In what ways does you media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Psychological thrillers are very popular among film industries and appeals to both mainstream and niche audiences. The approaches of reaching the two types of audiences have huge variations however the conventions are simple to recognise. They differ from thrillers of other types as they rely heavily on mystery. The characters in a psychological thriller have as much importance if not more than the plot itself. It is very important that the film contains a flawed hero experiencing some kind of psychological suffering, a vulnerable victim whose state of mind is being disordered and with whom the audience sympathise. It must include the use of music to create an atmosphere of tension and confusion, the use of shots specific to the genre such as close ups and focus shots to show the importance of individual characters.
We conformed to the conventions by using a character who was suffering from Schizophrenia, a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. We included menacing and unsettling music to create anxiety among the audience. There was no dialog included again conforming to the conventions. We introduced the characters and gave a bit of background about our lead girl, Leila. The word love was used to represent/reflect their relationship.
We also challenged the conventions. One way we did this was by having the murder take place during the day. In most films in this genre a murder is typically done under the cover of darkness, however we opposed this for two main reasons:
1- To show the boy was innocent, why would he kill a girl in broad day light?
2- To reflect the instability of Leila’s mind, why use a knife that big to kill you friend on a road in the middle of the day?
We thought that by using a balance i.e. conforming to some of the conventions and challenging others, we could capture audiences who are keen on this genre but give them something more by making them think about what they’re watching, so in other words keeping them locked in the world of the film.
Many psychological thrillers use repeated close ups of a characters face, to let the audience know that the characters facial expressions hold important meaning either in that very scene or of ones to come. We used close ups in our film to portray this. For example the picture above, shows a scene from our film in which a close up was used to allow the audience to make a decision regarding how they felt about the character.
Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In the news, young people are often represented as being culpable for the rising number of deaths by knife and gun crime. In our media product we decided to reflect current affairs and tackle the issues surrounding knife crime in particular.
One of our main characters was a young teenage boy. We used the sartorial codes of stereotypical teenage gang culture by dressing our character, Nabil, in a hooded jumper. This was designed to reflect the public’s perception of adolescent males in today’s society. This decision was targeted mainly at a mainstream audience as it covered the plot of a typical teenage film. This part of our media product was inspired by Adulthood. We liked this film in particular as it exploits many of the characteristics of the teenage crime genre.
In the opening we decided to satisfy the audience’s judgments by giving the impression, that the young boy had murdered a girl, and therefore fulfilling their expectations. We then went on to show, at the very end, that the boy was in fact innocent and had no involvement in the murder and that it was just a case of being ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’. We thought that this was very effective as it plays on society’s fears and associations with teenage life and subverts conventional ideas about teenage ‘hoodies’
Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why?
In the film business, the term "distribution" refers to the marketing and circulation of movies in cinemas and for home viewing i.e. DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc. The primary agenda of the distributor is to convince the exhibitor to rent, or "book", each film. Before the film can be distributed, the makers must decide two important factors:
1- How to market the film and;
2- the target audience
By the fist point I mean to ensure there is a full line of advertising materials available on each film which will help the exhibitor attract the largest possible audience. The second point ties in with the first as marketisation strategies rely heavily on the target audience. For example if the target consumers are a mainstream audience a lot more money must invested to reach these viewers due to the fact that they are highly demanding. If the target was a niche audience the advertising would have to be a lot more defined because viewers in this category require specific needs which have to be met.
Accomplishing all of these factors is important to guarantee the biggest possible gross. Looking at our film it is obvious that it has more independent qualities than mainstream, due to the lack of available technology. There were some shots we wanted to include which would perhaps make it seem more mainstream such as layering shots to represent the two personalities of our schizophrenic character however as this could not be done we decided to use music to represent this.
Our film would be best distributed by an independent company such as Working Title’s sister branch WT2 or Entertainment Film which are specifically designed for this. It would be exhibited in cinemas such as Ritzy or Clapham Picture House which showcase low budget films for niche audiences.
This is the type of shot we hoped to achieve but unfortunately it could not be done.
Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The most obvious target audience for us would be between the ages of 15-25. Our immediate surroundings influenced our choice. Since we are ourselves students we felt that we knew what type of things that would interest other teenagers. We used primary data in the form of questionnaires to conduct our audience research.
The decision was made concerning the distribution. We thought that having a wide range of ages would allow us to have a bigger market to aim at and so get the largest possible audience. Having a narrow age range would exclude potential viewers.
Using this question we found that over 60% of the teenagers who took part spent their spear time watching TV or films. This was good information as it allowed us to decide which group of people were most likely to watch our film.
As consumers of the media ourselves, we knew that our opening had to be good in order for our film to be successful. The opening of a film is the key to capturing your audience. It is what causes them to spark an interest and so must introduce element such as secrecy and mystery to encourage audiences to continue watching the film to discover these answers. However this was not useful enough and so questions had to be asked about what kind of things people believed made a good thriller. Some of the answers included introductions to the characaters and plot/narrative.
This was another vital piece of information as it let us know that our audience had several expectations that we had to meet in order to get them interested. Furthermore, we also found out that our intended audience was demanding and hard to please.
Question 5
How did you attract/address your target audience?
As we were filming in a school, we were left with the choice of either choosing student actors or teachers whose talents cannot be called ‘acting’. As a group we decided to choose a cast that the audience could relate to and would appeal to the audience. When it came to deciding what the actors would wear, our target audience was always in mind and the difficulty came with finding a balance between what the sartorial codes said about the character and how they would be perceived by the audience.
With regards to the plot/narrative, we used a stereotypical story about teenage knife crime, and on the other hand challenged the stereotype so as not to bore the audience with yet another teenage knife crime film. We did this by making a girl the killer. I would say that this was a challenge as in most films it is the female character who is the vulnerable victim, however in our film we decided to portray the woman as the 'enemy'. Our film was designed to engage the audience by covering issues that were happening in their everyday lives.
Question 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this process?
Getting to grips with using the cameras and the Apple-Mac was surprisingly not as hard as I had expected. Although it took a bit of getting use to after a while it became quite straightforward. The hardest bit about the whole experience was making sure that the music blended well and had expert flow. This was done by splitting the audio clip where necessary and then dragging another clip next to it and so joining the two.
In the first shot where the girl is looking through the photographs we used soft strings to reflect the innocence and to create an atmosphere that put the audience in a state of calm. However i decided to change the music when she reached the final photo to indicate/communicate to the audience that something was unsual about the scene.
For clips where I wanted music but with sound effects I would have to place the clips one on top of the other and leaves gaps for bits where I wanted just sound effects or just music i.e. like in the picture above. The pitch of the music could be adjusted by dragging on the purple dots and sometimes even muting it where it is not wanted.
When at the end we were back to the fist scene, our initial idea was to choose a different piece of music . At first I felt that this might work but after watching the finished product a few more times I felt that something didn’t quite work. After a bit more analysing I realised that it was the music change at the end that was causing the concern. So at the very last minute I came to the conclusion that although the rewind effect was a good idea it needed something else to signify that we were back to where we started. So instead of using different music I thought using the same music as we did in the beginning would make it clearer to the audience and put them in the same state of mind as before.
We also learnt how to arrange the clips.
Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we were given our preliminary task we were told to shot a short scene in which two people had a conversation. The aim of this task was to get us use to the camera and get us started on using the Apple-Mac to edit. Before we began we were told to draw up a storyboard. Although it was clearly explained that we were to do something simple, my team as usual decided we wanted to make ours look as professional as possible. However this paid off because we learnt what type of shots we couldn’t do and those that had a great effect.
When we had finished filming we loaded everything on to iMovie and started arranging the clips and editing them were we needed to. This was a very useful learning curve as when we came to the final product doing this was one of the easiest parts of the whole task.
We also learnt how to split the video in two. This was useful because we could cut bits that we didn’t want out instead deleting the whole clip. It also meant that effects could be put between the two clips.
I personally found the preliminary task very useful because it allowed me first to get use to the camera, and second come back into the real world by making me realise that everything was not as easy as I first thought. It taught us how to use shots to create effects and how to use cuts effectively. It taught us how to work within a specific time frame (organisation) and how angles could create a whole new meaning. We learnt that sometimes the simplest shots such as over the shoulder shots were best rather than trying to do too much. By using the Mac’s and trying different things we learn how different transitions symbolise different things, like for example a washout could be used to show a transition back in time where as a fade in could be used to symbolise continuation. Other transitions included overlaps which could be used to show a connection between two things. Another useful thing about it was that we ended up using some of the shots from the first video in our final project, for example the footsteps.
As we were still new to the camera this shot appears shakey as we used a handheld camera. However it could be argued that this gives it a more realistic feel as this was what we were trying to achieve.
With this shot the camera was placed on the floor to prevent any movement. We did not use a tripod because placing the camera on the floor gave the illusion that the person was walking towards you. It also meant that we could just zoom in on the feet to make them appear closer rather than holding the camera and trying to walk at the same time as the other person.
Link to final product:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLofCVKIzQ4&feature=related
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