Introduction
My project is the opening three minutes of a hostage thriller film. During the production, filming and editing of this film I worked with the other 2 members of my group Ryan and Mark. In the planning stage of the product it was Mark who contributed most to the blog but me and Ryan also contributed in an important way to the blog added regular posts to update the status of our film. When it came to filming we all contributed equally all of us filming different shots from different angles while other people helped with the props and the lighting. Editing is where I mostly contributed to the film putting in hours after lessons to come back and edit the film to make sure that the effects worked properly and that all the shots linked together correctly
In what way does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
QN1) the genre of our film is hostage thriller, in the shooting of the film we have not used that many conventions of the hostage thriller in the shooting of our film. One convention that we did use was where the kidnapper made the ransom note out of new paper clippings and magazines although it is quite cliché the group decided that it would add a nice and different effect that would make our group stand out from others and make it more individual than the other groups projects .Another of the convention we used was that we treid to keep the kidnappers face hidden in all of the shots of the film because when you cannot see the kidnappers face I think adds the tension, suspense and fear. We tried an idea that has not really been done before in the hostage thriller genre we used a lot of cuts to flash back and forth from when the girl was kidnapped to when the girl was being tortured by the kidnapper to build tension and drama in the film. I think this will get us marks from the examiner because it is different and the cutting from scene to scene was edited well and I think each shot flows into the next one really well and I think it works really well. When we showed the project to out some students at our college they thought although it could be a little clearer they thought the effect was really good and greatly added to the tension and mood of the film. Another idea that we decided to try was when the victim is first seen she is not just seen in an ordinary light but the light flashing on and off giving brief glimpses of the girl while she is tied to the chair adding to the suspense and making the audience have to watch closely to see what is happening and add to the tension and fear created by the scene and I think it works very well because it uses the effects of lighting to help give the audience the sense of dread that they are meant to be feeling while watching our product.
How does my media product represent particular social groups?
QN2) although there are not many characters seen in the film there is one social group that is seen in the film and that is the social group of the young teenage girl and in the film she does fall into the role of typical stereotype of this social group which is the young girl as the victim. we constructed this image by using her costume and the way she acts in the film giving off a helpless and endangered look.
What kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why?
QN3) I personally think that out of all the british film studios there are I personally think our product would have the most appeal with hammer film production. Although they have a history of mainly making horror films they have also made a few thriller movies. Also although our film is not a horror film it has some of the same conventions and characteristics of a horror film. By making the audience afraid of the kidnapper and making them afraid of what will happen for the little girl help to make the audience more interested in the film and the project. I think they would back us because although the idea is not the most original of ideas but it has a lot of potential and if shot and produced correctly could become a great film
Who would be the audience for my media product?
QN4) The ideal audience for our media product would in terms of age be 16-21 year olds due to the fact that the violence and themes seen in the movie should not be viewed by an audience younger than 16. Also at this age people tend to have the most money to spend on things like going to watch a film and buying merchandize. When it comes to gender I think this type of film is more suited to the male gender because it is more of a dark film but it could also appeal to the female gender due to the more emotional elements of the film. When it comes to ethnicities I don’t think it will make a difference in how much they enjoy the film although when it comes down to nationality I think that it could effect the audience of the product I think it would be more people from English and American nationality would enjoy the film more since that it where it would be more widely circulated. With the socio economic class I think that it would appeal to all of the different classes because it doesn’t matter what social class you are from when it comes to enjoying a film. This is based on GRASS which stands for gender, race age and socio economic class.
How did i attract/address my audience?
QN5) We attracted our audience by instead of opening with a classic introduction of the characters we instead started of with more of an introduction to situation of the start of the film. Which I think is a refreshing change against the typical kind of conventions used for the intro of films from this type of genre. We make a great use of enigmas in the opening sequence of our media project there are enigmas straight from the start of the piece the audience is presented by enigmas like “where is she” “who is she” “what has happened” and these enigmas help to move the story from point to point and keep the audience interested . In the media product we made good use of the lighting by not only shooting it at night but by also adding a dark tint to all the other scenes to make the atmosphere a darker one and to show that what is happening is evil which is one of the connotations of the darkness. We also used light in a quite an inventive way when the victim is shown for the first time instead of just seeing her in plain light we showed the audience her in flashes of light.
What have i learned about technology and the skills I have learned?
QN6) during the production of our media product we used and learnt lots about the different kinds of technology used in media. the first and most simple use of technology was using the internet to research the genre of film we would be making and media in general the internet its self was a great resource and very helpful when it came to the research. After the initial research and planning stage of the project we moved onto the filming of our products at this stage we where taught how to use digital cameras in an effective way so we could film our products. After we had filmed we then moved on to the editing of out film and again learnt how to use a new type of software ______ we then used this to edit our films and add all of the special effect that are used in the film.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the start to the full product?
QN7)although there is only a few weeks in between the preliminary task and our finished product. When we first shot our prelim task we where still coming to terms with how to use the camera and the techniques needed for filming. I think that the final product is better in every single way than the prêliminary task since the preliminary wasn’t as serious as the real thing and we didn’t put anywhere near as much effort into the preliminary task. Also the final product is a dark and gritty story which has some very serious aspects and is very tense and suspenseful with a serious story and also was shot in a more professional way. As well as the fact that for the prelim task we didn’t do any editing while with the final product our entire group spent many hours during lessons and after them trying to edit the final product and make it perfect .
Conclusion- Overall I think that the product will go over well and also get us a good mark because we all put a lot of effort and time into the project. In my personal opinion the main strengths of the product are the originality and a lot of the effects are a original and will help separate us from the rest of the projects done by the other students. Although no project can be without a flaw or two and I think that a flaw about our project is that the way that we shot it could make it a bit hard to follow the plot at the beginning but I think after a bit that it is very clear what is happening in the film. Another flaw but not such a big one is the name of the film we spent a lot of effort on filming and editing but when it came down to picking a name we couldn’t think of one that would do the film proud although in the end we came up with stolen I still think that it is possible that a better one could be found. Although I think that our product is good and has a lot of potential I know that compared to the real thing it is nowhere near in the same league but with a lot of hard work and a bigger budget I think I would really be comparable the real thing
Joe Cudden
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