Evaluation

Our media product develops and challenges different forms and conventions of real media products. For example we used camera techniques to show me being followed by somebody in our media product, such as over the shoulder shots and a high angel, extreme long, establishing shot, which we used in the opening of our film to show somebody was watching me from a high angel. As this shot was an establishing shot, not only did it show i was being followed, but also established the mise en scene of our film, showing clearly the environment our film was set it, which was the streets of London, outside our college. Our audience are immediently aware that our film is set in London as in our establishing shot, you can see red London buses on the roads, and British road signs, as well as British gloomy, dull weather.

The majority of other real media products also use high angel, establishing shots to show the mise en scene of their film, for example in the film 'The Shining' there is various high angel, extreme long, establishing shots showing the snowy mountains and beautiful scenery of the mise en scene, the high angel shots in 'The Shining' are also used when the actors are running outside, making them appear to look more venerable and isolated, which was the same affect on the girl in our high angel, establishing shot. the reason why we wanted to make the girl in our thriller look venerable, isolated and alone is to give the impression that she was being followed by someone and was in a dangerous situation.

The media social groups our media product represents are specifically teenage girls, and young women, aged between 13-25. This is because the main character in our film is around this age and is a female in a very common situation that many females find them selves in, which is being followed by a male stranger. Our film also represents some males as being dangerous and perhaps untrustworthy. The social class our media product represents is standard working class, this was conveyed through the mise en scene, as the area the girl was filmed in was not a high class, posh area and the clothes she was wearing were normal clothes, whereas if she was wearing an expensive designer suit, high heels and sunglasses, and walking in the streets of central London our character would have represented the high class social group.

The kind of media institution who might distribute our media product would be a small independent UK film company or our film would be realised over the Internet. This is because the story line for our film is quite simple, and our setting is fairly dull and boring, whereas if our film had a more exiting, dramatic story-line and was set in an interesting place, it would be more likely for it to be distributed around the world and be a big Hollywood blockbuster.

The audience for our media product would be teenagers/young adults, this is because in our film the two main characters are young, so therefore our film is more likely to attract young people, although, our film is quite versatile and can be watched by anyone, as it is not specifically aimed at young people, and does not have any overpowering elements of the youth of today, for example our film does not contain any colloquial language, that some adults would not understand or be able to relate too. A typical person who would fit into our target audience would be..'Sarah, 18, at university, and loves going to the cinema'

I would attract/adress my audience by making sure i have plenty of advertisments around the UK. I would do this by advertising my film through billboards, trailers in the cinema, tv trailers, bus stops, internet campaignes etc. I would also assure there is atleast one famouse, well known, actor/actress starring in my film, to attract people to watch it and also so people can assume the film is going to be succsessful as they know the actor/actress in my film is succsesful.

First day of filming

Today we done our first day of filming. We filmed outside the college on the streets. The camera was following me as i walked down the street at different angels, using different filming techniques. In our scenes we wanted to show me being watched by someone, and we also showed a nick following, who was wearing a hooded jumper. Unfortunatley we did not receive a reply from essex road or angel underground stations giving us permission to film there, therefore we cannot do any of our filming underground. 

Pitch

In todays lesson we pitched our idea for our opening of a thriller to the class, we done this by presenting an a3 sheet of paper with all our ideas on it to the class, and talking through it. During our pitch we explained to the class what type of music we would be using, what camera techniques we are going to be use, the different places we are setting our opening in, and the basic story-line of our thriller.

We have decided the story-line of our opening of a thriller is going to be, a girl is on her way home and is being followed, she gets on the train and is still unaware she is being followed untill she gets off the train and sences somebody behind her as she is walking down the street, she quickly turns around and see's noone there, we then cut to the man who was following her entering an office building on a mobile phone, after this we cut to a shot of the man in an office, the man takes off his 'hoody' he was wearing whilst following the girl and reveals he's wearing a smart suit, we then see an 'over the shoulder shot' of the man typing into an email on his laptop..'WE FOUND HER'

The only thing we are worrying about is being able to get permission from a tube station nearby to film inside the station, but hopefully there will be no problem with getting permission.

Group Pitch

In todays lesson we had to plan our thriller on a story board ready to present to the class for next lesson, we also brain stormed the different ideas and conventions we are going to use in our opening of a thriller, we also wrote down the different camera techniques we are going to use, and what affect they would have on the audience.

Practice film

We were given a task to film a newspaper in an interesting way, by using different camera skills and techniques. I was not particularly happy with the camera work used in our filming, as most of the camera shots were quite shaky and unfocused, which made our filming look amatuer and unprofessional.The shots that were most successful in our peice were the 'over the shoulder shot' which showed the girls veiw of the newspaper as she was reading it. The reason why i think this was the most successful shot is because it was an interesting way of filming the newsapaper for the audience to watch. At first i found the editing confusing, as during our filming we had to retake quite a few of our shots, so it was difficult trying to remember which one we decided to use and what order they were supposed to go in, but after we had cut and organised all the shots into the right order it was fine. The continuity of our editing once all the shots were put together was quite smooth throughout, although some of the cuts were a bit too jumpy and didnt run as smoothly.Our short film didnt really make sence once it was put together. As the narrative we planned didnt really come together. Although you could tell that the girl in our short film was shocked about somthing she was reading in the newspaper by her facial expression., which is what we planned for our narrative. During our filming i learnt mise en scene is extremily important, as i beleive one of the reason's why i found our short film boring and dull is mainly due to the boring mise en scene. The scenery in our short film was in our media class room, whereas the other short films i have seen made by other students in our class that were filmed outside or around the college, i found alot more interesting to watch.We didnt have a lot of suspence in our short film, although there was a shot when the girl in our film was staring at a page in the newspaper she was reading with a shocked and suprised expression on her face, this created suspense and anticipation as we could not see the page in the newspaper the girl was staring at and wanted to know what she was so shocked and suprised at.We didnt forget to do any of the main, important things whilst filming, for example we always rememberd to film the extra 5 seconds before and after each shot.I dont think we used any conventions from real thriller films in our short film

Soundtrack Lesson 14/1/09

This lesson we added a soundtrack to our film clip. I learnt in the lesson that it is vital that the soundtrack is relevant to the type of filming and the soundtrack is very important. The sound track we used for our filming made our clip more dramatic and built up tension, as the music had quite a fast pace.

We also watched ours, and another groups final finished clip, in front of the whole class. After we watched the two clips we commented on good and bad points.