Media Evaluation - Curtis

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

Our two minute opening sequence is called ‘Chasing the Pack’ it is a Crime Thriller and we have incorporated various generic conventions, these include, music, flashing text, clothing, characters, locations and editing to develop the genre of a thriller. Eerie non diegetic music is used to create suspense and tension in the sequence and build up to a climax at the end, from this the audience can work out that it is a thriller. Flashing text is common in thrillers and is used in many opening sequences as well as ours; it shows high intensity in the film. In a crime thriller the identity of the killer is not revealed until the end of the film so we have stuck to this motive to keep the sequence tense and keep the audience interested. We have used two locations for our sequence, a wooded area and an office. The office scene is stereotypical to a crime thriller as the detectives are commonly seen trying to piece together the case. Our opening sequence is influence by ‘Se7en’ and ‘Saw’ because in ‘Se7en’ they create high amounts of tension and suspense in the film, as well as using flashing imagery, and in ‘Saw’, clues are left behind, similar to our opening sequence where a playing card is left on the victim’s body and tension is created through the music as it becomes faster and louder.
‘Chasing the Pack’ is similar to ‘Se7en’ as they both use flashing text and eerie music to grab the attention of the audience, they persuade the audience to watch the film as they will want to find out what has happened, however our opening sequence is very light and filmed darker and uses direct and effective lighting to intensify the sequence.

'Se7en' Opening Sequence

Both titles of the Opening sequence that flash and shake to imply they are thrillers.

Here the imagery in Se7en is much darker than in our opening sequence, however both these pictures are symbolic to the film.

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

In our film there are two middle aged detectives, Shaun Massey and Sirius Lee. Sirius Lee is a white male and originates from an upper class family, he is dominative over Shaun Massey who likewise is a white male but comes from a slightly less fortunate middle class family. Two white male detectives are stereotypical as you often see this in various other crime thrillers. However, in ‘Se7en’ they subvert a stereotype as Morgan Freeman plays the part of one of the detectives alongside Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, the black male is the more dominative detective.

The social groups represented in the outdoor scene are your typical 17 year old teenagers as they are both wearing hoodies and jogging bottoms, this is stereotypical to people of their age. 

3) What kind of media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

A large US production company would not be distributing our film as it is a British film so I feel a British company should distribute it. I have decided that our film would be most suitable to be distributed by Optimum Releasing. Optimum Releasing were founded in 1999 and release over 200 films a year. Our film would follow the standard route by starting in cinemas around the UK and then go onto DVD’s. There would be an option for merchandise; this includes branded clothing including t-shirts and jumpers, badges, mugs and maybe a pack of cards. The pack of cards would be significant to our film as the killer leaves a playing card on each of his victims.

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

The film would be suitable for both male and female between the ages of 15 and 50. We have chosen to rate the film a 15 having considered the criteria on the British Board of Film Classification website, this is mainly due to it being a crime thriller with murder involved, moderate violence and frequent use of strong language which some viewers may find offensive. Our audience would be a slight niche audience as we would be looking for people who love the tension of a crime thriller film but also people who want to think about a film as the murderer's identity is a mystery which makes people have to work out for themselves who the unknown man is. Similar films to ours are ‘Se7en’ and ‘Saw’ and having carried out research we have found they appeal to audiences of similar age and mainly male but some females.

Link to BBFC website; http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Audience Feedback on Facebook!

5)      How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience of 15+ by using characters between this age range, Alex and Matt are both aged 17 whilst the two detectives are 20 and 25. A crime thriller may sometimes appeal more to males than females as they may be frightened from what has happened and may not want to watch the film.

In the opening sequence a very significant point of view shot is used when Alex makes the worried phone call to the police and the camera shows his view of the dead body, here, the audience will instantly want to find out what has happened as they are witnessing a murder, it has a big impact as they will want to watch the film out to find out what has happened.

 

 This is the still image i have related to above, we can see the dead body from Alex’s point of view.

 6)      What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?

We used Sony HDV1000 cameras to film our opening sequence. We found them fairly easy to use as we were learnt how to find the white balance, attach the camera to the tripod and check the setting for recording was on widescreen (16:9).  The weakness of the camera equipment is that they were fairly heavy so we had a slight difficulty of transporting it to and from college. However, the strengths were that we able to watch the shots on the little screen which saves a lot of time and enabled our film to be of the highest quality. A problem we were faced with was the colour on some of the shots; we overcome this by changing the colours to a more realistic look when we used Final Cut express for editing.
The editing software we used was Final Cut Express, this allowed us to edit and add various effects to our film. Through using the software we developed various skills along the way to do all the editing ourselves apart from we found it difficult matching some shots up correctly, when a problem arose or an effect need adding to our film but we didn’t know how to do it. One effect I found useful is the zoom into Alex’s face once he had seen the body which then continued from his point of view onto the dead body, this explained the expression on his face. We also used fade in and fade out when text appeared in the film.

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

We spent a generous amount of time on the planning stage of our film and storyboarding to ensure that the filming process would be efficient and run smoothly, i.e. filming the office scene one day and filming the outdoor scene another day. From creating a storyboard we knew what shots we were shooting when it came to filming and in turn this made it much easier when editing our film. The research enabled us to identify the conventions used in crime thrillers so we could make the best possible opening sequence that we were capable of. We found watching opening sequences from other crime thrillers very helpful as it helped us develop our original ideas and understand the genre much more.
I found that having learnt different camera skills like match on action, 180⁰ rule and shot reverse shot during the preliminary task, we were able to take that into the filming of our opening sequence and develop our use of them. Also, I feel very comfortable using the camera equipment as we developed our own understanding after using them a lot during the week of filming, I also feel fairly comfortable using the editing software apart from when a problem arises that may need to be resolved by my tutor.

In conclusion, I am much happier with the end product of our opening sequence than the preliminary task as it is of much better quality and we have improved the editing and filming. I think it has been a success and the end product is very similar to what we had planned.