The document discusses the film "The Silent Followings" and how it uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media products. It summarizes how the film's title, setting, costumes, camera work, title style, story, characters, and special effects relate to conventions in other films and media. It also discusses how the film represents social groups through the stalker character and what has been learned through using the technology and progressing over the year of the project.

1. Media Activity One (In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?) The Silent Followings

2. The title of the Film Our title, The Silent Followings, develops the conventions of previous forms of media, such as films or books that have a certain theme of thriller or sinister movements or behaviour. A good example of a similar film would be the ‘Crazies’ As this is based around very dark and evil behaviour resulting in terror and death. Our production challenges previous conventions with a more realistic and life like setting, that many people can relate to, rather then a wealthy American family in most other thrillers, such as ‘Taken’ by Pierre Morel. With these aspects I feel that our film ‘The Silent Followings’ keeps the theme of other conventions with the title being a clear indication of what the film is about, with a obvious hint of killer and victim genre. I think the title fits the film, it suits our genre of thriller and keeps within current conventions of other successful films.

3. Setting & Location I feel we have used a very appropriate location, as it fits with current conventions of large and spooky houses that have many rooms, such as in most American thriller settings. It develops conventions as the audience can relate to the film via its location, as its set in a small village but with a busy atmosphere, many of our target audience will see aspects of their lives within the film, such as location and setting. A example could be the village shop, or road layout or the house’s flight of stairs. With these aspects of our film, it then develops the current film conventions of good settings for the correct genre which leads to a successful film.

4. Costume & Props Our Costume and props are very much similar to other conventions from other films, such as the use of a large meat cleaver which is very much stereotypical of killers/stalkers. We have developed conventions in the way of the costume, rather then giving the stalker a black suit or some other form of dark jacket, we decided to give the stalker a large coat with the hood raised to hide and restrict their identity from the audience.

5. Camera Work & Editing We have developed upon conventions of current media work such as were their is a scene of the victim running upstairs, on CCTV, then the stalker later follows. I think this was a good development of media products such as the ‘Cops on camera’ TV series, as we all felt this was a very good idea of capturing sinister actions and giving it a very dark and unnatural feel. This is created by the audience clearly seeing the action, but has a real feel of being uncontrollable, as they are viewing from a high angle, this gives a feel of third person viewing, which not many other forms of medium can create.

6. Title Font & Style The style of our font and the way it is displayed with lightening flashing as it marquees from right to left is a development on current conventions of the title being displayed first, along with all the production copyrights etc. As we have incorporated these features as the scenes have developed this is not often used in media films, but a example of this would be the film, ‘Superbad’. The lightening effects were very much stereotypical of our genre of dark thriller, and kept the films title and style very much linked with the genre.

7. Story and how it sets it up Our story is about the viewing of how our stalker collects his victims, how he learns their movements and behaviour patterns to give him the edge over police authorities. The opening sequence of our film links all of these elements, this is very similar to many film medias, were a small part of the film is discovered right at the beginning, then the main body of the film is how they managed to get to that situation, such as the film ‘Law Abiding Citizen’. Our film has a in depth storyline of dark movements which our target market will enjoy and find interesting, although they many not be able to relate to the killings or disposal of the bodies. The film opening sets up the main body, by seeing the stalker and the victims first encounter and how the both react and how the stalker has control of the situation, by simply walking through it with ease. This then connotes many different elements which the film opening sets up.

8. Genre & how the opening suggests it The genre of our film is thriller, our opening sequence reviles this with the use of props, such as the hidden identity or the large weapon. This convention of a large stalker and a small innocent victim fits with many other films and mediums, such as ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ were the killer is very much dominate figure and in control of the victim completely. The largest hint of thriller would be the end of the opening were we hear non-diagetic sound of the victim screaming yet we can not see what actions are being displayed.

9. How Characters are introduced I think that our characters are rather poorly introduced, but this is mainly due to our genre and time restrictions, this is very much unlike most film conventions, were the characters are very much distinguished and are often introduced separately with clear indications of background behaviour. We didn’t manage to introduce the stalker very well, but this was mainly due to the need to keep the stalker identity hidden or unclear, to fit with conventions of our genre.

10. Special Effects The Special effects of our film would be our flashback scenes, were the stalker recollects their memories of a dark character being in many aspects of their life. The conventions of using special effects is very much lacking in our film, this is due to the technology available, but with the resources we had, I think we did good with still managing to create a professional looking flashback scene, which fitted with current film conventions of high quality special effects.

11. Media Activity Two (How does your media product represent particular social groups?) The Silent Followings

12. The Stalker Large figure Dark Appearance Composed killer Slow movements Physical Presence Unstoppable Hidden identity Use of Weapons

13. Jason Large figure Dark Appearance Composed killer Slow movements Physical Presence Unstoppable Hidden identity Use of Weapons

14. Stalker & Jason Both are very similar, as both have a large physical presence, which connotes strength and dominance. Both of their appearances are dark and hidden which gives the audience a feel of sinister actions and behaviour. They both use weapons as this is a typical prop that is used in thriller genre to raise pulses of both victims and audience

15. How it represents Social groups These aspects represent a social group of killers, as all these aspects are used to assure a effective and believable killer/stalker in a film. I think we have done this very well by sticking to the guild lines we have created a effective stalker that is more then believable to create violence and disruption. We certainly have represented a Stalker, from the social groups.

16. Media Activity Four (Who would be the audience for you media product) The Silent Followings

18. Media Activity Five (Annotations on youtube) The Silent Followings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75PCAEhknp8&layer_token=378b5bf6c24b48a8

19. Media Activity Six(what have you learnt from the technology you have used) The Silent Followings

20. Camera We used the school cameras, which although they are very basic it gave us a easy understanding of our already founded camera knowledge from past experience of filming bmx and action sports. We learnt how to focus the camera manualy, but we soon used autofocus for ease of use.

21. Tripod We soon realised that this was a essential piece of equipment, it kept the camera still and focused, it also was a type of 3rd person which really helped when we needed a member to kept steady and film challenging shots and angles.

22. Editing software (iMovie) Although at first we used adobe premiere elements, we soon had huge issues on uploading to the computers as it was inconsistent with working correctly etc. We then used the Apple Macs provided by the school and used the standard imovie software. This gave us a few limitations of what special effects we could use.

23. Summary of Technology We used the technology to our best knowledge and understanding. I feel we have created a good movie due to the limitations we had.

24. Media Activity Seven(What have I learnt through the progression of the year) The Silent Followings

25. In our preliminary task we used little editing work or use of camera angles, it was very basic as we had a serious lack of knowledge of camera shots or editing. The only use of camera shots we used were the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. This gave the prelim a very basic finish and would only be credited with a low level 1 mark. We have now enquired a large knowledge of camera shots which we displayed in our Silent followings film project. We have included a wide range of shots such as high angle and pan shot etc this gave our film a professional feel and much more depth in the way of marks.