missa evaluation

1) 1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The forms and conventions of a thriller include cross cutting shots, montages, slow and fast editing and fast scores to cause the sense of mystery and intrigue the viewer. Location is normally somewhere exotic or somewhere scary and mysterious. The use of low key lighting is important in thrillers because it gives it a sense of doom and show the audience the mystery of the scene and maybe to tell them to pay close attention. The characters are important in thrillers as well because they have to look and fit the part for example is a good guy has to look innocent he cant exactly walk around with scars on his face for it goes against his role. Our thriller is a action thriller so it involves many chases, cross cutting, memory flash backs furthermore it is in a urban location so the characters must be quite young scary looking and this is what we’ve done so we suit the conventions of a action thriller furthermore we have included red herrings and cliff hangers to suspense the audience giving more of a thriller feeling.

The conventions of an opening sequence is to establish the visual style of the film, it introduces characters, location, narrative, genre and theme to the viewer. The opening sequence tends to be a short sequence of around 2-3minutes long aiming to capture the interests of its audience and draw them into the film as a whole.

The main characters are usually in the opening sequence allowing the audience to gain knowledge on their character and follow their actions throughout the opening sequence in order to determine their actions throughout the film, the audience can also become aware of the location and where the film will be set. It is clear that the reason an opening sequence is created at the beginning of the film whether before the opening titles or after is so that the audience can establish the overall style of the film, the gain an insight of what is yet to come. Furthermore many opening sequences tend to leave the audience puzzled and intrigued to what will happen next, leading them to watch the whole film. The opening sequence of a film is most important scene in the thrillers because this is what causes the audience to make their judgment on the movie... hence if the movie had a opening sequence involving red herrings and enigmas, mystery suspicion and cliff hangers this will be an ideal opening sequence because the viewer would tend to prefer to carry on watching the movie.

However if the opening sequence is that does not include those above, the audience would straight away presume that this would be a boring thriller. All opening sequences of thrillers tend to be the 'make or break' of the films so the directors always tend to focus time on the opening sequence to perfect it. Our opening sequence does suit the convention of a normal thriller because it does introduce our main characters furthermore it does and establishing shot of the location. It is also two- three minutes long and the score used in the opening sequence causes the sense of mystery and suspense moreover the end leaves the audience with a cliff hanger to see who got stabbed furthermore a red herring because we do not yet know who has been the killer.

I think our product fits in to a contemporary thriller because it is a action thriller which makes it fit more into the contemporary side then the classic side because it has more action in it. Also it is set in a urban place with urban looking characters which challenge the conventions of a classic thriller but fits well with the contemporary thriller because I am using the classic basis of a thriller but updating it and making it for more of a today’s audience. This was a risk taker because we didn’t stick to the normal classic thriller with good looking women, and proper murderous scenes but instead made it up to date and the risk was worth taking because from audience feedback some groups were interested because it was more about today and what life is like.

I think two main films helped us influence our film and that was ‘kidulthood’ and ‘adulthood’ because our film seems to fit in their category of a urban life of the streets of London and how is life like for those young adults. This is a British film for it is set in a London location involving London accents so I would classify our opening sequence as a identifiably British film and it varies from these Hollywood thrillers because we show what life is like in London and its not a exotic place with good looking women like all American thrillers seem to display.

Our film has developed the basics of a thriller by the sense of mystery cliff hangers and red herrings used but we have mixed up genres to produce a urban action thriller.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups? Our media product represents various social groups, which in turn make it appeal to a larger audience because more people will be able to relate to it. These include: gender, ethnicity, race, location and sexuality.

Gender is represented in our media product through the protagonist, Roache being male alongside antagonist Matthew and I. Roache is dressed stereotypically in a black hood and black trousers representing the stereotype people perceive of black people. We have incorporated stereotypical gender roles in our film by different costume and ethnicity.

The ethnicity of the protagonist being a black male challenges the traditional representation of a thriller film because it is highly uncommon in a thriller for a minority race to get the lead actor however challenges the lead actor being from the majority of the race. Although the majority race in the film is other than black so we decided to add ironic change in that the majority was more powerful. The message being given out in our movie about all the social groups is men are normally portrayed in violent acts and this is true, moreover it is the young men that seem to be involved in these crimes more than the older mature men. There is a twist in our message about ethnicity because we have added a change our black young male is the victim this is challenging stereotypes because they assume that all black males in society do the crimes and are main precipitants to violent acts.

The social representation of sexuality in our film is represented because we only used males characters, this is because we wanted to appeal more to the male audience and show a stereotypical phrase of the society is more ‘of a mans world’ a sort of survival of the fittest ‘alpha dog’ theme so we used all male characters to accomplish this. Our location is in a urban place this suggests we will have many different races and this is seen because our characters are every race except white this links in with class hence we are in a urban area its more of a middle class area and so the majority of minority’s live there. Furthermore we have chosen the same image about children of working class Africans or Asians involved in the crimes in our story for it best suited the role.

3) what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?The media institution that may distribute our film would be the same institutions that Kidulthood and Adulthood dealt with. I researched and found out that both these films were made independently on a low budget in London. The most suitable company to take our film would be a independent film company because it is low budget films that are produced in Britain. I would believe our thriller is suited here because we had no fund one camera and a few actors so it was a definite independent NO – budget-opening sequence. However from my own research I found a company called ‘working title’ that may distribute our film because they like to pick and find new talent. Our film is set in London so has a British background and this company is British so may support our film. On the other hand the research also suggested that this company is linked to universal studios, which are mainstream film company so makes it less independent. There are many differences between mainstream film companies and independent; firstly the mainstream budget is funded by many sources so their budget is very high to produce a very realistic film unlike independent films which have little budget or no budget at all. Secondly the mainstream films have the money to cast a-list actors that would appeal to more audiences then independent films that have new unknown casts. Finally the style and realism between both would differ because of the budget however the theme can still be the same in both movies just represented in different ways.

There are many different ways to distribute our film and this was through independent cinemas such as:

v Electric cinema

v Notting Hill

v Prince Charles

So all these are independent cinemas that show low budget independent films so hence I would try to distribute my film to these cinemas to try and get it across. On the other hand I would not try to distribute the film to a mainstream cinema like Odeon because these are for more high budgeted films that have been produced under great conditions. This includes equipment, budget and a-class actors.

Another way is through film festivals and the main one known in London is the ‘London independent film festival’ its held every April to see new talent from low costing films to try to distribute. Moreover you can try to distribute in student film festivals like ‘exposures film festival’ which is the leading student film festival in Manchester they give you the opportunity to showcase your movie to a cinema audience and also they give you a insight in how TV and film industry work.

Additionally internet sites like ‘youtube’ are ways for independent films to broadcast themselves to the world because internet is used by everyone all over the world and its fast and easy to spread the film across.

Also network-sharing sites like ‘facebook’, ‘myspace’, ‘twitter’ are all ways to distribute your film online. Also the fact that the internet is free to use it is a cheap way to advertise the opening sequence without paying however distributing it to the world.

Kidulthood and Adulthood reached the cinemas first, then DVD and finally to be shown on TV s our film would not straight away be on TV but hit the screens hence it is related to the films I have looked at, so I am only assuming. Cable could be an option because its full of over created content, they can put servers on air and these programs can serve the community. It is unlikely that it would be aired on terrestrial channels such as BBC or channel 4 because they don’t broadcast user created content.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product? When creating the film we considered the target audience, our groups aim was to maximize our audience as best as possible in order to gain a greater amount of viewers. The two main subgenres we were considering are the psychological thriller and the action thriller. our aim was to meet mainly the male gender, this is because we have chosen to film an action thriller. This is a sub genre that is more preferred by the male audience, involving guns, crime explosives are all ideas that we wanted to bring into our film. The age range we aimed at was 15-25, otherwise known as teens to young adults. The reason we chose this age range is because our film is mainly focused on younger people, we aimed to grasp the likes of younger adults as this will be easier for us to relate to, we considered what people of our own age range would like to see in a thriller film and put this into context.

Hence our target audience was 15-25 our BBFC classification guidelines allowed us to make a film with whatever context a 15 and above film can do. These were, “ can’t promote drug taken” furthermore weapons are allowed to be shown and used but not to cause bad influence.

I believe our opening film sequence does suit the target audience we have chosen (15-25) because at 15-25 many London teenagers in urban settings are involved in gang and knife crime involving mysterious packages and by creating a film that shows the life of the present teenage boys-men in London would interest them as viewers and those interested in the urban life. Our target audience was set for males and I think we have achieved this by doing a male action thriller. All our characters are teenage men that involve drugs, knife crime, violence; suspense, cliffhangers and these should attract more of the male audience than the female audience.

However the use of using a young cast may appeal to a younger audience because the audience would find it easier to relate themselves to the opening sequence and the lifestyle.

5 . How did you attract/ address your audience? We addressed our audience by letting them view our first draft of our film, we attracted them by doing as much as we could to our film at that time with our editing but it was not fully perfect. We got positive feedback and negative feedback from our audience; so much of the positive feedback attracted the audience to our film.

We constructed our film to appeal to our target audience by choosing an action thriller this would appeal to most male viewers. Our audience feedback was a good action thriller with much editing still to do; but they could see what it was about. Our film attracted the audience for the stunts and running scenes gave the feeling of an action thriller. Furthermore the urban settings attracted our audience because it is a different place to filming in school so it was quite intriguing.

Our negative audience feedback from our audience was mainly about the background sounds and some scenes were too long and distracted from the suspense. Furthermore the use of no titles didn’t help, however now the film has been constructed and all the negative feedback we received have been taken notice and worked upon and improved.

Constructing our film to appeal to our target audience required much time and effort, we looked at other London films that attracted the age range we chose and that was ‘kidulthood’ and ‘adulthood’. Our theme was about gang and knife crime how everyone is linked somehow and we knew this would appeal to our target audience because there is much use of knife and gang crime around that age, so by using a theme that relates to actual life we figured that would be a big attraction. We also picked it to be a action thriller, our target audience are 15-25 males and what they would prefer is a action thriller. Location was in a urban setting, the use of both high key and low key lighting well emphasized the mood of the period and style and costumes was also that of a urban style (hoods, jeans, trainers); also each character looked in part and suited their roles. Urban style was the big base of our opening sequence because it’s just an interesting background that would intrigue and interest people moreover it can also relate to people. Our score suits each situation and in our editing this is represented; we have suited most aspects of a thriller with cliff hangers red herrings mystery and intriguing our target audience and this is how we appealed to them.

6. What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Whilst constructing our media film we have learnt a lot about the technology involved considering never made a sequence in our life so basically we were starting from scratch.

New media helped us a lot while making our film like the use of the internet helped with our research helped us look into our location and what it was alike around some parts, new media also helped us get free non- copyright music to put as a score on our shots.

Using low budget non – linear editing software like imovie saved us paying for new better software when imovie contains the basics of editing software plus more the impact of this non –linear software is that its cheap and handy for low budget films so it can fit their costs.

We used different websites on the Internet in the researching stage of our product to find out about current thriller films and give us an insight to the conventions of a thriller. We were also able to use the Internet to copyright music, which helped a lot in the editing stage of our movie cause it fitted in well with the shots. We also used Youtube to get it to our viewing audience and for them to leave feedback so we can learn from our mistakes on the way. We used iMovie in the production of our film, which gave us the ability to edit and perfect what we had recorded thoroughly. So editing in chronological order as not needed we could sort out other parts to slot them in order.

The film formed in the editing process and we could see a development from the original storyboard to the final product. The use of non-linear software gave us the ability to try new things that proved to be a positive to the product. The mini dv cameras proved to be trouble because the quality of footage was not great so it relied on our editing to get it to scratch, furthermore the battery life was so short that every time it died we had to go wait to charge it, which wasted more of our filming time.

Moreover dv tapes gave our film more of a realistic look so it made it feel more urban and independent more real and not a new movie in Hollywood it helped us represent it is a low budget film however still did give a perfect setting for the chase and flash back in our opening sequence.

7) 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 the preliminary task I feel that we have developed on many aspects and has been a learning progression most of the way. With our preliminary task we made a storyboard and a script furthermore we used characters and had a go at using a camera and taking different shots. Our preliminary task was short and it was a given task that the whole class had to do, we had a set time and I believe ours turned out well. However this much differs to our final piece because that was a first try however with our opening sequence I believe it was another shot at it and we had to do a sequence that was two and a half minutes long, moreover it was a piece done outside of school so we had to get the mise en scene right alongside the lighting, location and the fact was it was not a given task and it was a choice of our own.

However this was similar with the full product because we had trouble editing at first because it was our first time editing a movie, furthermore we had trouble with timing and lighting so we had to film on the weekend the first time we started shooting the clips they were not up to standards maybe this was because we never filmed a proper clip outside of school, however this was accomplished and filmed for the second time; what we did learn from the preliminary task was how to use the camera or the tripod.

After editing our first draft we still thought it needed a big change so we did a lot of cutting down, recapturing and re-filming to sort this out but at this stage we knew how to edit properly so the third time editing something was good.

In the preliminary task we did not have time to fit a score so we were not used to it so when it came to the drafting of the final product we had learnt how to fit music into the parts we wanted also the use of ambient sounds so it all looked like a jigsaw (were everything fit together), this also helped us to deal with any background sound that didn’t seem right.

I believe the editing process in the preliminary task was very difficult because it was the first time using this editing software and we were not used to it so the editing was not great along with the fact it had no score, I feel that we have progressed a lot in the editing side of the filming because on our final piece we found it easier to cut and paste and add scores to fit certain emotions.

The preliminary task helped us learn the basis of camera work and editing I thought this was a very important task because if it was not done, we would of struggled when it came to the real shooting of our film. This gave us a basis and a understanding of how to edit and how to shoot in schedule by following a storyboard.

We used various type of technology during the production of our thriller mostly we learnt how to utilise the editing software on a Mac; we also learnt how to shoot our different angles and shots with a low budget dv camera. The tripod needed a little getting used to. We developed the knowledge on how to pick angles for different shots to also use the natural lighting provided. We also learnt that filming once is not good enough and it takes a good two days of filming for you to get some decent footage. We also had to close lens and screen of the camera to save battery because we needed all battery power we can get when out filming.

Abbeys Evaluation

EVALUATION

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

The different techniques and conventions used in a thriller film aim to create tension, suspense and anticipation for the audience. Typical conventions such as low key lighting to create a mysterious setting, gives the effect of silhouettes and doesn’t reveal the whole picture to the audience thus creating a hidden message within the scene. Thrillers are often set in foreign cities, deserts, high seas or Polar Regions. Such as the Bond Film `From Russia With love` set in a middle Eastern City- Istanbul, Turkey, the location seems exotic and different which draws the audience to the suspense of an unknown destination. In terms of sound thrillers tend to have a mysterious score which starts at a low pace and increases as the on screen action increases, enticing the viewer. Thrillers tend to consist of a protagonist and an antagonist; the innocent character who is the victim of a nasty, usually male protagonist. There are two different types of thriller; the traditional thriller, and the contemporary thriller. The traditional thriller is films such as the classic Hitchcock thrillers. They use common thriller conventions as seen in the film `Psycho` where the innocent female antagonist is killed by the gruesome protagonist. The contemporary thriller however is more updated and contemporary; it incorporates the typical thriller conventions yet develops and modifies the techniques found in them in order to make the storyline more intriguing to the viewer. We believe that our film is more of a contemporary thriller than a traditional thriller. Set in the urban location of inner city London, I believe that our film challenges the likes of a classical thriller. As we chose the sub genre action thriller, we combined the techniques that would be found in an action film along with the conventions of a thriller, the action thriller is much more contemporary as it involves guns, explosives and knives, usually fast paced and takes place in a high profile area, whereas the thriller has be around for much longer, so in order to combine the two the film would tend to be much more contemporary. Our film is about a boy being chased and then comes into contact with his enemy at the end of the scene, the whole way through the opening sequence we are unaware of why the boy is being stalked and chased, this leaves the audience in suspense. We chose a male protagonist and a male antagonist this is commonly found in the thriller film such as the James Bond films, however we challenged the typical range of plot twists, throughout our opening sequence the viewer is unaware of which character is the protagonist and which is the antagonist. The flashback used in our film gives clues to the audience of what might be the reason the boy is being chased. However the unknown weapon that is seen being taken from the boys pocket in the flash back and from the draw in the bedroom, makes it harder for the audience to work out who is about to kill who, when both characters meet at the end of the scene, the clash between the two still leaves the audience puzzled and on a cliff hanger as they do not know who has been killed and for what reason, furthermore what was the mysterious prop shown throughout. The first score we use in our opening sequence is just a beat, used to build up tension and anticipation as the scene progresses; this was developed from the typical thriller score where pace increases along with the actions of the characters. However I believe the second score we used challenges the typical thriller sound effects. It is more of an action theme, where like a typical thriller as the chase builds up so does the pace of the score although the score does not create tension in the scene it reflects the action of the chase and would most likely be used in an action film, like `Mission Impossible`. The third score we used, aimed to create suspense and anticipation for the audience; it is more of a traditional thriller theme it was used to build up to the stabbing of one of the characters. We decided against having any form of dialogue, instead we chose to just use a range of scores and have ambient sound. The reason we decided to do this was so that the whole time the audience was left in suspense; they would be focused on the actions instead of the dialogue of the scene in order to find out what was actually happening. By looking at an extract from the Bond film `From Russia With Love` when the protagonist is after Bond there is little to no dialogue it builds up tension and leaves the score as a more important factor rather than dialogue- in terms of sound in the scene. `From Russia With love` and `Casino Royale` both James Bond films are the main existing thrillers that influenced our film. We looked at the different techniques that were used in the chase and stalker parts of these films in order to incorporate them into our own film .For example the use of close ups to display a main prop which is used to give a clue to the audience; for example the small box in the `From Russia with love` extract, we developed this sort of prop in our own film through the use of a phone, we used a close up shot to display the text message sent from the blacked out figure to create anticipation, also a range of clips show an unknown prop being taken out of a boys pocket in the flashback and also when it is being taken out of the draw, the viewer never actually sees what the prop is which develops the conventions of a thriller with one main prop that dominates the actions of the characters, there is a story behind this unknown prop. When editing we increased the pace of our chase through a range of quick shots a method of cross cutting between two characters through out, as seen in the bond films this is a technique that forms a connection between the two characters creeping up on one another, it allows you to use a range of different shots for example over the shoulder and point of view to show the suspicious movements of the characters from both perspectives. We also used a lot of `Match on Action` shots to create an impression of continuity, this aimed to make our sequence look seamless like a James Bond film. As our film is more of a contemporary thriller I would relate it to films such as `Kidulthood` and `Adulthood`,

 

the location and characters we chose were developed from these films. As the setting is the gritty inner city the characters were portrayed as thugs and aimed to reflect some of the crime that is presently happening. Although `Kidulthood` is not a thriller it combines aspect of knife crime along with the image of what we aimed for our characters to look and act like along with the setting. We challenged the character traits through making one of the characters a blacked out figure and all three characters wearing hoodies, the reason why we did this was to meet the likes of our target audience, so that they could relate to the characters in our media product. As the film is based on teen thugs and street life of London, we made the appearance and performance of the actors how we believe a thuggish teenager would look and act like today; this was different to the typically character performance and appearance you would find in a thriller. For example in the Bond films the characters mainly wear suits, look much older and of higher profile. The reason why we didn’t choose this type of style was to emphasis the urban lifestyle and the likes of London teenagers therefore the characters style had to fit in with the storyline along with the setting.  I believe that our film is identifiably British, like `Kidulthood` and `Adulthood` the film is mainly aimed at the teenage audience of more precisely Londoners. It is no where near the likes of an American thriller, American thrillers have extremely expensive sets, with the ability to use a range of complex editing and filming techniques, as our film was low budget, it seemed more realistic to base it in the scrubs of the inner city, with low price props, little need of a classy set and costumes, this way it enabled or film to look more realistic. By doing this we challenged the likes of a contemporary thriller, by creating the same sort of tension, cliff hangers and plot twists that would be found in an American thriller yet and would leave the audience anticipating and in suspense, yet at a much cheaper budget. I believe that if we had changed the style of the characters yet worked with the setting we had chosen the scene would not have seemed as realistic; our film is identifiably British, stereotypical characters such as the young teenage thug work well with the choice of storyline and setting to meet the expectations of our London 15+ audience.

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

Our media product represents male teenagers, of an urban background. We focused mainly on stereotypical perception of 21^st century youths. We chose to have only male actors as the storyline was based on knife crime and the streets of London, young boys are constantly portrayed in the media, as thugs who hang around on street corners in gangs, ready to cause trouble. By using females we would have challenged this perception and shown that it is not only the male gender that cause trouble, it is also the female gender; however as I worked in a group with two males we found it easier to work on an image for the two male characters and the idea of a stabbing seemed more related to the male gender so we stuck to the traditional stereotype. We chose to have teenage actors as the film was based on teenage life on the streets of London and it wouldn’t have seemed right to use adult actors to meet the likes of our teenage target audience. The three characters seen in our media product are all of ethnic minorities, the reason why we didn’t choose to have a white person acting in our film is to show that London is a diverse area, although it is set in a British country where you would generally find white people, using the black and Arab ethnicity as our main characters shows that teenage thugs are of all ethnicities and London teenagers are of all ethnicities. The stalker who we first meet hiding behind a tree sending a text, would be seen as a stereotype, young black boys are portrayed in the media as violent and those mostly involved in crime, we chose this particular character to be black in order to communicate with the audience, sending a message out- they would instantly think that a thuggish black boy is the protagonist however we tried to challenge this message. Throughout the sequence we are never aware of which character is acting as the protagonist and which character is the antagonist, this way we challenged the often used stereotype and aimed to make the audience figure out whether it would be the stereotypical black boy who is the killer or the Arab teen who is being chased. The effect of this is to leave the audience suspicious of the character they would relate him to his stereotype however suspicion is created when it becomes unknown to the audience whether he may actually be the antagonist. The regional identity of the main characters are the British mainly UK based, more specifically London and the South West regions, as the film is aiming at the London teenage audience we represented the characters as how teenagers of London are portrayed every day  therefore we stuck mainly to the London region as it was based on `London City`. The characters are of lower status and class, the reason we represented the characters like this is to make it as realistic as possible, it is less likely to see a posh, rich white boy stabbing a black boy than a black boy chasing an Arab boy who are both from a working class background. The message we are giving out about London teenagers is that they are those who cause trouble in community, involved in violence and the stereotype portrayed is generally used in films to display present day generation teenagers; just like the media product we have produced. During the flashback of our media product we meet a third character, he is seen being beaten up and then something is taken from his pocket, this flashback makes the audience change their mind about the boy who receives a text, he is also represented a thuggish teen who causes trouble. However the third character who he beats up is also an Arab, this challenges the common victim of thief, usually white boys are the victims of trouble, however in this scene we have challenged the stereotypical victim and used another thuggish teenager of ethnic minority to act as the victim; by doing this we were trying to send out a message that it is not just the white who are victims of violence it can be any minority. All three characters appearances and performances are stereotypes of a young teenage thug, by representing their image in this way, it makes it clearer to the audience what the film will be about and it also relates to the appearance and performance of those who would be watching the film. They will have grown up in inner city London and would straight away be able to understand the connotations being displayed. 

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

We would most likely distribute our media product in the independent institution. As it is a low budget film and directed mainly at the teenage London audience, the product we created is realistic and at a much lower scale than a glamorous American film. Mainstream institutions distribute big budget films, such as those filmed with a Hollywood style, they consist of expensive sets and famous actors and actresses, the editing is much more advanced then the basic editing we have corporated into our own film, they usually distribute films with an extreme range of special effects, for example explosives and the use of kinetic camera work.  Our media product stands little chance of being distributed in a mainstream institution. Independent institutions tend to be gritty, usually of a much lower cost and based on realism, our film would fit into this institution well as we based the storyline on the life of teenage thugs, the product is realistic and based in the urban area of London. Our media product can be distributed in many different ways. If we chose to distribute our film in the cinema we would have to choose an independent cinema for example, `The Electric Cinema`-(www.electriccinema.co.uk/ ) in Notting Hill, London. This would be a great place to distribute our film as it is the place our film is set, therefore the audience we are aiming at will be able to relate to it as much as possible as it is in their local cinema and the product was filmed in the local area. We wouldn’t be able to distribute our film in mainstream cinemas like Vue- (www.myvue.com), Cineworld- (www.cineworld.co.uk) or the Odeon- (www.odeon.co.uk) as they usually display Hollywood style films of a much greater budget. The internet is a relevant and easy way for us to distribute our media product, video sharing sites such as YouTube are an ideal way for our target audience to watch our product, the younger generation are more likely to look at videos on video sharing sites than the older generation; other social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace -( www.myspace.com/) which are also generally used by the younger generation allow the audience to watch the product then post it on to friends to watch, gradually the product becomes more known and is distributed for free; this is why distributing it by internet would be a great way to directly reach our teenage target audience. Television is another way we can distribute our film; when considering TV there is only a small range of channels that our media product would stand a chance of being distributed on. Channels such as BBC1 and BBC2 are public service broadcasters; however they don’t tend to display independent films. 

Channel 5 and ITV are commercial channels; they are there to advertise products to the audience instead of the homemade film we have to offer. 

Channel 4 however, is also a public service and it shows programmes for minority interests; for example short community films. The channel is more focused on realism with a range of documentaries and programmes shown everyday to talk about issues that occur in the 21^st century or looking into historical facts. 

Our film could stand a chance of being featured on this channel as it is based on the portrayal of young teenagers and is a basis for debate. There is also a few cable channels that might distribute our media product; for example one I researched was the American channel `Showtime` when the channel was created it ventured into acquiring and premiering independent films as part of its 30-Minute Movie` anthology series of short films. Although this channel is American; a channel like this one would be ideal in showing our media product, the channel allows `user created content` to be aired to its cable users. Lastly another way we could distribute our film would be at a film festival, local film festivals take place extremely often around London and would be a great way to show our product to our target audience, if we chose to distribute it at a student independent film festival; we would be able to gain our target audiences views however as our film is of much lower budget our product may not have great chance of being distributed. Looking into all of these different ways of distributing our film; I believe the internet is the most realistic and effective way of us streaming our media product to our target audience. Video sharing sites allow you to post any created film onto the net so the public can view it. The internet is the easiest way of gaining a wide range of viewers as millions of people each day use sites such as YouTube and MySpace and browse new media products, although there is little profit in distributing our film via the internet compared to the profit which would be made if aired in independent cinemas or on television, some sites such as MySpace there is a possibility of profit when users pay a small fee to watch different media products.

    4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience we aimed our film at was the 15-25 age range and the male gender, the reason why we chose to aim our film at this audience was because we wanted to create a film that would appeal to those of our own age range, we found it easier to come up with a storyline that would appeal to them. The reason why we chose to aim our film at the male audience is because we chose the sub- genre action thriller, this is more appealing to the male target audience and as we wanted to bring the theme of knife crime into our film this instantly drew more favourable to the male audience. As we based the film on the inner city of London where crime plays a huge role in society, young adults of 15-25 are very aware of these problems. When deciding on what region to target our film at we chose the British more specifically London region, this is because we tried to make our film as realistic as possible to the everyday life of a teenage boy in London, the film is a British production and when it comes to distributing our film we aimed to distribute it in London cinemas, local festivals. The regularly contents of the BBFC 

for a 15+ film say that `the film must not use discriminatory language or behaviour, it must not show drug taking or promote drugs, weapons can be used however they cannot be glamorized furthermore the fact of death and sexual violence is unacceptable`. I think that our film passed the BBFC regularly contents, although we involved the use of a weapon which resulted in the death of one of the characters, we didn’t aim to glamorize the use of as knife, instead we brought a real life issue of teenage knife crime and put it into a film, this way we were setting a more serious message to our target audience- that weapons shouldn’t be used and the dangers of carrying one. The film had no form of bad language, showed no drug taking furthermore did not display sexual violence therefore overall I think that our film would stand a chance being distributed in the media to those of our target audience. The film creates a strong message of knife crime and the troubles of teenagers presently in London. I believe that those of our age range would approve of the product we have created, it is something they would al understand and the contemporary feel to it, I believe would draw them into wanting to see the film. Films like `Kidulthood` and `Adulthood` were a massive success when meeting the likes of the their target audience, we aimed to create a product along the lines of these films and believe that the issues that are brought up in our film, our big issues for teenagers today therefore would attract our target audience as much as films like `Kidulthood`.

1.    5 . How did you attract/ address your audience?

The film that we have created is a contemporary action thriller; it involves crime related to the life of teenage thugs. We constructed our film in a way that would most likely appeal to our target audience of 15-25 males. As the sub-genre is action thriller, this instantly is more of a male preference rather than of the female preference. Action thrillers tend to involve guns, knives and explosives, all of which aim to fascinate and grasp the attention of the male audience. The theme of the film is the life of young males in London city- which we have named our film after. We used young actors to play the roles of our main characters dressed in the stereotypical outfit of a teenage boy- hoodie, trainers and jeans. Through the characters appearances we hoped that we would attract the likes of our target audience, as we aimed at the London region of 15-25 males, dressing our characters in this street wise type of fashion seemed the most appealing way of meeting the interests of our audience. 

The opening sequence begins with a boy sitting in his room watching television and playing on his laptop, he then receives a text on his mobile phone; the reason why we chose these props was to display the everyday life of a teenager. These types of objects are generally necessities to young teenagers. We aimed to attract our target audience by giving this setting of in a bedroom with a television and laptop, as this is what we believed would relate to those of our target audience. In terms of sound we used upbeat contemporary scores, this made our film seem young and modern; the type of beat that a teenager would listen to. When the chase begins in the middle of the sequence we used a range of quick, sharp shots to show one character after the other. By doing this we addressed our target audience, we condensed the chase down into a very small time, however making it seem as though it had taken the characters much longer, we aimed to build up the tension for our target audience and keep them on the edge of their seats anticipating what will happen next. It gave our film a much more action feel to it, to meet the likes of our male audience yet by editing as if the whole opening sequence was a montage of short clips we always leave the audience clueless, not knowing what will happen next. Once we had filmed our media product and started to edit it, we decided to gain some audience feedback before our final version, we got a range of students both male and female of around 17years old; which is within our age range, to watch our product and answer a range of questions about it. It was ideal that we could get feedback from those within our target audience as it allowed us to find out exactly what they would like to see in the film and how we could make it as appealing to them as possible. The feedback gave us a range of good and bad points about our product. For example a good piece of feedback said `the product created has a storyline that shows the everyday problems teenagers face e.g. stabbings, being mugged and beaten up, which many people of your audience can relate to`. This allowed us to see that the storyline we had created appealed to our audience as it would relate to them somehow; also that if it was distributed in the media many teenagers may like the sound of the storyline and it would attract them to seeing the film. Bad feedback such as; `smooth out the editing as there are some rough parts e.g. the wind in the background`, `split up the titles and make them appear throughout the sequence` and `use a more suspenseful score`. All of the negative points produced from our target audience helped us to see what was wrong with our film and make it better. From the feedback we went back and made a range of changes to our product for example putting the titles throughout the opening sequence rather than the end. Also adjusting sound effects through reducing ambient sound and instead adding a range of suspenseful scores. By making these changes we have addressed the likes of our target audience and hope to have appealed to what they would like to see in an action thriller film.

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

We began our project by researching the thriller genre and opening sequences. We gained our background knowledge through looking into a range of differ rent websites this gave us in-depth information on the genre as a whole and the media industry looking thoroughly into conventions of different genre of films and the history of our given genre. By having the use of internet access we were able to gain a great range of information in order to start building up our own film, when analysing relevant key texts and looking into existing opening sequences; video sites and DVD's allowed us to visually see how an opening sequence could look, this helped us to gain ideas and consider the different ways we could make our own opening sequence. All of our research was then posted onto an internet blog. This form of technology is a fast and efficient way of keeping our work together. Each member of our group was able to have their own user name and password in order to access the blog; 

they could create blogs of their own and were able to look over blogs created by the other members of their group. This kept all work organised and safe, as if if we had hand written the research we may have risked losing some or not getting all of our groups work together and in the right order. The site was an advanced way of letting us manage our coursework, we could create a group blog and gradually once each piece of work had been completed it could be published onto the blog in order. The blog allowed you to add pictures, links and there was no limit to how much could be put on it. When going on to create our storyboard and script the blog allowed us to show photos of photocopied storyboards we had drawn and write about them, also when looking at location and characters we were able to add in photos of the location we were filming at and talk about them. I think using a blog was a great way of presenting the groups work as a whole, it looked more like a project, with images, links and textual pieces rather than if each person had hand written their work and then put it together with the work of other members of the group. New media has influenced the creation of our product in many ways, in order to put sound effects or some form of score into our opening sequence, we had to use copy right free music, this meant us looking into a range of copyright free websites where we could use a score or sound effect without having to gain the permission from the creator to use it. For example: http://freeplaymusic.com/

By looking into new media we were able to gain knowledge on the restrictions of what you can and can’t use within your media film and discover websites that have been set up to allow those who wish to use copyright music in films of their own, without having to create one. New technology such as the increased use in internet browsing is a good way for us to gain feedback and distribution of our film. For example sites such as YouTube: YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ ; millions of people a day use these sites and it is a great way for us to get our media product viewed by our target audience. Without such sites as these it would be much harder for us to reach a wide scale of our target audience. When editing our film we used a software package called `iMovie` this is a non-linear editing software, although it is not as advanced as the range of software programs used by much higher budget films such as Hollywood films, the software allowed us to make changes to what we had filmed in order to make it look like a seamless film. It allowed us to input titles, transitions and different effects over our footage such as the heart beat sound and the black and white effect used in our flashback. Without the software we wouldn’t have been able to re draft, edit or change our footage therefore this form of technology was vital in making our film. We filmed our film using a DV camera; 

the effect of using this type of camera on our film was that it gave the film a realism effect. This form of technology was ideal for displaying the theme of our film, set in London and based on crime using a celluloid camera would not have been as effective as the realistic effect we gained from the DV camera provided. Hollywood films tend to use celluloid camera to make the overall effect of the film look glamorous and bright, whereas the camera we used made our film look like an average day in London which we were aiming at.

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

When attempting the preliminary task our group had very little experience with the use of a DV camera,

it took us a while to come to terms with the positions we should hold the camera in order to gain a good shot, I think that I have come a long way since the preliminary task. When filming our own sequence we were able to plan out exactly what we were hoping to achieve. We knew how to work the camera and what types of shots and angles looked effective and which did not. I feel that I have gained a lot more experience in terms of filming than I had when filming the preliminary task. I was the main editor in our group; once we had filmed our range of shots we used a software program called `iMovie`, when using this for the first time when we edited our preliminary task, I found it a lot harder to cut the footage in order to make it as seamless as possible, yet when we edited the main task I found it easier to find the exact parts where there was a glitch or the footage jumped and cut it out, or work with it by covering it up using a transition or sound effect. During our main task we experienced a few problems, on the day we filmed the weather was not great, this created a dull mood in terms of lighting and setting for our mise en scene. However we learned that this was quite an advantage as it gave the film a more negative effect to hence the fact that something bad was going to happen that day, furthermore make our film look as realistic as possible. We used a closed set to film the beginning of our opening sequence this was much harder than when we had an open set for the chase scene. We had limited areas we could stand with the camera when taking shots of the bedroom and it was a lot more hassle to run outside and take the shots of the boy spying from across the road in order to have it all on order on the tape. We learnt that it was easier to film the different parts in bulks, for example all of the shots in the bedroom at one time, then all of the shots outside at one time, although this may be harder to edit and cut clips and put them where they should be; it saved time and helped us to manage our work better. When we had written our synopsis we described the chase as one boy after the other, jumping over fences and gates in an action like chase. When it came to looking into locations and then filming these sorts of stunts we had to consider the safety of those acting in our group, therefore we could only carry out stunts that wouldn’t put those acting in danger. We overcame this problem by giving the chase less stunts, yet still managing to give it an action feel through the pace and score we created. Our preliminary task had little range of sound apart from ambient sound; we have learnt that including different sound effects and using a score is what makes the movie. It is the main effect that gives you the mood you are trying to achieve in your film. We experimented with a range of different scores when creating our final version of the film, we aimed to find one that created a lot of tension and left the audience on the edge of their seats. On first attempt the ones we had chose were less suspenseful and gaining audience feedback we went back and changed them to a more thrilling and contemporary one. In terms of editing I think that we have come a massive way since the preliminary task, when trying to create `match on action`, our preliminary task showed a poor attempt of a boy walking through a door, the footage did not seem to flow and look realistic. Having used the `iMovie` software thoroughly since our first task I believe that we have had a great improvement in terms of `match on action` in our main task; for example where the two boys jump over a wall has much more flow than when the boy is walking through the door.

Also in our preliminary task we only had one title put at the end of the sequence, I think that when it came to making our main task by putting a range of transitions along with the titles throughout the sequence gave a much more professional finish; it looked more like an opening sequence rather than a short clip. Overall I believe that the members of my group and me have all come a long way since the preliminary task. We have picked up a great amount of knowledge in terms of filming and editing; we hope that our media product looks as professional and appealing as possible and that it would stand a good chance of distribution.