Aimee's Evaluation

1.In what ways does your media product Use, Develop or Challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Used

The first convention we used within our opening was incorporating the Thriller sub-genre, Crime. Many Thrillers will use this particular convention, as this convention frequently overlaps the Thriller genre. In numerous Thrillers that custom this convention, do to ensure the audience are lured into the Crime that is taking place, which influences them to attempt to solve the crime, or  doubt if it will be solved. Pure Crime films focus on a specific crime or set of crimes, which will solve a mystery, or tracking down the criminal, with little violence but more drama throughout. However Crime-thrillers have additional threat and suspense involved, which may also involve espionage, killings and other non-criminal conflicts. In our Thriller Opening this can be grasped from the start as the first clip is that of the victim’s phone receiving a direct message from the Stalker himself. We see that Ryan Smith has messaged the protagonist via Twitter saying ‘hello’; the message is shown to the audience when the message appears, and the phone makes a received message sound to show them the importance of  the message, and that it is a major  element in our Opening. The crime, stalking is concentrated at the start of our Thriller, although it may not be as clear to the audience as to what it is, the build up of tension and sense of mystery becomes inviting for the audience, as the build up until later in the Opening when it becomes clearer to them that she is being stalked is exciting.

A Thriller that uses this convention effectively is the Crime Thriller Se7en, which involves two detectives who are hunting a serial killer that uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi. This is a shot of one of the earlier scenes in the Opening which establishes the crime to the audience that has been committed, murder. Although this is more of an obvious crime to start an opening with, it still portrays to the audience what the film will contain and entail, giving them the chance to react in a way the audience does in a Crime Thriller, by attempting to solve the mystery. I believe we have use the Crime sub-genre in our Thriller Opening successfully as the convention has established our Opening in a way that is effective, and enticing to our audience.

The second convention that was used within our Thriller Opening was the use of Binary Opposition, which is  established and used in many Thrillers, this is when a pair or related terms or concepts have an opposite in meaning, and are in contrast with one another. You can find Binary Opposition throughout the entire process of our Thriller Opening, to show the distinction between the Protagonist and Antagonist. These screenshot’s from our Thriller Opening are examples of how we used and adapted the lighting in the scene to create the Binary Opposition convention. The first screenshot is of the Protagonist in her bedroom with the brightness of the bedroom portraying a positive and content feel to it. In the second screenshot from our Opening you can see the contrast of the settings and how we established the binary opposition for the antagonist through the lighting; which is represented as sinister, darker and overall a less positive setting for the audience to be viewing, making them feel on edge as the binary opposition shows the less happy situation that is happening.  We used this convention in our Thriller Opening to draw the audience into the scene and introduce them to the opposing personalities and establish the antagonist and protagonist for them; in addition this shows the safe place, which is the more positive area, and the more dangerous, unnerving setting. 

An example of a Thriller that uses lighting to establish the Binary Opposition is The Da Vinci Code. The shot on the left is that of the protagonist in a lecture room giving a speech to students; as show he has a light only focusing on him, firstly to establish that he is an important leading role, but the lighting indicates he is positive and harmless. Whereas in the screen shot above that, the antagonist is in a threatening, dark light which makes him seem more frightening, which the lightening then additionally creates a intimidating, uneasy feel again for the audience as they can see that in contrast between the protagonist and the immoral character. I believe alike The Da Vinci Code we have used lighting to create part of our Binary Opposition convention well and represented the contrast in characters effectively. 

Developed

An example of a convention we have developed in our Thriller Opening is the use of voyeurism. In many films of this genre the convention Voyeurism is strongly used, from the greatest Producers such as Alfred Hitchcock. It is the practise of watching, or spying on people. In our Thriller Opening we developed voyeurism in a modern way with a technological approach, as we used iPads, iPhones, modern laptops and most importantly the Social Networking site, Twitter. Here I have inserted a shot from our Opening of the files created by the stalker on his laptop, this establishes the practise of espionage and spying as it reveals to the audience his obsession with the victim, through the viewpoint of his files, as we see the context of it and that he has documented his following’s of the protagonist.  As we can see there are files with array of different dates on them informing the audience that his following of the victim, has been happening for a while, causing them to feel tense and worried as they see the reality of the situation. The convention voyeurism also makes the audience feel uneasy as the spying by the antagonist is done as the audience are watching him and the camera is on a point-of-view shot implying that they are also following the victim through a voyeuristic approach,  resulting in a tense and on edge feeling.
A Thriller that developed Voyeurism when made was One Hour Photo, which at the time incorporated the newest technology, the one hour photo printing service, to establish the sense of voyeurism. The screen shot from one hour photo shows the images the stalker has collected through the service and technology that was used when the Thriller was being filmed; it is shots of a family he has become obsessed with. Alike our Thriller he has collected these images and kept them for his own personal pleasure but made them into a collage of printed photographs, whereas in our Opening we put them into files as that is the most recent form of technology to organise records. I feel our Thriller established the convention as well as One Hour Photo has, as it created records and a timeline to portray to the audience the extent of the antagonist’s voyeurism, in a modern way. The convention affects the audience in a way that makes them uncomfortable to be viewing, and distressing for them to view, whilst still keeping them interested to see what the antagonists have discovered or found whilst getting involving with espionage. 

The other convention we have developed in our opening is the way we have applied the use of Editing, more specifically the hyper suitable way we have created our Credits. We have used a typing effect to slowly reveal to the audience what is being written, this is a familiar way to how in a Thriller the audience are slowly exposed to revelations, through a build up of tension and anxiety. The credits were designed and developed appropriately in addition to the build up of tension as they are connected to the technology based theme in our Opening; the stalker uses new forms of technology in the Opening to follow the victim, this involves typing, which is incorporated to display our Credits. The font used is that alike to the font used on Twitter, or on a classic website; we developed the credits further through the font chosen to try and bring in all forms of the technology used to really elaborate on the crime, and portray it in the Credit sequence. We additionally developed our Credits by inserting a typing sound over the credits, as we felt it was an extra link to the technology used and emphasise the idea of the male stalker typing. The shot of the image is that of part of our Credit sequence, we used this clip to show the font, the typed names so far, but also show the name being slowly typed and revealed in the last one, half completed. 

This can be seen, in a Psychological Thriller that successful established this convention well, The Talented Mr. Ripley. The film is about a man who hides his true personality whilst attempting to complete a job he has been sent to do. The credits and editing are extremely hyper suitable as we see a slow revelation of the antagonist’s identity through the use of shards slowly coming down, revealing his face on a black screen; this gives the impression that throughout the film the exposure of the characters personality will start to show and get portrayed to the audience, revealing more of him than originally were aware of. There is an example of these credits in the screen shot, which additionally shows the font used as an old typewriter font. This can also be linked to the film as it is set in the 1950’s making it appropriate of its time. I feel our group has developed the use of editing for our credits, as the effect used establishes and complements the film making them extremely fitting to our Opening. 


Challenged

A convention we have Challenged in our Thriller is the plot, specifically the interaction and communication between the victim and stalker, and the extent of the antagonist’s fixation. This is unusual in most Thrillers as many protagonists, do not cooperate with the antagonist, or exchange conversation at all, certainly not over a social networking site on the internet. In this particular shot, you see only the response from Lucy, “Leave me alone”; this is presented simply on its own, on Twitter’s direct message format. This is because in previous clips you see Ryan Smith attempting to get in contact with her over this message, so the audience know who this message is from, who it is too and her purpose for sending it. We created this to provide a different take on a ‘classic’ stalker film, as the interaction makes the audience feel tenser as they want her to stop talking to him, as the viewers know he is bad and dangerous, possibly more than the victim knows herself. This convention additionally involves the technology more, by presenting it as an easy and risky way that a stranger may contact you; which the audience can simply relate to, as it is modern. We created this shot with the help of the laptop, camera and tripod, giving us that advantage to do a close up, stable shot, which is bold and dominant for the audience to see. 

A contrast to our challenged convention , the Thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, grasps the ‘typical Thriller’ well, by having the jealous ex-husband classically stalk his ex-wife by following her every move, without her potentially knowing he is, as he does not try to contact her, thus they are not communicating with each other. This is an image of the situation in the film where he is following the ex-wife and her new boyfriend to a funfair and watching them on the Ferris wheel. This shows that he is tracking her, in person mainly, and keeping himself out of sight. By doing this the audience are in the unknown as to whether he will let her know his is stalking her, and if he will do anything about it. This gives the victim ‘Laura’ no chance to escape him, as she is unaware of what he is doing. Although this is a strong convention we chose against this as we felt the tension, suspense and distressing situation of him contacting her, and her replying, was a intense convention in our Opening, which we challenged well to give the audience a new approach to a ‘stalker’ situation and gives them the mystery and uncertainty of how an antagonist and protagonist conversation will affect the victim and keep them in anticipation and distress.Another convention we have challenged is the usual running order of the credit sequence, as the Title of our film is at the end of our opening sequence. The infrequent technique of this does not appear this way in most Thrillers as the title is used as an imperative and dominant way to open a Thriller. We have decided to step away from this typical convention and place the title at the end to create an anxious and tense tone to the opening which keeps the audience in the unknown as to what they were possibly viewing. I believe this challenged convention worked to our advantage as the credits were over when the title came, and in fact was the Opening overall, which excited and geared up the audience to want to view more of what they briefly saw. This convention was helped by the music and build up of the credits additionally. This was our intention when we placed the Title at the end, therefore making us and the convention successful for its purpose.

In the Thriller, The Sixth Sense, they have intentionally placed the title at the start of the Thriller Opening and credit sequence. The title is immediately after the first actor and main characters name has appeared in the sequence, and with the appearance of the Title the piece of music creates a surprising louder, frightening sound, leaving the audience feeling anxious but also informing them of the title. The remainder of the credits are therefore after this. I believe The Sixth Sense credits creates a well rounded amount of tension and mystery as none of the film, or camera work has yet to be revealed although the style of the credits and music makes the audience feel uneasy.  Challenging this convention has increased our Thriller’s intensity and tension to create an exciting Opening for the audience, which also is fitting for our overall sub-genre and feel.  

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

 My Prezi on the question, How does your Media product represent particular social groups?

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

The answer to this question is to be found on our Wikispaces page linked below.

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Followed

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

The individual that would watch our Thriller opening varies depending on a range of reasons, such as their age, class, interests and location along with many other factors. Our model audience member will be fully explained in this question.

Eleanor Fletcher, who is known as Elle is a 20 year old University Student. She is currently studying Photography at a University in London; she is single but has a large group of male and female friends, who are frequently out in the cities, indie scene. Above all she mainly enjoys Crime Thrillers as she is attracted to the espionage and suspense related to them; furthermore she enjoys the criminality and illegality of it all. Other genre’s she enjoys to watch are romance, documentaries and dramas. Elle is very passionate with Art, and from this it shows she has a creative personality, that was extended into her pursuit in Photography. Her time is spent looking around Exhibitions and the internet’s wide range of websites, such as internet blogs, along with her networking profiles, on Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube, where she interacts with other users and watches many videos that interest her. Elle is most interested in the less mainstream music, but prefers the alternative bohemian lifestyle. Elle wears a variety of different brands and appropriate clothes for her individual style and personality; she usually shops at high-street stores and vintage stores to accomplish this. One of Eleanor’s most important factors to life is that her family is the most important to her, which in an result of this visits her family regularly, and generally spends a lot of time with them. Elle spends her money on what she loves best, spending time with her friends, and going out; with the boys and girls she frequently tries out the new places in town, and makes sure she can visit the cinema as much as possible, to see her favourite genre’s new films. Eleanor trusts her values to respect herself and others, and treating everyone the same, additionally to this her create photography eye gives her the advantage to see the world for how it is and be appreciative for what she has, and how she lives. Although she has a busy and fulfilling life she also likes to have time to herself and step away from the bustling city, by watching films and being on her laptop.

Our group decided that our Thriller Opening audience would be those of the ages of 16-22. As the context and the happenings of our Opening may be distressing and upsetting for a younger audience, in contrast to this an older audience will be more suitable and fitting as the intricate and deep storyline will be much easier for them to understand and accept. Our ideal Class was the middle class type, and student type which I feel we have achieved as we will distribute in smaller, cheaper Art House Cinema’s to start with. We felt our ideal audience member would be both male and female; the females would be able to relate to the victim as she is a young teenage girl Lucy, which they will feel tense for as they may have a strong motherly instinct to be worried. A male audience was also fitting as our antagonist main character is a male, which we found is what Male prefers, than a female main character. Our target audience were most interested in realism, which I feel we attained well, along with suspense and tension, which we were also successful for achieving. 





5.How did you attract/address your audience?To answer this questions we have placed annotation onto our finish Official Thriller Opening '#Followed', below. It can also be found on our YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TsunamiStudiosMedia



I personally believe our group has enticed and delivered to our audience well, as we as achieving to meet expectations and consider the audiences reaction, and views when viewing our Thriller Opening.

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

Throughout the making and assembling of the Thriller Opening to our film #Followed, I have expanded my knowledge on a range of the different technologies that we have used both online and offline. I have previously worked with a small minority of these various technologies such as Photoshop and the social networking site Twitter, although I have come across most in the past. I have learnt a great deal more now I have worked and practised with this equipment. 

Apple iMac 

Our first step in creating this blog was to use the Apple iMac to do so. This was my first encounter of using an Apple iMac, and without the previous knowledge and know-how I had minor issues at operating this technology. I found it particularly tricky to use at first as I had only encountered Windows format on computers. After getting the general idea of the iMac I began to work at a faster pace, and use it without difficulty. A gained the know-how to quickly start up the device and the programmes we were going to use, so our group could start work immediately. The iMac was vital to our group and our work as it is what we made use of to edit our production, along with the programme Final Cut Express. I feel the iMac had every function and purpose our group needed to accomplish our Thriller Opening, and I have very pleased by the way it worked.

Blogger

Our next programme our group had to encounter was Blogger. Prior to this task I had no experience of using Blogger though I had encountered it before; It was not a concern that I hadn't used it before as I found it simple to pick up. Once picked up I was able to modify the design of the blog and create blog posts efficiently and successfully. This assisted the making of our production as it is fundamental to have this quality and skill to create our blog for our planning and making of our Thriller Opening. Blogger's functions impressed me as I was able to adapt the layouts, fonts, backgrounds for the needs of our group and make the blog personal to us and perform and serve the way we required it too. A feature that additionally made me impressed with it was that it had the ability to effortlessly and successfully connect to our other programmes we were using, as a result of this being able to show on our Blog the other work we have been involved in, such as on YouTube and Prezi. This was easy to do as we just embedded a link onto our blog post and publish it; this helped us connect extensively over the Internet. I feel the features of Blogger assisted and benefited our group to a great extent and assisted us to construct a successful and professional account of our progress and actions for the planning and producing of our Thriller Opening. The ease of publishing work, uploading photos and the ability to embed videos promptly was important for me and our group as it assisted us into working proficiently right through the production. 

YouTube

YouTube is a site I am accustomed to but still have not exerted myself to using before and have very little experience with a YouTube account myself. As a group we used YouTube as the basis for uploading our production and pieces of work for our preparation (Preliminary Task and our Voice Overlay Storyboard). I felt using this programme was simple as the settings, and uploading was straightforward, quick and useful. An feature of YouTube I worked with was editing by tagging and placing annotations on our videos  which I found straightforward and additionally very helpful to our production as we were able to find what we needed to work on and annotate it to make is clearer for us and possibly viewers. This was an effective way to upload our content however it has aided us by receiving feedback from viewers instantly, which meant we could assess our audiences opinions and correct any needed changes to be completed as a result of this. YouTube has been a delight to use as of its simplicity and ability to connect with everyone, without having to be professionally able to do so. It has been thoroughly valuable to our group and the making of our Thriller Opening and I would be happy and able to work with it again.

Prezi
Our group decided to include a variety of different programmes and technology to add to our Blog posts to make them more interesting; one of these programmes was an internet website, Prezi. Prezi is used as personal online slideshow creator, which virtually creates your slideshow in any way you want, which I previously have has one experience of this website, but very little compared to the creating of slideshows for our posts. I found it slightly daunting to use at first, though the more I have worked with it overtime, I have happier and able to work with the layout and design of the website more and I have used my knowledge of it to produce my own presentation (such as Question 2). I am proficient at modifying text, recreate my own slideshow path viewer and alternating it to insert  images and more information I wanted in the Slideshow. I found Prezi very useful to me and the group to a great extent for our Blog, its exciting and diverse way of presenting information adds varied Posts. I would certainly suggest Prezi to use it for a variety of presentations in the future as it is so successful, and enjoyable to work with.

Final Cut Express 

To edit our filmed pieces we had to use Final Cut Express, which before our Preliminary never had used before. I feel with this technology I was most anxious and uneasy to use, as I sensed there was a lot to learn without it being easy to pick up. However I feel our Preliminary Task was the practise for me, to be able to learn the in’s and out’s of the programme. I gained knowledge of how to import videos off the camera we filmed with, how to slot clips together as well as manipulate the duration and size of each individual cut and how to render the clip as a whole. Using this practise I found that it was an ideal time for me, and our group to play about with our clips as little or as much as we liked to tailor our needs and wants. After the Preliminary task the prospect of using this piece of software to edit our footage became less daunting as I learnt the basics of this programme, although I knew there was much more I need to discover to make our Thriller Opening perfect. Our group decided to further our research into Final Cut Express by editing our Voice over Storyboard for our Thriller Opening. Now finishing our Opening and being even more knowledgeable with this programme, I am able to trim footage, adjust audio, add in a variety of effects and include transitions. I was impressed with this software as of its many features it contains, to help you create a clip you are happy with, which I feel I really benefited from and I enjoyed working with this piece of software. Final Cut Express is a great programme and has been significant to our group’s process; I would be content to work with it again. 

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/
I and my group had no prior experience of using this website, nevertheless it was simple and straightforward to use. We used the website site to find and obtain royalty-free music for our Thriller Opening. It was very basic and easily explored and downloaded the music we found appropriate for our Thriller on the website. I found this site very helpful as we found some well composed copyright free music to possibly use, in the end two were involved in our Opening. 

Wikispaces

Previously I had never encountered this website before but had known of Wikipedia, fortunately it was simple to use, and manage for what we needed. It was straightforward to join the site it and set up our own page for our Thriller Opening #Followed. It was then effortless to add text, images, links and photo's, additionally what is a nice feature on this website is that it has a tutorial for you if you require it. As a group we were able to both save and publish work easily and effectively, which I feel Blogger helped us learn this type of format.  This webpage was useful to our group and I would consider using it again. Our Wikispace is in Question 3. 

Camera 

The camera our group used for filming a HD Cannon. I had very little knowledge or previous experience using this particular camera, although I found it effortless to pick up and learn how to use, as they have a very simple format. Again from our Preliminary task I was quick to learn the basics such as zoom on our clip, pause, capture, turn on and off, take photo's and playback and view previous footage. A problem we encountered during filming was soon fixed by gaining some knowledge of definition, firstly we shot in SD and looking back onto the footage our group worked out the problem and were then able to shoot in High Definition giving our opening a much better quality and professional look. The camera overall assisted us greatly as it was simple to learn the different features of it and use them which meant we had a much better level of footage. This camera would be a pleasure to work with again as it was the perfect to work with for what we needed. 

Tripod 

For the filming of our opening we used a tripod to steady the camera for all of our shots to be certain all our shots were smooth. The tripod used was straightforward to set up and use although we encountered a problem when we found a screw was loose leaving the tripod not being able to hold the camera by itself and making the slots slightly slanted. This was soon fixed as we were able to replace the Tripod with another usable one. Yet without the tripod our shots would not be straight, stable and clear, consequently it proved to be an extremely useful piece of equipment as it was easy to move about and adjust to what we need for our shots, such as it being on top of a desk. I feel it was a great advantage for us whilst filming and would recommend anyone who wants steady shots to use one.
On the left is an image of our set-up in the antagonists scenes, with the Tripod and Camera.

Twitter
As a group we were challenged by working with the online social network Twitter, as this was a main component of our Thriller Opening #Followed, as this shows by the hash tag in our Title. I and my group were all very comfortable working with this website as we all have our own personal input into it, previous to working with it we already knew out to direct message, tweet and modify the settings to your liking. This site was straightforward and easy to use, although getting alerts whilst filming was found difficult but we managed to operate and film around this problem. I am happy with working with Twitter as it is a modern piece of technology which aided us into creating a very interesting thriller opening, I would be happy to use it again.

Overall I believe these pieces of technology and equipment have helped us to a great extent through the filming, editing and production of our Thriller opening. As a group we feel that it has given us a skilled and professional final product, which having that form of quality is of great significance for us. These pieces of technology created an exciting and interesting opening that without them would look very different and I believe somewhat worse. In general I and my group have learnt a lot from the production of our Thriller opening when working with the technology we have, and personally I have increased my overall knowledge noticeably  from it, which makes me feel I have achieved and gained something from it. I am appreciative of having the chance to work with such software.

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

The answer to this particular question is below on our Preliminary Task as it features annotations to explain what we have learnt throughout the process.

From the Preliminary Task I individually feel I have learnt a great deal, which also prepared me our final production for our Thriller Opening. It specifically helped me practise and gain confidence how to use the equipment, technology and software which was fundamental and crucial to carry out this task. The Preliminary Task taught me a great deal more as we had to slightly research and plan, and from the knowledge of this we additionally planned more for our official opening, and were aware we needed to do so, by studying the Thriller genre further.


I have looked back onto our first attempt of filming and editing our Thriller Opening and realised our group learnt from our mistakes, and improved our Opening greatly. 

Although this filming and editing was a fault to our production, I feel that it assisted our group as we were able to learn plenty from it. For instance, we made the mistake of filming in SD firstly, when starting to edit, we realised this and found the quality was unacceptable for our opening, and had to re-film in HD. Although at the time we saw this as a big problem, in the long run it helped our final product greatly.