Evaluation Question Seven

7. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learn't in the progression from it to the full product?

Audio Response to Evaluation Question Seven:

Evaluation Question Seven Notes:

G321 evaluation acitivity 7 notes

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Evaluation Question Six

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

List of technologies used with what I learnt:

1. TRIPOD: With the tripod I learnt to make sure that I look at the built in spirit level monitor to make sure that the camera was steady and that it wasn't titled. This was important because it added to the overall quality of the shots.

2. DIGITAL CAMERA: I learnt how to upload the pictures from the memory stick onto a photograph printer for the shot of the photographs on the wall.

3. DIGITAL VIDEO CAMERA: I learnt a lot about white balance on these cameras. In particular, that because of their white balance settings you cannot film a computer screen using one of these cameras because the lens is unable to focus and get a clear shot.

4. iMac: In general, I learnt a lot more about the different features that come with an apple mac, for example, 'grab' is the apple version of print screen on a windows computer.

5. PROFESSIONAL VIDEO CAMERA: I learnt that the white balance on these cameras are better than on the other digital video camera as the lens can focus on the computer screen, so the audience are able to read what is being typed up in the opening. I also had to learn how to use this camera and find where all its functions were (like the record button) because nobody in our group had ever used one before. Furthermore, when uploading the footage filmed on this camera I learnt that you cannot upload footage filmed on this professional camera through the other digital cameras.

Additional Information:

•YouTube – I developed my knowledge of posting videos online in order to gain feedback. However, with YouTube I learnt that you can never guarantee that the people commenting are within the age range of your target audience.

•Facebook – this website was especially helpful because we could post our videos online and ask for audience feedback (because you can see who is commenting you can make sure that they are part of your target audience). I also learnt that it is a good website to use for communicating with other members of the group because you can tag each other in your status updates with links etc in order to make sure that everyone is up-to-date.

•SlideShare- I learnt how to upload slideshows and word documents and then embed them onto my blog

•iMovie- this programme allowed me to develop my editing skills. Through the process of constructing this product I learnt how to speed up and slow down different clips. I also learnt how to change the colouring of certain clips and how to make the camera movements appear smoother by used a tool called ‘stabilizer’.

•iTunes- after downloading copyright free music from www.freeplaymusic.com onto iTunes I learnt how to transfer it onto our media product

•Blogger – I learnt how to create a blog and upload and embed different files and formats in order to make my blog as interesting as possible

•DaFont – this is the website that we got the text that we used for the film of our title from. It helped me to learn how to download and install fonts onto my computer

•Photoshop – I used YouTube tutorials to teach me how to use it. After watching the videos I learnt how to create different images and this is the programme that I used to create the title image on my blog

•KeepVid – how to download a video from YouTube and paste it into the opening two minutes of our film. (Used this for the ‘Fox Searchlight Production’ indent)

Evaluation Question Five

5. How did you attract/address your target audience?

In our media product we attracted our target audience in a variety of ways. For example, the narrative that we created appeals to both males and females, as the action would appeal to males and the undercurrent love story would appeal to the females within our target audience.

We created an open narrative that actively engages our audience, as the uses and gratifications theory suggests that contemporary audiences are not passive. Therefore, in order to attract our target audience we had to get them to engage in our media product, as according to this audience theory they would not watch our film if they were passive. To do this we included some of Barthes narrative codes within our opening; for example the hermeneutic code (we created questions within our audiences minds to keep them hooked and to encourage them to piece together the story line) and the semic code (we gave our audience details about our characters, e.g. Mia is 'smart' and 'attractive', so that they can actively build up an understanding of the character).

Examples of the hermeneutic code in our opening:

Moreover, the construction of our characters also helped us to appeal to our target audience, as by using actors of a similar age to our target audience our opening would appeal more to them as it would be more reminiscent of their own lives and therefore, it would be more scary for them. Also as shown in evaluation activity two we tried to represent our target age group as positively as possible within our opening to attract them to our product.

Still from our film which shows the age of our actors

The camera shots that we used within our opening also mean that our target audience can easily identify with our main character, as the use of Close Ups (CU) encourage identification with the character because they take the audience into the mind of the character. For example, the final shot of Horatio watching the pictures.

Still of the final shot mentioned above

The location that we used would also appeal to our target audience, because it would be reminiscent of their everyday lives.

Still of Horatio in school

Furthermore, when I was conducting my research it became obvious to me that part of what created the eerie atmosphere in most psychological thrillers is the music/soundscore (as shown in the opening two minutes of 'Blue Velvet', which consists solely of titles playing over a piece of blue velvet that moves dubiously onscreen, yet it still manages to create tension because of the music used). Therefore, we knew that to attract our audience we had to use music that created suspense and that heightened tension at the right moments (for example, when Horatio is typing up the article in the newspaper office the music becomes more intense than it was at the start). The copyright free music that we chose to use encourages our audience to feel suspense as it actively engages them in what is going on onscreen so that they want to watch more and therefore, attracts them to our media product.

We held a screening for our media product to see if we had successfully attracted our target audience and then asked them questions on what they had watched. Here is what they said:

From our audience feedback I feel that we successfully attracted our target audience.

Evaluation Question Four

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience are young adults, aged around 15-21. Normally, psychological thrillers are aimed at adults from about mid twenties to late forties, which is shown through the use of middle-aged male characters within most story-lines. We chose to go against these conventions and instead chose younger actors and lowered the usual target audience. From our research we knew that as a lot of psychological thrillers are classified either as 12As or 15s, therefore, teenagers are allowed to watch them according to the law. Furthermore, we know that teenagers like to be scared as they are the target audience for most slasher horror films, therefore a psychological thriller aimed at teenagers would appeal to them because they like to be scared and a psychological thriller with a teenager as a main character would scare them more than a middle aged character because it is more reminiscent of their own lives. In recent years, the age group of target audiences for psychological thrillers has started to decline as shown by films like 'The Butterfly Effect' (2004) where the main actor, Ashton Kutcher, as well as the other characters, are younger than the usual characters of psychological thrillers, so it appeals to younger generations. Moreover, films like 'Final Destination' that can been seen as a mix between a horror and a psychological thriller appeal to a young adult audience like our film, as companies have noticed the demand for horror/psychological thrillers amongst this age group.

Unlike with horror/slashers that are aimed mainly at males, rather than females, psychological thrillers are aimed at a much broader audience, which ultimately makes them more marketable. This is reflected in our target audience, which is non-gender specific as there are parts of the story line that will appeal to both males and females. For example, the action that would later unfold between Noah and Horatio would interest males that like action scenes. Whereas, the idea of the age old story of the love triangle would appeal to most females, especially because the Mia defeats Horatio's dominant hold over her in the end. Our media product is mainly aimed at working/middle-class teenagers, that are at college/sixth form studying for their a-levels. They would be quite social people, like Mia is in our film and would be able to understand the different social cliques within schools, such as the unpopular nerds like Horatio and the popular group that Mia is at the centre of. They would also be the sort of people that like feeling:

• suspense
• uncertainty
• anxiety
• excitement
• nerve racking tension

(as these are the feelings that psychological thrillers are known to promote)

Evaluation Question Three

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We chose Fox Searchlight Pictures to be the distributers of our media product, because they are a sub-division of 20TH Century Fox that specialise in low budget British independent films and have distributed popular psychological thrillers such as ‘One Hour Photo’. They would be a good distributer for our film because they are a reliable and reputable company that would support and promote our film fully, as even though it is a British independent film we have quite a mainstream target audience.

Also when conducting my research I found that psychological thrillers tended to be produced by big name companies like ‘Columba’ and ‘New Line Cinema’. However, as these companies are American companies it is unlikely that they would distribute a British independent film, which is why we chose to go with Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Moreover, the money that we would use to produce our film would probably come from the National Lottery Film Council, who are known to support British independent films, and our distribution company. However, as our film doesn't have many actors in it or any special effects we wouldn't need a lot of money to produce it. Furthermore, our film would first be distributed to cinemas and would then be distributed to shops like HMV and online retailers like www.amazon.co.uk in DVD and Blu-ray form.

Evaluation Question Two

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?Evaluation Activity Two

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Evaluation Question One

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

Evaluation Question One Video Response:

Evaluation Question One Notes:

G321 evaluation question one

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Final Film

Alternative Endings...

When we had finished the opening of our film a couple of people suggested that the ending was too abrupt, so we decided to film an extra scene and see which ending our target audience prefered. We showed four members of our target audience the two openings and filmed their response.

Ending One:


Ending Two:


Target Audience Response:

Audience view of newspaper shot

We asked a few people from our target audience to watch our film as it was. However, when asking them about what they had just watched 2/3 of them were confused about the typing on the screen. One person correctly identified it as a newspaper, but they suggested that we used a different font and size for the title of the newspaper. On the other hand, the other two weren't sure whether he was writing a diary of some sort.

Our media teacher then asked us whether we thought that a diary or a newspaper would be more creepy and show the extent of his obsession. My first thought was that it would be unlikely that someone could keep a diary on a computer, but then I thought about blogs. However, it would be unlikely that our main character would keep a blog of his obsessional thoughts about Mia because then people would see it and be made aware of his obsession before the story line had a chance to develop, so we chose to stick with the newspaper and took the first audience's members views on board. Particularly as you are more likely to be flattered if someone writes a positive newspaper article about you, compared to a diary entry, which most people would find creepy and sinister.

Neurosis Draft (without music) Feedback

This is what we have so far, however, there are a couple of shots missing and there isn't any music added yet. We uploaded it onto facebook and youtube to see what people thought of it how it was and if the messages that we wanted to convey were conveyed effectively. By doing this in advance of the deadline it will give us a chance to see if we need to make any changes and to see if we have successfully made our film appeal to our target audience. Here is what we asked the audience to comment on:

These are a mixture of the comments that we received:

Overall, I would say that most people thought that he was sinister (or that someting wasn't right about him) and that Mia was being portrayed as vulnerable. A couple of people said that they didn't know that she was vulnerable until the end of the opening two minutes when the pictures were displayed. However, I don't see this as a bad thing because it means that within the opening two minutes it is shown that she is vulnerable and we have sucessfully conveyed what we wanted to.

Deleted First Scene

This was are initial first scene. However, after filming it we decided that we wanted to change the scene because we didn't think that it worked well with our film and it gave too much away. Moreover, as a group we felt that Leon falling on the floor made it too comedic and drew attention away from the story line. Also, when we compared this scene to our research on psychological thrillers we noticed that we had introduced too many characters in the opening scene as most of the films that we looked at stuck to introducing 1-2 characters. We uploaded the video onto http://www.youtube.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/ as we wanted to know if other people agreed with our opinions. These are the questions that we asked:

These are some of the comments that we received:

The comments that we recieved confirmed our opinions on the fall being too comedic and not fitting in with the genre. Therefore, we changed this scene to just Horatio following Mia as it was more simplistic because the audience were not being bombarded with characters and works better with our genre. Moreover, the first comment we recieved was also helpful as it showed that we had effectively conveyed that Horatio was an isolated member of society.