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

First and foremost what is key to understand while developing a thriller sequence, is to appreciate the basic conventions of a typical thriller media product.

One main element of the typical thriller conventions is the score embodied into the media product; in classic thriller films this usually includes an orchestra of strings perhaps, leading to a crescendo that will intensify the suspense and tension that the scene may develop, this adds to the atmosphere and mood for the audience.  Ours however is more contemporary with our choice and style; with electric sounds which suits a modern thriller-espionage; during the beginning of the sequence there is a score based on piano sound effects which is then intensified by a different score which occurs during the moment when the protagonist is bullied (and angered) by the bullies; moving into an even more contemporary electric score.
Another aspect is the editing involved. Especially with classic thriller-genre editing we see a series of long cuts, which then develop into fast cutting, with this the audience is faced with more of a build up of tension and suspense, and also, the use of cross cutting i.e. cutting from one (character) to another may create the idea of dramatic irony for example. As in the end of our media product, there are a series of quick cuts from a close up of the protagonist slightly smiling evilly and a shot of the briefcase in the office. With this the audience automatically are aware of the significance of the briefcase. 
There is also a use of various shots within the thriller genre. In order to grasp the mood and feeling of a certain character for example, a lot of close ups are used; with these the audience are able to see the character’s emotions intently. Also, low/high angles can be used in order to show a certain character being undermined or being in control of someone or a situation. With close ups on certain objects i.e. a briefcase, it is possible to create enigmas and have the audience question its purpose in the narrative. Having said that, including enigmas in a sequence builds a sense of mystery, and therefore tension and suspense; these may be uplifted with the use of camera shots/angles and the score. A lot of thriller media products use this technique as it may lead to a climax, and so a shock factor for the audience.  

With the Mise En Scene of a thriller product; the lighting tends to be low key, this is key to create a mysterious mood in comparison to high key lighting that may make the scene more uplifting. Also, with low-key lighting come long shadows, this adds to the atmosphere of mystery and suspicion. Our lighting in our product was bright and natural, this added to the realism of the situation, making it more of a contemporary piece.

In comparison to our media product, usually we have a male dominant character, for example in ‘Minority Report’, Tom Cruise plays a crime-stopping role. However, there are psychological thrillers that do have a woman as the protagonist i.e. in Flight Plan, Jodie foster plays a mother who at first is portrayed as pyschologically lost as she is convinced that she she lost her child inside an aeroplane. The director Alfred Hitchcock tended to portray women in a negative light in his work, as a classic director he included femme fatales- which is a woman who is seen to be dangerous- this is what our media body includes; it is not typical in a thriller to find a young girl as the antagonist, with this, we developed the classic ideas of Hitchcock and made it into a more contemporary as it is apparant with the example of Flight Plan, women are given more dominant roles in thrillers nowadays.

With the high angle on the protagonist we are automatically presented with her dominance.

The setting of ‘The Case of Revenge’ is contemporary, simply due to the modernisation of parts of the building especially. Also, usually with classic thrillers, they tend to be set in a more unfamiliar place, for example a motel or somewhere fairly remote.

Altogether, the media product we produced is overall a more contemporary piece, although we do embody the classic conventions where it suits i.e. having a score that leads to a crescendo, however with a more modern twist to it with the additional electric sounds, this then suits the characters, setting and challenging themes that are not presented in the usual classic thriller media product(s).

 

 

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

 

Representation of particualr social groups is expected in any media product, and many films tend to use stereotypes; for example, they may show young black people in hoods are involved in knife-crime. Media products can easily create a character through costume; in our media product I played the victim of bullying, and I wore glasses, as we wanted to easily communicate to the audience the type of character I am; by using mise en scene we are able to easily and instantly communicate the fact that I was a character that is prone to being bullied, as the stereotype of bullied students is usually that the dress ‘neatly’ with shirts tucked in, glasses and if they are a girl, in a neat ponytail – wit this they are seen as ‘un-cool’.

With gender, the sequence shows that women are dominant in the movie as the main bully is also female; and the fact that she is young and mixed-race aswell represents her as the typical bully as her character is also bigger than the victim. With this, and the fact that our protagonist is also female, our media product challenges the usual stereotypes of females. This is due to the fact that females are seen as the more caring people, whereas males are seen as the more violent type of people, and stereotypically are the people who usually are bullies.

The product represent young people in a negative light; no-one in the sequence seemed to help the main character and she resulted to going on a killing-spree. Not only this but the only elder character we have also adds to her madness, although he is not completely showing pure hatred, this may represent the fact that elders may be misunderstood or even the relationship between ages is not solid. The setting of the sequence is seen as a public school instead of a private one, this is communicated through the dress of the students as they are not completely smartly-dressed. Also, it is typical to assume in private schools there are mainly white children, with this, public schooling may be represented in a negative light as it is about bullying.

Being an arab, the role of the protagonist is stereotyipcal; ever since the twin-towers incident and the London bombings, ‘arab terrorists’ were seen throughout various media products.
However, the sequence does not show any means of racial discrimination; all of the characters are of different racial background, having said that there are no white people in our product, this may represent them in a good light as they are seen not to be involved in the situation; the typical hero of a movie is usually a middle-classed, middle-aged white man.
The ethnicity of the protagonist is just as key as the age and gender of them as altogether, with the age and gender our protagonist challenges the stereotypical ‘terrorist’. Due to recent events in American universities, this media emphasises that ‘terrorism’ is capable of coming out of any age and any establishment. Furthermore, with the fact that the protagonist is female, challenges the stereotype of male terrorists and questions the expectations of women by the audience.

 

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

 

In terms of institution, being a low-budget English product, produced by young students, it would be inevitable to be an independant film, with this there is no guarantee of distribution as it may not be up to the standards of mainstream films i.e. big budget Hollywood films.
In comparison to independant films, mainstream films tend to include well-known actors and have a multi-million budget in order to create effects i.e. explosions. Also, with independent films, the theme tends to be more challenging within society and usually about a gritty real life; for example in London to Brighton, it includes child prostitution, hard for society to accept, especially in the media. With independent films there tends to be a lot of kinetic camera work, highy key and realist lighting to add to the realism, this is embodied into our media product.

And so, in terms of distribution, institutions that would be most likely to help fund an independent film like ours would be independant rather than mainstream cinemas, for example Vue or Cineworld. Independant cinemas like the Electric Cinema, show films that practically never make it big, but may be successful in film festivals; having said that, it may be possible to show our product via student or local film festivals. It may be unlikely that it would make it to the Sundance festival in USA as it is seen more as a directory for bigger film makers rather than students.

It is very unlikely that our product would be put forward to even an independent cinema however; being young students the easiest way to distribute our product is through the internet, this is because it is accessable to everyone and it is free to upload and share. Not only this, but being young and our target audience being young, it is the youth who are on the internet the most and on video sharing sites like Youtube. Also, with social networking sites, like Facebook we can easily advertise our product there, it also helps that Facebook and Youtube have cross-promotion also.

In terms of television, it is very unlikely that our product would ever be shown, however, hypothetically if it were to be aired on show, it would show on a public broadcaster like Channel 4 which is seen to ‘provide for minority viewing’, including young students which is the age we are looking for, they also tend to show short films also. Also, being based around an Arabian femnale who is also a student, this storyline embodies many challenging themes, and so would be too challenging for other broadcasters like BBC who seek to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ to show.
Commercial channels like ITV and Channel 5 are least likely to show the film, however with cable TV come community-channels, if there were a local TV station, we may be able to put our product forward for showing.

 

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

 

Looking back on our researh, our target audience were older adolescents/young adults (15-23 years old)  and in terms of BBFC the guidelines would accept our film as it does not have strong sexual or discrimanitive actions; also, negative behaviour is not ‘glorified’ as said by the BBFC guidelines.
There was no use of strong language during the opening sequence, the opening sequence itself may even get away with being a 12A rating, as there is no blood and the violence is not dwelled upon, however for the rest of the movie that hypothetically would have been created, it may be a 15 rating due to the psychological state of the antagonist due to school, which may not be suitable for 12 year olds in school, especially due to recent affairs of student-terrorists within American universities’ campus.
Having said that, being a 12A rated film would be less desirable in terms of marketing as being a thriller, the audience expect great suspense, and considering the challenging themes and events, the audience also expect a certain level of violence. By being a lower rated product, the audience will expect not so much of this and may not want to go watch it.
Our media product is most likely to be viewed by our target audience however; distribution through the internet via Youtube and social networking will easily help to share the video.

 

 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

 

In terms of audience feedback however, the majority of viewers have referred to our film as “quite relevant to target audience”.

With the use of a school location we were straight away able to connect to our audience, and also the fact that predominately the cast, let alone the main character is young, it is more appealing to a younger audience. The theme, bullying is also something that our target audience was able to relate to, and the fact that thereare aspects of violence may attract young boys especially, but with the fact that it is a female antagonist helps attract a female audience as well.

However the actual production may not have attracted our target audience; young audiences tend to enjoy more of a shocking-action sequence, however this was difficult to make with no budget and so we had to add more sound effects rather than visual effects. With this technique, we made the opening sequence more of a symbolic one; this is seen as more powerful and emotional rather than being blatant.

From the audience feedback we were able to make suitable changes that would then make the product more attracting towards our target audience, by adding a more dynamic scores to fit the situation and intensity that we wanted o emphasise in the sequence. Also to stress the build of tension up until the moment the school gets bombed we added even more fast cuts followed by a sound effect of an explosion, with an overlapped sound effect of a school bell ringing.

 

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

 

Throughout the making of the product, we have used many technologies to produce the sequence.
With the research, we used the internet, this is because it was easily accessable and you did not have to search long and hard for information, also it was more convenient as we had to post the research onto www.blogspot.com and uploaded our sequence on www.youtube.com – YouTube especially is a great way to distribute the video.
And without the internet we would most likely to have not of found copyright-free music to use as the score in our product  and also sound effects.

From the preliminary task of making a 30 second show of someone walking through a door and sit down in a classroom, we used DV cameras which have DV tapes, this creates more of a realist production rather than a Hollywood cellulised clean-cut production. With DV tapes, I think it was more useful to use as the production itself lookd more real, and being more like an independent film with a challenging  theme of a student-terrorist it was more effective as it underlined the realism of the theme.

Moreover, during both prelimary and main task we used iMovie to create both sequences. iMovie, being non-linear editing software is much easier to use in comparison to linear editing software that was used before new media software; with non-linear editing software you do not have to edit in the order, which can be destructive and very time-consuming.
 My skills, understanding and comfort increased much from the preliminary task to the main task; the software was not hard to get the grip of, it allowed us to re-draft and add changes, this was very key to helping us as in terms of storyboarding, our final product has many changes. The product from the preliminary task was very rough and quickly done, however we took more time and effort into the main task.

 

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

 

Looking back the approach to the preliminary task, it was poorly organised and planned. Although there was a storyboard produced, the actual production of the product was very rushed, which is apparent through the editing; we did not have much time to produce a polished version of a door opening, however, with this task we were able to adapt to a basis of ideas for our film, and develop an understanding of what king of shots and angles work well together.

Inevitably, with a rushed product, came various problems that we learnt to prevent; for example, during the making of the preliminary task, there were many other groups who were also trying to look for a free room, as the school was an open set, and with everyone going around and cutting through shots etc, not only was it time consuming, but also a distraction and frustration due to also lack of time. From this we learned to have a member of the group to block filming areas during the main task, also, as we filmed during lesson-time, the students were in class so they would not get in the way anyway.
Also, due to the restricted time, we understood that before filming we knew exactly what angles/shots we were going to film and who we needed, and so we informed the other actors of the time and place and also help them understand what to do.

Considering the fact that we only had no budget, our sound effects do seem to show an apparent and more effective end to the end of the opening sequence.  And in terms of editing, we did follow the rules, although there are a few slip-ups in the actual final product, but it is not completely obvious.
It was difficult finding a suitable score with the right crescendo and orchestra, although the one we finally put in does work, it would have been better if it would change at the right moments to help develop the scene and tension, we did try to manually change the volume of the score in the editing process, but it did not go as high as expected or wanted.

If anything, I would have of changed the actual storyboard itself; it was mostly used as a guideline rather than obligated to use; many changes were made during the process. Also, due to the fact that all of the scenes were filmed in school, it made it very difficult to get all the filming done in a short time; we could not film over weekends which would have been more time-efficient.