Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

As we were inspired by successful thriller movies, we also borrowed, developed and challenged some conventions of the thriller genre, in order to increase the professionalism of our project.

Conventions are typical characteristics, traits and elements of the particular genre of film. In terms of thriller genre, some conventions include:

• Unknown killers that are not revealed until the end of the film

• Non-linear timelines, which means events have been put into a non-chronological order to confuse the viewers about what's happening when

• Circular narratives- when the film starts as it ends

• The use of flashbacks to scramble the story line

• the killer protagonists have flaws or some type of physical or mental illness

The most relevant convention that we had to ensure we used in order for our movie to be considered as the thriller, was the plot complexity. We developed our plot into a non-linear timeline to make the audience uncertain of what is happening. The complex story line that is full of mysteries is a primary element of many thriller movies.

Our story also consists of unknown factors and the viewer has to concentrate to try and reveal them. However, in our film we have challenged one of the main conventions by revealing our killer right at the beginning of our film, which breaks the convention of many thrillers as they usually keep the killer unknown until the final stage. In our starting sequence, we built up tension by showing some parts of the villain and functions he does whilst preparing for his killing e.g. having shower, dressing up, packing, waking up. Due to our non-linear time sequence this comes after we have revealed the killer, but the audience does not know who he is killing or when it fits in the timeline. Because the killer has been revealed early on, so the we need to leave other aspects unknown to keep the audience watching and interested until the end. These reasons for keeping the audience interested is to find out why he is killing his victims, what happens after and if he gets caught. This is similar to some of the Hannibal films which also challenges this convention.

The killer in our film wears a suit which is also a regularly used convention by many directors while presenting their killers. The costume of a suit is a symbol of a male strength and dominance, many popular protagonists

like: James bond (007 series), Hitman (Hitman), Sloan (Wanted) or Joker (batman) are presented as wearing suits to appear more serious and professional. This costume also gives the killer a plain and calculative aspect that doesn't give much away.

In thriller films victims are never shown as strong, powerful and dangerous. They are always rather vulnerable and weak, highlighting the superiority of the killer creating a contrast and involving more feelings of sympathy. We have used this convention in our film by making our victim a vulnerable teenage girl who is in her house alone. Some other factors that made her vulnerable were that she had just woken up so she is still wearing white pyjamas which makes her seem unaware that anything is wrong. She is wearing fur slippers that are very childlike and also add to the contrast between the formally dressed killer and the casually dressed victim. We also used a high angle when the victim is lying dead on the floor as even though she is dead she still look vulnerable, leaving the audience thinking the killer is dominant and powerful.

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film opening represents different groups in different ways, the main social group represented in our film is the vulnerable, teenage girl who is easily preyed upon by the killer in our film. We made her seem vulnerable by having her in the film as being in her house alone. We also had her in a sate of relaxation as she had just got up and was still wearing her pyjamas, this makes her more defenceless as she is unsuspecting of anything bad happening. The cosutme she wears also connotes her childlike nature which further enhances her susceptibility. This is typical of many horror and thriller genre films, so we continued this stereotype as it has proved effective in the past. Examples of films that use this stereotype are some of the victims in the horror film Tormented and Seven.

The killer in our film is a teenage boy who is undertaking his first murder as revenge for his sisters death. His sister was killed by a group of friends before the time the film is set. The group of friends aren't shown together in the film, but will be killed off by the killer individually one after the next. This group of friend are not dominant in the film but are the key reason as to why the killer has taken actions to commit these murders. So we are representing this teenage group as being bullies and killing a teenage girl of their own age after the bullying gets out of hand. This is the reason our killer is cast as a teenager, which goes against conventions of stereotypical thrillers, however in a slightly similar way to ours the killer in Tormented is the ghost, or spirit of a teenage boy who committed suicide after being bullied by his peers.

Evaluation Question 3: what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

After producing a film, it gets assigned to a distribution company that then produce the film trailers and posters. Since our film is more of an independent thriller film witha low budget and more low key actors, the large distribution companies would not be likely to want to invest their time on such a small scale, low budget production that isn't substantiated by any big name actors. Therefore we would be more likely to distribute our film using a smaller, more independent company like 'Entertainment Film' who are a British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies. Although being more independent they have distributed numerous well known films including some big films in the horror/thriller genre such as the Saw films, Seven, and the Final Destination films, so they would be a good choice for the distribution of our product.

Another factor in distribution of films is advertising. An easy way to advertise our product to our specific target audience would be to advertise on social networking sites and other online websites such as Youtube, as well as conventional TV trailers, where there are large communities of people to impact on. One huge benefit of advertising on social netweorking communities like Facebook and Twitter is that you can target a narrow demographic by their age and hobbies etc. This means we could directly advertise to our target audience of 15-24 year olds. This would be an effective way of promoting our film as lots of people in our target bracket use social networking regularly.

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We profiled our target audience as 15-24 year olds as our film would most likely be rated and certified as a 15 age certificate by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) complex psychological aspects, scenes of violence and expletive language.

We would also aim our film at this age group because this has been reported as the largest consumer of this film genre, also predominantly males. The evidence we received from our questionnaire supports this statement as we questioned people in this demographic and we based our film on aspects they said they would like to see.

Evaluation question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We chose the teenagers to be our target audience. The advantage is that we already knew from our own experiences and personal taste what to use in the project. We also conducted a research on existing products for that specific target audience and learned what not to do and what to do more successfully. Another significant way of gaining the ideas was a questionnaire with general questions about the thriller/horror genre and it's aspects and elements.
Results we got were very useful while we could not decide whether to create a traditional thriller or gory horror. Most people claimed that they rather like to watch the traditional thriller than the bloody, brutal and violent and senseless gory film. Many people stated that they like the element of mystery that builds up their tension therefore as in thrillers' nature we included the scenes that are not clear straight away like for example the preparation of man that later appears to be a killer when he puts the knife into the bag.

Sometimes people incorrectly think that teenagers only prefer to see ruthless murders and dead bodies, many of them have different needs than are generally considered.

We wanted to satisfy the wider amount of audience therefore we used the elements that were mostly preferred in the questionnaire e.g. house setting that is more likely to be fearful, engaging plot requiring the concentration and some of the camera shots that are

particularly liked by the teenagers and can be usually found in the movies like Tormented, these are: jerky camera movement that creates the impression of disorder and instability or instant and rapid zoom out from the killer's eyes.

Such shoots add a bit of effective disruption to our production however perpetuating it's traditional style. In addition, all of our casts are teenagers which makes easier for audience to familiarise and sympathize with.
We have also included the death scene but unrevealing the actual action of killing, however girl is shown dead after the attack surrounded with blood and is being dragged away leaving the blood mark effectively linking to the title. Many younger audience may appreciate that also as this is something fresh and makes the murder scene still effective and touching even if it was not shown fully and detailed.

Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

As our project was a opening sequence of a movie. First thing in terms of technology, that comes to mind are cameras, however we were already experienced with using the cameras from previous years and private actions.
Therefore we did not encounter any difficulties and problems with them, the only significant change was shift from the tape camcorders to the modern ones supporting the SD storage that is more convenient and friendly. Biggest change to other years was using the apple computers and it's software like iMovie or 'The Garage Band' that required us to get familiar with, as they are fundamentally different than the traditional Windows-based computers and many of us did not have contact with such computers or software before. Furthermore, the inexperience with iMovie sometimes aroused problems like e.g. importing the footage from the camera that required the knowledge about the software and the different camera modes. However with help and advices of teachers and trial and error methods we finally got to know most aspects of available editing software. Moreover our skills and knowledge started developing with time. Therefore now when our project is in the final stage we are fully aware of most aspects of apple Mac computers and it's software like 'The garage band' or 'iMovie' that we used to work with our movie. The transfer to new technologies certainly was positive as current computers have better performance than previous, which is crucial while working on video editing, they also provide us with big space available to store the longer footage with better quality. Some software available on on the Apple Macs, such as iMovie sometimes seemed very simple, however, for most things we realized that we did not fully understand how to use and find, or engineer some techniques that we wanted to use. However, compared to the software we used at GCSE, Ulead Video Studio 8, as it was much faster to process and import footage.

We successfully learnt how to apply filters into video clips and adjust the speed, contrast and brightness of the clips to specifically enhance or portray a particular emotion or atmosphere. For example, i added the filter 'Dream' to all of my flashbacks to emphasize a passing in time.

Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have leant in the progression from it to the full product?

When we filmed our preliminary task we practiced a number of techniques to help us develop ideas. This task also really helped us gain knowledge on how to use the equipment and we also gained a little more expertise in the execution of our camera work. It gave us an insight into what shots are useful in what situation i.e. shot-reverse-shot is used for conversation but also the 180° rule should be used unless you are trying to create a reverse shot.

As mentioned before the 180° rule is a very important editing technique if dialogue is used between two characters. We did not carry this technique into our final edit as no dialogue appears in the opening of our thriller.

Another very useful technique that we practised in our preliminary task was match on action and continuity editing. This is important as it makes a scene look more realistic. For example we filmed sombody opening a door and using a second camera filmed the person coming into the room from the front view. This is more realistic than showing somebody enter the room from behind as this doesn't show the audience what somebody would see if they were in the room when the person entered. We also used continuity editing in our opening to smooth transitions between shots where most of the aspects remain still but some parts of the shot move. For example in our thriller we used match on action editing to cut from an over the should shot of the girl getting something out of the fridge to a 2 shot of her seeing the killer apper from behind the fridge door. To do this we made sure to match the position of the fridge door to match to the ssme position from both camera angles. Otherwise the fridge door would have jumped from being wide open to almost shut.

The preliminary task also helped us familiarize ourselves with the editting software, specifically we larnt how to cut and split clips, only keeping the clips we wanted ans how to crop a video clip like when we noticed that the vey bottom of the second camera tripod was visible in the shot.

Another factor that helped us was using wo cameras, it meant we had to plan our shots more carefully so neither of the cameras were visible in the other cameras shot, however it was also far more convenient than refilming the whole scene from a second angle as this is impossible to get exaactly the same and creates continuity errors.

Overall, I think our final piece has beenm edited to a much higher standard due to the practise and expertise that we gained by undertaking a preliminary task.