AS Media Evaluation Question 2

1. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT REPRESENT
PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?
BY CHLOE CARMAN

2. LOCATIONS/ LIGHTING
 We associated out OTS with various outside locations:
- By the river
- Forest/ woods
- Field/ grass area
- Pathway

3.  These locations are seen as mysterious places. The river and forest locations
are associated with a dark, murky atmosphere, meaning that very few women
would typically go there by themselves, because of the dangers of being ‘raped’
or ‘murdered’ which is the typical story line to these locations. The darkness
represents solitude and isolation. But it’s the fear of being alone and having
someone creep up on you that you need to be scared of. Darkness also is the
sign of evil and villian’s (the dark side), meaning that evil is everywhere. Our
OTS breaks social grouping as the femme fatale is walking round all these
locations by herself, proving that despite all the controversy, this female does
not need a male to look after her. All the outside locations represent someone
who travels around, and is fast paced and is no stranger to danger.

4.  The indoor locations (office/workplace) is seen as a place to retreat with the
plain white walls. The strong lighting, bounces off the objects, casting a shadow
on the wall. Shadows create a mysterious, forbidden ambiance; not the retreat you
were looking for and intrigues the audience. Lightness represents the anti-hero,
who (if sticking to normal film noir conventions) concurs evil. We filmed all the
outside locations during the day, using nothing but natural light. This shows that
our femme fatale isn’t afraid to be seen, which shows she isn’t getting up to no
good, unlike the traditional film noirs. This neo noir twist appeals to more of a
modern, younger audience; not your typical audience associated with film noir.

5. SCHEDULING/EXHIBITION
 The violence/death/crime within film noir means that our OTS would have to be show to
an older audience because of the adult themes. This means it would probably be screened in
cinema’s as a 12 because there isn’t too much blood/gore, but there may be some violence and
references to drugs and sex. If our OTS was shown on TV, it would have to be a late night
film, or at least after watershed because of the content. The audience who watch it would
have to be quite intelligent and knowledgeable to be able to follow the story line, so this also
attracts the older generation to watch our film. This also targets our film at an older audience.
However the neo noir elements involved appeal to a younger audience ( mid-teens/ late teens),
so it appeals to both the traditional older audiences as well as the younger action adventure
seekers.

6. MISE-EN-SCENE/PROPS
 The iconography within (alcohol, guns, matches) relate to the time period our
OTS was set in. Budweiser is normally associated as being an ‘older mans’ choice
of drink, and the other iconography would attract the older generation as they
can relate to the props and can understand the time period, so would be quite
intelligent. The red elements on our femme fatale (lips, heels, nails) are used for
seduction to both the male characters with in the film, but to also attract male
audience members because of the attractive young girl playing the femme fatale.

7. SEMIOTIC REPRESENTATION:
SOUND/SYMBOLS/ICONS
 For modern twist in the typical jazz music we stripped it back to the keyboard. As
the story builds up, the music does too. We done this by changing the music this
allowed the characters to grow. Traditional jazz musicians would be interested to see
how we have put a modern twist on jazz to bring in a younger audience. Modern,
contemporary music appeals to a modern audience. The empty bottle in our OTS
represents alcoholism and how it can leave you feeling empty and make a character
seem depressed and unsatisfied, so goes searching for something more. At the end of
our OTS the music stops over the last frame. The silence leaves the audience
wondering what’s going to happen next. Adding a surprise shock there is a sudden
crash, which makes the audience jump, adding mischief to hook the harder to please
younger audience.

8. AUDIENCE THEORY
 The audience must be educated enough to piece together a mystery puzzle
as there is no dialogue in the opening sequence and all is revealed through
iconography and camera work. The audience follow where the camera takes
them. They want to be taken on a journey. We know at the beginning that the
femme fatale ‘drowns’ but is not dead. This leaves the audience to wonder how
it happened, why it happened and who done it. This type of genre usually
attracts middle age males, however because of the female lead, more females
will be interested to see it.

9. CHARACTER
REPRESENTATIONS
 The modern twist of a female lead will attract females to watch the film, but
also the young men will be enticed by her looks. The pretty femme fatale is a
strong, seductive character with manipulative charms to seduce the men. Her
job as a crime reporter shows us she is well educated for a woman of her time
period; almost a younger Miss Marple. Her intellectuality tells us that she is
middle - high class, therefore (if following the traditional crime drama narrative)
will be involved with the crime, and her family may get involved.

10. CAMERA TECHNIQUES
 Framing is used to highlight the clues that are uneducated so they can follow
the story. This is also a way of controlling the audience and making them see
what you want them to see; bringing the audiences focus onto something
important, allowing them to try and link things together. Pan’s of long scenery
shots are conventions of a traditional crime drama like Miss Marple, so the
older women who watched Miss Marple would be interested in our film. The
low angles shows the femme fatales high status due to her educational
background .

11. NARRATIVE THEORY
 In our OTS we have a plot of a fake death. This is a twist in the typical
traditional crime narratives. This means that the audience have to be educated to
understand the story. We have the traditional characters in the film: femme fatale,
villain etc.. But the twist with the fake death gives the narrative a more interesting,
adventure, mysterious like plot to the story meaning it will interest the action
adventure modern audiences are drawn to. For our narrative we revealed that our
femme fatale drowns, and the whole film is a flash back telling the story about why
it happened and why the females eyes open at the end. This twist in the opening
sequence hooks the audience in and leaves them asking questions that they want to
be answered.

12. TRANSITIONS
 Throughout our OTS we stuck to the same transitions. We used cross-
dissolve to link our frames together. This transition slowly overlaps so as one
from fades out, the other starts to play over the top. The transition has quite an
old fashioned look and feel, and will attract an audience who used to watch
black and white films, with basic transitions. We used a cross dissolve for
linking two scenery shots. This is what used to happen in old fashioned crime
drama’s, giving some audience members a sense of nostalgia.