Evaluation question 7

Evaluation question 7 

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

Evaluation question 6

Evaluation question 6 

Here is a final cut i made for my answer for question 6:

Evaluation question 5

Evaluation question 5

How did you attract or address the audience?

Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 4 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3:

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Here is a video of me explaining this question...

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

Embedded within our short thriller opening extract we tried to use different representations to fit in with the thriller genre, which also allowed our opening to become meaningful to the audience. At the start of our AS course, we learnt about representations, which gave us several ideas on what representations we should involve in our extract and why. 

Firstly our opening sequence is a psychological thriller, however we wanted to go against general stereotypes of the age in psychlogical thrillers as we believe it would connect more to the audience. For example, the youngest actor was 11 and the eldest was 14. Within the extract we chose for the audience not to see the faces of the boys, therefore the audience weren't shown their actual age until the end of the extract. This created many age representations as the younger boy is shown more vulnerable as the audience is allowed to connect with his story and feel pathos for him. However the boy when he is older, is shown as less vulnerable as connotations of the older boy killing himself are shown at the end of the opening sequence. Also several close up of the boys eyes are used, and a graphic match is used to flow into one boys eye to another, as in real life the boys are siblings this creates a realistic representation of the boys age by showing how much they have 'changed'.

Moreover, we chose to represent the social group of males within our opening sequence as we believe we needed an anti-stereotype within the extract to make the audience think, and the audience are made to pity the boys from the soundtrack that is used, as it has a strong beat, maybe suggesting a heartbeat so that the audience can feel the boys emotion. Moreover, the canted angle of the boy when he is older walking up the hill could represent his life as it has never been straight and simple, of which could be shown by a normal wide shot of him walking. If we did use this shot, the extract may have a completely different atmosphere.  

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1:

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

Final Product

This is our Final Product: 

After we had finished our editing, we reviewed our product and finally decided to upload it to youtube, so that we could apply it to our blogs. 

Our film goes against stereotypes as most thrillers don't usually involve younger people such as under the age of 16. 

Filming update

Filming Update:

When we filmed, we filmed some extra shot and also some of the shots that we were going to use just didnt work or didnt look right.

For example, we had a shot where the younger boy was sliding down the slide, and there was going to be a title added into the shot, down the side of the slide. However when we were filming this, the slide was a little wet and the younger boy could not slide down it smoothly. Therefore instead of this shot we added a few extra shots such as the younger boy travelling around the round about, and also we had a close up of the younger boy's feet. This looked alot better and worked well with the flow of the opening sequence.

Sound at the end of the sequence

Sound at the end of the sequence:

At the end of the opening sequence we had the older boy stepping into the road, therefore we were trying to immply that the boy is stepping into the road to kill himself. To make it more prominent that this was happening, we added a harsh crashing sound effect to suggest that he was being run over or killed.

changes made to audience feedback

Changes made to audience feedback

We used our previous audience feedback to change our opening sequence and make it better, firstly we tried to match up the audio with the crushing of the can on screen, as it was out of time before when it was played, however this only took a few minutes so wasn't a big job. We also took the audiences advice and deleted the 'presenting...' title towards the end of our opening sequence as we agreed with the audience that it may start to look cheesy if it was included. 

We also chose to layer some sound within our opening sequence by adding children, as we believed it was a good contrast to the atmosphere created by the shots and allowed the audience to see maybe what life was like before for the boy. 

audience feedback 2

 Audience Feedback 2

We got our second part of audience feedback from our peers in the class, here are the notes that me and my group received and recorded:

 

changes for audience feedback

Changes we made with first lot of Audience Feedback:

Although we were given inspiration to add a older boy onto the roundabout in black and white, it was coming close to the editing stage when we had been given this advice so we decided that we wouldnt use this idea.

However, we edited out the 'presenting' title as we believed it could be come quite tacky and we wanted to follow what the audience had said to us.

Furthermore, we changed the font to more of a bolder style, therefore it was thicker and stood out more creating more of a thriller feel for the audience.

Audience feedback 1

First Audience Feedback

Here is our first set of class feedback for our first cut of our film, this helped us to develop further on into our final cut, so that we are ready to recieve our last bit of audience feedback the second time.

Firstly we asked the audience what they liked about our first cut:

• The roundabout fade in and out
• The sound effect added at the end
• The timing
• The extra non-diegetic sound effects throughout

Moreover, we asked them what they think needed changing within our first cut:

• The 'Presenting' title
• The 'Dichotomy' title

They said that maybe the font could be changed and the size should be not as big, and a little bit thicker to stand out rather than thin. Also they asked whether the 'Presenting' title was needed within the opening sequence. 

Also, one of the audience members commented on the idea of maybe adding a black and white version of the older boy onto the roundabout as it is spinning around, and it would create a sense of him being a 'ghost' and watching over the younger boy that he was.

Furthermore, there were mixed opinions on the younger boy crashing the cars together, as out teacher Miss Dunn believed that it was a bit 'naff', however the rest of our class members thought that it was a good use of editing and was important to the story of the film.

Applying effects

Applying Effects 

At the moment we are starting to apply effects to our different clips in our opening sequence, as we believe it needs some balance between our own footage lighting and natural lighting and then the lighting that we need to use to create an atmosphere. 

Our final ident

Our Final Ident 

We chose to do the second idea for a final ident as it looks very professional and shows more of a story and links in with the thriller genre and especially our clip. 

Our second ident

Our Second Ident 

Our second ident is a lot simpler that the first ident, as it is easier to make on final cut pro and still looks professional and fits in with the thriller genre. We thought that if one person in our group could film a clock over a long period of time and then we could put it onto final cut pro and maximise the speed of the footage so it appears that time is passing fast. Also there is a effect on final cut pro that can break up a shot and make it look like there are different layers of footage being shown, so we were going to apply that and then add a font that flies in, and this would suggest maybe a broken life, as time is passing on the clock and it is broken. 

Our first ident

Our First Ident 

For our first idea of an ident we decided that a good idea would be a candle style font that the camera pans across the wax dripping letters and it reveals the letters ‘MEB PRODUCTIONS’. Once it has panned across to show the final word productions the letter ‘I’ lights up replicating a candle and the music heats a peak. Then the wax drips down the letter ‘I’ and falls to the ground but as the wax lands it turns into blood. However this idea would be really hard to create, as it would have to be made on aftereffects and this could take up around 3 lessons that we could be doing editing. Therefore we are going to think of another idea and decide which one would work better.