Jasmine Monk's Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In our piece we mainly developed conventions found in thrillers. Watching thrillers gave us ideas of camera angles and shots to use. We used close ups to cause confusion so the audience do not know what is going on. We also used panning to set the scene and show what was in the room. The close ups of crossing out eyes portrays the fact that it is a psychotic thriller. This also creates confusion and suspense which is what the we found audience wanted from a thriller. Influence from Seven 13

Other thrillers that have influenced parts of our film are: Se7en In se7en there is a man shuffling papers and there are lots of close ups of his hands and the audience don’t know what is going on. Se7en 13

In Silence of the lambs there are pictures on the wall. We took this idea but changed it slightly by putting them all in a row. Silence Of The Lambs 13 Our television screen was also influenced by Silence Of The Lambs Silence Of The Lambs 13

Target Audience The target audience is both sexes aged from about 15-30. It is suitable for 15 year olds because it isn’t a horror and therefore not overly gruesome and murders are not actually shown. Although as the main characters are a lot older than 15 the older audience would be able to relate to them more. The problem we had is that although the characters are meant to be aged 25+ we did not have any aged 25+ people to use as the characters, so we had to compromise by using people similar age to myself. The younger audience may not be able to relate to the older characters the same but they would still enjoy watching what happens to them.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The piece is quite similar to other thriller films, as we used various films for influence, it does also has differences though. Therefore I think if it was produced with better quality technology it could be produced by a major Hollywood studio. I don’t think that it really has opportunities for a sequel as there are 13 people to kill and they all die by the end. Although sequels that have similar story lines but with different characters could be released, like the ‘Saw’ films. Location We decided to shoot the film in a basement as it was dark and gave an eerie effect. The audience wanted the thriller to be scary and have suspense so we tried to do this with the choice of location.

How did you attract/address your audience? As our main character has OCD, sufferers or people who are curious about it may be interested in what he does and how he overcomes problems. This would attract them to the film and make them want to see it. The use of shaky cam was used to make the audience feel as if they are the character. We also used point of view shots so the audience would feel as if they were looking through the eyes of the character. The audience are put in the position of the OCD sufferer in the shot below, this is done through a point of view shot. This adds impact and makes the audience engage in the film more. This adds effect as the audience do not know exactly what is going on. Close ups and quick cuts or overlaying are also ways of creating generic conventions of suspense.

What have your learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? The cameras were all a reasonable quality, but are obviously not the same standard as more expensive Hollywood cameras. It was hard to do certain shots as we only had a camera and a tripod. It was hard to move around the room using steady cam, we tried this shot a few times and it was not working, so we changed it to make it more shaky, this also added to the effect and eeriness. As the film was set in a dark basement it was sometimes hard to pick up objects in the basement on the camera, and as it was only a low budget film and we didn’t have much technology. We used a large torch to light up areas, although we then found that caused shadows so we had to be careful beams of light as well as shadows of us filming were not picked up by the camera. We did not have any new equipment to enhance the thriller, but we had to compromise for example using wood and bins to stand the camera on.

Final Cut Express We used the editing program Final Cut Express to edit our film. I did not know how to use the program very well when we started editing but by the end I new how to use it much better. Our group found it quite hard to get it finished on time as we were not all always available to come and edit in our free time, some of us seemed a lot more available and therefore did more editing than others. Certain things that I learnt as the time went on is how to fade in and out of different shots as well as overlaying two different shots. It was good as four different groups were all working in the same room so we all helped each other out when we worked out how to do different effects. I also used the internet to teach me how to use certain parts of the program. We found it quite hard to edit the soundtrack, as it was hard to make parts fit together and run smoothly. Storyline Final Cut Express This is where we cut longer shots down and produce shorter shots. This is the tool bar used to cut shots.

We had to make changes to our storyboard due to technology and timing issues. For example we were going to have the television in the basement as part of the film, but as there was no electricity in the basement we had to film it upstairs and edit it in. By editing it in it adds confusion to the film which is what the audience wanted from a thriller, so although this wasn’t meant to happen it worked out well. There were also small changes we made to the storyboard such as ordering of shots, but we feel this made the film look better.

What do you think that you have learnt in the progression from your preliminary task to the full product? We all looked at different thriller films and focused mainly on the openings. This gave us ideas of what we could include in thriller opening. As I have already said we used ideas from Se7en and Silence Of The Lambs as well as other films. We had a few ideas of different plots, we decided our chosen plot would be the most effective. When drawing up the storyboard we new that it was quite a rough outline and we might have to change parts due to lack of equipment, time issues and any other problems we may come across. Although personally I didn’t think we would need to change as much as we did, but it was for the best. Although without even a rough outline of what we were doing it would have got very confusing. We originally planned for there to be a second scene of a girl running down a field being followed. We did film this and it took us quite a while but when it came to putting it in to the film we decided it really didn’t fit. The atmosphere wasn’t right for the type of film we wanted. I was slightly annoying because we spent so long filming it, but we wanted the best outcome possible and this is all part of the process.

I defiantly think my knowledge of different shots has improved. We made sure we used a variation of shots to make it more interesting. As I was a character in the preliminary task I did little filming, but I did a lot more in this one. I defiantly feel more confident with the camera, tripod and final cut express. I am glad I practiced using final cut express at home as this helped when editing at school. I feel the end product fulfils what our audience wanted. We asked a variation of ages what they wanted from a thriller in a questionnaire. They wanted death, this is in our film although it is not shown. They mostly wanted excitement and confusion, which is shown throughout the whole piece.

Jasmine Monk's Evaluation

More Related Content

What's hot (17)

Viewers also liked (12)

Similar to Jasmine Monk's Evaluation (20)

More from Sian Mapp (17)

Recently uploaded (20)

Jasmine Monk's Evaluation