AS media course evaluation

1. AS Media Evaluation
Giacomo Fraterrigo
Jack McGroarty
George Keenoo

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products? (i.e. of film openings)
• As a group we looked into the “horror” genre and noted typical features and
conventions before we began any production of the final product.
• We decided together that whilst we would borrow some key codes and
conventions typical to the “teen horror” genre, we would remove other and try
to create a slightly hybrid genre, bringing a more sophisticated element to the
teen horror Genre.
Did Include Did Not Include
Secluded area Death in 5 minutes
Black out False Scare
Not show villain Dialogue

3. Conventions we did Include:
• Black Out
• Teen horrors, as well as other horrors, often use the blackout convention to make the victim
seem more vulnerable.
• By making our entire film intro dark it gives the sense of a blackout, making the villain seem
more deranged and scarier to the audience.
• Not Show Villain
• Many teen horrors also refrain from showing the villain to the audience to fill them with fear,
as the unknown scares the audience.
• We decided that we would also not show our villain for two reasons:
• It meets the conventions of teen Horrors and installs fear in the audience
• We did not need to look for strong actors as we only needed to show the villains hands.
• Secluded Area:
• Such as many teen horrors, we decided to have a secluded location giving a sense of fear to
the audience.
• We chose to film our footage in an empty laboratory, giving the audience a feeling of
loneliness.
• Without an establishing shot the audience will also feel that the location is more secluded as
they do not know the whereabouts of it.
• Close-up shots convey isolation because they show only one character and prevent the
audience from becoming familiar with the scenery.

4. Conventions we did not Include:
• Death in the first 5 Minutes
• Many different teen horror films introduce the film and the villain at the same time. Usually
the villain kills a victim in the early stages of the film
• We decided that we would not include a death in our title sequence as it would require better
actors and mise en Scene but also because we wanted to leave the audience guessing about
the serial killer and not reveal much to the viewers.
• Dialogue
• Typically teen horrors also use dialogue in their title sequence as a means of introducing the
variety of characters and portraying their personality to the audience.
• Due to the lack of equipment we held and the poor quality of the mic on our video cameras,
we decided that having no dialogue would both make our film look more professional and add
to the intensity and mysteriousness of the villain in our piece.
• False Scare
• Teen horrors usually implement a false scare to the viewer, making them believe danger is
about to occur, and then making them quickly realise there is no danger at all.
• We decided we wouldn’t include such a convention in our opening piece as it would be out of
place without a victim being introduced.
The film “Scream” is an excellent
example of a film that kills a victim
within the opening sequence. However
we felt it would not fit our film so did
not include the convention.

5. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
• Our film represents only one social group and rather than portray
teenagers such as the typical “teen Horror” movie would, we have
decided that our intro would focus on the villain and the social class
of “Serial Killers.”
• We took a special interest in two films in particular when
researching our Villain, “Se7en” and “Silence of the Lambs”. When
studying both we learnt that characters such serial killers are often
represented to be vastly intelligent, sophisticated, and well learned
(e.g. doctors).
• By following these particular conventions we made our villain a
stereotypical psychopathic serial killer.
• However we could have represented this particular social class
better if we had stuck to our original idea of classical music playing
throughout the background as it portray the serial killer as a more
intellectual individual.

6. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
• After studying different film institutions in our group, we came to a
conclusion that because our media product is low budget it would
have to be distributed by a small British based institution that
specialises in distributing films of the horror genre. This is because if
we were to aim our film to be distributed to a high budget film such
as ‘Universal’ our product would need to contain the latest camera
technology, such as CGI, to meet the needs of the high-budget film
audience, which is technology we don’t have. An example of a low-
budget film institution that may distribute our product is ‘Fear Film
Productions’

7. Who would be the audience for
our media project?
• Within our group, we have come to a conclusion that our horror
openings target audience are teenagers between the ages of 15-19.
However due to fact that it doesn’t follow all the conventions of a
teen horror, it may still appeal to audience of older ages. As a group
we also made careful choices of what we showed in our opening, as
it needed to fit in the ‘15’ age group of the BBFC.
• Also by watching various other teen horrors we noticed a pattern,
where the openings were fairly gory. This influenced our horror
opening, as we have many scenes of our main character slicing, and
playing with the bloody heart. Most teenagers prefer horror films
where the main incentive is gore, whereas older audiences may be
more entertained by a horror with a deeper story, such as
psychological horrors. By sticking to this convention we ensured the
target audiences desires were fulfilled.

8. • In conclusion we feel our horror opening has
met the requirements of our target audience
well, and will appeal to general teenagers.
However our opening may appeal more to 16-17
year olds, as we may have subliminally created a
niche market, due the group members all being
16 or 17 and creating the horror opening as we
would like to see.

9. How did you attract/address
your audience?
• In our group we decided that the first part of how we would attract
the audience would be the title of the film because that will be the
first thing the audience will see before even watching it, so it
needed to be simple but effective. We decided to call it ‘The
Surgeon’ because it was simple, also the word ‘surgeon’ straight
away makes the audience think of tools to cut open a body such as a
scalpel, and at the same time the title has a certain mystery about it
as it doesn’t reveal much in terms of what happens in the film.
When we had decided the concept of our film opening and the title,
we needed to decide on an effective way so it is able to attract the
audience. We then watched the openings to the films ‘The Shining’,
‘Wrong Turn’ and ‘Se7en’. We then inspired by the opening to
‘Se7en’ because it was able to attract our group as an audience by
the way it only used close-ups. We felt that our opening should take
inspiration from that because we didn’t have loads of surgical
equipment and a proper location in which a surgeon would work, so
if we only shown close ups it will keep the attraction of the audience
as they are focused on what we want them to be rather than
showing a lot of stuff in a shot which loses the focus and attraction.

10. What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
• Before we even got in to any filming, I was introduced to
blogger, where we could record all our work done, and also
use it as a media diary throughout the year, to help us with
time management. Before AS media no member of our group
had previously used blogger. However blogger follows a
relatively simple concept, so we found it very easy to use, but
did face some minor problems, such as uploading powerpoints
to our blogs. This was when we were introduced to slideshare,
where we could convert our power points in to a compatible
version for blogger. Again none of out group had previously
used this site, but again it was very easy to use, and the only
hurdle we came against was the long period of time it took to
convert some powerpoints to slideshare.

11. • When the production began we learnt how to use many filming
technologies. We were introduced to vital equipment first, such as
cameras and tripods as were required to use them for our
preliminary task. Again we dealt with the equipment very well, and
we found the tripod an extremely important piece of equipment, as
it made filming easier and made it more professional.
• In the editing stage of production we were introduced to
various programmes:
• Final cut express being the most important, as we did the
majority of our editing on the programme. Initially we found
the programme hard to get used to due to a complex layout,
but through familiarising ourselves with the software in the
preliminary task we used it efficiently for our final product.
Slowly we built up a range of skills, such as using filtering
effects and keeping continuity, especially important in our
main task. We had no technical problems with the software,
however uploading the footage proved more time consuming
than we had originally thought, as did rendering and therefore
lost some lesson time.

12. • After editing our footage we were required to make a title
menu for both our main task, and preliminary task. Although
we could not gain marks from our title menu, first impressions
are vital so we required a fitting title menu. To achieve this we
used IDVD. We found this software extremely easy to use and
came across no complications, however finding a suitable
design on the programme was difficult, as no designs truly
reflected the genre we were aiming for. Eventually we chose
the most fitting design for our titles, and our DVD was
complete.

13. 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?
• We have found that the preliminary task was useful to produce before our
final piece as it helped us come to terms with the equipment and processes
we would use in the final product. Through using various angles and shot
types we learned which would suit us the most especially because of the
need to include the 180° shot. By using this shot we learned that dialogue
was hard to pick up from a distance, which was needed for the shot, and so
we came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t use dialogue in our final piece.
• The preliminary task was also a brilliant way in which our group became
familiar with the software on the macs. As none of us had ever used such
software like iDVD, iMovie, and FinalCut express we became used to the
programs which sped up our editing process later on for our final piece.
• Overall as a group we believe that we have come a long way from producing
the preliminary task to producing our final piece and we also believe that
without a task to introduce us to the system, we may have been worse off.