8)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the time at which my group and I made our prelim, we have made a substantial amount of progression. This progression and development of our idea's, ability and understanding, led us to create our final thriller opening production.
However, in order for us, as a group, to make it to the stage we are now at, it was essential for us to encorperate everything we had learnt into our filming and to also absorb all the knowledge and advice given to use by our teachers.

We were taught how to make a detailed and descriptive analysis of all our footage, this included our prelim, bag swap scene and final thriller opening.

In addition we were introduced to some new and interesting programmes that allowed us to display our work or even arrange it into forms of presentations in very imaginative ways, these included; Blogger, Vimeo, Prezi etc.


We Have also gained understanding on how to
create clips/scenes that will attract certain target audiences, for example, for our thriller opening,
we chose to use young actors and gave the film a plot that would appeal to both male and female viewers ranging from 16-25. We were able to do this since our opening had elements that both genders would be able to relate to i.e. 'romance' for the female audience and 'crime' for the male audience,
however, since the overall sub-genre for our film is psychological,
we have 'ticked every box' and created a film that will appeal to an even broader audience.

Over the course of time, from when we first shot our prelim to when we made our final thriller opening, we gained a variety of technological skills including how to carefully and effectively handle and use the media tripods and camera.
We learnt about focusing (using Manual and Auto focus),
how to adjust the hight of the camera and the legs of the tripod, how to render our clips once we had recorded them and also how to transfer them onto FinalCutPro (FCP).

FCP was a programme we used when looking at any of our clips. it allowed us to add effects such as; fade, dissolve etc.
In addition FCP allowed us to assemble our clips onto a timeline in order to arrange them chronologically then alter the length of clips, the effects over them and the overall timing of the clips once on the timeline.

Additionally, we learnt how to use LIveType and Soundtrack Pro which are programmes that allow you to add texts and sound over and clip that we created. We were able to demonstrate our abilities to transfer our clips to LT and SP when we created our final thriller opening, which had opening titles such as; production company, starring actors, director etc. Also, we created and then added on sound to our clips via soundtrack pro; this is where my group and I, picked from a selection of music genres that suited our film and our target audience.


Here is a screen grab from our Preliminary task, as well as one from our final production. We have made some major progression, including; how to alter the lighting, angles and focusing of our shots.
Also, our editing skills have substantially improved. Including our cuts, transitions, effects music etc.

4&5) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract /address your audience?

Our thriller is a low budget student video, therefore it would have a low budget British Independent production company that would also distribute the video in varies ways. In our case, this production company is Candi Media Studios.  There are a variety of ways we can distribute our film in order to get a larger viewing audience. Our thriller will get a cinematic screening amongst the rest of the media students, as well as a DVD release of 200 copies. Of course, a major way to reach out to a larger audience is through the internet. Therefore, we can also release our thriller on Facebook, twitter, Youtube, Blogger, and Vimeo. All these are well known social networking sites that allow millions of people to connect with just a click, therefore it wouldn’t matter if its someone in college, at work or at home, they would always be able to see our thriller and also comment on it, that way helping us see where we might have gone wrong, as well as acknowledge the good bits in it.

3) Who would be the audience for your media product?

We have a broad target audience for our thriller opening, appealing to both genders and all races of people, however, since the main actors within our film are quite young, our film appeals more to a younger audience ranging from 16-25.

 Thriller films can also have many sub-genres that appeal to both male and female watchers, such as; romance, suspense, horror, crime, action, Sci-Fi etc.  Specifically, the suspense within thrillers appeals more towards  female audiences, while the crime to the male. When it comes to age, our ideal audience would be around 16 to 25 years old, because our actors are quite young and would therefore appeal to the younger age of the scale, however the plot would appeal to the 25 year olds +. Because our thriller revolves around relationship issues as well as the psychological aspect, it might appeal more to couples as they can relate to the storyline to some extend, however, the psychological aspects of the thriller, allows the boundary to expand to just about anyone who likes to think things through, and work things out for themselves.

Lewis is a typical target member for our thriller opening, he's 16 years old and is a student at City and Islington Six Form College. He is currently doing three A Level's including; Biology, Electronics and psychology. He enjoys, skating, going to the cinema, playing xbox 360 and spending time with his friends.

Here is a few of the items he carries around with him or in his bag:

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here we have a still shot from the thriller series 'Dexter' and our own thriller opening (One way 61363).  The similarities between these shots are that they are both taken from the daily morning routine of the killer within each film, both have been shot from over the shoulder and the setting for both is within the bathroom, however, with the shot of Dexter, the audience cannot clearly see his face; this adds to the levels of suspense and builds tension since we are unaware of what he is thinking or feeling.

Both characters from each film are represented in a way that make them seem suspicious or as if they have something to hide,  although, I believe that a more suspenseful atmosphere has been created by the over the shoulder shot of Dexter since the camera focuses on the back of his head so we cannot see his face, and we cannot see his reflection in the mirror as the background is more out of focus.

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

Panic Room title sequence 

Here I have chosen to select nine still shots from the title sequence of 'Panic Room'. This opening choses to use a range of ariel long shots and high angles in order to establish the surroundings whilst also incorporating the titles in to the setting itself. However, for our two minute thriller opening, we chose to use basic, plain and simple titles that appear then fade away after about two seconds of being exposed, we chose to do this since it links to the simple theme, idea and environment in which we filmed our thriller.

Since the title sequences within our media product does not reflect the titles seen within the opening of 'Panic Room' and our shots are not as difficult to achieve, our media product therefore challenges some of the forms and typical conventions of real media products.

However, Panic Room and our thriller opening (One Way 61363), both chose to input the production studio, production company and the main actors names as the initial titles within the film, although, we chose to place the film's title at the end of the movie rather than the beginning since there is a link between the title and the penultimate shot.

6) Audience feedback and comments

The audience felt that our 2 minute thriller had good music throughout, good use of Mise en scene, good shots e.g. close up's, shot reverse shots etc. In addition the audience also felt that our film was very suspenseful and atmospheric however they said that the music could have been slightly more sinister.