Media evaluation

MEDIA EVALUATION
Danielle Gallagher

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS
AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
 When creating our media product „Stolen‟, we used, developed and challenged
forms and conventions of real media products. We did this by researching deep into
the „psychological crime thriller‟ area, and discovered and followed conventions of
existing products in that area. This meant we also had to find the key concepts in
this genre and begin to develop our understanding of what they were.

To do this, I looked at existing media products in the thriller genre and began to
analyse camera, mise-en scene, sound and editing. Furthermore, after we had
decided to choose the psychological crime thriller genre, I then went and did more
research into that sub genre to identify the common conventions in this area. I
discovered that each production company has their own unique title that always
appears at the beginning of the film. Therefore we set out to create our own
individual label that symbolises our company and would be widely recognisable.
New Line Cinema are a well known thriller production company, and there label has
a logo and a clear font, with a dark background. This is similar to what we tried to
incorporate in our own production label.

 I also discovered that the name of the film, often came at the beginning or middle
of the title sequence. (see Seven opening 0:24) Conversely, we decided to subvert
this convention, and put our title at the end of our film, as we felt that the name of
the film is quite obvious to what happens in the opening two minutes. Also, our
footage gradually built up a lot of tension and we felt if we interrupted this, it would
ruin the pace. (See Stolen opening 2:03)
However, our titles do follow the forms and conventions of thriller films, appearing
every 3-4 seconds. We thought this was an appropriate pace as they weren‟t too
long or too short. We also originally placed all our titles in the bottom left hand
corner of the screenplay, but when we looked back to our research, the titles of
other products often moved around. The positioning of these titles was dependent
on how clear they would appear in front of the footage. As we had decided to have
our titles in the colour white (our research informed our planning that most thriller
films used the colours black, white and red) we had to ensure we positioned them
against a piece of the background that was dark, and had to fade out before the
scene changed.
Moreover, the off centre positioning of our title creates a hidden meaning. „Stolen‟ is
not central as the story of the film is uncomfortable and taken out of peoples comfort
zone. As the main character is stolen and taken away from everything she found
comfortable, it made sense to incorporate this in our title.

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS
AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

 Our product also follows conventions by the use of mise-en
scene. In our film our protagonist is handcuffed to the bed and
unable to escape. This is similar to other thrillers like „Misery‟
where the male character is strapped to the bed. When
conducting this scene, we were careful to certify specific aspects
of the conventions to establish the genre of our film. For
example, we made our lighting quite dark to present an eerie
atmosphere that gave the audience an inkling that something
immoral was happening in this scene. In addition, we carefully
chose our characters clothing and make up. Her dress is
womanly, but also represent vulnerability as it is very untidy. Her
make up shows some bruising and bleeding, she also looks tired
and her lipstick has been smudged by force. This is similar to
„Misery‟ with the clothing, and the broken arm, he has bare feet
like our character which I noticed is very common in the thriller
genre when people have been kidnapped. The bed we used is
also very similar with the bars, this symbolises old fashioned
furniture which makes it looks a bit more creepy.
 Furthermore, the positioning of the antagonist at the end of the
bed is also alike. This creates an intimidating, and menacing
persona for the antagonist, and the audience and protagonist will
find this frightening and daunting.

 When researching whether to use, develop or challenge the
forms and conventions of real media products, we needed to be
aware of the consequence it would have on the film and the
audience. If we changed too much within our subgenre, the text
would ultimately fall out of that subgenre, as well as confusing
the audience and making them come out of their comfort zone.
However, if we kept too much the same, it would become very
boring and the same as other thrillers. Subsequently, we
ensured we created the right balance between the two and
created a psychological crime thriller that was familiar to the
audience, yet with slight twists to really engage our audience and
create something successful.

2. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT A PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUP?

 We decided to represent the age, gender, race and class quite
stereotypically in our film. Our opening scene is set in a police
interview room where a detective is interviewing a mother who has
lost her daughter. The detective is dressed in smart clothes and his
status and class as a detective is very high. This juxtaposes the
mother who is dressed in casual clothes with her hair thrown up,
representing the middle class. By addressing both classes it
broadens our audience as many can relate to it.
 In addition, the age of these two characters are supposed to be in
their thirties which also extends our intended age group since out
film is a 15. We have included both genders and presented them in
a stereo typical way. The male is very firm and informative, but also
sensitive as a detective, whereas the mother is fragile and weak.
We wanted the male to be dominant as the audience would be
familiar with this. To connote her weakness further, we used close
ups to allow the audience to see how broken she is through her
facial expressions, as well as over the shoulder shots. Moreover, the
colour of the females outfit is dark, showing sadness and grief,
whereas the male is wearing royal blue and purple, connoting
power, wealth and status.
 We decided to keep the ethnicity of our character as white British as
we didn‟t find many films that had a different background, and from
our audience survey research we concluded that our film would not
appeal to a different ethnicity.

2. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT A PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUP?
 For our protagonist we really wanted to create a very stereotypical looking weak
female, but with slight twists. We did this with very low key lighting to show
weakness, as well as high angle shots to portray her as small and feeble. In
addition, we dressed her in an flowy white dress, which connotes purity and
innocence and creates an angelic figure, however we scrunched the dress up to
make it look messy and old. The stereotypical weak blonde female in other thrillers
appealed to us, so we made her hair more natural and curly, instead of having it
perfectly neat. Her make up depicts her as a drained and weary character with the
dark eyes and her smudged lipstick would have been smudged off by someone in
force, denoting weakness. We have also handcuffed her to the bed so she cant
escape, again showing a weakness. When she hears the antagonist approach she
corners herself to get as far away as possible (see 1:43).However during the text,
she has a fighting persona. When she wakes up (see 1:29) she begins to fight
against the handcuffs, meaning she is determined, juxtaposing the weakness.
Furthermore, when she is face with the antagonist (see 1:48) she shouts at the
antagonist, although she shouts in desperation, she also shouts “don‟t touch me”
and begins kicking and fighting against him. Unfortunately she is put back in her
stereotype when he forces her down on the bed.
 For our antagonist again wanted to create a strong stereotypical looking male. We
did this with a mix of high and low key lighting. The high key lighting we used when
he was in the study to highlight his importance, and throughout him walking up the
stairs, he looks like a normal person and the audience doesn‟t know who he really
is and doesn‟t know his full potential. Whereas when he is in the room with the
protagonist, we used low key lighting to portray a dark, evil character, like an alter
ego. We dressed him in dark clothes to illustrate an evil character and gave him a
quirky side parting with his hair perfect to show a strange character. Moreover, we
shot him from mainly low angle shots to reinforce his importance and strength.
When he is reading the newspaper about the missing girl, (see 1:00) he begins to
laugh and chuck down the newspaper with a careless attitude as if he finds it
funny. The jumps cuts between the protagonist and antagonist build tension for the
next scene where we see the more dark side of his character come out. He seems
quite quiet at first when the girl first questions him, but he then becomes more
dominant, shouting “I said, don‟t aggravate me.” and he forces the girl on the bed
and holds her down staring into her eyes.
 We aimed this film at 15‟s and above, in the middle class, white British males and
females. I think we have captured our audience perfectly through the use of
characters and mise-en scene.

3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND
WHY?

 When researching institutions in our research we found Film 4 quite
interesting. They make British films that are often quite eccentric, but
realistic.
British thriller

Dark background
with minimal colour-
evil
Orange denotes fire

Antagonist looks very
malicious and
immoral. Sinister look
in his eyes

Simplistic name for
the film, yet powerful
and predictable
Forest setting, cliché yet
classic, connotes disturbing,
ominous tone

WHY?

 When researching institutions in our research, we also
found New Line Cinema a good thriller distributor.

Traditional thriller colours of red, white and
black. Black is around the face, denoting
an evil character. Red could link to death
and blood.

Antagonist looks very
malicious and immoral. Eyes
are central and peculiar.

Central and only character – most important

Cross signifies religion, I can infer that
this means going against religion due to
Simplistic name the rest of the page

WHY?
 I believe that our film has the potential to be in cinemas with
New Line Cinema, but as there is only 2 minutes, I have also
settled for Film4 as it could be on British TV too. If the
narrative sequence was longer, it could have a better
opportunity at getting a bigger institution, however I feel that
these two companies are well suited to our film.
 Our audience is aimed to be 15+ as it isn‟t too violent and
doesn‟t promote inappropriate behaviour. Therefore it is able
to be on television after 9pm and would get a lot of viewings
as many would not have to pay for it, this would be the
benefit of Film4. However, I believe that our title sequence,
opening two minutes and storyline is much higher quality
than a TV film, has a good narrative structure, and is
ultimately very engaging. I don‟t think our film would become
a franchise and produce a trilogy for example, unless the rest
of the storyline is how the protagonist escapes the clasps on
her kidnapper and something like this happens again. I see
this more as a one off, gripping film, but the potential is there.
 New Line Cinema has produced thrillers like The Rite,
Se7en, Final Destination and Blade. These are all very
famous thrillers and I think our thriller could fit in with this if
the storyline throughout the film is engaging and captivating

4. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE OF YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?
 As our film is a thriller sub genre, it means our target audience is more niche.
However we made sure that we developed and challenged the conventions
of this so that we widened our audience and created a better thriller. We
researched into target audiences and decided that our best option was 15+
as we didn‟t intend to have anything too violent or inappropriate in our film.
The gender of our target audience would be both female, and male as our
two main characters involved are two sexes. They are both the stereotypical
ideologies of the female protagonist and male antagonist, meaning that
almost any audience can relate to in some way. The race for our audience
could be any depending on the language, I think although we haven‟t
included any other ethnicities in our opening, it is still relatable and you could
introduce another ethnicity if desired later on in the film. The class that would
be interested in our film I think would be middle class as its not a complicated
storyline that you cannot understand, its easy to follow.
 The audience would also be similar to Columbia Pictures film of Misery as
our film is extremely similar and the codes and conventions are nearly
identical.

5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
 We knew our target audience was a similar age to us, therefore we
spoke to many people in our school our age that we thought would be
interested and give us significant and valuable feedback. We also used
social networking sites to broaden our audience beyond this and entice
people to watch it. Each of our group put it on a different networking
site, one put it on Facebook, I put it on Twitter, and Nicole also
uploaded to another site. This gave us significant feedback and reviews
on our work. People reviewed our work on a Google survey we
created. These reviews included:
 “Great choice of music - very dark and creepy. Without this sort of
music, the whole scene would not have been as effective.”
 “It was suspenseful and made me want to know what had happened to
get to this situation and what was going to happen. Didn't know what to
expect and was very pleasantly surprised by the film.”
 "Yes as right from the beginning, with the deep pessimistic tones of the
music, I was eager to find out what was going to happen next. The
police interview, although I could sense had been some what rushed
during the process of filming, actually set the scene brilliantly, engaging
the audience by putting them in a state of wonder as to what the two
subjects were talking about. The title's section I thought was done
excellently and engaged the audience as it only gave you tiny not-
giveaway snippets of the plot which is clever.”
 “It really gripped you into the story at the very start of the movie and
you are left wondering what will happen to the character's next.”
 “Whenever I watch these media movies I always cringe at the acting,
the acting was really good and the editing was very welldone. I think
the music needs a bit of a facelift as it could be more
eerie/suspenseful.”

5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
 I am very pleased with our feedback as it is all positive and
constructive criticism. The one aspect I was pleased about was
our music choice as I was very unsure on it when we put it onto
our film, however all the comments wanted it to be a bit darker,
when I thought it was too dark.
 The audience said that the police interview at the beginning really
set the scene and the lighting throughout built up suspense and
the pace was very good. Additionally they also said that our titles
were good and well spread out and weren‟t giving away too much
too quickly.
 We identified that our audience started from 16-25 then jumped to
46-50 which very pleasing as we have a wide spread of ages.
The middle ages may not have had a chance to access our
questionnaire due to where we attracted our audience. The
majority of our audience was 16-25 which means we met our
target audience.
 I also believe that the use of camera work, mise-en scene, editing
and sound also attracted our audience as we worked very hard to
ensure this all connected and gave hidden meaning where it
needed to be. The audience found it easy to relate and engage
with the characters as we tried to incorporate many social groups.

6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF
CONSTRUCTING THE PRODUCT?

 Overall, I felt I learnt a lot from the editing process of creating this product. Before I began this
product I had never edited any form of footage, and from our lessons, colleagues and practising
myself, I feel confident that I would now be able to edit a film of this quality again. Although I would
like to have learnt how to do animation for our title sequence, I don‟t think it would have suited our
storyline, and it would have been very difficult for me to pick up quick enough to put my skills into
use. If I had the chance to do this again, I would definitely consider trying to learn to do some sort
of animation for our work. Adobe Premiere Pro was very easy to use and I would recommend it for
beginners.
 I had done some filming previously, so I knew the basic skills to using a camera and framing shots.
However when I had done this previously, I hadn‟t attempted to move the camera, it was all filmed
from aesthetic shots which were not any good for our filming. From the preliminary task we first
discovered the challenges of moving the camera, even if it was on a tripod. Therefore I spent time
practicing moving the camera slowly to pan from side to side until I felt comfortable with doing this.
I also needed to practice the speed of zooms that we were going to use as the cameras we had
didn‟t have that much control on the speed. This took time, but I got there eventually and
consequently my zoom out was used in the final product (see 0:40) Although the camera was
always placed on a tripod and we never did any handheld shots, when pressing the record button
at the start, it often changed the position of the camera, therefore I learnt to hold the camera with
my other hand at the same time and if necessary get the actors to film a few seconds after I press
record so that the beginning footage is not staggered. When framing a shot I learnt that we had to
ensure the their whole head is always in the frame unless you don‟t intend to film that, otherwise
part of their head gets cut off and it looks very unprofessional.
 I learnt that we need to pay particular attention to the time of day when filming as the natural light
fades as we forgot when first filming. We changed this by blocking out all natural light and using a
lamp to light rooms instead. Also to speed up the filming process we often used multiple cameras
to film one scene to certify we had enough footage, as well as different angles. This additionally
helped our continuity as there would be no slight changes to the position of the characters, as well
as lighting and props. I also learnt how to make titles come and go at a good speed, and use fades
and blurs to give our titles an eerie effect.

7. LOOKING BACK TO YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE
LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION OF IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?
 Looking back to my preliminary task, I have learnt a great deal. Firstly, I have learnt the
importance of research and planning before we go ahead with filming. When making our
preliminary task, we did not storyboard, make a sufficient shot list and did not even create a
script. This meant that when we were filming we didn‟t really know what we were meant to be
doing, consequently when we uploaded our footage, it was not appropriate and we had to
keep re-filming, meaning that we got left quite far behind from the rest of the group. Also, we
did not fully understand the significance and how to obey the 180º rule, thus most of our
footage we were not able to use.
 This brings me on to the use of our camera. We did not practice with the camera at all when
were first went out and started filming, we just went straight into it, as a result all of our
footage was wobbly and none in frame. We tried to pan with the camera too quickly, causing a
blur and even tried to film free hand, which subsequently looked terrible (see 0:23). We looked
at out work and realised before coming to make the real product, we would really need to do
some research to find tips on how to help us with these things, as well as using our spare time
to practice to help us get a good grade.
 Our continuity in our sound throughout was again very bad, we didn‟t think that what seemed
to us as „quiet noise‟ the camera could pick up every detail meaning, some scenes the sound
was different pitches and different volumes. But at the time we did not know how to change
that when editing, but we learnt how to do it for our final product, so we have made progress.
 In our editing we never attempted to use any fades or cross dissolves in our film, which did
work as our film was meant to be up pace. It just lacked professionalism and often it felt like
we were jumping way too quickly. We also never had enough footage to edit as we just start
filming start away and ended as soon as the action finished on screen. If we had filmed a little
bit longer at the end, this may have cut out the quick cuts, however we learnt from our
mistakes and have always made sure we filmed for another three seconds after action has
stopped.
 The continuity in this was also a problem, which I didn‟t notice until now that there is a person
walking in the background that suddenly disappears (see 0:52) Additionally, whoever filmed at
one point, you can hear them say “that‟s better” and then suddenly stop talking (see 0:58)
 Although these mistakes we made in our practice product, I feel it is important that we have
made them as it has made a significant difference to our final product. We learnt from our
mistakes, and although we have also made some mistakes on our final too, we have made
great progression. Both tasked have helped me work better with others and I believe our
group worked very well together and we are all very pleased with our final media text. If I
could make any changes to our final piece, I would have to change the music to a lighter
piece as I believe the heavy music contrasts the screenplay and builds up too much tension
that isn‟t really there. I would also try and do some more shots of our protagonist before she
wakes up from different angles that will slowly reveal the character. I have enjoyed making
this film and although at times my time management wasn‟t as a good as it should have been
I have learnt and understood a lot more in forms and conventions used in productions.

Media evaluation

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