We all presented our questions in different ways such as a Podcast, Prezi and presentation. We were told by our teacher that it has to be presented in a media type of way meaning it has to be creative and interesting, which is why I used Prezi because it is different and it combines the style of presentation in a complete different way (different transitions etc...)
Not only is our use of presentation important but our evaluations themselves are our main goal. Because, our evaluations determines whether or not we have matched our opening sequence to our target audience. Each of us within our group had our own questions within the evaluations to see whether or not that our opening sequence applies to our target audience, this meant referring back to our planning and previous blog posts.
However, it also was important to evaluate if our opening sequence applies to the important keys of the media industry themselves which would be the genre and what company our opening sequence would suit for our audience.
My first initial thought to the evaluations were that we may of 'driven of course' with our opening sequence and the way we have presented our audience as a 'Niche' because, during our production and distribution of our opening sequence, we made many, many changes which we spontaneously went along with and included in our sequence however, these spontaneous decisions may of been a great idea at the start but then when starting the evaluations themselves, I thought about our Niche audience and how our opening sequence applies to them. But, when writing out the questions which I was given, I realised that we had successfully applied to our audience- although we had many changes here and there, I feel personally, within our group we did manage to meet our target audience's expectations.
OUR EVALUATIONS
Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?
-By Alex
The conventions of a Psychological Thriller consist of a
film containing violence which an audience can hear but cannot see. A
psychological thriller also has the purpose intention of building up a
suspenseful atmosphere for the audience which is why it is referred as a
‘Psychological’ thriller, because the techniques of Mise en Scene, sound, plot,
use of setting etc… are used within a film to automatically enter the mind of
the audience especially at a particular scene if that specific scene contains
off-screen violence.
Another convention of a psychological thriller is to confuse
the reality of the audiences mind, an example of this could be the Butterfly
Effect because the mind is being tested by the lack of knowledge which is shown
on the screen. The intention of the genre is to unbalance the mental states of
the characters which then reflected on the audience.
The forms and conventions which we identified throughout our
research was the research of the psychological thriller itself and which we
linked it in with the plot, audience expectations, use of setting, sound and
Mise en Scene. We analysed all the conventions of a psychological thriller and
used them within our opening sequence, we also challenged the form of them to
make it our own.
For example: (The scene of the candles). In our opening
sequence, in a certain scene we used dimmed lights, we’ve constructed Mise en Scene to enhance the atmosphere of
that particular scene because it’s the scene which follows up to off-screen
violence. The dimmed lights were used to represent a distortion of identity of
the antagonist – because his identity is hidden from the light shadows.
The use of sound throughout our opening sequence remained
Parallel to the genre, the group and I were contemplating on using Indexical
however, because of our previous research of psychological movies such as;
Panic Room, Butterfly Effect and Shawshank Redemption, we decided to use the original conventions of the
genre. However, if we would have used Indexical, we could have then used the
conventions of the genre by confusing the minds of the audiences.
The use of location and setting that we used in our opening
sequence does use, develop and also challenge the forms of a real media
product, for example: one of our two locations that we used were an outdoor
field which is where the antagonist meets the protagonist in a physical form
however, in a generic psychological thriller, the antagonist often meets the
protagonist in a mental form, an example of this could be The Woman In Black.
Our first location of the field was a cliché idea which is
where we could have challenged ourselves a lot more however; our second
location which sets the scene of a dark, eerie indoor location does demonstrate
a real convention of a psychological thriller because we set the location with
only candles and un-noticeable spotlights which only highlights the areas which
we wanted to be seen… we used this conventional form from a movie called ‘The
Skeleton Key’.
Our media product’s plot is yet again a cliché, where a
protagonist is taken by an antagonist and later on is murdered by off-screen
violence, but in the sense of a human sacrifice kind of way. We’ve used the
conventions of a psychological supernatural thriller because we’ve combined
that sense of a religious sacrifice, how we used this convention was the basic
use of our props for example: our book at the end of our opening sequence, the
book includes the language Latin which is the typical religious language. How
we developed the conventions of a real media product is including the theme of crime
and supernatural into our psychological thriller genre which portrays on our
opening sequence.
Q2. Does your media product represent particular social groups?
- By Josh
- By Josh
Q3. What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?
-By Dom
-By Dom
Q4. Who would the audience for your media product? -By Josh
Our audience that we would like to attract are a Niche Audience, those who a unique interest in psychological thrillers but also an interest in a particular shot which have included in our opening sequence, where a spiritual impression (voodoo)has been added to reel in our audience.
The shot in our storyboard shows a room full of candles, highlighting the grungy and run down room. The candle light will also highlight a subject in our shot, that being the victim on a table, i.e.. protagonist.
The gender which we think would want to watch our media product is predominantly male, because of the storyline. This is because the storyline is fairly stereotypical because it includes (off-screen) violence however, because we have included spiritual impressions of voodoo within our opening sequence which would interest a woman. We also didn't want to stereotype women by only subjecting male audiences as our target audience.
The age which we thought would be suitable for the viewing of our opening sequence would be 15+ because we feel that children at this age are fairly mature and will have a basic understanding of the thriller side to the product and also the psychological testing side. We also chose this specific age rating because there is no particular need to rating it any higher to for example, an 18 because it does not include any gore, poor language or any scenes of drug use or sexual nature.
Because we chose our audience to be a Niche audience, it made it easy for us to play around with Todorov's theory. For example, we only used 3 of his theories in our opening sequence and even then, we did not keep it in the particular order.
- Equilibrium
- Disruption
- Recognition of Disruption
Our order started from the Disruption then went on to the Equilibrium and then Recognition of Disruption. Because our audience are quite unique and are not mainstream, it made it easier for us with the alterations to Todorov's theory and also to the type of genre because not everybody are a major fan on this specific genre of a psychological thriller as the majority of films today have a generic genre with a generic audience, which is why we resulted with our Niche audience.
Q5. How did you attract/address your audience? -By Alex
Q6. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
-By Alex
-By Alex
Q7. What have you learned about technology from the process of constructing this product? - By Dom
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