Evaluation Question 7

For this evaluation question, myself and Freddie decided to deal with it using a video commentary. The video consists of us sitting down, and watching our preliminary task, and our final cut of our films and then talking about what went well in both. We looked at all of the areas which included, Cinematography, Sound and Editing. We had a video of us speaking in the top right corner, while we played our preliminary task and final cut videos so the audience could understand what was going on.

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product? (Use www.surveymonkey.com) 

Before we made our final cut, we did a target audience survey on www.surveymonkey.com to find out which type of people watch films. In the pictures above, you can see the questions we asked and the answers that we got. We asked about gender and age. As you can see above, these were the results that we got from 10 people who decided to answer the survey. 6 of the 10 people (60%) were female and 4 of the 10 people (40%) were male. Also, 5 of the 10 people (50%) were between the ages of 16-18, 2 of the 10 people (20%) were 26+. Also, for the age groups: Under 12, 12-15 and 19-25, only one person said that they were in each of those age groups (The other 30%).

From our results, we could see who the audience would be who would watch our film. The results from the gender question was almost the same, so in terms of gender, the audience for our film would be both male and female. The results from the age question are a bit more complicated. For the age rating of our thriller, we decided that we would give it an age rating of 15, due to the disturbing murder scene that minors under the age of 15 may find distressing. Due to this, the audience for our film would likely be teenagers and young adults. It would be anyone from ages 16-30. This is because this age group is usually more interested in watching films than any other age group, and would specifically be more likely to watch thriller films that contain deaths like our film does.

Also, we believe that this age group would be more likely to be the audience for our film because they would be mostly be able to associate with the actors/actresses in the film. All of the actors/actresses are teenagers from a working class background and from our target audience survey, the age group of 16-18 is more likely to watch films. As this age group is within the teenager years, they will be able to associate with the actors/actresses within our film because they would know what they are going through.

Also, we asked people what they like in thriller films. In the above wordle, you can see the words that they said. They are mostly aspects of most thriller films and they are included within our film. For example, there is suspense, chase and weapons within our thriller film and these are just three of the words that people who like thrillers like to see within the thriller films and what they expect and like to see. We saw the results of the questions that we asked and made sure that we included as many of these thriller aspects as possible so people would enjoy the film.

Evaluation Question 3

 In case the poppet does not work, here is a link for it. http://popplet.com/app/#/1701993

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our media product was the opening to a thriller movie. The thriller movie has certain forms and conventions that make a thriller movie unique from any other kind of movie.  The conventions of the thriller genre are:

• Red Herring
• McGuffin
• Cliffhanger
• Enigma

In our thriller, we used a red herring. A red herring is when the audience is tricked into thinking that something is going to happen, only for them to be surprised when it doesn’t actually happen. Red herrings are put into thriller films in order to make the audience think about the film, and for the film to be unpredictable. The red herring that we use in our film is the character of Alex. She is the red herring in our film because at the start of the film, she gets robbed of her handbag. As a result, the audience would think that she is a typical woman who is an easy target and who gets scared easily. However, at the end of the film, we learn that Alex actually gets Freddie killed. This is a red herring because the audience wouldn’t expect Alex to be behind it because of the way she is portrayed at the start of the film, and the audience are surprised when they find out that Alex was behind it all along.

In our thriller, we also use a McGuffin. A McGuffin is a sub-storyline within the film which first seems to have big meaning, or a big impact on the whole storyline, but nothing really happens to advance the sub-storyline so it is forgotten and undeveloped. The McGuffin in our film is when Freddie steals the handbag from Alex and finds the USB stick. At first, it seems like an important bit of the storyline because there must be something important on the USB that Freddie needs. However, the audience never get to find out what was on the USB stick and the sub-storyline fades away when Freddie gets the folder, and then is ultimately murdered. The audience then have to think about what was on the USB stick as it must have been important if Freddie was stealing it.

In our thriller, we also use a cliffhanger right at the very end of the film. A cliffhanger is when the film ends on a very critical moment in the storyline, but then it ends with a dramatic scene where the audience want answers to their questions, but they don’t get the answers until they watch the next one. Using cliffhangers within films almost forces the audience to watch the next one because they would want answers to their questions and can only get these answers by watching the next one. The cliffhanger we use in our thriller film is right at the very end when Alex is on the phone and says “Yeah, yeah it’s done” after Freddie has been murdered. This is a cliffhanger, as the audience would want to know answers to the questions that they would have. These questions would be: Why did Carl kill Freddie? Why are Alex and Carl working together? Who was Alex on the phone to? Will they kill again? The audience would want answers to these questions so they would be more likely to carry on watching.

How is our thriller different?

In our film, we don’t use an enigma. An enigma is when a hero has a difficult problem which needs to be solved before dealing with the problem of the villain. We don’t have an enigma in our film, because this is where our thriller is different to most others. This is because there are no heroes within our thriller, as everyone is a villain. Freddie is a villain as he is stealing the handbag. Alex and myself are villains as they organise and execute the plan of killing Freddie. This makes our thriller different to most thrillers because usually, they all have heroes that save the day by overcoming the villain. Our thriller is unique in the way that it has no heroes as the villains of the film kill the villain.

In our film, we also use an animal as one of the main characters. We use a dog as one of the main characters as it is used for a good portion of the film as it chases Freddie after he steals the handbag. This is unique because most thrillers don’t use animals as one of the focal points of the film because of the difficulties in getting it to co-operate. We managed to get the dog to co-operate and make it do its job within the film, which makes our thriller unique to others.

Another way that our thriller is unique compared to other thrillers is the way that we have a female lead character in Alex. Also, she is made to look like a strong character, as she is able to organise the death of Freddie. This is rare for thriller films because usually the lead actor is usually a man, and they are the ones that are overcoming the villain. Also, the women in most thrillers usually have to be rescued by the male heroes.  In our thriller, the lead actress is a woman, and she proves to be smart and successful, as she doesn’t have to be rescued like women in other thrillers. She is able to evil in her ways and is able to kill of Freddie.

What films influenced us?

 One of the films that influenced us in the making of this film is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). This film influenced us, because it was one of the first films to have a lead actress who was a female and she was blonde. We liked this idea in that film, and as we had a blonde girl in our group, we decided to use this idea in our thriller film. As you can see from the pictures on the left, the lead actress in Psycho (Janet Leigh) is blonde. Also, you can see a picture of Alex within our film and you can clearly tell that she is blonde too. 

Another film that influenced us in the making of our thriller is the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006). In particular, the chase scene in the video above is the one scene in the film that influenced us with the making of our thriller the most. It influenced us, because we feel that our thriller film needed a chase scene in it, because it is a key part of a thriller film as it puts audiences on their edge of their seat. However, we decided to use the idea of the chase scene from Casino Royale but manipulate the idea too. Instead of having a human chase human like it is in Casino Royale, we decided to have a dog chase a human. This would make our film different and unique to other films. As you can see from our thriller above, we have utilised the chase scene using the dog and human which is different from Casino Royale but is similar.

Audience Feedback

New Breed - Finished Thriller

Peer Analysis of Rough Cut/Focus Group

j

Peer blog review

After completing our rough cut, we asked a group of our classmates to watch our rough cut of our thriller opening. After they had watched it, we asked them what positives that they could take from the film and what they think we did well. They gave positive comments about it and especially praised us about how we managed to get the dog to co-operate in the film. They praised how well we got the dog to act.  We also asked our peers if they had anything that they didn’t like or understand with our film. We did get constructive criticism about the ending of our film and how it wasn't finished and how people may have found it to be confusing. As the ending is not quite finished filming, we already knew about this and will be fixing these errors. It wasn’t clear to understand. Another error that they spotted was the whole car scene that we already knew was a mess. They spotted the continuity error, which was the car door, which was open when Freddie was on the laptop. This is an obvious error as they was able to point it out straight away so that will be an improvement that we will do when we come to filming again.