Media Evaluation

Media Evaluation Funmilola Olawole

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product is a mystery film and is based around the conventions of mystery. For example the mise en scene, the opening sequence of my product is set in the dark and our only source of lighting was natural lighting from the streetlights and visually this gave the scene an orange red colour, enhancing the ‘dark’ mood; by doing this we developed the conventions of real media products in our own product, this is because usually in the opening sequence of mystery films the setting is dark with little light, frequently used to not reveal the mysterious character or to create an mystifying mood, for example the opening sequence of ‘The usual suspects’. • Also, it could be argued that the characters costume is used to develop the conventions of the genre mystery this is because the costumes are somewhat perplexed e.g Mary is wearing a bright yellow pyjama top, bright pyjama bottoms but is covered in blood and the main goal of a mystery genre is to puzzle it’s audience and pyjama bottoms combined with blood is not the norm and could be puzzling. Bright yellow top with blood.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • The sound in my product was also used to the develop convention of the mystery genre. This is because from watching the opening sequence of se7en, which used sound very well to convey mystery and reality and did this by purely using diegetic sound, we were able to decide as a group that we did not need to use non-diegetic sound or music to convey a meaning but that the diegetic sound of the natural environment suited the scene, conveyed meaning and was more effective because the storyline is serious, for example heavy breathing starts the opening sequence on a blank screen which could be considered non diegetic but is then justified when we see Mary running so is diegetic, but what this does is creates an ‘tense’ atmosphere. • Camerawork is conventional this is because we started with a long shot and then a close up. On the other hand one shot does not ad heed to the conventions of a real media product this is because at one point we used a low angle shot on Mary and she is the obvious weaker character but the low angle shot gave more of a visual effect. Low angle shot

How does your media product represent particular social groups? • The attributes of Mary is what represents the social group. This is because the main character is a female and is mentally ill (schizophrenia). The definition of this disorder, is an individual who reality is distorted; there thinking is severely impaired thinking and are unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have enhanced perceptions of sounds, colours, and other features of their environment. And later in the film we learn that her father is one of the psychiatrist, but her father was absent through out her childhood resulting in her creating an imaginary man to compensate for not having a male figure in her life. So, if we were to proceed in the production of the film it would represent the social group of absent father in children or teens. And what are media product is mainly trying to portray is that not having a father could result in a very negative effect on an individuals life in the future, even though this may not be the absolute truth, what our media product does is portray a very bias view. “People from broken homes may be more prone to psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, research suggests. ” BBC news Due to the fact that the leading character is a young black female, the black social group is also represented. It could be argued that in most black people or more specifically afro- Caribbean people are more likely to develop mental illness such as schizophrenia so our film addresses one issues in this certain social group.

Who would be the audience for your media product and how did you attract/address your audience? • Together as a group we decided that our target audience would be 15-30. The reason why we picked this age was because when we picked H.I.M for the product , the characters was scripted more around a young demographic of teens which is why the range begins with 15, but the plot of narrative is a complex closed-mystery ,which is why the range is increased to 30, which is more suited to an older audience, who would enjoy a intricate mystery. • The certificate age we did use was 15 this is because the film is complex and if continued from the opening scene would contain disturbing images which would not be suitable for children but we thought 15 was a more suitable but would still reach out to an older and teenage demographic Not only the age was a factor in the choosing of the audience ,but general characteristic. The target audience would be a diverse range of races, this is because our film has both white and black characters , this could be considered as unconventional in a mystery genre because it is not usual that a black female would be the protagonist , but by using a black female as the main character and not staying to the traditions, creates an association and by doing this introduces more races to the audience of the genre mystery. There is no gender that my film is particularly aimed at this is because the cast role is both men and female but due to the fact that the protagonist is a female the film would most likely attract an audience of females. I think as a group we should have did more to attract our audience but we had difficulties with doing this, this was because for us to attract our audience we might of had to manipulate our main task idea, for example it was suggested that if we was to make the girl dress in high heels and a short dress maybe would make it look like she just came from a club but this would change the whole plot of the product and we did not have enough time for that. The main things which were used to attract our audience was the fact that our protagonist was an 18 year old female and she was dressed in pyjamas which attracts a younger audience. Also, because we used doctors in lab coats this costume attract the older audience in my target audience.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • In this process the main technology that I learnt was in the process of editing. Even though, I have learnt some of the process of editing using Final cut in my preliminary task, a great deal more was learnt in the main task. This was because, the shooting process was not what we thought it would because we never took enough shots of certain sections of the film and when we did retake the shots the actors were not always in the same position, which made it harder for the editing to be continuity editing and more jump cuts , so I had to experiment more with transitions and cuts, for example in one section I extended the time of a fade in and out dissolve so that it would play over the film and what this did was make the cut smooth, but also made the editing appear slower, instead of making it appear like time has passed, which is what a fade in fade out transition usually does. Fade in fade out transition

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • Moreover, learning how to incorporate titling into the opening sequence was another technology I've learnt from the process of making this opening sequence. Learning how to use titling was simple but what proved more difficult because, figuring out what format or colour would make it more effective and interesting but in the end I went with the conventional bold letters in red, although red titling may be traditional for mystery film or films with murder in it, it still conveys the most meaning to an audience and I took my titling idea from Goodfellas by having titling both in the beginning and end of the opening sequence after the drama. In the preliminary task my role was the sound so I learnt how to use the microphone and fishpole before the production of the main task so I had the same, but in this task we were shooting outside so we had to use the dead cat to avoid the noise of wind but the area noise or background noise still dominated at some points.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? • The preliminary task was a good learning experience and what I learnt from it was that to end with your ideal product you need to do allot of planning, which is what we lacked with the preliminary task and this could be seen in the footage. • In the main task there was much more planning which made the shooting process simpler and made the whole process less complicated. This was made possible because we had all the resources for example, a script, a shooting script and storyboard we knew the location we were going to shoot at which made the whole production of it easier. Furthermore, my teacher was able to arrange a meeting with the drama class and in this meeting we pitched our opening sequence to the actors and then picked the actors we wanted to use in our product. Event though, the actors were a huge help, due to the fact that our group only had 3 members so each of us had roles during the shooting process (sound, camera, director) so none of us could step in as an actor, we realised that using actors was difficult, this was because we had to reshoot our opening sequence and it was very hard working around the actors schedules and ours so we weren't able to reshoot before the deadline to get the film in, so from this we learned that when using actors they needed to be very committed to the film, but to also start filming as soon as possible, so that you can view it on final cut and if it is not good quality you’ll have more time to reshoot.

Media Evaluation