AS Media Studies - Final Evaluation

1. AS Media Studies -
Evaluation
Daniel Daly
Candidate Number - 8104

2. Evaluation Activity 1 – In what way does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products? (i.e. of film openings).
• In my media piece, there are some conventions which challenge real media products, such as
certain camera angles used in film openings or the use of non-diegetic sound. Using already
existing techniques helped increase the realism and gave it a more professional sense as people
expect to see it. However, there were certain aspects of our piece which didn’t challenge or
develop the normal conventions of existing media products and these will be developed in my
next slide. Coming up with new, original forms and conventions was difficult because so many
have already been used, especially in thriller films which aim to provide a lot of suspense for the
audience, which is what we aimed to do.
• Many of the typical conventions I have used were selected from certain films, I have not copied
them directly, just enough to make the audience want to carry on watching. The inspiration clips
usually last much longer than our shots. For example, the party scene in the film ‘Project X’ lasts
on and off throughout the film.
• A typical convention of a thriller that we used would be the build up of suspense by the use of
many different camera angles which get closer and closer in and then whatever it is, is revealed.
For example in ours when the dead body is revealed. The shot before is from far away and then it
gets closer as the shots are shown.

4. In the slide above, there are nine screenshots which I have taken from my final piece and in the next part of my
evaluation I am going to explore how they are typical or not typical compared to existing, real media products.
Screenshot 1) The first close-up shot was inspired from films such as Project X where there is a scene dedicated
to the set up of the party which involve focusing on things such as drinks preparation, moving furniture and
putting up lights. This shot straight away implies that there is going to be some sort of party happening. It also
goes well with the not so heavy, non-diegetic beat which is played over the top.
Screenshot 2) This second close-up shot is very similar too screenshot 1 in a sense as the main purpose is to
signify to the audience that there is a party about to commence. However as there are drugs in this picture
which are much more frowned upon than alcohol, it gives the audience the idea that the party is going to be
much more ‘mental’ than they expected. Screenshot 1 and 2 help emphasises the social realism side of the
piece as drugs (in our case, paracetamol) and alcohol are very common in teenage, British social life these days.
Screenshot 3) This big close-up shot is not the most relevant, but was inspired by the film ‘The Inbetweeners
Movie’ when they are preparing for a night out. However ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ shows many more shots of
them getting ready compared to the two which we have used.
Screenshot 4) This extreme close-up shot was also inspired by Project X as it shows very short shots from a
party scene of people smoking etc. We used an ECU shot to help show the smoke as clearly as possible. I think
it is an essential shot as the part before mainly focused on alcohol, so this gives us a chance to expand the
social-realism part, like in screenshot 2.
Screenshot 5) This two-shot was very helpful as it helped emphasises the alcohol use. Although it was not a
POV shot, it was very blurry and turned around to help show the effects of alcohol. This was inspired by the
film ‘21 Jump Street’ as when the two main protagonists take a drug, their vision becomes blurry and they start
to hallucinate.

5. • Screenshot 6) This long-shot shows a girl lying on the floor. This was inspired by the film
‘The Hangover’ when they all wake up the morning after, having no clue what happened
the night before. This position we filmed her in, with her hair messy and a very
uncomfortable position signifies she must have passed out.
• Screenshot 7) This next shot is a POV shot of one of the people waking up the morning
after, looking down at their hands to discover blood on them. This is a convention of the
thriller aspect with the use of blood and the person who was the blood on their hands
not actually knowing what happened adds to the suspense.
• Screenshot 8) This next long-shot is of the dead body. As I mentioned earlier, we started
off from a shot far away and gradually got closer to the slit throat close-up. This was
inspired by the an episode in the TV series ‘Lost’ when shots that get closer are used to
film the first sighting of a group of enemies called, ‘The Others’.
• Screenshot 9) The final shot I have chosen is the title and logo of the film, ‘Revenge’. The
use of the colour red is a convention of blood and death which fits in with the thriller
aspect of the piece. The slightly darkened outline of the title gives the impression of evil
surrounding the negative connotations of red. However the white background indicates
some kind of good, which is around the red but not able to get in and take over as the
black evil is blocking it.

6. Evaluation Activity 2 – How does your media product represent
particular social groups?

7. The character I have chosen from my piece is the one identified by the four pictures on the right
(Nathan). I have chosen him because he is seen a lot throughout the piece and a lot can be analysed
about his personality. As you can see in the slide above, I chose Steven Stifler from the American Pie
films (Picture one on the right collage) as he is very much into partying, drinking, dancing and
dressing crazily. From my piece, we get this impression from Nathan as we see shots of him drinking
and dancing. Also, the wild coloured, orange shirt also reflects his personality as we get the
impression he likes to be different.
However, I have also compared him to Seth, who is the main character in Superbad (collage on the
right, picture 2). Instead of Nathan being crazy, he could have only just been invited to a real party
so therefore decided to go crazy just to impress others. This is very similar to Superbad and I think it
is difficult to tell whether he is generally a ‘party animal’ or just being positive faced and trying to fit
in.
I have also compared him to Jay (collage on the right, picture 4) out of the Inbetweeners as he gets
very drunk at parties and likes to have a good time. However, he may differ from Jay because
Nathan seems like he goes to parties a lot whereas Jay doesn’t get invited to many and; like Seth
from Superbad, likes to try and fit in. However, Jay doesn’t dress very party like, whereas Nathan
has. Another difference is that Nathan seems to have more of a good time as we see him dancing
and smoking etc, Jay seems to have fun but not as much fun as Nathan.
My final comparison is of Costa from Project X (collage on the right, picture 4). He is the main
organiser of the party and is one of the most mental party people I have ever seen in film, which is a
general impression we get from Nathan. Like Jay from The Inbetweeners, Costa doesn’t dress very
party like in comparison to Nathan.

8. Evaluation Activity 3 - What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
What does a production company do?
A production company is an organisation which produce films. In some cases they may fund them,
perhaps if they are a conglomerate (a company which owns production companies, publishing
companies and maybe cinema chains etc). The publishing film me and my partner used was called
‘Tortuga’ and the logo was in the first shot in the opening.
What is the idea of a distributor and why?
A distributor has the role of releasing films to the public. This would be through cinema, DVD,
download and television. Some conglomerates are also distributors and have the finance to
distribute their films into cinemas etc.

9. Our production company name was Tortuga. We chose this name as it had a reference to a TV show both
me and my partner like; Breaking Bad.
We used the colour red in our logo as it
connotes with elements such as blood, anger
and violence which fits well with our film
opening. It is very similar to the logo of the
actual film opening itself, ‘Revenge’.
I think if one distributor would release our film, it would be Film 4. One reason being that they are a
British company and secondly, many of their films are social realisms such as ‘This Is England’ which is
very similar to ours as it is partly a social-realism and it really magnifies modern day society, although
‘This Is England’ was set much earlier on. They also produced the film ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ which
was a big inspiration for our party scene as it involves drug use and alcohol consumption.
To finance a film such as ours, it could be possible to partner up with a conglomerate such as Vivendi
Universal who pays for some or all of the production etc and also has the business to advertise and
release it to the public. In exchange they have an equity in the business where they get a percentage of
the profits. Another alternative could be to obtain a bank loan. If the bank believes we are asking for a
sensible amount of money and that we will be able to at least break-even and pay them back, they will
most likely loan the sum of money.

10. Evaluation Activity 4 – Who would be the audience for your
media product?
This is Adam Smith. He is 17 years and 2 months old. He attends
Henley College in Rugby where he is studying: Media Studies,
English Language and Business Studies. The main things he enjoys
doing are being adventurous, he enjoys a challenge and trying out
new things. He likes to hang out with his friends and party a lot and
because he does Media Studies, he recently became a much bigger
fan of watching films as he naturally starts to analyse them. He is
also into his fashion where he quite a wide dress sense so he buys
his clothes from shops such as Topman and River Island for slightly
trendy looks but also places such as Ralph Lauren and Fred Perry for
a bit more class, depending on where he is or who he is meeting.
He likes to visit his Grandma who lives in South-East London where they enjoy conversing about school work which
helps him revise as she is very interested in what he must learn for his exams. Adam does not have a girlfriend as he
prefers to be out with a lot of people most of the time partying or going to the Pub.
His favourite TV series is Prison Break as every episode has a lot of suspense and it immediately made him want to carry
on watching as soon as he started watching it. He also enjoyed Breaking Bad as he thought the characters chosen to
play the parts could not have been picked any better and also the TV show Lost due to interesting storyline and choice
of setting.

11. When it comes to films, Adam doesn’t have a specific genre which he
prefers over others. His favourite films are, Pulp Fiction, due to the
wacky theme and how it skips back and fourth; he likes the idea of
piecing the story together in his head. He is also a fan of British Social
Realism films such as, Kidulthood as he believes it really reflects
nowadays behaviour in some teenagers. He is also a big fan of the
James Bond films as he likes to see how the same production company
has developed from the early 60’s to the current day. Adam is very
open minded, like I said he doesn’t have a specific film genre favourite.
This is the same with his music taste, his preferred music ranges from
Drum & Bass to Indie Rock.Adam on far left.
Adam on middle-right.
I think the film Rhiannon and I produced would appeal to Adam a lot because it
contains a lot of suspense and it is also partly a social-realism film which is one
of the main genres Adam enjoys. The film introduction we produced is one
where you can watch on your own or with a group of friends and Adam enjoys
both of them so it would suit him very well. Another reason why it would appeal
to him is because it involves a party scene, which is something that he likes and
would find interesting to watch.

12. Evaluation Activity 5 – How did you attract/address your
audience?
For this task I interviewed my sister, Georgia. She is 19 years old and had not before seen my film opening.
From the questions I asked her, I was able to identify her overall opinion, her likes and dislikes and what she
thought worked well about the my film opening. I filmed the interview with my iPhone and uploaded it onto
YouTube.
The questions I asked her are below:
• What was your overall impression of the film?
• Would you want to finish watching the entire film?
• What was the main thing about it which made you want to carry on watching it?
• From watching the film, what genre would you expect it to be?
• On a scale of 1-10, how professional/realistic did it seem? Why?
Here is the link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cts2winSubU&list=HL1398806473&feature=mh_lolz
If the quality of the video is not good enough, there is a transcript on the next slide.

13. • Me: Ok, so what was your overall impression of the film?
• Georgia: Umm, I thought it was really intriguing err I’d really like to see what happens next.
• Me: So, does it make you want to watch the rest of it from what you saw?
• Georgia: Yeah, because it’s sort of, it’s quite mysterious you don’t know what- why they’ve woken up in such a
situation and you didn’t know the circumstances behind it and the party scene is quite, sort of umm, fragmented,
like sort of, you understand what’s going on but you want to know what’s going to happen and what has happened
• Dan: What was the main thing about it which made you want to carry on watching it?
• Georgia: Umm, I’d say it was sort of how it was so fast paced and then suddenly it went like, really slow paced umm
(coughs) the party just ended abruptly and then it was just a sudden, ok what are these people doing here.
• Dan: From watching the opening, what genre would you expect it to be?
• Georgia: Umm, either a drama or a thriller.
• Dan: And on a scale from 1-10, how professional/realistic did it seem and why?
• Georgia: umm, I’d give it.. 8. Umm it seemed quite professional and I think the use of lighting for the party scene
worked really well, really well done and umm I think it was the camera shots used were quite realistic, there well
done. The only thing that made it less realistic was the acting but I think that’s just sort of, umm, you couldn’t really
have done better in that aspect.
• Dan: Ok, thank you very much.
Video transcript

14. Evaluation Activity 6 – What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this product?
camera
tripod
light
YouTube

15. • Tripod: the tripod was very helpful when it came to
still shots. The purpose of the tripod is too support
the camera to keep still/smooth shots, depending
on the shot which is being used. The tripod was
especially beneficial when we filmed one of the
final shots, the one of the dead body. The stillness
helped signify the thriller aspect, the length of the
shot also did this.
• Camera: from being the main camera-man, I learnt a lot
about the functions of the video-camera. For example, using
specific camera angles to help give a specific effect and our
example of this would be when we tilted the camera to
enhance the effect of all the people being drunk. The
camera was very simple to use and we used it to record all
of our footage. Doing things such as zooming and attaching
the camera to the tripod were all very simple to learn and I
am now confident with all of the camera processes.

16. • Lights: As I mentioned earlier in my blog, we used a
lot of lights (3 UV bars, a laser and a strobe) at the
party scene. These lights really helped us create a
much more realistic effect of the party, without
them the party scene would appear to be rather
dull. The laser light contained a microphone so it
flashed in sync with the music, this helped when it
came to the filming.
• Youtube: Youtube is a website where people can upload
videos and where viewers can watch them. Youtube was
very helpful as it enabled us to watch inspiring film clips,
acquire screengrabs and also upload our finished film to go
over before handing it in. Youtube also helped me see
different film opening styles that different film companies
use. Another use of Youtube was looking for potential
soundtracks to go over the top.

17. Computers: The macs were very helpful as they
allowed us to access websites such as YouTube
and also to edit our piece. They are very fast
which was good because time is of the essence
especially as we had a fair few setbacks. The
software we used to edit our piece (next) was also
installed onto the macs.
iMovie: We used iMovie to edit our piece. It is a
brilliant piece of software, it is very simple to use, has
a large range of sounds to use and graphology wise, it
helped make ours look very professional. We did have
some trouble uploading footage as it had to be
converted but for some reason didn’t work. We
eventually came over this issue with some help from
IT technicians.

18. Evaluation Activity 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task
(the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in
the progression from it to full product?
From the stages of planning my preliminary task and doing the final editing for my
final film opening piece, I have noticed many ways in which my skills have
developed. These skills range from filming to structuring documents such as
evaluations. In the next slides, there are pictures showing exactly how my skills
have developed and I will explore how I think they have and why.
The images in the next slides don’t completely show the development as you need
to watch the clips to completely understand so I have provided the links below.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DHUSTGN56I (preliminary)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e333297zrC4 (final piece)

19. Because the above picture (from my preliminary task) is not a
video, it is hard to show what I wish to explain. The shot is very
wobbly due to not using a tripod. Back at the time we were
not convinced they made a huge difference. Now we have
used a tripod in most of our final piece, we can clearly see how
it has had an effect on our filming strategies. Again it is hard to
express because these are only images, but the second shot is
completely still as we used a tripod.
For the two above, you will also need to watch the clips to
understand. These shots are focused on how are use of non-
diegetic and diegetic sound are used. In our preliminary task,
the crossovers are very poor and it goes from silence to a lot
of people talking which didn’t flow well. However our final
piece goes from loud music to a high pitch sound which
represents a new, completely different scene. The cross over
worked much better. It’s also the same when the shot-
reverse-shot takes place, each shot the background noise
changes.

20. The match-on-action usage in our preliminary task did not work very well. Like our use of sound, it didn’t
flow well. This is due to it looking like two different movements, not one. In our final piece, we only used
one piece of match-on-action. Instead I have put up a shot of our party montage. The party montage used
45 different shots which all lasted for an average of 1.5 seconds. The reason I’m using this as a comparison
to the match-on-action shots is because the flow could have easily been ruined in the montage, but it
wasn’t due to our camera and editing skills developing.