In what ways does your media product use,develop,or challenge forms and convention of real media products?
Our groups product is about three seventeen year olds who live in the UK. At school one of the main characters (Max Dai) gets into an argument with a female student and punches her, she falls and hits her head on the corner of a desk killing her instantly. The film begins with the three main characters arguing as to what to do with the body and whether or not to tell the police. They decide to bury the body and act as though nothing happened. As they are moving the body the audience see’s that an unknown character is watching them.

My product has similar codes conventions used in professional thriller opening sequences. One of these similarities is iconography, our setting was a classroom, an easily recognisable environment, but it was distorted by someone watching the characters through a window taking away the audiences senses of security of a safe environment. We also tried to convey a sense of mystery, like other thrillers, by not viewing the face of the person looking in through the window and not revealing anything about the victim laying in front of them. However we also strayed from traditional codes and conventions, for instance we began with dialogue, unlike most thrillers where there would be a long establishing shot to create atmosphere or have the titles first. Also we cut between live action and the credits to give the begging a faster pace, it also created a sense of suspense to see what the next live action shot would be. And instead of using typical dark lighting, we used bright lighting, to add to the distortion of the sense of normality.

how does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our media product we attempted to represent different examples of a typical seventeen year old's in modern day society. We took characters that we believed to be typical seventeen year old's and put them in a very un-typical situation. Having characters that the audience could relate to through their, personality's, relationships and how they deal with everyday occurrences within the movie i.e. school, dating, etc. would help the audience put themselves into the characters situation, which would give our product a greater impact.

Our film is about a group of friends who represent a variety of modern day teenagers, however although our characters are generally stereotypical i.e. Max is an aggressive male and Lydia is a typical feminine girl, we may be alienating our audience in two ways, firstly our main cast is Caucasian which wouldn’t appeal to a black audience, and that the title of the film is “Dai” a welsh last name. Although the character called Dai is not from whales it may alienate English audiences.

what kind of media institution might distribute you product and why?
Our product is a low budget thriller set in Britain, with a unknown cast of British teenagers. Because of this it is likely that an American distributor wouldn't pick up the film because it would be difficult to market to an American audience as it has no star power, so it is likely that it would be a small British studio to would distribute the film. Because of the films low budget its advertising would have to consist of a minimal budget as well, the simplest way of advertising on a low budget is word of mouth, the distributor would most likely use teenage chat forums such as facebook or myspace to create a buzz. This buzz could be created over the fact that it is a teenage British thriller, which would give it a niche audience.

The distributor could then decide if there are other films similar to our product that are successful and if there would be a way to tap into that market. Equally the distributor must decide whether the current competition would be to great. Ultimately the distributor would most likely decide to release the movie in the summer holidays because the films target audience (teenagers) would have more time in which to see the movie.

who would be the audience for your media product?
After doing research on target audiences for thriller films, we found that people most likely to watch thriller films are generally from the ages of fifteen to early twenties. Therefore our target audience would most likely consist of fifteen to early twenties. Our film consists of characters typical of modern day teenage society therefore the characters are easily related to by a younger audience. Because the setting of our opening scene is a school classroom this will give the teenage audience a sense of familiarity and a greater sense of fear when the safe setting is being distorted.

Our main audience would be niche Caucasian British teenagers. This would be because our film would be most likely to be heard of by word of mouth or possibly online because it is independently made and doesn’t have the budget to have a huge advertising campaign. Our audience would have to be older than fifteen due to the fact that although there is no gore there would be language inappropriate for anyone that age and below.

what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt about different camera shots, angles and movements, and how they can be used to create a theme. For instance for a chase scene, to create panic and a sense of speed a fast paced sequence of shots is useful to create that effect, and this is done by cutting quickly from one shot to the other. I have also learnt that certain shots can be more dramatic, for example a close up shot of a character will feel more intense than a long shot. Research into thriller films showed me that tracking shots are useful to create a sense of being followed, for example in the opening of Silence of the Lambs. Also when researching thriller opening sequences, I learnt that high angle shots can be used to add a sense of vulnerability to a character, these type of shots are often used on victim’s, this technique is used in psycho when the detective is at the top of the stairs before he is attacked by Norman Bates. I have learnt how to input a dissolve and cross dissolve onto a particular shot, how to crop and cut certain shots, and also how to elongate them. I have learnt about camera handling, and different functions of a camera, for example, zooming. I have also learnt different techniques on the editing programme. I have learnt how to alter the flow of the sound to get rid of any white noise.

looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I learnt from my preliminary task that to keep a moving object in focus, you must slow the movement of the camera or object down. I have learnt the importance of deciding on the style of the film when it comes to camera angles etc. So it is in keeping with the genre of the film.

Production diary

4th March: Day one of shooting

We began shooting at a house on location at an agreed time. We had difficulties with filming; the first was mise-en-scene. The room was plain white apart from some bright orange curtains which would prove distracting for an audience. The second was our equipment, we didn’t have a charger. Because we had no charger it limited us in terms of time in which to shoot the opening, we didn’t have time to set up shots correctly as we were constantly aware of running out of battery. We also didn’t have the necessary piece of equipment to attach the video camera to the tripod, this made shots extremely shaky. We had difficulty shooting shot number 25; this shot was the camera panning around the three characters with the camera in the centre. The shot was difficult to shoot as it was difficult to keep in focus and keep all characters in the frame, as the actors are different heights. It was difficult to keep the camera steady in shot 24, which involves moving the camera up with the actor as she stands up from the floor. After watching the footage back, we decided to re-shoot because the problems with the camera and mise-on-scene had greatly affected the film. We also agreed to film in a class room, for a more secure and recognisable environment.

10th March: day two of shooting

We positioned the characters around the room in correlation to our story board with slight changes to fit in with the new location of the school class room. We had them all facing down focusing on the unseen dead body in the room, which added to the sense of suspense. We started filming Max first, starting with his ECU's, CU's and then moved onto over the shoulder shots. Then we filmed Lydia, starting with her CU's and MCU's, then over the shoulder shots, then shots with Max and Lydia both in the frame. We then shot Paige shots. Finally, we shot the panning shot, learning from our previous experience we tilted the camera downwards when approaching the shortest actor, to get her roughly in the same position in the frame as the other two actors. The last shot was the exterior shot of Sarah peering in through the window. We positioned the actor at an angle so she wouldn't be seen from inside the classroom.

Editing.

Firstly we captured the footage from the camera onto the editing programme, and then cut the chosen shots from a selection of takes, down to the lengths then we previously arranged. We cut out any unnecessary noises, dialogue or unwanted facial expressions that were possible to get rid of. We then rearranged the order of the shots into the order of the storyboard. Then, using the "title" tool, we wrote out the credits and placed them into the correct order on the timeline.