enough detail on how the main character Sasha died.

Furthermore on survey monkey it was a 50/50 on who the villain should be. So we decided to have a male antagonist the fact there was a male villain in the film and not a female villain followed in the steps of a classical thriller film where the male is usually the antagonist moreover many comments were made such as showing blood and gore when Sasha died as we did not show that scene. Someone also suggested that we should have covered the knife in blood to allow the audience to know Sasha did get stab. If we had to start the process over I personally would change the entire film and think through a plot that would have been engaging for both male and females teenage audiences.

By Adaora

Evaluation - Audience

Evaluation

Our target audience is teenagers and people who are around the ages of 16. We are teenagers and we can relate to what they may want to see in a film. The props and costumes the characters are wearing, the audience can relate to it this is why our target audience is people our age. Moreover we have attracted our target audience by making the storyline easy to follow and understanding as the situation of them being bullied, bullying someone or witnessing someone being bullied would occur around the same age our main character Daniel was bullied by Sasha. This defeats the theory that boys are stronger than girls because boys are supposedly stronger but Daniel had obviously been affected by Sasha's action which caused him to live a double life in seeking revenge on her.

In addition to this we researched what teenagers find interesting and what they would like to see in a film, most search results came up with results such as killing, blood, jump scenes etc. So, as a group we decided in the 2mins we had to film that we would try to include some of these categories that our target audience is interested in.

In the two minute opening of our film we tried to engage our audience by using different angles shots, for example the POV (Point Of View) shot was used frequently this was so the audience could view everything through the killers eyes. The soundtrack choice allowed us to build tension as it made the audience question what would happen next. The ending of the two minute film was a cliff hanger, we aimed to make sure our target audience needs were met. I interviewed a student and ask what they would like to see happen in a psychological film. And the student suggested the main character living a double life. We tried to use this in our film by making Daniel seem normal to the public eye even though he was not mentally well.

We would make changes such as what location we used for Sasha's murder, maybe the use of a dark basement would have caused more affect on the audience. Making them feel sympathy for Sasha even though she had brought this upon herself. To continue to attract our audience I think we would include more jump scenes as seen at the ending of the film, Daniel was holding a list of names meaning he would have continued to murder until the last victim on his list was dead. For each murder we would have made the killings different so that the audience would still be engaged and not get tired of the same cycle of how he kills his victims.

By Adaora


Evaluation - Audience Feedback

This podcast was about how we felt about the feedback that was giving to us by the audience. We also referred to Survey Monkey because we allowed people to fill out the questionnaire on Survey Monkey in order to know exactly what the audience expected from the final product of our film.

Evaluation - Interview of Target Audience

The questions I asked him were would you have preferred a female villain in the film?
Would you have preferred more jump scenes and violence throughout the film?
Would you have preferred if the film was in black and white?

Evaluation - Target Audience Research

We got three random audiences to watch our film we did this because we wanted to see their reaction to the film, see what they felt towards the film and what they found interesting and if we needed to change anything about the film. However, the footage of us filming the boy had gotten deleted so we decided to upload the video of the two girls watching our film and interview the boy.