Sophie created a short opening scene for a thriller film inspired by the movie "Taken." She used conventions of the thriller genre like suspenseful music and quick cuts between shots to create a sense of danger. The film represents the target audience of 16-18 year olds through the clothes and age of the main character. Sophie believes the film would appeal to 20th Century Fox as a distributor since they have distributed similar thrillers in the past.

1. Evaluation Sophie Hodgkinson

2. My media product is a short sequence of an opening to a thriller film. My main inspiration for my film was ‘taken’ as I found the way you watched not up close a girl getting kidnapped, I found this interesting as I wanted to watch on to see who were the men behind this. Also I found it helpful creating a questionnaire to help me create and interesting film what people enjoy.

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Thrillers have been successful since the film industry started, they have always had an engaged audience by creating suspense and fear. As my film is a thriller I believe the expected conventions would be the sense of danger and also urgency, I did this by the music and also the shots, which gave me the feeling something bad was going to happened as the shots are changed rather quickly and the music is very upbeat but at the same time scary.

4. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media product represents a social group of my target audience, which is 16- 18. I did this through the age of my main actor, who is 17. To get this across to the audience I had her wearing up to date clothes that a 17 year old would typically wear. My film also represents the social group of people that enjoy scary films. I tried to achieve this by the music and also by setting the actual kidnapping at night. As I believe that is what gets the suspense of the audience going and also quite frightened. As my film is a kidnapping I also believe my film could represent teenagers that have been through something tragic, such as children with divorced parent, family member dieing, many things along them lines.

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Many different distribution companies distribute thriller films, but the main company I believe that would want to distribute my film would be 20 th century fox, this mainly is based on the fact that my film is inspired by the film taken so I believe they would have an interest in my film, not because the storey are both based on a kidnapping but because my film is appealing to a wide crowd. Also that company have also distributed many Thrillers such as the happening, Wrong turn one and two, mirrors, shutter and also many more. So I believe that company must like thrillers and willing to distribute many more. In the upcoming year 20 th century haven't got many thrillers lined up, so I believe this year there is a gap which my film could easily fit.

6. Who would be the audience for your media product? As my age group I am aiming it isn't a wide variety group of people, I believe by mainly concentrating on the age group of 16-18, I will find more people will enjoy my film older and younger as when it is distributed you find more people find what that age group like in the film industry many other age groups do. My audience for my media product are people at the age of 16-18 I aimed it at this age group as when I produced questionnaires they are they age group of people I asked what they liked and based my film on this, also as I am in that age group I believed it would be easier for me to engage interest than a younger or older group. Also another audience I would like to aim my film would be

7. How did you attract/address your audience? By doing questionnaire I found out what the majority of my target audience like, so I attracted them by what they are interesting in and which is thriller type of film, the film gets straight to the point, modern, backing music at the start of the film and finally a lot of dialogue. My target audience are mainly teenagers, I believe teenagers loose interest in a film very quickly. So to attract them I have included many different shot types, also I have included text in between the longer parts of a scene to make sure i still attract them. By setting my film mainly at night it attracts my audience more as it creates more of an atmosphere, and my audience like fear and I makes them more in fear. By adding upbeat music to my film this attracted my audience, as it set the scene and also makes it more interesting.

8. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Before starting filming I only had a basic knowledge on how to use imovie and also the camera I was given to film. The main problem I came across when filming was the camera, as I wanted to set my film at night when it was really dark, I discovered that the night light on the film wasn’t very good, so therefore I had to come back the next night when lighter. I have learnt from this that even though it is rather light on the camera it seems more darker. I also seemed to learn more on shot types throughout my making of the film, by using a tripod as I could use many different levels. Imovie seemed to be a problem for me as I didn’t fully understand everything you could do on this. I decided to just play about with editing my film before I started the full thing. I discovered the brightness button which helped me when I filmed shadows and it was very dark so I brightened it up to a greyer color to make it more clearer.

9. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I don’t think my preliminary task was very successful, due to fact I didn’t really understand how to edit and also film to my best ability. I feel as though in my preliminary task I didn’t film enough, as I started filming when I wanted it to start and ended it when I wanted it to end in my finished product, instead of running the camera through and not stopping it and starting it again. In my final product I didn’t stop the camera at all until I finished the whole scene and also repeated it more than once so I could get the best final product. In my preliminary task I also felt as though used too many transitions as I didn’t fully understand how to create a match on action. In my final product I developed my skills to make sure my film ran smoothly unlike my preliminary task. Also I believe I have learnt more in how to edit my film My group for my preliminary task was my group of friends in the class, after the filming with this group of people, I realized that if I worked on my own for my final product I could get everything I wanted to get over to my audience not what my friends wanted. I learnt that I wanted more responsibility on filming my film.