Evaluation

The task that we undertook for our main task was to create an opening scene to a thriller movie. Our media product fits under the sub-genre; psychological thriller. We decided to focus on a domestic violence case so show this. Psychological thrillers emphasise the characters just as much, or if more than the plot, we have done this by focusing in on one character and really developing the emotions of what she is going through and how she has decided to cope with this. “The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.” Our media product challenges this idea as we have focused on only one character that is being tormented by another’s mental state. However a scene of abusive expression is shown briefly at the beginning to give the audience an idea of the plot but the other second character is not developed. In our media product we have developed and challenged the conventions of real media.My final media product represents the social group of young people particularly domestic violence victims. We have done this by basing the theme around domestic violence and using a young female character which can be related to by the target audience. The music and costume that come under the title of mis en scene are used also helped to represent the social group as it was a drum and bass track that young people are stereotypically related to and the clothes were relevant to the characters age and time of fashion.
Media institutions that would distribute my product would be those prepared to show real life issues that may be disturbing to some viewers and would also need to be an institution that targeted a young audience. Film4 would be a good example of this as they target a young audience and show English produced films. For their 2006 marketing campaign they used such celebrities as Lucy Liu, Christian Slater, Ewan Mcgregor, Judy Dench, William Dafoe, Rhys Ifans and Ray Winston declaring film 4 is now free in various situations across London. The fact that they used celebrities that are popular with young people today and a location that is situated in Britain shows that their target audience is that we are also aiming ours at so their institution would be an ideal distributor.
The audience of our media product is going to be young people. Our film is certificated a 15, this is due to such factors as inappropriate language, imitable techniques, threat and menace between characters but mainly the fact that it is a psychological thriller and uses deceptive and mystery games may be hard for people of a younger age to grasp. The product also deals with suicide, although the method is not glamorised a younger age range may find this disturbing whereas an older audience may be able to cope with it.
When considering the age range and how we would address it we had to take into account the mise en scene, editing and sound. The protagonist in our media product is a young female girl suffering from the abuse of domestic violence. So the audience could relate to the character we used clothing that is fashionable and realistic to what someone that age would be wearing. The clothes though were not formal and were casual as we decided that someone who was intent on suicide would not care about their appearance. We also used make-up to highlight the narrative by having cuts and bruises on her face, the audience can clearly see she has been abused. The language used is typical of young people and teenagers as they are using un-grammatical dialogue and inappropriate language, again this helps with the relation to the audience. The music used in the background helped with continuity and helped to build up adrenaline in the audience, it creates the sense that something is going to happen soon and there is a constant rhythm in the background helping to show the narrative is constant. The fact that it is a drum and bass track, remixed with a song that was recently in the charts means our target audience can relate to it and as drum and bass is stereotypically linked with young adults. The setting on the bridge showed an isolated area, by doing this the audience can see that there is something not quite right and that the character wants to be alone. There is also a scene in the bathroom. The water is running which could suggest she wants to wash herself of all the emotions and memories she has and create a relaxed atmosphere to calm herself down. In the bathroom there is also a low level lighting, this shows how not everything is clear and also helps with the mood of the character. All this helps with the narrative and atmosphere of the film. The camera shots used also help to create suspense and continuity. We have used cuts and also fades. The fade transition gives an eerie feel to the film as at one point there are two images of the character, one in a hard image and the other faint. This again helps with attracting and addressing the audience into the film and creating an atmosphere for them.
From constructing this piece of media I have learnt to use different technologies such as the camera, and software that we used to edit. Before the preliminary I was unskilled in using a video camera but now feel that I have learnt a lot. We were able to use tripods to give steady shots and different camera angles were undertaken. I had also never really used the software that we used to edit the product but now feel that I would be comfortable in cutting the film, adding audio or incidental music, transitions and fading two clips together.
From looking back at our preliminary task I can see that we have come a long way. By using the proper equipment such as camera stands we were able to keep the shots steady at all times and have also become more experienced with the use of camera shots and angles giving a more professional look to the final piece. The sound was a big issue with our preliminary as we were unable to edit it out, with the final one we were able to add a song in and cut it at different points so specific parts of the non-diagetic sound relates to the narrative. I also feel that I have become more confident with the technology and equipment we used such as the software to edit the final piece and the camera.
I am happy with the final product as we made sure we took everything into account and tried to make the film look as professional as possible.