Jade Evariste Question 7

JADE EVARISTE

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Our preliminary task was a learning curve for all of us. We learnt about shot composition as in one shots the tripod is visible so we made sure that nothing else could be seen in the shots, it also made us aware of how the shot looks for our real film opening. We had 30 seconds of a character walking to her destination in our preliminary task which is a very long time and also very boring, this made us more aware of the length of the shot for our opening and when to cut a shot.
In our preliminary task we used an establishing shot to show where the characters were, this is something we used for our opening as it is important for the audience to know where the characters are in the shot to make it more natural. We also learnt about the importance of lightning from the preliminary task, as in some shot parts of the characters faces are unseen (Not from the bad quality). This made us consciously aware of the lighting in the shot and if everything can be seen. We learnt the importance of editing, as if the transitions are too out of the ordinary which makes the clip look unrealistic.
Through out our product we used continuity editing as there is a seen where the character is going into the lift with a credit fading in and when the lift opens back up it fades out. This something we learnt about while shooting our preliminary task.

Jade Evariste Question 6

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

I have learnt a range of technologies from Logic pro to blogger and so on. I used the logic pro to help produce our soundtrack as I had to alter the music so it would fit in with the opening.

 We also used imovie which was sometimes a challenge but we got used to and understood what to do when something went wrong, I learnt how to edit footage and how to add affects when cutting from one scene to the next. We used blogger to upload our video and to post what we were working on and how we were doing it I learnt how to upload post. We used YouTube to get some ideas on how we wanted the soundtrack to sound like and also what we wanted the opening to look like as we researched the opening of other thrillers and though if we would like to do something similar with our opening I learnt how to embed video’s so we could post them on the blog, also we used a mini DV camera to shot our opening which wasn’t too hard to use. Using these technologies showed me that anybody could make a film opening as once you know how to operate the programmes it is really easy to make the product you want to make.

Jade Evariste Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience with an interesting narrative, as not to many films have a similar plot. Also the main character is a female which would attract the women as they have something to relate to. We also made the character ambiguous even though she is killing people she is killing people who harm other people and throughout the film you would get to know her on a personal level and would be able to connect with her and wonder if she really is evil as previously presumed. We also used the generic mannerisms for the main character she is social awkward and has only one friend who she has an intense relationship with, the uniform she has to wear is generic when she is dealing with the dead body she puts on gloves to hid her DNA she doesn’t get caught. We also did not give away to much in the opening sequence as we leave the audience guessing what is happening as we used close-ups of her hands and objects she touches which makes her mysterious.

Jade Evariste Question 4

JADE EVARISTE

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We want to make our film to interest a variety of different audiences, so we tried to make it as universal as possible, by breaking some of the conventions of a stereotypical psychological thriller we hope it appeals to a new kind of audience.
The certificate for the film is a 15 as it will have some bad language and unsettling scenes, by making it a 15 we have made it available to a wider audience than by making the film an eighteen. Through the questionnaires we focused on females as they were the main contributors to the questionnaire, by making the lead character a female they would be able to relate to the character more, we also made it relate able for men by having the gory details. The average class was working class so we knew that we couldn’t put in anything to intellectual as they might not be able to understand something if we made references to higher educational subjects.

Jade Evariste Question 3

JADE EVARISTE 

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

Distribution is the process of moving a product from its manufacturing source to its customers. 
The main difference between independent and mainstream distribution is that mainstream distribution is normally international, and can be seen on a variety of cinema's while independent distribution mainly give films the independent cinema's or they go straight to DVD. 
I I feel like the film we made would be an independent like 'Anamorph' and 'Wicked' the 1998 film . I think this because our idea isn’t something which a wild variety of people may not like as it breaks some of the conventions of a typical psychological thrillers, also it has a different storyline compared to successful psychological thrillers.  I think that a good distributor for our film would be Entertainment film as they have had successful film releases like the 'Artist' and 'The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy', because they are an independent distributor it would be more cheaper than using a mainstream distributor. The film would be given to small chains of cinema's like the picture house as it appeals to a niche audience whic our film would appeal to.

Jade Evariste Question 2

JADE EVARISTE

How do you represent a particular social group?

 Pathologist are seen as dark and mysterious which is a stereotype of people who work with dead bodies.

We expanded the stereotype of the pathologists, by making a pathologist the killer we enforce the stereotype and represent  them as mysterious, creepy and someone who they should be weary of.

 By having a black young female as our killer, we break conventional stereotypes.

The stereotype for young girls is that they are obsessed with boys and make-up  some examples are Regina George in Mean Girls and Cher Horowitz in Clueless . By having the female character a killer we strip her of her innocence and make the audience feel sympathetic towards the character, further on in the film you realise that you can't help and that she is psychologically disturbed, we represent that social group as psychologically imbalanced and dangerous which is unconventional for teenage girls.
Using a black character for the role of the killer was unconventional as killers are generally white, by having a black killer we represent the social group as dangerous and suspicious.
We represented the police as hard working as they are constantly trying to figure out who the killer is, also they are represented as a bit dim witted as they sometimes have the suspect but oblivious to the clues infront of them.
We have represented the white British under class as being holagens, and bad parts of society as the killer wants to get rid of all the criminals in Britian. This is a conventional veiw of white British under class which can be seen in 'This is England 86' and 'The Football Factory'.
We represented Suffers of Mental health problems as deranged and emotionless, this is a stereotypical portrayal of mental health suffers which is seen in 'A beautiful mind' and 'Memento'   .

Jade Evariste Question 1

JADE EVARISTE

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

We focused on the thriller, genre specifically pyscological thrillers. The main conventions of pyschological thrillers are .
.First-person narrative, which makes the information given unreliable as they could lie to or mislead the the audience. Thriller audiences expect to be disorientated at some point in the film so will expect this convention to be at work.

 .Stream of consciousness - confusion on the part of the protagonists' between what is real or contrived 

.Distorted percepetion of reality

 .Latent fears

 Our media product challenges and develops conventions. The conventional psychopathic killer is usually between the ages of 40-50, male and white, see Silence Of The Lambs' Hannibal Lector, Mementos' Guy Pearce. Our psychopathic killer was young, female and black so we almost completely subverted the typical conventions.

Though we planned to use a male character we were unable to do so because of logistics we thought that it would be interesting to use an actress who was unconventional for the part. In doing so we open up the genre to potentially new viewers who can relate to the character and her experiences. We developed conventions by having the flash backs fade into white and then appearing which is a conventional use of flash backs. We used tense music that crescendos and minor notes which created a tense atmosphere when appropriate. We used a symbolic opening, hinting at themes and issues rather than explicitly stating them. We felt this type of opening would appeal to our target audience, who said they prefered to be challenged in this way. We are telling the story from the killers point if view which is generally unconventional within the psycological thriller genre as audiences prefer to identify with the heros rather than the villians.