Jacob Smith‟s

Evaluation

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1. In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?The thriller opening sequence that my group and I have produced, incorporates generic conventions of a thriller genre film, in our

film there is a terrorist plot to kill the Prime Minister of the England. What our political thriller „Vengeance‟ does is flip this on its

head and use the protagonist who is a middle aged Caucasian upper class business man to be the terrorist. Where as it is

stereotypically seen that terrorist is from a different culture or background. This is much to do with the terrorist violence that has

been taking place over the last twelve years. We have been incorporating generic conventions, such as the non- diegetic music

that is in the background throughout the whole of the sequence, the music creates a tense atmosphere, this is typical to most

thriller genre films. The black screen when the titles appear create are simple yet effective, they help create a sense of suspense;

which is common to a lot of thriller genre based films yet it is not considered cliché. In our thriller we incorporated iconic buildings

and landmarks, such as the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Station.

The reason in which we chose to focus on the Houses of Parliament and the location of Westminster in London, is to foreshadow

the events and reinforce what the motive of the protagonist, which is to assassinate the Prime Minister. Also The Houses of

Parliament are an iconic landmark known throughout the world. Another thriller genre film that is similar to our own production is

„Enemy of the State‟. Throughout the opening title sequence of „Enemy of the State‟ iconic landmarks are shown, and also they

used a black background with some of the opening credits; this shows that we have stuck to some of the generic conventions of

the thriller genre.

This is a comparison showing the similarities between the title sequence of „Enemy of the State‟ (Left) and my groups own

opening sequence to a thriller film „Vengeance‟ (Right).

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2. How does your media product represent

particular social groups?The protagonist in our thriller opening sequence is represented to be a male in his late twenties to early thirties, he is presented as a businessman, as he says he is going to a “meeting in Oxford”, the fact that he says he is going to a meeting to use as a decoy to his wife highlights the fact that he is a businessman. He is meant to be wealthy and upper class as he is dressed in formal attire (smart blazer and tie) and has a large house, with large grounds, it is clear that he lives in a wealthy area in a detached house as there are gates and a large front door. The protagonist in our film is a Caucasian, English man. This is show by his appearance and his dialect – he has an English accent which signifies where he is from.

The protagonist is presented to be very aggressive, which is shown when he smashes is fist down on the desk, when he is listening to the radio. The action of the fist smashing against the desk connotes danger and gives the audience the insight that the protagonist has a grudge against the Prime Minister.

I feel that our groups thriller opening sequence portrays gender in a very stereotypical way, for instance the protagonist in our film is male; which would be seen to be normal in the thriller genre. The protagonist in our thriller opening is dominant over his wife, this is shown when he leaves her and lies to about where he is going and what he is doing. Stereotypically, and in our film opening the male has more screen time than the female which shows him to be a more dominant character as he is male. The wife in this thriller opening is rather passive, she has very little screen time and says only but a few words. The clothes that she wears (jeans and a hooded jumper) suggest that she is a housewife, which reinforces the idea that the protagonist is a wealthy business man as the wife does not have to provide income (supported by the male. The idea that the female is a house wife is stereotypical.

The rating of our thriller would be fifteen and older, however the target audience would be older around the age of twenty years and up. The reason for the target audience being older is because a younger audience perhaps would not grasp the political side to the plot. The social groups represented in this opining links to the target audience because

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The gates connote that the

protagonist is a wealthy man.

Large front door suggests that the

protagonist lives in a large home.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why?In the beginning I initially thought that our film is quite unique in

the plot, and that combined with the fact that we had a small

budget, and we used the equipment that the school had provided

for us, I believed that the thriller opening the group and I had

produced was more of an art house film. However, the more I

thought about, it became apparent that our film is not so

individual as we thought. There are two other films that are quite

similar to the film we had produced.

However, now I feel that our film „Vengeance‟ could be produced

by a world famous production company, much like „Spy Game‟

and „Enemy of the State‟ are. If it were to be released by a big

production company it would bring a much larger and wider

target audience. I strongly feel that it would be a box office

success as it is a relatively unique film as there are few thrillers

like it. The fact that both of these thriller films that are very similar

to our thriller opening sequence, shows that there is a market for

this type of film. Another thing that both „Enemy of the State‟ and

„Spy Game‟ are examples that this type of film is successful, and

there could be a possible franchise business that could come out

of it.

If „Vengeance‟ were to be an internet release, I think it would not

be a great success as there is not enough advertising for people

to feel intrigued and want to watch the film, as there are no

famous actors in the production a film like this needs a push from

a powerful production company.

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„Spy Game‟ is

distributed by Universal

Pictures.

„Enemy of the State‟ is

distributed by Buena

Vista Pictures.

Quotes on the front cover

draw the audiences

attention.

The caption “A

dynamite thriller!” will

make viewers want to

watch it.

Sunglasses

suggest mystery

and hide his facial

expressions.

Black and white

title pops out and

grabs the

viewers attention.

Protagonist is well dressed

show his intelligence and

wealth/ importance

4. Who would be the target audience for your media

product?

The film the our group has produced „Vengeance‟ has defiantly been mainly aimed at a male target audience. The whole

theme of the protagonist wanting to kill the Prime Minister would appeal more to males as it contains violence. Whereas

women stereotypically prefer to watch that are more emotional such as romantic films and comedies which are for the

more light hearted. As thriller films tend to have some action in them this will draw the males towards the film, the age

group that the film is aimed towards are around twenty to thirty years of age. Although it is aimed towards a slightly older

age group, it is only rated age fifteen and older meaning that it would be open and available to people who are below the

age of the target audience. Seeing as it is teenagers that have the most amount spare time, I feel that there would be a

great percentage of people younger than the target audience that it is aimed at. Another reason why it could attract a

younger audience is because it is a thriller film so there are action scenes (if it was a full length film) in most films in this

genre. As it is aimed at a higher aged audience there could be some parts of the film that a teenager would possibly not

understand.

In terms of the social classes that the film is aimed at, I would say it is aimed at the middle and the upper classes as it is

politically based and would intrigue people who come from a political background, or who are generally interested in

politics.

On the other hand there are also a lot of women who prefer to watch a thriller film as it is more serious, and keeps the

audience on the edges of there seats. There could be some women who can relate to the role of the wife and how she is a

housewife and seen to be inferior to the male in this situation.

Both „Spy Game‟ and „Enemy of the State‟ are both films that are aimed towards mainly men and are targeted to the same

age group, as they contain some violence and are similar to our opening title sequence „Vengeance‟ so we thought that it

would be best if they had a similar rating as they are targeted at the same people. As our film does not have any rude

language in it, it would not be rated 18, however it does contain references to terrorism and violence, which means we feel

it would classify as a fifteen years and older.

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5. How did you attract or address your audience?

We set out to attract an audience that the majority of is male, and aged form twenty years old to around the age of forty

years; as this is the typical target age of a political thriller film. There are various things that we had done to ensure that the

audience do not lose interest, for example we had decided not to specify what the protagonist is placing in his briefcase,

this leaves the viewers wanting to find out what it is, and what is going to happen. When the black and white flash backs

are happening, you have a point of view shot of the computer and it gives the audience a quick glimpse to see what the

protagonist is searching for, the whole intention of making sure that they see the internet is to give them a taste for what is

to come later and it will encourage them to stay and watch the rest of the film.

At one point early on in the title sequence the protagonist slams his fist down on the desk, after listening to the radio

broadcast. We thought that because the target audience is mainly male, a little bit of aggression/ violent behavior would

keeps there attention, as stereotypically men tend to enjoy violence in films and television shows. The slamming of the fist

also creates a tense atmosphere between the viewer and the movie.. We also used non diegetic sound throughout the title

sequence so that the audience get suspicious of the protagonists actions which keeps them hooked.

In our title sequence we decided to have only a few point of view shots this keeps the audience distant from the

protagonist; so they are not fully aware of what exactly he is doing and the idea of this is to leave them wanting more.

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The audience cannot see what has been placed inside

the brief case, which heightens their suspicions of the

protagonist.

The slamming of the fist shows the

protagonists aggression.

5. How did you attract or address your audience?

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As a group we designed a survey to see to see how people

reacted towards our opening title sequence of a thriller film. This

survey will help us to see if we have successfully managed to

make a thriller film that people would actually consider watching. I

have selected the most important questions we asked on the

survey to show you some of our results:

Here is some of the written feedback that we received from our

survey:

“The storyline isn‟t to complex it‟s good and keeps you guessing”

“Very keen to find out what happens next”

“The story is well executed, not too complex and flows well”

We only received one negative response, and it

was written by a sixteen year old male. This would

probably due to the fact that they are not in the

target audience so it was not addressed his age

group.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the

process of constructing the product?

Throughout the filming process, we have had encountered challenges and have

successfully over come them. Some of the difficulties included things like camera angles,

and what ever scene we were filming we had to make sure that we did not break the one

hundred and eighty degree rule. This is where our teamwork was important that we all had

to agree on what angle and distance shot we were going to film. Making sure that the

camera angle was correct took time however it was rewarding to watch back something that

was realistic; which is the goal.

Another challenge that we faced was with the tripod and filming on unsteady surfaces, it was

vital that we made sure that when we were recording the camera was not shaking, otherwise

that piece of footage would have been unreliable. An example of an unsteady surface that

we had used was the scene where the protagonist is sitting on the train on his way to

London. We overcame this by making sure that the tripod was firmly held down to minimize

the vibrations. I feel that this was a success, and the pieces of footage that we had

managed to record were what we had hoped.

The equipment that we had been given by the school to use was good, however it was

restricting in some ways, for example we did not have a dolly, meaning that we were unable

to move the camera around whilst filming. So in order to do this we had to use shots that

allowed us to get the whole scene in it, i.e. we had to film some footage from a long shot in

order to see protagonist walking away (in the underground).

The editing software that we used was Adobe Premier Pro. Through out this whole process

of filming and uploading the footage to the editing software I have learnt how to put effects

on such as making the clip black and white, this adds suspense to the thriller and creates a

tense vibe. Other things that I am now capable of doing with the software are things like

adding titles to the opening sequence.

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6. (Continued)

In terms of the sound problem that we had encountered, when we were

filming in public places we had to set up our equipment and film around the

pubic. This is where the editing software came in useful as the camera we

had been given had picked up diegetic sounds from the surrounding

environment and the people around us. In the begging we thought that his

was going to be a major problem, however this was overcome by removing

the diegetic sound of people around us talking and in its place add in some

non diegetic music. One example in the thriller opening sequence was

thirty nine seconds into the film, where the protagonist is purchasing his

train ticket. We also decided to do the same when the train approaches the

station at forty four seconds into the clip.

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7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do

you feel that you have learnt in the progression

from I to the full product?

At the beginning of the year before we began the planning stages of our media product we were set a task to do, sort of

like a little trial run. This was: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and

sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This

task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

I strongly feel that since I began my preliminary task I have come such a long way in terms of my know and understanding

of filming, the rules involved and how to use the editing software correctly. Since the preliminary task I have learnt the

importance of planning, storyboarding and creating an animatic. It all started when we set off and started to begin to

research into the thriller genre and what all the codes and conventions of filming a thriller. Then it turned to the

storyboarding which took quite a while to perfect but after we all worked together we got it done. From there we had to

create our animatic which is basically when you take your storyboard and make it essentially into a sketch version of thriller

title sequence.

The whole planning process took a huge weight off of our shoulders because we now had a guide to follow, and along the

way we had to make a few changes here and there but I feel we overcame every obstacle that was thrown at us. This

enabled the group to work together as a team. I one hundred percent know that I have improved a great deal with my

camera work, I can now do a lot of the shots much better than I used to be able to do before.

Now when I use the editing software (Adobe Premier Pro) I feel confident that I can do it where as before I used to struggle

to do things on my own, but with the help my fellow group mates I know have a much better understanding of what I am

doing. When we began the preliminary task I was not confident setting up all of the camera equipment, and now I can do it

without any struggle.

Now when I look back at the task I feel that the media product that we have developed, is a success. Not only did I learn a

lot from the process but I had a lot of fun doing it as well. I feel that we have met the specifications asked of us and that we

have created a believable exciting piece of media.

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