1. AS critical reflection Question & Answer
Q1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it
represent social groups or issues?
(Carpool karaoke)
Throughout my opening scene, gone girl. My product follows many thriller conventions, by
the use of camera shots, and movements, as we use tilted shots and disorientated angles, to
help create discomfort for the viewer, we also used tracking shots to show the young girl is
being followed, along with high angle, close up shots, to represent the vulnerability of the
young girl and how powerless she is now this also helps focus on key props. My product
also uses thriller mise-en-scene conventions by using low-key lighting helping create
suspense and a mysterious atmosphere, we also show shadows which creates fear and
tension in the audience. We made sure the antagonist wear black clothing to help the flow of
Gone Girl, allowing the audience to have a better understanding. We followed conventions in
the setting as we used an isolated alleyway, to show how alone the girl is and to help the
audience feel scared as they think it might happen to them. While editing our product we
made sure to use lots of jump cuts and fast pace editing, to create a sense of danger, worry,
and pace. We follow the stereotypical sound conventions by using eerie nondiegetic music,
however, we do challenge some conventions in the sound department, as we show the
antagonist listening to opera music, which helps create confusion and mystery throughout as
it doesn’t follow the typical stereotypes of the “bad guys”. Our product gone girl represents
the social issue of vulnerable girls, having to be aware as they walk alone, we also
challenged the serotype of it always being men who kidnap young girls, by including a
woman in the antagonist character, while this raised awareness this also helps draw in the
audience as it is more unusual.
Q2: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed
as a real media text?
(Kahoot video)
Thriller movie’s audience is usually aimed at a younger generation of a mixed-gender of
25-44 due to the violence and intensity, as thriller movies use fast pace and loud noises
which the older generation seem to avoid. Also because of the fact that thriller movies make
you think. meaning the audience needs to be attentive and focused Thriller movies
audiences are people who enjoy mystery and anticipation For this my product engages with
the target audience by the use of violent scenes, fast pass and the fact the audience never
sees the kidnappers face creating mystery while feeling the stress levels of the mum looking
for her daughter. Along with this, there is a romance between the two kidnappers helping to
attract a female audience. Horror is the number one choice for couples to go and watch at
the cinema and for this, we added in horror elements like the detailed mise-en-scenes of a
young girl tied up abs the fact pass camera movements along with the sound.
Due to my target audience For the distribution of my opening scene, I would create a social
media page and get influencers with a target audience of 15-40 to promote my movie by
inviting them to a movie premiere. Due to the fact, my opening scene doesn’t have a star
distribution companies wouldn’t be interested in releasing my film opening. However,
digitalization has made it easier for creators like me and my group international company’s to
promote film openings I would use this to my advantage and display my movie onto Netflix in
the genre thriller so the target audience knows exactly to look. Another way of distributing
2. my opening scene is to go into film festivals resulting in reviews and Criticism by journalists
attracting a lot more viewers and even distribution companies.
Q3: How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
(Cooking with sofia)
Before my A-level media, I had never worked with a camera, photoshop, I movie, Adobe
illustrator, or adobe premiere pro. My teacher encouraged us to begin by filming a swede,
when I began to film this increased my knowledge massively in media terminologies, such as
a panning shot, tracking shot, the 180-degree rule. It also taught me how the effects of the
camera angles and shots are so important to get correct as they help the creator to
establish different relationships between the subjects and between the audience and
the subjects, which I think my group and I learned to understand quite quickly,
However, lighting was a major issue for us, we didn’t understand the importance of
high key lighting, low key lighting, key light, or backlight. Which resulted in some
scenes being very dark contrasting with the mood the scene should have portrayed.
After watching the final draft we all realized the mistakes we had made with the
lighting, which led us to each go off and research it individually. Now whenever I
watch a movie or TV show, I’m always thinking about why the director chose to go
with each shot, angle, or movement. Overall this mini-project helped my group and I
understand what to do and what not to do. For our final project, we did a thriller movie
opening scene which we titled Gone Girl, throughout this project I was the producer. This
taught me production skills such as analytical skills, where I investigated problems and found
an ideal solution, as I thought outside the box, I would do brainstorming and strategic
planning to help my final ideas. My organization and scheduling skills increased massively
as I had to delegate roles to each group member, I created, scripts, planning sheets, and
storyboards to guide their roles and help them each have a wide understanding of what they
have to do. Multitasking was a major skill I developed as I had many responsibilities and had
to switch from one task to another, such as evaluating screenplays or scripts to generating
story ideas. Communication was an aspect I had always struggled with as I’m quite shy
however as I delegated the producer role I had to increase my communication skills, by
coaching, collaborating, listening to team members, and negotiating. Overall my production
skills have developed in each aspect of making an opening scene, from the not-so-important
aspects, all the way to the finishing touches.
Q4: How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this
Project?
(screen recording and voice over)
To create our film opening we used a Imovie, as its a nonlinear editor. We used it to cut and
edit our videos add non diegetic sound such as music, without changing any of the original
files. Here we can change the hue and saturation of videos, lighter or darker. On imovie you
can also crop the video to ken burns, tilt it, or fit it to screen. Imovie also allows you to
stablize the camera and you can adjust it to your preference. It also allowed us to reduce
background noise which was very handy. It also enabled us to change the speed, from slow,
or fast. add titles with different colours and fonts, audio of your own or sound effects from
3. ImovieWe chose Imovie as we didnt need any special effects and wanted to keep it simple to
flow with the codes and conventions. We also used wordpress to show evidence of our work
and our process, we chose wordpress as it was simple to use and simple for our audience to
follow. I used websites such as illustrator, emaze, prezi and gomoodboard to help my blog
be more exciting and fun for the viewer. Another important platform we used was youtube as
we uploaded videos of our process and engage with our audience.
