Evaluation including Audience Analysis, Technology, Genre Conventions and more.

1. MAIN TASK EVALUATION
Dylan Koolman

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
CONVENTIONS
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions or real media products?
• Our media product contradicts many of the typical stereotypes
associated with the genre of psychological thriller.
• This being, many of the movies within psychological thrillers
are male orientated, whereby there is the typical female
damsel in distress and the evil male antagonist who aims to
kill or in some way harm the damsel, much like the scream
movies whereby more often than not the character of
‘Ghostface’ is portrayed by a man.
• This conforms to theorist Laura Mulvey who created the
theory of the ‘male gaze’. However, we have an all female cast,
therefore presenting a response against this stereotype and
broadening the audience at which the movie opening appeals
to.

3. PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
CONVENTIONS CONTINUED
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions or real media
products?
• Ethnicity is one of the aspects that we haven't
challenged due to the fact that the cast are all
Caucasian and European. Therefore due to a lack of
availability, there is an under representation of
ethnicity therefore conforming the typical stereotype
of having White characters.
• Additionally, the theme of romance is also prominent
within this genre, being a orientated around a hetro-
sexual couple and their relationship against the
adversity that they face, such is the case within
movies such as Final Destination 5. However, our
opening doesn’t contain a romantic sub-plot and
sexualities of the characters aren’t specified.

4. SOCIAL GROUPS
How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
• As previously mentioned we have an all female
cast due to limited availability of a more
ethnically diverse cast. Through this however it
combats the stereotypes of ‘gender allocated’
roles whereby females are playing stereotypically
male roles.
• The social status of the characters isn’t out
rightly stated, however, due to mise-en-scene
elements within the production (such as the
clothing of the characters and the setting of the
garage) it is to be inferred that the characters fall
within the social group of those within the
working to middle classes.

5. MEDIA INSTITUTIONS
What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
• Due to the age rating and psychologically disturbing
aspects of the opening, institutions who are able to
showcase this type of movie opening could distribute
our media product.
• Due to the fact that we have created this on almost
no budget except for make up and props, this
opening could be distributed by independent
companies, exhibited at events such as the ‘Sundance
Film Festival’.
• Having said this, as we are British Producers,
companies such as the BBC could exhibit our product
as they have previously exhibited horror products
such as ‘Butterfly on a Wheel’, a psychological thriller.

6. MEDIA INSTITUTIONS
CONTINUED
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
• Institutions could want to exhibit our media text due to the new
and fresh approach that smashes the stereotype of the damsel in
distress and the evil male antagonist.
• It also counters completely the stereotype of women being weak,
as they are commonly portrayed as within media.
• In doing so, as Dyer points out, it creates a power stereotype,
whereby women have less power due to their stereotype of being
perceived as weak.
• In the case of our media production, we have created a piece that
places women within the role of power and weakness,
emphasising the fact that this is merely a stereotype created and
not a real depiction of how real life is.

7. AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION
Who would be the audience for your media product?
• Gender
• We have a female orientated cast with a female lead
which is typically aimed towards females, however, the
movie itself is not entirely specified in terms of the
gender that it is aimed towards due to the fact that the
genre of psychological horror appealing to all genders.
• Ethnicity
• Due to the fact that our media text only contains credits
in terms of material within the production that needs to
be understood, and because there is no dialogue, this
movie opening is aimed towards anyone with an interest
in the psychological thriller genre.
• Age
• Due to the guidelines of the BBFC ratings, through the
use of the connotations within the opening and being
part of a psychological horror, the target age range is for
people that are aged 18 and over.

8. AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION
CONTINUED
Who would be the audience for your media product?
• Region/Nationality
• Cast is Caucasian and European, but is not exclusive to this
race. This was done as an unintentional occurrence due to not
having females of other races able to be a part of the
production.
• Socio-Economic Status
• Our production would appeal to those from classes C1 to E
due to the relations between the characters and the audiences
being similar, adding to the element of suspense due to being
in a position where events like the ones that occur in the
movie are mimetic to those within these Social Classes.

9. AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION
CONTINUED
Who would be the audience for your media product?
• Decoding approach
• Shows how audiences are active
• Able to decode their own meanings from media
• Own-thinkers
• Formulate own interpretations
• Our media production adopts this theory for our audiences. This is because there are
a lot of symbolic elements that cause the audience to need to decode fro themselves
what the constructed meaning of them are, translating figurative imagery into literal
meanings.
• This is how the element of a Psychological thriller are achieved, by ensuring that the
audience themselves are able to relate what their prior knowledge of the world is
against what they're being shown in order to create a meaning for themselves.
• For example, the inclusion of the wiping of blood on the third picture implies that
that character is going to die. This however is not stated outright, it is left for the
audience to come to this conclusion for themselves.

10. AUDIENCE
How did you attract/address your audience?
• The main factor within the production that grabs the audience’s attention,
offering our production a USP is the female cast.
• This shows that the audience is catering for all audiences, therefore
allowing the production to cater for a wider range of audience types as
opposed to the predominantly male audience that is associated with the
genre of thriller.
• The way we could market our opening would be to share the link via social
media. The cast’s age range is teenage and our target audience are people
aged 18+, therefore social media within this age bracket is widely used
and therefore could be very successful in terms of marketing out movie
product.
• Similarly to how ‘iLL MANORS’ (another British indie) was marketed with
the #tweettounlock and how ‘Starwars: The Force Awakens’ was marketed
with the #ForceAwakens both with the purpose of ensuring the excitement
for the movie increases, we could do a similar thing with the #THETHREE
as well as highlighting our USP with the #FemmeFatal.

11. AUDIENCE CONTINUED
How did you attract/address your audience?
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• The creation of the 5 basic needs for people in order to be
happy or satisfied.
• In order to convey the psychological part of the psychological
thriller that we wanted to create, basic human needs needed to
be taken away in order for the audience to feel fear when
watching the production. The base element of safety is
completely removed due to the fact that the killer preys on the
victims of her choosing and successfully kills all three of the
unsuspecting victims without being caught.
• This shows how the pyramid structure of Maslow's Hierarchy of
Needs is very much incomplete. In removing this layer of basic
human need, and through mimetic elements, the audience not
only fear for the safety of the characters on screen but for
themselves as they're watching an event that could happen to
them.

12. TECHNOLOGY
What have you learnt about technologies from the process
of constructing this product?
• Since our previous production, we have invested in using
a Nikon D5 300 camera for filming and a Canon EOS 450D
camera for photography as opposed to the lower quality
attained from the footage of the previous clips.
• We have also expanded our knowledge of techniques
within Adobe Photoshop CC 2014, including the use of
templates, layers, ‘dodge’, ‘brightness/contrast’ and ‘burn’
in order to create images where the subject looked dead,
giving the audience a mimetic feel of what the person
would actually look like if the production was real.

13. TECHNOLOGY CONTINUED
What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
• I was responsible for the editing portion of the
piece. I have had some experience with using
Adobe Premier Pro 2014 before when creating
content, however for this production, I decided to
do research into the different effects that could
be used within the opening.
• For example, we wanted to create a negative
image over another image that would distort the
original image in order to create a thrilling effect,
inspiration taken from ‘The Call’. I didn’t know
how to do this however I did some research into
how this could be done and found many tutorials
which outlined this process.

14. TECHNOLOGY CONTINUED
What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
• In the sequence window I had the original image
and put the image I would want to make negative
over the top. Then adjusted the opacity so that the
image over the top was a little faded. Next I added
the negative effect layer to the video. After I
shortened the time of the clip and repeated the
process a total of four times so that the image
appeared to be flashing over the top of another.
• This alongside other effects such as ‘Vignette’, ‘Fast
Colour Corrector’, ‘Three Way Colour Corrector’,
‘Default Transition’, ‘Key Frames’, ‘Motion’ And
‘Blur’ were also some effects that are included
within the production.

15. TECHNOLOGY CONTINUED
• What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
• During editing however, there were a few problems
that I encountered. Namely due to the fact that there
were multiple people on the same server it caused the
server to crash and perform very slowly at times. This
caused some of my work to crash and have to be
recovered which made me have to re-do parts,
however in the end the final cut was produced.

16. PROGRESS FROM THE
BEGINNING
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learnt in the progression from it towards the final
product of the main task?
• The value of a good group is crucial in making a media
piece that not only will go smoothly but the audience will
enjoy.
• Editing takes a very long time to do, especially when the
scenes have to look the best they can. More often than
not I have to seek help from the others in my group as
well as teachers in order to see whether the scenes
looked realistic and thrilling enough to gain the desired
effect of fear within the audience that we wanted to
achieve.

17. PROGRESS FROM THE
BEGINNING CONTINUED
• Transitioning sound between clips and different audio tracks
makes a big difference when the goal is to achieve a smooth,
seamless transition between clips.
• A lot of time had to go into this production, from the prop
making, to the contract making, to the target audience research,
analysis and application, to the production itself and finally, to
the editing. The more time that we put into the final product the
better the outcome.
• We have learnt the importance of continuity in creating mimesis
and professionalism.
• Sometimes certain shots are better, in terms of effects such as
zooming and panning, when they are edited in as opposed to
filmed.

18. PROGRESS FROM THE
BEGINNING CONTINUED
• We also learnt how to focus the cameras which
allowed us to create the pull focus shot which was
previously something we had no knowledge of.
• And conclusively, we learnt that planning carefully how
we want the final product to look and sticking to it
makes the whole production process much easier as
we have something that we are able to stick to,
therefore allowing us to focus our attention and create
a media product we and the audience are happy with.

19. FINAL CUT VERSION ONE

20. AMENDMENTS
• Having looked over the feedback from various
audiences we created another cut for the video with
little changes to the video.
• This is because it is important to comply to the needs
of your audience members as this is what is going to
make sales of media texts in the movie industry.
• A few of the changes include: having end credits as
opposed to two different types of text on screen,
ensuring the tempo of the music fit together better as
opposed to drastic changes in tempo and using
sharpen in order to make the images clearer.

21. VERSION TWO