Evaluation- Imogen Salmon

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

Enigma

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The puzzling factor of a thriller, this is what makes thrillers complex and have deeper meaning, the audience is often left to question occurrences during the thriller, which are difficult to understand purposefully. For example, why something is happening, or who is it? In perception we used enigma to enable the audience to question who the attackers are, we do this by consistently hiding their identity. This also coincides with another common convention of thrillers, identity themes, this theme can be either used with mental distortion such as amnesia or similar, or simply hiding identity of characters. We did this by having our characters fully clothed, in baggy jumpsuits, wearing gloves and hoods up and also by never shooting the camera at an angle where their face would be shown this ensured their sex, age or appearance wasn't revealed. An example of an identity them in a film would be 'Identity' this psychological, mystery horror follows the plot having an unknown killer. 

 

Antagonist 

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The antagonist in a film is the opposition, they are often seen as 'villains' and projected to be bad characters. In thrillers they are often those who commit and plot the crime, they often have similar characteristics relating to a bad person like aggressiveness and arrogance.   However, they can also be seen as strong characters too, often powerful figures with camera techniques such as low angles and ensuring they are positioned central to the camera in the foreground proposing that they are more important then the background. In Perception there are two antagonists and one protagonist, the antagonists often are seen together in a 2:1 ratio to the victim. This means there are more of them, they are overpowering and in scenes for example image 2, this represents how they overpower the protagonist, surrounding her either side. 
In 'The disappearance of Alice Creed' Vic and Danny are the antagonists, they kidnap the protagonist Alice. 

Protagonist

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A protagonist is someone who plays the main character role in a film, they may be a victim, hero or simply just one who the story evolves around. The protagonist in thrillers is often a child, for example in 'The Sixth Sense' this is due to them being naive and often interesting characters enabling a different view to the 'norm' (an adults). In Perception the protagonist is perceived as a victim, she is alone, without the help of anyone else, and attacked by the two antagonists. She is a female teen, therefore stereotyped to be an easy target, defenceless and naive due to her age. The car boot image on the right, enforces this characters position, the big close up at a slightly high angle, as if looking down on her, portrays her frightened emotion. 
False protagonists, known as red-herrings also often occur in thrillers, these are those who can be perceived as villains but are in fact not creating twists to the narrative. These are often main characters who are killed for example in the film 'Psycho' which is a 1960's horror. 

 Real-life

Unlike horrors, thrillers are based on situations which could be real, they are believable and do not involve ghosts, extraterrestrials and other unrealistic objects/persons. This real-life aspect, makes the thriller easy to relate to. 

 

Voyeurism

This is the idea in a thriller of one character, or the audience (camera) watching another character without them being aware, this can be through a window or spying from somewhere for example. This factor is often used to create suspense, allowing the audience to know more than the character.

 

9 Frame Shot Sequence

In this opening an establishing,extreme long shot displays the setting. It is set at night, therefore being poorly lit, making the house mysterious due to it not being fully revealed, lighting enhances features of the house, the garage and the door, both places which are later featured in the crime. The house is composed to take up the whole of the frame, the outline of the house is shown alongside a tree, together creating a spooky setting. 

In this close up the victim is first identified, the make-up of a head injury and blood dripping down her head shows how she has been hit by a bat. She appears dead to the audience not moving,lying on the ground, also smudged make-up is around her eyes as if she has been sobbing, this suggests she had experienced something before the attack and this was to be shown. Her face is shadowed upon  made to seem the attacker is standing above her looking down as in further shots to come. 


 This extreme close-up is of the end of the bat used to hit the girl, there is blood on the end to indicate the attack to her head. The extreme close-up emphasises the blood as it would be difficult to see otherwise.



The transition editing from the previous flashback to this scene is presented using a fade to white, this opens this next dragging shot. The diegetic sound of footsteps accompanied by the non-diegetic eerie, high pitched music together creates effective sound for this drag scene. The long shot is at eye-level, it is a still shot and shows the drag along the drive. 

This close up is part of a match-on-action shot showing the car door being slammed shut. This shows the glove of the antagonist, continuing to maintain the unknown identity of the villain.

This medium-long shot is part of the flashbacks in the opening sequence, there is bright, high-key lighting, with the editing of distortion used with an effect making the image slightly unclear. This shot is a pan, showing the victim and her friends with them having a makeover. It's purpose is to suggest her being left out standing to the right and not involved in the makeover activity.


This shot is a graphic match, this shot transfers a flashback of past to present (the attack) briefly relating the two friends to the two protagonists in both scenes. An editing effect combining both images together slowly changing one into the other, emphasises the technique of the graphic match. 







This big close up represents the vulnerability status of the girl Gabby, the way she is looking up for help as if she cannot move her head. This facial expression alongside the tape covering her mouth, material surrounding her and dark background creates the isolated setting of being trapped in a car boot afraid for her life. The low key lighting highlights certain areas of her face like her eyes but continues the darkness of the situation with dark shadows covering most of the frame. 

An example of low key lighting

The title appears at the end of the opening sequence in order to leave a break for the audience between the realisation of Gabby opening her eyes and not in fact being dead. The black background with white writing is  both simple  and complimentary. These opposing colours makes the title 'Perception' easily visible. The transition used is as if it is being typed, it appears slowly enabling the audience to try and figure out the title. The distorted, wonky font is to represent the storyline, everything doesn't happen smoothly in a straight line, mishaps occur, and nothing is as it seems.




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

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In the opening sequence three, white, British teenage girls were used as the characters. One teen was from a different background, she'd had an identity change and was new to the friendship group, hints of this difference between friendship was shown slightly as she was isolated in certain situations, for example in image 4. 





'St. Trinians' is a chic-flick, aimed too at the teenage, female audience. Although it is a completely different genre to Perception, the way it target's its audience is similar to perception using characters of the same gender and age too. However, this film does represent a wider range with group names such as posh totty's, chavs and emo's due to its private school setting. 

The gender in perception  being female is represented in different ways as although the attackers are not meant to be shown as females in the opening sequence they in fact are. This shows a tough, superior and fierce  which are in fact common in male characters in film, breaking the usual stereotype. However, another is shown, when Gabby is attacked the opposite characteristics of innocence, inferiority and vulnerability. As well as these extremities of characters their normal teenage side is also represented, in the scenes of them shopping and doing hair and make-up.


Ethnicity, race and religion is not represented in the film as all the characters appear the same, this doesn't show a variety so may be a negative point, but also doesn't show discrimination against different ethnicities as they're the same. 

The age of the characters is a time where there is a transition into maturity from a child into an adult. The girls are at a naive stage however, so innocence is an aspect to the opening sequence making Gabby appear innocent. However, as the film would continue to reveal the background to this character the audience would realise she is in fact far from innocent... being a murderer. 

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

Hammer Film Productions would be a suitable production company for this thriller. This is due to it being a British company, which has produced many films including the famous 'Dracula' and 'The Mummy'. This production company has also produced many psychological thrillers such as 'Fear in the night' and 'The nanny', these are also low budget films which 'Perception' would be too. 

In addition to these older films the recent horror 'The woman in black' which was released in 2012, and became the highest grossing horror film in 20 years, doing very well. This shows they are continuing to do well with their films. They also target a wide audience, producing films with different audiences to one another, yet also do many thrillers so ideal for our film 'Perception'. 

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

Our target audience would be the same as the main characters demographic, teenage females, but also males of the same age due to having the opposite sex involved, who are victimised but with a twist. The same age group is used due to the audience being able to relate to the characters feeling more involved with the film, relating it to them if they were in that situation what they would do? This relation would ensure the audience would understand the characters empathising with them therefore providing more enjoyment to this age. 


The certificate rating would be a 15+. This is due to threats, violence and strong language may be used to a certain extent, which is what I believe would occur in the rest of the film. Also the help of audience feedback helped me to provide this conclusion as two of the 3 interviewees chose 15 as the suitable rating. I researched on the BBFC each certificate rating to help to reach this decision:

12

15

18

In addition to this the target audience  being  around 14-25, this certificate rating seems suitable, as it may be too violent for a 12. Whereas if it were an 18, i think this would be too restricting on the teenage target audience, and wouldn't be sexually or drug orientated either.  

I found a graph (image 5) which represents the age of the population who watch horror movies, although horrors aren't the same as thrillers they are the most similar genre to it. Therefore using these statistics is fairly reliable as they have a similar target audience, as a person who enjoys a horror often enjoys a thriller due to the similar characteristics of suspense and the representation of fear. This graph shows the younger, teenage demographic which I've chosen is suitable with 56% being 14-25, therefore this age group being highly suitable for Perception. 

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This pie chart (image 6) is in fact representative of the gender which watches more thrillers. This shows how balanced it it with men only just watching more than women. This therefore, shows it is an open market highly suitable for either gender. This is very different to those type of films such as action and sci-fi with a very high male proportion and romance and dramas for females. Therefore with Perception aiming at both genders this will broaden the audience overall.

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5. How did you attract/address your audience? 

By using the character of a beautiful, young, victimised girl this would attract the male audience creating attraction, and the female audience for sympathising for them. Shots were used to show her vulnerability, with her lying on the group helpless and stuck in a boot of the car with make-up smudged down her face.

With 'normal' scenes of the girls shopping and hanging out this would attract the audience making it easy to relate to as they appear to be average people (just like them). 
 
With the change of stereotype of the females being both victims and the attackers this creates a twist in the thriller, it changes the stereotype making it appear interesting. Although the characters may not appeal female in the opening sequence this is just to create more enigma as to who they are, arising more questions for the audience to become persistent into finding out by watching the rest of the film.

Feedback

I asked 3 questions to a few people in the target audience female 14-25: 

1. What do you think the storyline is? And why? Do you think too much/little is given away?

' I think two friends plot to kill some one they are pretending is there friend? no it gives away just enough to keep interest and suspense in the audience for the film'

' I think the storyline from the trailer is that 2 friends were putting on a front and acting really close with the other one but then went and killed her but we don't yet know why, I wouldn't say too much or too little are given away!' 

'I  think the story line was that there were three friends and one got killed but that's all like nothing else is that clear but I think it's good because you don't want too much given away'

2. What would you improve and why?


' With the shots where the names of the characters starred appear, two of them (Livi and gabbi) have their names on the screen when they are, but this doesn't occur with Georgia's character... that's all I can think of really!

' I can't think of any improvements, I think the music is really good though'

' I think the only thing I would improve is whether it was needed what was said on the cup when it got passed over in a close up?' 

3. What certificate rating would you give and why? (considering there may be some bad language in the film)

' I think the certificate rating 15, because the trailer perceives this as a dark film with violence and gore and looks like a psychological thriller'

'I'd give it a 12 for rating because ratings are so low nowadays'

'I think 15 because it isn't too terrifying and you'd want to keep your audience open and as long as like bad language isn't used through out i reckon it could pass for 15'

These questions were aimed to help me decide with the certificate rating, and also to criticise constructively what we could have done better when putting together our product, also, to see whether the audience would understand the opening sequence without predicting the whole film. The answers were useful to give the perspective of others, however due to the audience not studying media, the criticism wasn't as precise as it could have been also the certificate rating as they were bound not to know the exact reasons for a certificate rating. 

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

During the process of constructing my media product I have progressed my skills of using an Apple Mac and its programs, as I have always used PC's. so it has been difficult to understand the different format, especially on simple transitions such as cutting and pasting an object. 

Final cut pro was the editing program I used, this was different to the last editor I used in media GCSE. I learnt how to do all sorts with this program, I did things like rendering, adding special effects, changing the colour, size and speed of shots and more importantly, I learnt to do this independently gaining experience with the Macs.

Garageband is another program I used, this involved creating the soundtrack and editing the sound effects both diegetic and non-diegetic to fit the moving image. I learnt how to change the speed, pitch and how to import files, such as foleys. I also recorded foleys using a sound recorder, which I too hadn't done before, and I learnt how to import the files onto the computer and eventually to make part of our opening sequence of Perception. 


Lighting was another aspect of technology we used in the construction this was vital as most of the shots took place at night time, so lighting was needed, especially for the audience to see the moving image, in order to understand what's happening. The handheld lights did not appear very difficult to use, as didn't need electricity due to being battery powered, the only difficulty we found was making them to appear as car break lights which lit up the victims face at the end of the opening sequence. We solved this problem by using a red filter to cover the bright white light.

On the other hand, the large redheads appeared much more difficult to use, when setting up especially, this was due to there height and weight, and they also came along with the risk of burns, due to them getting very hot. In addition to this they needed and electricity supply, so extension leads were essential for our filming when using the red heads. 

Google blogger surprisingly, has probably been the most difficult technology I have come across in this process. It took me a while to understand its difference to the Microsoft office programs which I have always used. I found it too simple, for example not being able to edit images at all or copy and paste them and also font size and type is very limited. In addition to this, the layout I have found difficult too, not being able to position things easily. But, more recently I have come to terms with it after using it so much, now finding it's advantages such as the ease to upload videos, make links and to add pictures for example.

 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned into the progression form it to the full product?


Camera

I have progressed my learning of camera techniques and use, from using the camera for a long period of time it enabled me to remember routines such as white balance. This improves the quality of the camera work by ensuring the colour is correct, making it natural and not of an orange colour. 
Also, my understanding of how to use camera equipment such as the dolly which i hadn't used before and used in the images of the girls shopping. As well as this i understood how to use the lighting equipment, both the large redhead and the smaller handheld lights. I learnt how to use the redhead properly as it can get very hot and cause burns, and set it up outside using extension leads. The smaller handheld lights we used throughout our filming, we used them to represent car lights in our final shot using a red filter, I wouldn't of know how to do this previous to our full product. 

Editing

Special FX
We wanted to include flashbacks in our trailer which is something we hadn't come across before. To create this illusion we used a special effect from final cut pro which slightly distorted the image, emphasising on the bright white light which occurred by the effect increasing the brightness, this too made the image slightly blurred. This effect was used to create the flashback to make it look different to the other shots in the present and distorted as if Gabby who had been hit in the head was seeing these. Also with the flashbacks I learnt how to create fades, especially fades to white which slightly different to do on the editing program. Another transition used which i learnt to do was the graphic match, this involved morphing both images together showing how the shape fitted.

Continuity editing 
We continued to gain skills in our match-on-action shots with experience, and feel they were better suited to our final product as it had more of a purpose and appeared logical to involve them too. Whereas with the 180 degree rule we didn't use this as much apart from in the care scene. And at this point in filming we in fact broke it, having to not include it for this reason in our final product. This represented how easy it was to do, even after practising it on the preliminary task, but this mistake means we shouldn't do it again in the future.



Characters
 In the preliminary task I'd already started my development of characters by costume with the smart uniform of the police, and baggy clothing of the 'chav'. However, I had not began to use particular shots for characters to show status, for example authority. In the final task we continued with development of different types of characters, gaining experience as we had new characters to portray. With the new characters of teenage girls and attackers we decided with particular costume, make-up and camera shots/angles to represent them. 

The girls in the flashbacks were wearing casual, yet girly clothing, with shorts, jumpers and jackets. This matches the modern day time period the film is set in. 

Sound

The sound progression from my preliminary to my final task was one of the most significant I believe. In the preliminary the sound was barely edited, we used no recorder for the dialogue, so it was quiet and unclear, also there was no backing track and non diegetic sounds to create the atmosphere. In addition to this there were mistakes made such as the sound of the door shutting twice, when it was supposed to shut once. 

This completely changed when it came to the thriller opening, we wiped much of the sound putting over soundtracks, foleys and voices for example the distorted laughter of the girls. 

Preliminary Task Vs. Final Task

Preliminary task

Final task

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In my preliminary task I came across many problems which i tried to resolve/ improve when it came to the final task.

After feedback i recognised getting close enough was a problem in my preliminary, I didn't use enough ECU and many of the shots had too much background space in especially in the interview room. (7)

8

There were mistakes such as the small detail in my preliminary, an example of this was leaving the green paper on the iPad for the CCTV was left on throughout the whole sequence when it wasn't meant to be. (8)

Another fault was the setting itself, although it looked slightly office like, it was not exactly how I'd want it to have been, I believe this is due to the brief saying that it had to be filmed in college.

9

Although, I did use lighting in the preliminary, it was only the redhead, this helped me gain experience with it, and created good shadowing. But, there was more lighting needed, so we used more for the final product. (9)