Final Media Evaluation

For our final piece in media, we were asked to produce an opening to a film of whatever genre and style we wished. We, collectively, decided to choose the genre of thriller/horror as we believed that this genre would be challenging, would test our creativity and knowledge of the subject but would be a lot of fun to produce. Our film was about a young woman, named Sally Thomas, who lived with her psycho boyfriend, Dave. Although the story changed throughout the process, the main idea was that Sally was suspiciously murdered, but being a single woman with no family and living in almost a minuate village means that her body was never discovered. After the murder sequence, there would be a brief clip of a scene where the same boyfriend, Dave, would be onto his next victim in his serial killings. My partner and I decided to really emphasise the mis-en-scene of a typical horror film. We did this by filming at night, using dim lighting and using sinister and ominous objects which are used in other films of this genre (for example, the motif of the phone is used in Scream). The main audience for our media piece was a wide range of people. We wanted to aim it at an older children audience principally ranging from teenagers up to young adults (15-25 age group). Generally, I am quite pleased with the opening, however I believe (from our feedback and own opinion) that some objectives we did not achieve.

Our media piece used many forms and conventions similar to other media products of the genre of thriller. We decided to make this one of our most important aims. For this to happen, we looked at many thriller openings to see how we could create the desired effect of tension. Typical conventions found in this genre include examples such as the setting should be at night time, there should be some form of suspicious act occurring (in most films, a murder), there should be a stereotypical bad character who is committing/has committed these actions and that a great deal of tension should be built up by music, lighting and objects. We decided to use these particular conventions for out piece.

Music and sound effects was obviously an important part of the editing process and, in my opinion, was one of the strongest parts of the piece. We decided to use quite perilous music, with a strong beat. The music we used was also non-diegetic, which, in my opinion, played a significant role in creating the atmosphere to the opening. We also found that it was important to include some diegetic noises (for example, the ringing of the telephone and noise of the radio) in creating, again, a similar effect. However, our piece does challenge stereotypical conventions of the horror genre. It does this by having the actual murder take place off screen and the fact that we never actually find out if he kills her or not. Also, the murder occurs in an ordinary household which isn’t, necessarily, the most likely place for a murder to take place and does, in my opinion, add to the tension as the audience empathises with the fact that this could happen to them.

Semiotics was another important objective that my partner and I really tried to empathise. We used key objects to portray this. For example, the use of the phone as a motif was important for the fact that it was generally quite a sinister object. The phone denotes, obviously, communication (in this case lack of it) and connotes many things such as an anonymous caller, which are familiar to films such as Scream. Also, the continuous ringing of a phone is quite a sinister and ominous sound which adds to tension. Also, the use of the setting in a household adds to the tension and occurs in films such as, again, Scream.

The social groups that my film represents are, when thinking about class, probably working class- blue-collar workers. This is shown by the clothes that Sally wears – she is not presented as being particularly smart and her clothes are baggy and plain. Also, her house is quite small and she rides a bicycle – a free mode of transport. I believe she is representing, also perhaps, the student population. This is clear from the folders she is carrying which connotes education and work.

In my opinion, I believe that the sort of media institution that would distribute our product would probably be a company such as the BBC. I believe that our film would probably work better as a television programme because it is quite a small and slight story and could work as just an episode in a series (for example, like an episode of something like Hustle). I believe that it would work better as this for the reason that the story is probably not complex enough to make into a film and the BBC often produces programmes of a similar nature (For example, Tales of the Unexpected and the Detective Linely series). However, I believe that if the story were to be expanded to a greater detail, it is possible that a institution such as Universal Pictures could create a feature film as the genre is generally more suited to films.

The audience, which our film is probably based towards, is definitely towards teenagers and young adults. This is mainly because the characters and actors we have chosen are of that age (young adults) and the genre of horror tends to be suited for a younger audience. This can be seen in films such as The Blair Witch Project that is based around a group of teenagers who get lost in the forest. Another reason why it is based towards teenagers is the fact that we use quite colloquial language and we use technologies, which are suitable towards teenagers, and they can really empathise with them (for example, the mobile phone).

From the process of constructing the opening, I believe I have learnt a lot about media technologies and the sort of programming needed – in particular, making reference to the editing software we used which was, in our case, iMovie. Although, at times, it was complex to use (I’m particularly referencing to the sound issues we had and the difficulty of copying a sound from a home computer to the Apple computers at school), I believe generally it was fairly simple software, which make it particularly easy for my group who had no previous experience. I believe that one of the easiest parts of the editing process was the cutting and moving of the clips. This was fairly self-explanatory and was definitely something new I’d learnt about technology.

Looking back now at my preliminary task, my knowledge of the subject of editing and filming has expanded vastly and I believe I am now much better equipped for doing this sort of task again as my ideas have changed as well. For example, in my preliminary task, I had no realisation of how important things such as mis-en-scene and semiotics were in creating a dynamic product. In my preliminary task, I tended to ignore such things as conventions and concentrated a lot more on things like camera shots and, to an extent, sound and music. In comparison with my preliminary task, I feel that I have improved my understanding of everything in media and I definitely feel that my final piece is a vast improvement on my preliminary task, despite the negativities.