Media Evaluation Questions - Macauley Evans

1. Media Evaluation
Macauley Evans

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Firstly to challenge the idea of a typical female being vulnerable in an
isolated area I decided to use a male as my key role. Most horror films
use females because they are seen as being weaker and easier to make
their “prey”, however by using a male I quickly swept this idea away as I
have managed to make the male character seem much more vulnerable as
he is alone in a dark woodland with no idea what is about to happen to
him.
Another way I have challenged horrors is that a select few have a typical
story/myth at the start of them so the audience is aware of what sort of
danger will happen during the film. I chose not to give any ideas away
about what is happening and started to include shots of mainly the scenery
to try and get the audience into the perspective of the character who is lost
and alone in these dark woods.

3. How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
Firstly the class I have presented is middle class as my character is
dressed in that way, he also speaks well enough to fit into this category, I
also believe that the people who would watch my product would also fit into
this category. My film is targeted at an audience between 15-25 year olds,
so the character I used was 17 and inbetween this age difference, I believe
through this that the audience would be able to relate to this character as
he is roughly the same age as them. I also represented gender in my film
opening by only including a male character, this also shows that men can
be seen as being weaker in this film as the character endeavours insanity
and is clearly scared, challenging the macho stereotype.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
I believe that Lionsgate would be an ideal institution to distribute my product.
Lionsgate are well known for distributing horror films so its clearly a good
choice as they have a large range of popular horror films such as the SAW
and Hostel franchises. Lionsgate also have a large horror fan base so
people would easily take notice of my film. Warner Bros would also be a
good choice for me as they are very well known and reliable, they also
have distributed films such as The Shining which is a very iconic
psychological based movie, which would fit well with mine being psychological
based too.

5. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience I decided to target my film at from my research would be 15-
25 year olds of both genders. I also learned from my research that my
target audience would be mainly students. My ideal audience would be
people that were into horrors which made you think further into the film and
question how things are happening. I hope that the psychological side would
attract more intelligent people as they like to try and beat the film and the
plotline before its even finished.

6. How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience by showing a scenes of a dark woodland so they
would be intrigued as to what is happening. Further on I included a clip of
an average male student lost in the woodland, my audience would also be
people of the same age so they could relate to him. The audience would
then be more intrigued as the student is shouting “Help me”, indicating that
he is in some form of danger.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
I have learnt that using a film camera is more difficult than it seems as
getting the perfect shot without the camera shaking can be very hard to
achieve. Also filming in the dark with little to no light is also quite difficult
as the picture comes out quite grainy. Furthermore when I was editing the
product on Final Cut (which I had no past experience with) was quite hard
to use at first but as I edited more of the film and played with more
effects it seemed much more easy as it was all coming together.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the
full product?
From looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt that setting the
scene is very important and that making sure the clips run smoothly without
any faults is also very important. I also believe that working on my own
rather than in a group is much better as I get to take lead of what and
how the film will be produced with my own ideas. I have also learned that
filming in a less busy environment is far easier as there is little to no
background noise.