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

Our film opening "visitpors" was inspired from several psychological thriller films, prior to filming our opening we looked at a few examples to gain knowledge as to how suspense can be created.

During our planning myself and James Looked at the opening for seven, we attempted to copy the style of credits create suspense and enigma as to what is going to happen next.

The style of the text from seven was used in our opening 'visitors' to encage the audiunce and to try and create a feeling of mystery.

Our film opening visitors took inspiration from the Donnie Darko bathroom scene- in which donnie is talking to a large rabbit but seems confused at what he see's similarly thus co insides with our end scene of amber using Non verbal communication to convey a look of confusion expressed using facial expression.

 Donnie Darko

The penultimate inspirtation for visitors was taken from the pyscological thriller 'stragers' in which banging noises can be heard from within the house in which the film is set, similarly we used this idea and combined it with non digetic sound to create an enigma.     



The masked Charecter from the stragers was  used to help the audince question the enigma of the film.

Similarly we copied the style of the masked charecter from the 'The strangers' as it helped convey mystery as to why he is following the female charecter in 'visitors' and makes the audiunce question if he is physically real, or if he only can be seen be the female charecter as a dillusion.

 The scene in strangers in which loud non digetic sound can be heard before the appearce of the masked charecter.

The scene in visitors after the loud banging can be heard, the female charecter walks toward the source of the noise, followed by the introduction of the masked charecter.

2-Evaluation questions-How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

Our media product represents a number of particular social groups, particularly representing females as our main character for the film. It also represents youth in general, the use of just two characters one male and one female identifies both sides of gender alongside representing general stereotypes. The male character (although has no dialogue) seems strictly dominant in our film and is obviously more in control of the scene (however being a possible hallucination), whereas, the female character is portrayed quite stereotypically vulnerable in our film – this further represents females. The fact that our character is meant to be aged between 15-17, outlines the realism of paranoia/anxiety that is not typically seen in society (especially not for a teenage girl).

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

Due to the psychological content of our film opening, vertigo would best suit the distributor of our media text.

A similar film distributed by vertigo is Outcast, the film synopsis is similar to our story line in “visited”,  When Mary (Kate Dickie) and her teenage son, Fergal (Niall Bruton), move to yet another new home, it soon becomes clear they are hiding from someone or something, terrified of being found, Our film “visited” has a similar story line in which a young character if suffering from delusions and is confused between thought and reality, although the audience is unaware of this until later on in the film.

 

           

Warp films would be unsuitable for distributing our film as the psychological thriller genre is not a typical genre they would produce, warp films instead produce’s more British style films. We selected vertigo as it has released a greater number of thriller films in comparison to other independent film companies.

4-Evaluation questions-Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Our target audience for our media product is targeted towards youth in general, but particularly teen females – this is who we’d expect to watch our film as our main character is a female protagonist, and is dominant in screen time. However our film could possibly also appeal to horror/thriller fans as the construction of the film has been represented as a very dark sense for the film constructed by using dark sound, low key lighting and the use of James (male character) – all contribute towards the psychological horror/thriller essence represented in film. We gained this idea from previous films we’ve studied for example the strangers; we got the idea of James and the mask from this movie, as we thought this would fit into our psychological thriller as was certified 15, and was basically designed for a teenage audience, which was our target audience. Our use of a female protagonist was also based on silence of the lambs in which a strong female character was represented, however we thought we’d twist it to have quite a vulnerable character.

5-How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to attract our target audience, which is predominately teenagers, by typically using two teen characters in cast, in the film the main female character is supposed to be the age of a teenager, therefore by using amber as our main character it should help more towards engaging our target audience and helps the audience identify and compare with the character on screen. As our audience is mainly teenagers, the film is more relatable to the viewer. Also with the use of James as a mysterious hooded character represented as a possible hallucinations is further use of addressing our audience;  our film is set to outline characteristics such as hallucination, paranoia and anxiety, quite uncommonly represented in the media. Therefore by including scenes like ambers non- verbal communication in response to the mysterious figure is a technique we tried/ used which we thought was key in helping to attract an audience.

6-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

 Constructing our film, much was learnt through the use of technologies in our product. Specifically the main technology’s we had to come to terms with is our digital camera and the use of adobe premiere during the editing of our final piece. The camera was a bit difficult particularly to operate steadily during filming, however this was made easier throughout filming as we were helped by the use of a tripod; our main fault in the product itself I think was our framing in the camera, this was difficult to achieve during handheld shots and we feared that it could affect how professional the scenes seemed; however taking several takes of the scene helped us obtain, in my opinion a fluently filmed final product.

 The use of Adobe premiere was also a technology which I’ve become more accustomed  to during the editing stage of our final product; this was the second time I’ve used this editing programme, however, after my preliminary I still felt a bit hesitant to use it, as I thought It was quite complex and extensive. But during the editing of our final piece, the programme started to ease the more we used it.  Tools like cutting scenes became easier, and our final product became generally quite fluent, especially with the aid of our diegetic sound and use of credit titles.

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

In relation to my preliminary task, i have learnt new skills in editing, such as creating title credits that fade, similar to the opening credits from seven.
The most valuable thing i have learnt looking back at my preliminary task was that when filming it is essential to film as many shots as possible, this is because during the process of editing last minute changes can occur, sometimes for the fact that the shot that was to be used is either bad quality or cannot  be smoothly edited in to fit the existing story board.