The document provides an evaluation of a student's opening to a thriller film media project. It answers questions about how the opening uses thriller genre conventions, represents the lone main character without stereotypes, would be distributed online or via DVD given its low budget, and aims to attract audiences aged 20-30. The student learned skills like camerawork, editing software, and creating suspense through the process of making the full opening compared to an earlier preliminary task.

1. Media- Evaluation
In this piece of writing I will be evaluating the opening to our thriller film. I will be
doing this by answering a series of questions about my personal views on the project:
In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
I would like to think in a lot of ways. We spent a lot of time researching the Thriller
genre (Please view my blog) and I would like to think we managed to
incorporate that within our media production. For example our
particular film I think was more of a Crime/Horror. We looked into
these particular genres and tried to use classic ingredients of these
genres such as suspenseful accounts (His flashbacks draw him into
having epileptic seizures), a focus on criminal(s) (Our ‘victim’ would
probably be a criminal if we were to continue the film), emphasize
action over psychological aspects (When we created our victim
character’s background we suggested that he may be autistic, similar to
JJ Jones off of British teen drama Skins. Which would tick this box.), a
main character that is put in danger by enemies that are often
unrealistic ‘creatures’ (when we were putting together our opening
we did look at possible continuations we could think of to help us, this
particular ingredient of a Horror Thriller film is something we did
consider and even shot on camera with a view to possibly include in
our opening, although after liberal thought we did decide against it as
we though too much would be given away).
I think our music also fits in nicely. We chose a suspenseful tune played using
woodwind instruments. We chose it because we felt it was exactly the
sort of song you would find in our type of film. We looked at the
opening of films such as The Shinning to back this up.
Also I think the general feel of our opening restricts one to putting it into any other
category. Right from the word ‘go’ we tried to create mystery and
suspense which are two features not really found outside of the thriller
genre.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I think we deliberately deviated away from classic stereotypes. There is only one
character in our opening and I think we succeeded in purposely
restricting this character’s classic teenage traits. In fact I think the only
image of a typical teenager we did use is the images of our drinking a
lot and beating people up which we only used to create empathy for the
character. Other than that he is a loner who drinks on his own and is
probably singled out due to mental issues which are not pertaining
representations of a teenage boy.
Although while this is the only question on my sheet that frisks at the representation
of social groups I thought I would look at other stereotypes to see
whether they were followed. First of all the setting, a rural country lane
in the Norfolk countryside. I think that although the geographical
choice for our location is not particularly relevant to this question the
general selection of a remote area is. We decided to look at some time
honored thriller films currently protruding the shelves of blockbuster to

2. see how directors such as Nimród Antal (Director of Vacancy) and
Stanley Kubrick (Director of The Shinning) had used rustic locations
to create a nervy feel to their films. It was then, when we could begun
to draw pictures of how we wanted to represent the pastoral backdrop
that was carrot crunching Norfolk. We dipped the opening of our film
to mainly black and white because we found this particular effect to be
very impressionable in Shane Meadows’s film Somer’s Town and
thought that ours would be equally good with the use of it.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
I think the two main ones are probably via DVDs and the Internet. Both of these
options are cheap and often effective, two boxes we would have to tick
if we to distribute our film.
We realistically couldn’t go to film4 or sell our film to apple for distribution vie the
ITunes store because at the end of the day it is a low budget student
film that we have only had limited time to complete. For those reasons
we would be restricted to distribute our product via the internet and/or
via DVD.
Who would be the audience for your Media product?
I think we would probably certify the film at around the 15/18 mark, although I think
taking into consideration the main influences of our film (Vacancy and
The Shinning) you would have to say that the main age groups that are
likely to watch our production are around that 20-30 age group I would
image.
I do however believe that other audiences, particularly older ones would find the film
appealing. I think the age range of people that would chose to watch
this film would however slowly welter as the baby boomer bridge is
crossed.
How did you attract/Address you audience?
We created questionnaires to help give us an idea as to what people in the collage
thought a thriller should look like. This combined with our own
expectations of what we felt a thriller should look like allowed us to
create something that we felt matched or exceeded our own
expectations on what a thriller should look like and also what our
potential audience would enjoy as well
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
I think my knowledge of the fanatical world of Macs has improved some what! While
I must proclaim my computing style still lies with Windows I have to
say that I have enjoyed my concurring battle with the Macs.
Now on a serious note I would like to outline some of the new skills that I have learnt
whilst using the Macs and also using the Cameras:
• First of all using the camera. Although I did take Media at BTEC level at High
school I cannot say that I was particularly gifted in the camera/filming aspect
of the course. Although since starting A-Levels I have grown in confidence in
this department. I am now very familiar with all of the various types of camera

3. shots from Wide Shots all the way through to point of view shots, as well as
different angles (High angles low angle etc)
• I have also learnt a lot about the various software’s. I would first of all like to
start with the actual layout of the Macs. I now feel comfortable around the
mind boggling desktop and can even open up the relevant programmes
without accidentally shutting down the computer!
• Also I think my ability to use Final Cut successfully are also much stronger. I
felt slightly hesitant initially whilst helping to edit the preliminary task,
although when it came to the final thing I felt much stronger. Meaning that I
was able to do a proficient job in the editing process.
• Another piece of software that I now feel comfortable using is ‘Live Text’ this
cool programme allowed us to create warped texts that helped us to create the
desired mood in our production
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think I have learnt a great deal, and that is clearly evident in the quality of the two
pieces of work. In my opinion there is no end of improvement between
my preliminary task (A short film showing me walk into a room, ask
for a DVD and then take one) and my final piece (A two minute clip of
the opening to a Thriller film). I think this is down to a number of
things:
First of all I think I was able to familiarise myself with the various software’s. I
therefore felt that the Preliminary Task was perhaps more of a trial
thing as apposed to a ‘warm up’ if you like.
Secondly I think time has defiantly meant we have been able to create a better piece
also. We were only given around 5 hours to film and edit our
preliminary task which was detrimentally probably not an amazing
amount of time to really create something to blow you away. Whereas
we have had a much better time scale to construct our final piece
which allowed us to take our time in all areas of the task. This
included:
• Building the storyboard and other prior tasks such as brainstorming
• Camera work. Which meant that we could film more than what we had
planned to, therefore we had more to choose from during the editing process
• Editing. We could really think about this process. We had enough to shape
good foundation and then use the rest of the time to experiment with various
shots and clips to perfect our initial outline
I enjoyed making the final task more also. It was not a particularly glowing subject
(The Prelim task). While we were given a lot more freedom to really get creative in
our final task. As long as connotations of the Thriller genre were conveyed we really
could create anything! This allowed us to have a lot of fun thinking up abnormal ideas
that would bode well with a Thriller audience