Samantha Thatcher: Evaluation.

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

It uses conventions of a real thriller by using stereotypical music and camera shots. The music builds up and creates a climax within the production. The variety of close ups, and long shots used create a realistic 'thriller' feeling to the production. The editing is quite fast, and there are many fades used, which doesnt normally occur in mainstream thriller movies. The continuity of the shots go really well together and I feel that they have been edited to a high standard. The limitation of the production values and location challenges the overall outcome of the task being of a high standard and a real media product. The themes of identity are approached by the use of close ups.

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

The production includes a university professor and student, it has an intellectual choice of characters, resulting in it appealing to this type of audience. The clothing is casual, showing layed back sartorial codes, also appealing to other types of audiences. The characters are from working/middle class backgrounds. The student is representing the 'schoolgirl crush' theme and the responsible professor gets murdered because of not wanting to get involved with her. Our female character is a typical girl.

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

It targets a mainstream audience, because it could relate to lots of different people. The main storyline is a 'crush', which results in a tragic, 'disturbia' like outcome. The institution which can distribute our media product could be working title, it is quite a large company, but could help create a unique audience for our production.

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

I think it would mostly attract a yound female audience because they would be able to relate to the protagonist the most. However, the production values and the limitations of the location would affect who would watch it. It could also relate to many other people by the use of the camera angles and music.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The strangling in the opening scenes intrigues and attracts a mainstream audience. The use of the music creates suspense within my production, the flashback of the character portrays that she is deeply disturbed and has created an obsession with her professor. The voiceover creates a 'dreamlike' feel to the flashback, calming down the situation, but the continuous cuts to the female protagonist create tension and drama. This would attract an intellectual audience.

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

Throughout the development of our production, we have learnt to use different types of cameras and manage them differently. We created many different effects by changing the aperture of one of the cameras. Resulting in a 'handheld' confused feel, showing the distress of the protagonist. We learnt lots about tripods and camera equipment. The use of apple macs helped with the editing, it was very easy to edit well and to the best possible standard by using the macs. I now feel confident when editing and feel able to do it again.

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

The preliminary task of my group was not fully edited to the best standard. When it came to the real task, the group worked well at the beginning, filming and set preparing went well. Overall, the task was a success, and it worked out to be the best it could.

Overall

I was unable to attend the deadline day on the 3rd April as i am currently suffering with tonsillitis. However, i feel that i made a paticular effort with filming and editing on other days. In particular, i enjoyed editing the most.

So far...

Throughout the past four weeks the group has accomplaised alot with contributions from everyone. On monday the 16th we began setting up the scene which was the university dorm room of a young girl called sophie. All 3 of us brought in props for the room such as: teddys, books, pillows, duvets, make up, accesories etc. the room was finished within 3 hours we had used posters to cover the back wall. we used the bungalow to have the effect of a real room as there is a small room there which looks like a bedroom, this allowed a good sense of mise-en-scene and we were able to create a realistic effect.

On wednesday the group had to come to some major decisions as the actress we had picked was unable to do the filming during our free periods. so we had decided on Leidy Dhiana from year 13 who was able to do it during out free periods but we have a time limit as she is due to go on spainish exchange on friday the 27th march so we had to do all the filming with various shots and angle changed so that we had a variety to work from....

we have now decided on the music and need to edit the shots to enable the final peice to be created......

Lights, camera, action!

Today we have started filming. So far we have the footage of the murder seen which consisted of many issues including camera angles as the room was quite confined. we have also got the shots for the ritualistic preperations that sophie performs inorder to face her love interest. For these particular shots we will use fades to give a sense of continuity. The shot where sophie is putting on the red lipstick in the mirror was the hardest as she wasn't able to see how and where she should put the lipstick, because the mirror we used was small and hand held, she also had to face it towards us so we could get her reflection in the shot.

We have bettered the appearance of the bed and our male lead sits in front of the part of the bed which drops through thus it doesn't effect the mise en scene.

Filming Preparations.

During the making of the set we purchased suitable posters for the scene. We put them around the room with school resources, for the mise en scene, as we needed it to look like a university dorm room.
We had many difficulties involving the making of the bed. Firstly, the nails were too small to build it. Secondly, there was no mattress, resulting in us having to find a replacement, which was a wooden board, so the sheets wouldn't fall through the gap.
At the last minute, we had to replace our female lead because she was unavailable. However, we are very happy with the new arrangements.

Character Profiles. Male and Female Lead.

Male Lead: Professor Joseph Fletcher, (Joe). Played by Mr Meade.
He teaches Psychology at University.

Female Lead: Sophie Marlow. Played by Mandeep (Yr 12).
She is currently studying Psychology at University, and has developed an obsession with Joe.

what we have done.

The story board is completed, but now because of the restrictions of props and costumes we are unable to carry out shot three, which consists of tracking with Sophie's feet because even if we used different shoes, it would not have the same promiscuous effect as the red stilletto's.

So far we have set the seen in the bungalow as we needed a bedroom set. we have decorated one of the rooms with posters and a bed to make the scene very convincing.

we have found our female lead to play the part of sophie, however so far we are having trouble to find our male lead bacause we have asked two male members of staff but they have both cancelled on us, so we have settled down with Mr Meade.