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Evaluation q1 - q7
1. Evaluation
Question 1: In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Introduction
Name of Thriller: Deceit
Genre of Thriller: Gritty Thriller
2. Q. 01 - Location
The opening to the thriller is set in a house in a modern estate in England. The area is
very quiet and peaceful, it is not the kind of place you would expect a kidnapping. This
challenges the conventions of real media products as in thrillers such as Se7en, a
location like this is not used as it is too quiet. It may not produce enough suspense as it
is not a crowded area where anyone could see the kidnapping take place and looks as
though it is not a dangerous job. However, the task is pulled off as though it is
professional and the target was chosen for a reason, which develops conventions of
real media products. The fact that the victim was taken from a place that was not her
house, and the kidnappers knew she was going to be there suggests this was the only
opportunity the kidnappers had, suggesting her importance. The location of the house
helps reflect this as it is clearly the house of a normal middle class family where there
is no security. In contrast, this is the opening to the film and this house is only used
once as it is Anna’s (the victims) friends house, and the audience does not know any of
the characters as of yet.
We purposely chose a house that was not in a major built up area or city, because of
a few reasons; it was easier to film without getting disturbed, the audience can
associate an area like this with being quiet and family orientated, and it suggests
peace. This is why the house in Kill Bill Vol.1 was used, because it suggests the perfect
family life. Our media product uses this form of real media products because it
suggests innocents (even though no one is innocent) and as though a kidnapping
would not take place there.
3. Q. 01 - Characters
In the opening to our thriller, there are four characters. Two males; Victor Neil and Bill
James and two females; Anna Flones and Nature Wesby. My character, Bill, is very
confidant. He is portrayed as a professional who is violent when necessary. The camera
never shows his face which suggests he is of importance. This is the same with the
opening to Kill Bill vol.1 as the camera focuses on his shoes and hands, just like in
Deceit. My character in our thriller only wore black. Black shoes, trousers, coat and
black leather gloves. He always had his hood up, which is more intimidating. The fact
that he abducted Anna in broad daylight suggests he is fearless and clearly has a
strong motive. His appearance, body language, and behaviour is generic as he does
not utter a word but his plan falls into place. This develops the conventions of real
media products as Jason in Essex Boys also abducts someone in broad daylight, except
he does it in front of many people, and beats up the victim before hand. Jason does
not care about anything, which is similar to Bill in Deceit, except Bill gives off the
impression that he could be working for someone, Jason is his own boss. Characters
also develop the conventions of real media products as Bill, in Deceit, is working with
Victor, just as Jason is working with Billy Reynolds. The relationship between Bill and
Victor in Deceit is very similar to Jason and Billy’s relationship in Essex Boys because it
is clear who the boss is out of the two characters, and both boss’ come across as
psychopaths. This develops the conventions of real media products as psychopaths are
typical character types for thrillers, for example Aaron in Primal Fear.
4. Q. 01 - Characters
Nature Wesby in Deceit is a young American girl, who is completely oblivious to what is going
on around her. This challenges the conventions of real media products as Beatrix from Kill Bill is
very independent and fully understands every situation. However, women can be presented as
many things in thrillers. Sometimes dominating like in Kill Bill, and sometimes helpless such as
Tracy Mills from Se7en.
Anna Flones’ appearance allows her to come across as a well off teenage girl from Norway. Her
father most probably has a lot of power or money, hence the kidnapping. She comes across as
shy due to English being her second language. Her behaviour is not seen much in the opening
two minutes to the thriller, however, the audience got to see that she left her phone in the car.
This suggests she is forgetful which could come into reference with the stereotypes to do with
her hair colour, blonde. We chose the name Anna because it is not a name that can be said with
a lot of emphasis behind it, suggesting Anna is not a powerful character.
Victor is a very aggressive name. It comes across as dark, just like his appearance. He behaves
as though he is always in control of the situation, and comes across as very secretive and laid
back. He does exactly what Bill wants perfectly. Using characters like this completely challenges
the conventions of real media products because young adults are usually not used in such a
genre of film. Thrillers usually use adults of various ages, but not teenagers. However, young
adults have been used before, e.g. Aimee-Ffion Edwards in Luther (a drama/thriller TV series) is
portrayed as a girl in her late teens going down the wrong roan in life of sex and drugs. In
contrast, she is presented very differently to the teenagers in Deceit.
5. Q. 01 - Costumes and Props
Nature Wesby is different.
She is an American living in
England, who comes across as
joyful, unlike the other
characters. Her clothing helps
represent this as although the
skyline is dull and the plot to
the film is bleak, she is still
vibrant and extremely
noticeable. This costume
challenges the conventions of
real media products because
seeing such a costume in a
thriller is extremely rare as it
seems to not fit the scene. Her
car (inspired by the first car in
Essex Boys) is the prop used
for the characters to turn up
to the house in the opening
scene as it shows the house is
hers. She is heavily reliant on
her phone.
Victor Neal is wearing dark
colours. He works for Bill (in
Deceit), and is therefore
presented in a similar
way, except he is presented
in typical teenage clothing.
This is to help represent his
age (17) and ethnicity
(white, British).
This clothing helps represent Victor as someone
who does not care about anything or anyone
other than himself. He does not dress smart for
anyone and does not care what people think of
him, just like many males his age.
the fact that his clothing is dark suggests he is like
Bill, except he is fitting in with his social group of
youths. Victor is also heavily reliant on his phone.
All three of the younger characters are, as this
suggests how youth’s are these days. Victor uses
his phone to text Bill when he is leaving.
6. Q. 01 - Costumes and Props
Anna is stereotypically blonde
with her nationality
(Norwegian), and comes across
as quiet and well off (hence the
kidnapping). She is wearing dark
clothing which helps represent
her nationality as the coat is
heavy, warm and dark. Her
shoes represent that she is very
fashion aware as the brightness
of her shoes and the dark coat
does not reflect on her
personality, as Anna does not
come across as happy and loud
like her shoes, but also not dark
like Victor and Bill. Her shoes
are used to suggest she is not
the same as them. She is also
heavily reliant on her
phone, and is the reason she
gets kidnapped in the first place.
My character (Bill) is
only wearing black.
It makes him look
more intimidating
and more of a
psychopath (in my
opinion) because he
comes across as
dark and because
It seems he does not know what to wear, so he
wears black. It fits his personality of dark and
shallow, which helps reflect on George’s
character, Victor, who is also wearing black but
has to play a part where it seems he cares.
No one even knows the ethnicity of Bill in the
opening two minutes to this film, mainly because
of his hood and his gloves. This reinforces the
conventions of real media products as many
psychopaths (like Dexter in the TV series Dexter
(although this is not a thriller)) use gloves to show
that they are intelligent with not getting caught.
7. Q. 01 - Lighting
Non-Ambient lighting?
All of the outside scenes are non-ambient lighting.
When the three characters turn up in the car, the
ordinary daylight is used for light.
Ambient lighting?
When Nature and Victor first walk into the living
room is when ambient lighting is first seen, because
Nature turns the light on. When both Victor and
Nature are in her bedroom, only the pink lamp
shade is used for light. This keeps the room
dark, and allows silhouettes to be used when the
camera focuses on the two characters. The curtains
behind Victor makes his face look dark, but the
outline to his face is very visible, it is the same for
Nature, due to the pink lamp shade. The room is in
a very dark tone to set the mood for what is
happening outside of the room (Anna being
kidnapped) and to show who Victor really is.
Shadows and reflections?
We made sure Victor’s shadow was always shown by
placing him in places where the camera could always
see both him and his shadow. (EG the screen shot in
the middle at the bottom of the slide)
There are reflections used when Anna gets put in the
boot of the car. This is to show that Bill is completely
dark at this moment in time. We also used
reflections in the very first shot using the car mirror.
8. Q. 01 - Sound
Diegetic Sound?
There are clues in the opening to the scene to
suggest that the characters are in a remote
area such as birds chirping and, in fact, the lack
of noise in the area. There is no sirens going
off, or loud lorries streaming past, it is quiet.
This helps build suspense as the audience has
no clue what is coming, and any instant noise
could frighten them.
When Victor and Nature go in the house and
leave Anna out there on her own, Victor closes
the door sharply. The noise gives the
impression Anna is on her own, and without
this noise, the audience would be given a
different idea of Anna’s situation.
Accents are very important. Nature’s
American accent helps reflect her character
massively as stereotypically slightly clueless.
She has no idea what is going on around her.
Non-diegetic Sound?
The sound track plays a huge role in this
thriller. We chose a horror-like sound track in
order to build suspense, and it did. The
audience is always wondering what is going to
happen next and this is reinforced by the
sound track. The sound track is slow and does
not change pace. This gives the impression
something bad is going to happen, especially
as it gives off bleak vibes that are not pleasant.
Anna comes across as well off due to the
obscurity of her accent and her clothing. These
support each other really well and it allows the
audience to gather an opinion of her.
Victor comes across as quiet but has a strong
English accent at the same time. Due to how
quiet he is, it is more obvious about who he is
and what he is hiding. His lack of speech fits
his characters personality perfectly.
9. Q. 01 Camera Angles and Movement
The use of this reflection, and the use of the car in general is
useful as it establishes that all the characters are equal. They
are in the same position and it gives the illusion that they are
all free. It tricks the audience into thinking they are the
same, and that the occasion is normal. This is why the first
shot is of all three teenage characters.
As the three youth’s get out of the car, the camera follows their
actions smoothly and casually shows the audience what is
happening and why it is happening. This is the only time all three
characters are seen together so keeping them in a single shot is
useful as it shows suggests this is an ordinary thing.
The tilt in this shot instantly suggests that something is
wrong, even when things look okay. The man with black
trousers (Bill) also helps give the impression something is
wrong, as no one else is dressed like him, and therefore
clearly does not belong there. The tilt helps emphasise
this and the low angle allows the person closest to the
camera (Bill) to look more dominant.
10. Q. 01 Enigma
What are the characters hiding?
The main culprit for hiding things is Victor. He does not talk much and is fake to people of
his own age. He is working for Bill and comes across as loyal to Bill as he is in on the
kidnapping and does not seem to care. He hides who he really is from the audience and
this allows us to give a plot twist in the opening two minutes.
Nature could be hiding anything. She comes across as different due to the way she
dresses and her accent, but doesn’t know anything about what is truly going on. There has
already been one plot twist in the opening two minutes, could there be another?
Anna could be anyone. All the audience knows is that she is a well-dressed Norwegian ho
is being kidnapped. She could have any information or be the daughter of a very well-off
family. There are so many questions left after this first two minutes that would be
answered in the remainder of the film. For example, who the kidnappers are, their
background story and what they’re going to do next. Is it a one time thing or are they
partners? Who do they work for, if anyone?
The camera does not even show Bill’s face. Why? Is it brutally scarred or is he just of
importance? Would one of the female characters recognise him? He is hiding who he is
with his clothing and lack of speech, why is that? He may hold a personal grudge against
the Norwegian girl’s family. Who is he and what does he want?
12. Q. 02 Gender
In Deceit, the men are in control at all times. They have complete understanding of the
situation, unlike the women. It is also the two men committing the crime, which is a
traditional generic archetype. The men are presented as dominant and more
intelligent, however, the women do not know what is actually happening so they do not
get to show their true nature to the audience. In contrast, this is because the men are
clever and do not let them know what is happening.
It would be odd for a man to be kidnapped as it would be harder for the men to pull off
and a woman is less likely to put up a huge fight. Anna is stereotypically the victim as
women are presented as weaker than men. Anna gets single-handedly shoved into the
boot of a car by Bill, suggesting men are stronger and more able.
Nature does not know the reality of what is going on around her, by someone who she let
into her home. She clearly comes across as oblivious to her surroundings, mainly due to
Victor. He is very intelligent in playing the part of pretending to be someone’s friend, whilst
he is committing a crime. He is very deviant and two-faced, like many psychopaths and
criminals.
in contrast, Nature is presented as very independent in the opening scene as she has her
own car and key to the house. She can clearly be trusted, which is ironic considering her
car get’s stolen by her male friend in the passenger seat and with her female friend in the
boot.
13. Q. 02 Ethnicity
There are two British characters and two foreign characters. It is not a typical film
that focuses on one ethnicity that fight amongst themselves, it has characters of
other nationalities, too. The two British characters (Victor and Bill) are more
dominant than the foreign characters, yes this is also to do with gender, but it
seems they have formed a team against the American and Norwegian and they
come across as more dominant and not equal. They are the ethnic minority. The
foreign characters are represented as victims.
Anna (the Norwegian) is the person who is kidnapped as she comes from a well
off Norwegian family. Victor and Bill may not have kidnapped her if she came
from a well off British family. However, their ethnicity could be to due with
history between Bill and the Norwegian girl’s family. The kidnapping could have a
different purpose rather than money. In contrast, their ethnicity may be
completely irrelevant. Anna may have just been an easy target for Bill and
Victor, but they may have felt a foreign family would be more willing to pay cash
instead of going to the police.
14. Q. 02 Age
Age is represented through many things in our thriller. The way all three youth’s dress
differently challenges the generic archetypes of this age group as it shows that people who are
rather different are still friends, whereas teenagers are genuinely seen to fit into specific
friendship groups, stereotypically. However, it also supports this generic archetype as the youth
wearing darker clothing supports a kidnapping on someone who is wearing different, more
fashionable clothing, suggesting people of different social backgrounds cannot get along.
Deceit suggests that for young people living in contemporary Britain, life isn’t actually that
hard. Nature has her own car, and is comfortably living at home with her parents. She has the
freedom to do what she likes. On the other had, Deceit also suggests that nowhere is safe for
teenagers. Anna was taken in broad daylight by an unknown man, suggesting young women are
targets for kidnappings in the UK.
All three characters in their youth’s are reliant on their phone. This suggests technology has
taken over how this generation operates and supports the stereotype of teenagers being heavily
reliant on technology.
Victor is also a youth. He comes across as stereotypically dangerous, as though he’s in a gang.
However, when the audience finds out he’s not who he said he was, they also see how
intelligent he was to be so two-faced and how loyal he is to Bill. This supports the generic
archetype of young people and violence. It also supports the fact that many teenagers are two-
faced to their friends, unlike adults, who are mature enough to see who their real friends are.
15. Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
16. Q. 03 Mainstream or Niche Audience?
Deceit is a low budget film set in Norfolk (the
opening). This instantly suggests that it was
produced for a niche audience. If the rest of the film
was also filmed in Norfolk, the best distributor for
my media product would be Cinema City, as they
have the reputation for showing Niche films and it is
in Norwich (Norfolk). This means the audience can
associate with the location. Considering the budget
for the film was so low, Cinema City would not have
to sell many tickets in order to produce a good
turnover.
In contrast, this is just the opening to the film. It
may develop into using more locations, and on top
of this, there are American and Norwegian
characters that widen our audience drastically. This
could help promote Deceit as a mainstream media
product as American and Norwegian distributors
may agree to distribute this film if the quality of film
and storyline is of good enough quality.
17. Q. 03 Television?
We could take a Disney channel approach and
launch Deceit through TV. If the quality of film was
not of a high enough standard for cinema, we would
go to a smaller TV distribution company.
Our first choice would be to go to cinema, like
submarine (although this is not a thriller) and then
go to TV and DVD to bring in any extra revenue we
can get. What submarine did was get a well off actor
(Ben Stiller) to help promote their film as it was a
low budget film, like ours. And even though
Submarine was meant for a niche British audience,
it premiered in Canada. We can do something
similar to this with Deceit due to our foreign
characters. However, a huge festival is unlikely to
want to distribute a film with such a low budget and
niche audience.
If we were to choose a television approach, we
would not choose sky as they rarely show thrillers
and do not have an audience for niche films.
A TV station that may be interested in
distributing Deceit would be mustard TV.
They are a new TV channel, local to
Norwich. Although they have not yet
shown a thriller film, it would be
beneficial to both Deceit and Mustard TV
to show Deceit because it is a local film, it
will help expand Mustard TV’s audience,
and it will help Deceit to get recognised.
19. Q. 04 Age and Gender
The opening to the thriller mainly evolves around people in their late teens. The victim
(Anna), and one of the criminals (Victor) are both teenagers, and they would be seen a lot
throughout the entirety of the thriller. This attracts a young audience of this age group as they
can identify with the characters, especially if the film is released locally as they would find
themselves as a similar person to the characters. This age group would find it interesting to see
how someone of a similar age would behave in such a situation.
The opening only included four characters, two males and two females, allowing both genders
to feel attracted to this thriller, and feel involved. A typical TV show this age group of both
genders enjoy watching is Skins, and although this is not a thriller, it has the same concept.
Teenagers are represented in various ways and behave differently in certain situations. The
representation of age in Skins is purely based on their audience (16-24), and this is why we tried
to present teenagers the way that we have, and this is why all the teenage characters are so
different., because we want young people to watch Deceit as thrillers are genuinely aimed at
the older generations due to using older characters and more bleak storylines, such as the film
Psycho. Psycho is not aimed at young people at all, and we want young people to be introduced
to the thriller genre.
20. Q. 04 Ethnicity and Sexuality
Our film is aimed at British, Norwegian and American audiences due to our range of nationality
within our cast. This film could also be targeted towards anyone living in a country that isn’t
their own as our cast consists of foreign characters in the UK.
We did not aim our thriller at a particular sexuality. There are no specific heterosexual or
homosexual references throughout the opening to Deceit. The way Victor and Anna dress is very
orientated to their gender. However, Nature’s fashion sense may allow homosexuals to feel
more comfortable due to the brightness of her clothing and the volume of her clothing.
Q. 04 Media Interests
The opening to our thriller involves kidnapping, hate and violence. The entire thriller would
hold death, more violence, deceit, corruption, betrayal and love. Audiences can really enjoy
watching horrible events from the safety of their home/cinema seat. Our audience will have an
understanding of mobile phones, as they are a key prop in Deceit, and also have their own taste
in modern music, hence why Nature plays a song through her phone in the opening to the
thriller. Due to our target audience being teenagers, they will stereotypically be familiar with
social networks like facebook and Twitter, too.
22. Q. 05 Action, Characters and Lighting
The female audience was addressed through the awareness of what can happen
to them if they are not careful. Deceit shows that it is not safe anywhere, and that
men can over power them if they feel necessary. The female viewers can feel
attached to Anna as she is put in the boot of the car, as they would imagine
themselves in that position. When the audience sees someone being kidnapped
like this, you would expect them to feel hate towards Bill and Victor, but due to
how they come across with ruthless but professional they are, they are instantly
liked. Females in the audience may start to like Victor for how cold, fearless and
heartless he is.
People will like Bill and Victor in the same way that they like Jason and Billy from
Essex Boys because they are ruthless and feared. They are the types of characters
you admire but would not like to meet due to their brilliance but violent nature.
The pink lighting in Nature’s room really helps connect with the female audience
because pink is stereotypically linked to females and being weak, which is why we
chose Nature’s room to be that colour. We also did this to make Victor’s dark
clothes stand out in her room to show that he is the bad character.
23. Q. 05 Cliff Hanger
This is the hook. It is what catches the audiences and causes them to ask
questions. I have already started many of the questions the audience may be
asking themselves, but I haven't stated why the audience would want to
continue watching. The audience will want to see more of Victor and Bill. They
will want to know who they are and why the kidnapping took place.. They will
want to know the background story.
Nature is left in the house without a clue of what has just happened. As far as
she will know, her car was stolen and her friends are gone. She may just think
they stole it, and feel heartbroken, or he may know more.
The biggest factor that influences why the audience will feel attracted to this
film is due to not knowing what is going on, they have no clue why these things
are happening and why these people are involved. They are attracted to the
surprise of the story line and the direction it takes. The audience should form a
bond with the characters that keeps them attracted to the film. This is what
happened in the Harry Potter series, the fans not only loved the characters, but
the actors, too.
24. Question 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
25. Q. 06 Blog
Learning how to use the blog was easier but harder at the same time. I enjoy
how you don’t have to carry around a huge folder full of coursework all the time.
However, with a folder, you could just glue stick things like storyboards into your
work, but with a blog you have to scan it and upload it. I had to get my mum to
teach me how to use the scanner at home, which wasn’t fun. When the scanner
stopped working, I just used my mobile phone to take a picture of my work and
then uploading it as it saved time and the quality was fine.
I used a video diary for my initial thriller idea. I disliked this because I kept
messing up and having to start again, but at the same time, it was good for
making a quick edit, even if it was just a few cuts of me talking, and putting a few
pictures on the screen, it helped my confidence with editing.
I never learned how to put PowerPoint's on my blog, so I took screenshots of
each slide as I couldn’t figure it out. The hardest thing about learning how to use
the blog, was organisation and making it look tidy, because I am used to
Microsoft Office Word, it took time figuring out how to import photo’s and video
clips, but I managed it in the end.
26. Q. 06 Research
When it came to research, YouTube was the best option as it is free, however it
is hard to find the full film, so analysing openings was the best option. The
internet has so much information, be it videos or text, that research is made so
much easier for my generation. Learning the key words to type into a search
engine is the hardest thing as finding what you want can be difficult.
Planning was hard for us. Everyone in my group was full of ideas and wanted to
make their imagination a reality. We took loads of stills in various locations in
order to plan what we wanted to do and the order it went in. I learnt a lot about
making a media product make sense as before you do media studies, you never
really understand how difficult it is to film and put the footage together.
27. Q. 06 Collaborating
Mobile phones were crucial to our film. This is purely because all the members
in our group live in different parts or Norfolk, and we needed to tell one another
if we were going to be late. We also used phones to discuss what we will be
doing on a specific day of shooting, so there was less confusion about what we
were doing.
The actual shoot was hard. We had to film many shots over and over because
small things weren’t good enough and because of small mistakes. When it was
the middle of January and it went from light to pitch black in 30 minutes, we had
very little time to film what we wanted. The camera took a while to get the hang
of as well, which was annoying for everyone because I was doing most of the
filming.
28. Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the
full product?
29. Q. 07 Team Work and Camera Skills
The preliminary task was easy, but it could have been a lot harder if it wasn’t for
Ollie and Jamie. Because we were all very new to film, we needed each others
ideas about what shot to do next and the order the shots should go in. This made
it a lot easier when it came to the full product because it was easier to take other
people’s opinions on board and it was easier to organise ourselves.
Learning how to use Nature’s camera was hard, considering we used a school
camera for the preliminary task. However, I learnt a lot about camera angles and
their effectiveness in film, especially when we were discussing what shots to do
in the thriller, such as using the car mirror as one of the first shots of the
characters.
We had to improvise with certain shots such as the tilt shot of Bill kidnapping
Anna, as it was a worm’s eye shot, and our hands aren’t steady enough to hold
the camera on the floor, nor could we use the tripod, so we put my wallet
underneath the camera to tilt it how we wanted.
The more you practice filming, like anything, the better you get at it. Our
communication got better and better over time and so did the filming.
30. Q. 07 Refining techniques
When watching general TV, I would realise things like the 180 degree rule, but
also how to play around with it. When Nature and Victor have their
conversation, it was actually a lot longer than what’s in the final cut. I realised
that I can move the camera around between the two characters (without
breaking the rule) and do close up’s and zooms. I also realised that I could do
high and low angle shots to add effect.
The cliff hanger works really well in my opinion because Bill walks into the
house towards the camera, and then gets given the keys by Victor. Then they
both walk down the corridor and leave. It works well because the audience has
no idea where they’re going as they got what they wanted and it looks as though
they’re leaving to do something bigger.
