Evaluation

Stranger First Draft

This is the first draft for Stranger.

I feel that this could have turned out a lot better than what it did because we broke many of the continuity editing techniques such as the 180 degree rule. This meant that the production doesn't run as smooth as what it should.

 

Stranger Opening Sequence

This is the full final opening sequence to Stranger.

Overall I am much more pleased with this version of the opening sequence because the continuity is kept throughout the production and it looks a lot better than what the first draft does.

Final Draft Take 2

This is the final draft that of our opening sequence in which we have now added more scenes of Beth.

Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In this production I will examine the ways in which my media product challenges forms of conventions of real products and will look at how successful I have been in making the production.

Our audience feedback showed us that the audience thought that our characters mainly conformed to stereotypes. For example they found that Beth was the character who conformed to her stereotype of being a geek the most and the other two characters also conformed but they thought that Beth was the easiest to work out. This shows that we achieved what we wanted to in the opening sequence with the character of Beth, we wanted her to conform to the stereotype to begin with. By our audience already being able to recognize the stereotype this means that we have a wider choice of ways to contradict Beth’s stereotype later on in the production. The audience found that this stereotype was shown mainly through the ways that Beth behaved and the things that she said such as “we have assessment week next week.” The audience recognized that Beth was a character who wanted to do well in her exams. The main reason we chose to use a female protagonist is because it goes against the majority of the protagonist’s of thriller films. Primarily the protagonist is Male and is of big build. Beth completely contradicts this as she is petite and doesn't look that strong however later on in the production the audience would be able to see Beth become her counter-stereotype.

The audience feedback on our narrative showed that some people thought that the idea of the kidnapping was an original idea. They felt that this was something unique to the thriller genre because not a lot of films in this genre use kidnappings and their main theme. They felt that the kidnapping theme made this film unique and they wanted to find out what had happened to Rikki. The audience feedback also showed us that a member of our target audience thought the film would be similar to ‘Taken’, which is an action suspense film. There are some similarities between that film and our production primarily the kidnapping of the girl which happens in both of the films. This is good for us because our audience are bale to chose similar films to our production which if they liked that film then they would want to see our production.

One of the main themes in our production is the theme of suspense. This is categorically shown in all types of thriller films. The film needs to build suspense so that the audience are engaged in the storyline if the film doesn’t have suspense then the audience wont bother watching the rest of the film. Our audience feedback showed us that the audience wanted to find out what had happened to Rikki. This proves that we were able to build suspense in order to keep the audience guessing at what did happen to Rikki.

Looking at the setting we were able to chose a setting that the audience was able to relate to. The use of the school setting was effective to our target audience because they would be in school or have just left school. This means that the audiences are able to recognize the particular setting and therefore we can create legitimacy for the audience.

Q2 - How does your media project represent particular social groups?

  

 This is my presentation which looks at the social groups that I have used in my production and why I have used them.
When we conducted our audience feedback we found that the majority of our audience were able to identify the character stereotypes that are shown during our audience feedback. They were also able to identify a certain way that the character would stereotypically act. In my opinion this means that we have been able to make relatable characters that the audience are able to identify with. For example our audience feedback showed that most of the audience were able to work out who Eloise's character was as she was the most prominent stereotype shown. This showed that the stereotype of the rebel was the most prominent stereotype of a social group in our production.



In our production we chose to primarily use three solid stereotypes, those being the rebel, the geek and the popular person. These stereotypes are shown through our characters.

For example the first character that the audience see is Rikki. Rikki is presented as the rebel character. This is primarily shown to the audience through the way that Rikki looks. Rikki has dark hair and has the sides shaved. This is something that the audiences are already able to look at and start to understand what type of character she is. This was something that we wanted to have we wanted Rikki to have a look that made the audience remember her because the audience only see Rikki for a small amount of time we needed to make sure that she conformed to her stereotype straight away so the audience were able to relate to her character. The clothes that she wears also help the audience to understand who she is. She wears dark clothing with a skull top this is something that the audience relate to rebels because when they were in school the rebels would have some form of a skull on their clothing or would wear dark clothing. Our audience feedback showed us that the audience was able to identify Rikki’s character type straight away because of the way that she presented herself such as the clothing. This shows that we were able to create a character that is conforming to her stereotype, which makes it easier for the audience to relate to the character of Rikki.

Beth is shown as conforming to her stereotype, which is a geek throughout the opening sequence. This is shown through her clothing. Beth wears big glasses, which the audience are able to relate to the geek character type. Also the way that Beth speaks, she says intelligent things such as when she tells Rikki how dangerous the situation is. The audience is able to see how intelligent Beth is and therefore they are able to understand and see how she conforms to her stereotype. The audience feedback showed that the audience found Beth a relatable character because she is a character stereotype that is shown commonly in schools. The audience found that she was very stereotypical and was someone who they always see in school. The audience was able to think of a person who they knew in school and relate them to Beth.

Josh Is only in the opening sequence for a short period of time so it was hard to show his stereotype fully. However from the audience feedback the audience was able to identify his stereotype and found that he was one of the strongest stereotypes that was shown in the opening sequence. They were able to identify his conformity of the popular person because of the way that he was being called off by other people in a different group, this showed to the audience that Josh was wanted by many people. This was good for us because we are now able to follow Josh’s stereotype that we have already shown and now we are able to challenge his stereotype later on in the production.

Overall we were successful in creating character’s that follow the stereotypes that we wanted to show in our opening sequence.

Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In this production I will look at who will distribute my production and where they would distribute it to. I will also look at the target audience and what way is best to advertise to them.

For my target audience it would be more beneficial to market through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook this is because my target audience is a younger audience and they would generally use the internet the majority of their day. Therefore advertising my thriller film through social media sites would be the best way to reach out to my target audience because they would most likely see the advert on a social media site. We could also create a Facebook page in which the page would be able to attract new people to want to see our film. On Facebook we are able to give Facebook money so that they try to appeal to the target audience more and the do all the promoting for us, meaning we don't have to do as much promoting.

Q4 - Who would be the audience for your media project?

This is a video of my target audience and how I believe they would look and act and what they would listen to in their music taste and also the shops that they would shop at. This helped me to identify my target audience and make a thriller opening sequence that would appeal to them and also to use characters that fit what the target audience would wear and look like.

This is who would be the target audience for my opening sequence. I chose to make this video to show what type of music, style, social networking etc. my target audience would like. I believe that they will be between the ages of 15-30 years old and I believe that my project appeals to both males and females. I chose to aim at both sexes because I believe that my project doesn't have a specific gender that it attracts the most therefore I would believe that it appeals to both genders. The majority of my target audience would be in education still which is why they would relate to the settings that are used in my opening sequences such as the school.  The psychographic grouping would be an expolrer, mainstreamer, advernturer and also a succeeder. These are all groupings that I believe would be intrigued to watch my opening sequence and the rest of the film. Their socio-economic grouping would be C1, C2 and D/ This is primarily based on the fact that most of the target audience would be in school hence why the socio-economic groupings are what they are because the audience would have not as of yet established themselves in a career. As you can see from the video my target audience are very urban and have a wide range of things that they like.

Q5 - How did you attract/address your target audience?

In this production I will look at how I addressed my target audience and will see what techniques that I used in order to entice my audience and how effective they were. In order to have a successful production I need to make sure that it appeals to the target audience so that I know that the target audience is right and it will sell well to them.

We were able to make our production appeal to the audience by making sure that the casting was perfect. By having characters of a similar age to our target audience we were able to entice the audience through the characters. For example if we had used older people but wanted our production to appeal to teenagers it would be much harder to attract a younger audience because they wouldn't be able to relate to the characters, therefore by making sure that we casted the right people we were able to make sure that the audience want to watch the film.

The stetting was also effective because we were able to chose settings that the audience are able to relate to. For example the target audience for our production would either be in school or would have just left. This means that they will have clear memories of school life. Therefore when they see the setting of the school they already know that the character will be of a similar age to them. This helps the audience to then understand the characters because they know that the characters would be going to a school because they are of school age.

Q6 - What I have learnt about Technology's from constructing my product?

I will look at how I have used different technical features such as a microphone and a camera and how effective I have been in using them.Whilst also looking at how I could have used them more effectively.

Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (continuity editing), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

I will look back at my prelim task and will see how I managed to make my second draft better than the first. Overall I believe that the second draft is a lot better than the first because the continuity is kept throughout the production meaning that it is more enticing and excited the audience. For example in the scene with Beth and Eloise at one part in the first draft the continuity is broken because the wrong angle is used which in turn has broke up the continuity.

When we were filming the second production and not the preliminary task I found that we worked more professionally. I partially put this down to already having an idea of what we needed to do due to the preliminary task that we had completed earlier on.  This meant that when it came to things like filming we were able to get it done much quicker and more efficiently to a level that both myself and Becky were happy with the way that it looked. This meant that the filming process was much less tedious and was more enjoyable. this also was the case for when we were editing. although we had to re-edit a lot of our production it meant that we were able to fine tune certain parts of the production that needed to have more work done of them to make them perfect. Such as adding the scene in which Beth now receives the text message from Rikki. This was something that we felt would help the narrative to run more smooth. This was something that made the final production much more easirer then the preliminary task because we were able to go out filming knowing what we wanted to do, whereas in the Prelim task we were more flimsy.

Audience Feedback

This is the audience feedback for my thriller opening sequence. In this audience feedback we interviewed two boys and two girls and asked them the same questions about our thriller opening sequence.