Evaluation Question 6 & 7

This is my Evaluation Question 6 and 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? and, Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the main task?
I will make this a blog post.

Over the course of creating my thriller opening with my group, I have learnt to use a various amount of different sites and programs to not only complete my evaluation but to complete my thriller opening. Firstly, my group and I had to become familiar with Premiere Pro, an editing software that is simple to use once you know where all the tools are and how they work which can offer a various range of features which are useful to create multiple effects. We learnt how to use the crop tool where we could fit the different clips to certain points in our thriller. We used the ghosting tool which kind of blurs the camera to give it a supernatural feel. We decided to use transitions such as fading in and out at the end of clips to make the production run smoothly. We also used to saturation tool to make clips of our thriller gloomy and very suitable for the genre of our thriller.

In addition, we used Mix-Craft, another editing software but this time for music. We was able to create our own music on this program to gain better marks and avoid using any copyright soundtracks. My group and I had to spend a lot of time working on Mix-Craft, as to begin it is was a difficult to figure out just how to use it, but over time we grasped it enough to make a soundtrack for our thriller. My group and I gained a huge learning experience from making our thriller as before our media course we had never been faced with the challenge of using editing software to create something that was worth a huge chunk of our course and were complete beginners at the start. 

We also had the opportunity to work with some of the best quality cameras our school could offer, along with additional pieces of equipment that I had never heard of before. We had previously used a camera and a tripod for our preliminary task but I feel as though, we didn't use it to its full extent and therefore, our thriller was the true test of what we could do to enhance our thriller so it could gain the best possible grade. We used a Nikon DSLR camera to shoot our thriller opening. By using such a high quality camera we are now able to frame a good shot and have to produced to a very high resolution. This definitely paid off in our final product. 

In regards to our preliminary task, our biggest mistake was our time management. Unfortunately, this was the main factor for why it was of such a poor quality. The filming was left till the last minute and we were still editing it on the day of the deadline, therefore I believe it was not mine and my group’s best efforts as we did not quite know what we were challenged with. The ideas of the preliminary task changed that many times that I am unsure of whether the end result matched the original plans, this was another factor that put us down on time management. However, in contrast, when it came to planning and filming our thriller we were better prepared and knew exactly what to expect and myself and my group are very proud of the product we have produced.

I think the editing and learning curve of using the editing is what we did best at when making our thriller. After going through stage of not knowing if we would meet the deadline, we finally achieved it and was able to produce something we could be proud of. We spent multiple hours trying to understand how the different programs work and even though, we are not experts just yet, we were able to excel in completely our thriller.

I definitely think that my group and I made huge progress from our preliminary task to our thriller opening, as you can just tell from the quality of videos. We have learnt a various range of different camera skills and editing techniques that we will be able to use to produce something better in the future.

Evaluation Question 5

This is my Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your  audience?
This is presented in a Piktochart presentation.

Evaluation Question 4

This is my Evaluation Question 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?
It is presented on Bubbl.com which allows you to create a mind map.

The gender that we aim to attract as our target audience is both genders as it is not your stereotypical thriller for just girls or just for boys. The story line to our thriller will interest both genders and will not favour the likes of a specific gender. The ethnicity of our target audience will be any race and will invite any individual from any culture to watch the film as it does not want to focus on just White British. If we continue to show the rest of the film, we would probably include a character from a different ethnic background to promote diversity within our film.

Evaluation Question 3

This is my Evaluation Question 3 - What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?
It is presented on a website called 'Pixton' which allows you to create a small comic strip.

Films made by Blumhouse Productions that are similar to my thriller are:

• Paranormal Activity 1,2,3,4
• Sinister 
• Insidious Chapter 1,2,3

Evaluation Question 2

This is my Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
It is presented on a PowerPoint presentation that has been embedded onto Slideshare.

Evaluation Question 1

This is my Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? It is presented on a Prezi Presentation.

Our Media Thriller

This is our final media product, which is uploaded onto YouTube. It is easily found on the 'Tupton Hall Media' channel.

Issues we faced when filming our Thriller Opening

Over the past couple of weeks we have been filming our Thriller Opening for our main task and have been challenged with various different issues and problems which has made my group and I be proactive and productive to ensure that it does not put us at a disadvantage to get our Thriller completed for the deadline that is set for Friday 6th of March.

Technology: One of the problems we have faced when it has come to meeting up with my group and filming our Thriller is the struggle with technology. We were using a camera that did not pick up the dialogue of the characters in our opening because we did not realise that we would need an additional microphone to enhance the sounds that were being made.

Actors and Characters: This is one of the biggest issues that my group and I have had to deal with when filming our Thriller. After a lot negotiation and changes we have finally decided on the two mains actors for the finished product. On our first attempt of filming and watching it back to edit, we found that it did not work and that our grade would be effected by how poorly it turned out so we had to start again from scratch and this is when we decided to bring one of our friends in to help out and be one of the actors and change aspects of the Thriller.

We had an overall idea for our Thriller, as our pitch states, but when it came to filming we found that it would be a lot more difficult to create the product that we wanted so instead we kept our initial plan in mind and just tweaked little parts of it so it was more achievable for us.

So far, filming has been going well and I would like to say that we are at a good pace with our post-production too. I hope we can make it to deadline day with a finished product that is a promising item to get a good grade for our AS Media course.

Regional Identities - Stereotypes

Marketing and Promotion of Films

It takes millions of pounds/dollars in order to make a film, the studio then spends millions more on promoting the new film to audience through the use of adverts and posters. Marketing a large film is a very expensive job, more commonly when a film has a limited shelf life. Many movies have to be popular on their opening day and weekend, otherwise they tend to be forgotten more easily and the studios lose millions that they invested into the movie.

Most popular and blockbuster films already have an audience waiting to watch the film. Studios can afford to use a large budget for the film because they already know that people to are eager to go and see it - this is often caused by media texts that already have an audience. This is why remakes and sequels are so popular because these types of films already have a large fan base. Many studios put out films that fail, in terms of the amount of money they earn from an audience, and studios lose out on a huge profits that they usually make from other popular films they have brought out previously.

Many different films have various different shelf lives. This means that some films will be shown on cinema screens for 6 months or only a few weeks. The marketing of the film has to happen at the right time to entice an audience into the cinema and keep them coming. Many studios will begin the marketing for the film six to eight months prior to the film coming out to create anticipation for when the actual film comes out. However, in a usual case, many films do you not start their marketing and promotion process until around 3 months before the release of the film.



Source: http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/bbustermovies/movies.php?pageID=market


This can relate to our Thriller as if we were to create a full film and have professional companies to create our film into a blockbuster then it is important to have the knowledge of the marketing and promotion of films and how to ensure that a film is successful and makes a profit within its first week of release.

Alfred Hitchcock - Famous Director

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer - often nicknamed 'The Master of Suspense', he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else."

• He was born 13th August 1899, in Leytonstone, London.
• He died 29th April 1980 aged 80, in Bel Air, California, USA.
• He married Alma Reville in 1926 until he later died in 1980.
• He and his wife had one daughter named Patricia Hitchcock.
• He produced films such as Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo and North by Northwest.
• He also wrote a book called Hitchcock on Hitchcock.