Our media product represents teenage girls ages 14-21 from middle-class backgrounds. It uses conventions of the thriller genre like creeping music during suspenseful scenes. The film follows three girls being stalked by a mysterious man who abducts one of them. Dimension Films and The Weinstein Company would be suitable distributors as they distribute similar thrillers. We attracted our target audience through establishing genre conventions seen in films like Scream, though feedback noted we needed more conventions and less conversation in the opening.

1. 2. How does your media product
represent particular social
groups?

2. Our media product represents particular social groups by aiming it at a primary
audience. The primary audience for After Dark is mostly girls ages 14-21. this links
with the economic groups which is c2/d/e. After Dark is a typical thriller with
most of its typical conventions which include the creeping of the stairs when Saima
(me) walks down building suspense. Also what is also a typical convention is,
having the main characters as 3 young naïve girls being stalked on by a mysterious
man who then later abducts on of the girls from the group. What is also a typical
convention that we used was the setting of location in a house. The films that
would most relate to our media product would be Scream. The class of the social
group would be middle class. The race that would target audiences would be
Black, Asian and White.
The specific genre for After Dark is a psychological thriller. Our media product
included aspects of a stereotypical representation of characters. Audiences may
recognize the character's representation from e.g. Scream and Scary movie. The
audience for these types of films are most likely to watch After Dark. This would
apply also to the secondary audience which would consist of male viewers and
mums going to take their teenage daughters to watch the film.

3. We have applied Mulvey’s male gaze
theory as women being looked upon, for
example; three girls are being followed and
wanted by a psycho man. This reinforces
stereotypes about women in society being
seen as vulnerable and weak.

4. 3. What kind of media institution
might distribute your media
product and why?

5. • A distributor is the one responsible for marketing of a film. They are in
charge of setting release dates and the method by which a film is to be
exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public
either theatrically or for home viewing (DVD, video-on-
demand, download, television programs through broadcast syndication etc.)
• An institution is an organisation/establishment that deals in the creation
and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services.
• An example of a distribution company that is also most related to our media
product is Dimension Films. We used Dimension distributor and the
production company we used for our thriller was Manjot Films.
• Manjot films is an independent company aiming at mainstream
markets, looking to go big in the mainstream market. Aiming at large
audiences. Although Manjot films try to aim at large audiences, its not part
of a large conglomerate.
• Our media product is considered to have a pedigree, in terms of the genre is
to have films that get you on the edge of your seat, but also very stereotyped
in terms of how characters are portrayed e.g. girls. However other
production companies that would go with our genre would be The
Weinstein Company. This is because it makes similar films that Manjot films
would make. A similar film would be Scream. This is the reason why Manjot
films and Weinstein would be suitable for our media product.

6. 5. How did you attract/address
your audience?

7. We attracted our audience by giving them what they would
expect from a typical thriller opening. We established genre
by setting up all the different types of conventions we could
use e.g. the darkness when going down the stairs, smashing
of the glass and the suspicion of a girl being implied missing
by a stalker man. The narrative was very much basic and
could relate to the original film Scream produced and
distributed by the Weinstein company and Dimension films.
We established the storyline by making storyboards to
illustrate what will happen during the process of filming.
The storyboard helped the narrative establish by drawing
out scene by scene what will happen. This came in great use
because it helped keep the group aware of what is going to
happen next.
The audience decoded the preferred reading because it was
well understood. From our feedback the audience did
understand what was going on. Our opening in terms of the
preferred reading was a success.

8. We got feedback given from our media class. This is what they said; they told
us that our establishing shot of the house in the beginning was good.
However we needed more thriller conventions – the conversation went on
for too long. We needed more variety of shots. I agree with this, I think we
didn’t spend enough time exploring different types of camera shots. We
had an error also at the beginning with the continuity of the scene. There
was a phone laying on the table, and in the next scene it was standing
upwards zooming in for a picture of the main characters. The location was
good, this helped to achieve the thriller convention. Although there was a
continuity error in the beginning, throughout the opening everything
made sense, it was all followed through. We could have made the editing
smoother during the establishing shot. The music should have faded out
more. We should have used more thriller related music to help establish
the convention through sound, helping to build suspense and fear towards
the audience. We could have added more detail to the title sequence e.g.
said more about who produced and directed the sequence. The main
drawback for our opening is that there was too much speaking in the
beginning.
By getting feedback given it has allowed my group and I to improve more, we
were given an extra 2days to improve.