Evaluation

  

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

‘You’re my Friend Now’ follows the codes and conventions of the Horror / Thriller sub-genre. For example, our storyline follows the common theme of sadistic kidnapping. This occurs, for example, in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) (seen here) which both revolve around victims being held captive and tortured to death. However in our production the victims are young children. As in other films, our killings take place in an isolated location – an abandoned warehouse.

You can see the similarity between the locations used in Hostel and our film here.  Another convention of the thriller genre we have incorporated is the use of keeping the audience in mystery / suspense by not revealing too much about what is about to happen. For example, from the beginning of the film we see a young girl with a limp which makes her appear harmless and weak. However the quick flashes of ambiguous items act as multiple enigma codes, adding disruption to the equilibrium by making the girl seem sinister. This gives our exposition a unique twist. Another enigma coding is that we see our victim surrounded by candles inside the warehouse (as above), connoting some kind of demonic ritual is in progress (as in Hostel, left).

Our thriller does not use a typical antagonist and protagonist, as they are very similar characters on the surface, only with glaring differences hidden deep within. The antagonist (the ‘disabled’ girl, Mary) and the man (her subservient carer) conform to typical horror thriller conventions in that they are both psychopaths, showing no remorse towards taking lives. The main antagonist, however, is very much the same to look at as her victim in the clip as she is around the same age, which is an atypical characteristic.

As in other horror thrillers, such as Valentine (2001), the killer holds a grudge against others.  In our case,  this is because Mary is seen to be without any friends of her own age. Using a false disability has not helped, other than to enable her to carry out her crimes without being seen as a suspect, similar to Kevin Spacey’s character in The Usual Suspects (1995).   

In our clip, Mary is also seen shown wearing a bright pink coat and with her hair in pig tails, connotating that she is just an ordinary little ‘sugar and spice’ kind of girl, adding to the shock value when it is revealed that she is actually a mentally disturbed killer. Hitchcock used this technique to good effect with the character of Norman Bates, in Psycho (1960).  As Mary is physically weak, she uses a subservient young man to obey her orders and carry out the killing. This male character follows the conventions of a horror thriller by wearing mask as he is about to kill the girl, techniques commonly used, for example in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 & 2003) and Halloween (1978) 

Our use of camera shots and angles also follows horror thriller conventions. For example, we use a canted angle to add disarray and tension to the shot of Mary walking down the road - a technique used in Batman (1966) and The Blair Witch Project (1999). 
For the POV shot of the two killers walking through the warehouse, we speeded up the action to connote the feeling that the killers were somekind of animals closing in on their prey, as in An American Werewolf in London (1981).

We also used a variety of weapons including knives, hammers and pliers which were all covered in blood connoting that the killers had already tortured people, a convention used in Saw (2004). Regarding mise-en-scene, we decided to shoot in an abandoned warehouse, as it connoted lifelessness and despair with its cracked walls and dirty floors – a similar setting to the dungeon-like areas use in Hostel (2005).



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

Although the girl killer, Mary, is presented stereotypically, with her girly pink coat and charming pigtails, her personality is completely different. She is shown not to be the joyful, innocent little girl that her appearance suggests. Instead she is a dominant, crazy psychopath, shown through how stern and confident she is when ordering around the other, much older, male killer. Mary is also represented as being disabled through her limp in the beginning, which we later find out is actually a trick to convince others that she is weak and vulnerable, similar to Kevin Spacey’s character in The Usual Suspects (1995). But disability is also conventionally associated with strangeness and evil in films, such as in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939 & 1996) and 300 (2006). Mary's portrayed as lower middle class through her fashionable clothes and being well groomed, while the male killer is portrayed as middle to lower class through his  hoodie which is seen as a symbol of deviance among the youth culture and has become an image that strikes fear into many people.  

The little girl victim on the other hand is represented in a stereotypical way, as vulnerable and mentally distressed, emphasizing that she is just a weak young girl. Regarding masculinity, the male killer is shown to be strangely subservient, happily adding to the little girl’s suffering by wearing a clown’s mask, connoting that he is doubly evil, as in It (1990). We also attempted to represent modern London through the use of both black and Asian actors as this is a way of showing how London is racially diverse and shares many cultures. We also managed to avoid racial stereotypes by representing both good and evil by black actors.

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

Our thriller would most likely be funded as an independent British film, for example by UK Film Council / BFI who encourage the development of film in the UK and produce film funding through the national lottery.  The UK Film Council / BFI would fund us as our film has a very British feel to it, using British characters and locations. 

The UK Film Council has helped many British film companies to produce and distribute very successful films; such as This is England (2006) and even the Oscar winning The Kings Speech (2010). 

However the UK Film Council is due to close down in April due to government cuts, though they are handing all of their operations to the BFI. A company such as Warner Independent may also distribute our film as they have also produced UK based low budget films that have become an international success, such as Slumdog Millionaire (2008).

However I believe that our thriller would go straight to DVD as it would not get enough funding for a cinema release and even if it did it could not compete with the high budgets of American films, which dominate the film market. I believe that our film would get a BBFC rating of 15, but I believe that our film could be shown on TV, for example  Film 4 as they show many UK independent films such as Kidulthood (2006). Because of its violence our film could not be shown before the watershed of 9pm.

UK independent films often have trouble getting distribution deals, as they don’t bring in much profit compared to the major Hollywood films. So the major distributers don’t see UK independent films as good investments. However our film would stand out from other UK films as its unique in that it portrays a young black girl as the main villain, and it also has all the thriller conventions that would appeal to the audience such as mystery. There would also be a lot of marketing opportunities for our film, we could have TV interviews with the stars of the film, posters and even T-shirts with the title of the films printed on them and even quote’s from the film. This would entice distributers, as they would receive a share of any merchandise from our film.
 
4). Who would be the audience for your media product?

As indicated by our initial research, our target audience age range is mainly 15-40.

Initial research showed that our target audience mainly watched thrillers with a BBFC rating of 15, with their favourites being such films as Orphan (2009), the Butterfly Effect (2004-2009) and The Matrix (1999).
 Obviously, our film is similar to these thrillers, so their audiences may also be attracted to our film.

Our film would particularly appeal to the Black and Asian communities, as the main characters have these ethnic backgrounds. However it would also appeal to wider audiences as it is based in and around London and uses British characters. As there are no foreign locations or actors, a foreign audience would not be interested in a film like ours, which is essentially British.

Our target audience also indicated that their preferred sub-genre was horror thrillers, so these are the fans we will be appealing to most. .

We also discovered that our target audience did not like storylines that were almost always similar but produced in a different way. In order to overcome this, we came up with an original idea, based around our main villain being a serial killing, young, black girl.

5). How did you attract/address your particular audience?

Our research revealed that most of our target audience enjoy mystery in thrillers, as they believe it adds tension. We therefore incorporated a lot of mystery, such as mutilated toys, leading up to the ambiguity of who the killer really was. We also found that horror was the most popular genre in our target audience, so we made sure to incorporate a lot of horror techniques.  For example, we used plenty of enigma codes such as the blood stained sheet with legs sticking out from underneath it.  For the sound track, we used typically eerie music, with news reports of a missing child – all helping to disrupt the equilibrium and key the audience into the nature of the film. 

Something, which we found that our target audience did not like, was when the story got to confusing and complicated with a hard to follow story or too many characters. So we decided to make the story as straightforward as we could while still keeping it tense and mysterious. We also used quick flashes of objects that linked to what was happening in the scene, be it a metaphor for something such as when we see the bear being stabbed to symbolize the forthcoming doom of the girl, or the cutaways to items already in the shot that lets us focus on them with better detail.

We also scripted everything to achieve a BBFC classification of 15, as this would be the lower range of our target audience. For example, although our film clearly contains violence, it is not as graphic as the girl is never mutilated on screen, with only the implication of this. Also there is no nudity or strong language.

From our research evidence it showed that our Audience loved horror thrillers and that they also enjoyed mystery and suspense in their movie. They also liked movies such as A Clockwork Orange (1971) and V for Vendetta (2006), which are both movies with a very dark overtone so we decided to incorporate this into ‘You’re my friend now’ with the issue of child murder. We also attempted to attract the audience through making them feel sympathetic towards the girl who is going to be killed as seen in the shot where you are put into the victim’s point of view. You can see the killer snipping his shears, and because the shot is looking down at the little girl it helps the audience realize just how small and hopeless she is and how overwhelming and freighting the killer is.

Another thing we found that our audience liked was the feeling of excitement and a thrill so we addressed this by exaggerating the process of when the killer is going in for the kill which was done by snipping the shears very loudly and also having even more rapid  shots of items covered in more blood, indicating that things are about to get gory. We also address the audience's need for a thrill in the POV shot of the killer as he gets closer to the girl going in for the kill, like the killer shark in Jaws (1975).

The reception we got back from our audience feedback was good. They thought the shots flowed together, meaning that our editing was good and most of them also believed that the music was conventional of a horror, helping to further make the audience believe that the film is a horror. All of our respondents believed that are costumes, locations and props was of a good standard, especially the fake blood which they thought looked lifelike and helped to enforce the convention of a horror thriller movie.

To start the project we first conducted research into the genre of thriller and our target audience where I learnt how to use websites such as Google, Wikipedia and IMDB in order to find detailed data on specific films that related to our project. I also learnt how to use Microsoft Excel so that I could analyse data that I had collected and put it into easy to understand graphs.

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

At the start of filming we encountered many problems when filming, such as having problems getting the Cannon XM2 camera shots in focus using the focus ring and also getting the correct lighting for the different setups. However we learnt to overcome these issues by practicing shots and analysing them. In this way we were able to pull focus smoothly, as can be seen in the first shot of the girl victim tied up where the camera starts off with a blurred shot that slowly comes into focus. We also tried out different lighting techniques, such as how to use natural lighting to good effect. We could see how much better this softer light could be than three point lighting. For example in the scenes in the warehouse we used natural light to give a flatter, more gloomy and more sinister feel.  We also learnt how to use the tripod correctly in order to get a stable shot, as can be seen in the shots of the girl killer walking through the park.This contrasted to some very effective hand held shots, such as the fast paced track through the warehouse, which was quite shaky, giving it more of a documentary feel  . We were also able to use our knowledge of the tripod to produce canted angles and very low angles to good effect, for example the canted angle of Mary walking down the road gives everything a very distorted feel.

During filming we also encountered a major fault with our camera, as when we played back our footage there was no sound. We had to reshoot.  What we learned here is to check your equipment before going on location!

We also learnt how to use Final Cut Pro. In particular we learnt how to: -Capture footage from our tapes into different folders.

     -Add footage to the timeline.

     -Use different transitions (such as cuts and dissolves
  -Add a coloured title and coloured captions.

  
We also learnt how to use colours efficiently by using red text on a black background as we knew that it would make the reds stand out and also connotes blood and the darkness. Red was also the best colour to use against black as we had tried many different colours such as brown, blue and yellow however these colours it did not give us the menacing effect we were looking for and it looked dull.

As well as learning how to edit and use the camera correctly we also learnt how to blog our work and transfer videos onto our blog. At first we had trouble uploading our work onto our blog as it came out differently to how we had made it, with text in different sizes and places. However as we continued to use blogger our experience grew and we learnt how to successfully transfer our work into blogger without any problems.

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

Research & Planning

When we started to come up with ideas for our Preliminary Exercise we were a little unsure of ourselves, as we did not know if our ideas would work or not on film.  However, as we progressed through the shooting and editing of our Preliminary Exercise, our understanding of things improved. When it came to the same stage of the Thriller production, we realised that we had become more confident in our ability to pitch ideas and give feedback as a group. We also learnt that we had to research things more thoroughly for our thriller. Such as having to look at genre, where we researched the forms and conventions of a thriller horror as well as conducting a similar text analysis where we analysed all aspects of the first two minutes of a thriller , looking at the use of picture as well as sound, lighting, mise-en-scene and all the connotations. We also learnt from our preliminary task that we have to know our target audience in great detail, their likes and dislikes in order to tailor our film accordingly. We carried out questionnaires and interviews in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data so that we could analyse the information in more detail.

In order to get a more professional looking film compared to our preliminary task, we also had to look at institutional context and professional practice. We also learnt how to conduct our roles within the group according to how they act them out in the film making process. The producer took a leadership role, while the director held the position of head of the film itself while the cameraman made sure the shots looked good and captured what the director had envisioned. We also learnt about BBFC guidelines and what we can and can’t include in our films depending on our age certificate, for example we could not have excessive gore or nudity in our film if it was only a 15 certificate.
 

Construction

We also had problems using the camera and being able to remember how to set it up or even turn it on. But we gradually developed our camera skills and we were able to set up the Cannon XM2 in very little time. Our use of camera shots also improved, as in our preliminary task we only had a limited skill to produce certain shots, However, during the filming of our film we gained experience and had learnt to incorporate many more different types of shots, such as canted angles, close-up shots, mid-shots and long-shots.

Our editing has also come a long way from the preliminary task. At the beginning we were unsure of what the different functions did in FinalCut Pro and when we tried putting all our shots together they did not flow and we lacked continuity. However as time progressed we became familiar with Final Cut Pro being able to do a multitude of task on final cut pro such as creating captions and adding special effects to our video. We also learnt to improve our camera angle techniques using low angles especially which we also had trouble with in our preliminary task, not being able to get the correct high and low angles for the effect we wanted.

We also improved our use of sound, incorporating incidental music, non-diegetic and ambient sound into our film, something, which we had not done in our preliminary task. We learnt the importance of getting the right sounds as we went through many different songs and sounds in order to bring te fullest potential out of our scenes.

We also improved our mise-en-Scene from our preliminary task, which was set in just an ordinary classroom with just one lamp for lighting. In are final video we used an entire warehouse, a park and a street just for settings and we also had a variety of props including a clown mask, garden tools, children toys and fake blood all of which helped to add to the effects of the film and connote that the film is a thriller horror.

From our preliminary task till now we have also learnt how to use the website blogger and our blogging skills have improved. When we started to first blog our work we were unsure of how to incorporate pictures and videos into our text. However, over time we learnt the necessary skills in order to add videos and pictures as well as changing the background to make it more horror like and also being able to add power points into our blog.