Evaluation

EVALUATION

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

We looked at particular films, such as ‘Psycho’ and analysed them, delving meticulously into exact mise-en –scene, lighting techniques and camera angles. We were soon informed of the generic conventions of the thriller genre, broadening our knowledge with both main-stream, independent and older films, such as ‘The Third Man’. I noticed, and took particular attention to the lighting of each film and the use of shadow:

We looked at other films, such as ‘Psycho’ and analysed them, delving meticulously into exact mise-en –scene, lighting techniques and camera angles. When constructing our plot line we took into account films such as ‘Psycho’ where the femme fatale is stabbed in the shower. The film is famous for this scene and has been copied and altered in other productions. Using this idea we constructed each shot, and were very keen on using the dramatic murder in our piece.

We particularly wanted to do a close up of Abigail cutting the meat towards the beginning of the product. Be

low is an example of what we actually did:

The close up of the knife is violent, dramatic and adds pace to the product. It gives the audience a hint if what is in-store.

We also wanted to do a close up of her eyes in chiascuro lighting:

	This is a shot from Kill Bill, which was on e of the man y that inspired us to use this shot. It adds the characters very personal emotion to the film and connects the audience to her. The surrounding shadow adds mystery and uneasiness.

We also wanted to use elements of the femme-fatale in “Psycho”. She is devious yet innocent and pretty. We wanted to emulate this within our piece- although our thriller is more modern we felt that Laura’s character would be incredibly neat and with a lot of make-up. She wears a sophisticated business outfit- I believe that this shows a strong and devious side to her, as she has a job and is control; however her young pretty face would counter-balance this point and create a character with depth however with obvious conventions of a thriller “femme fatale”.

This is an example of a similar outfit the victim, Abigail, wore.

Although our product would only be the beginning of a thriller, we were aware of the importance of keeping the audience hooked to the film, and wanting to see more, also leaving a sense of mystery and uneasiness- all necessary conventions of the genre.

When planning individual shots we took close attention to the different camera angles, using low-angle shots for dominating and intimidating characters, like the killer who wears a long black coat and heavy boots, with hair styled down over the eyes. The costume leaves a sense of mystery and leaves the killer anonymous. The eyes are covered- this shuts of a connection with the character (as the eyes are known as the window to the soul). He is named ‘Scott’ which is a normal and not a suspicious name at all, thi

s is more mysterious as it is such an ordinary name. The audience would not expect him to be a murderer, which makes it ironic.

The location is Libby’s house, the decor is mainly antique and rustic, this could have been quite confusing for the audience as to what time period this was meant to be set in, especially if we had changed the film to black and white. This is one of the main reasons we decided not to use black and white as we wanted it to be clearly modern, detracting it from ‘Psycho’ slightly so that ‘The Lodger’ has its own identity.

We named it ‘The Lodger’ firstly because the killer lives in a house at the end of the garden of the house. The name is chilling because it shows a

familiarity between the killer and victim, this can be petrifying for the audience, feeling empathy for the victim because he knows her and she trusted him.

Another way we showed that he knew her was an over-shoulder shot of the murderer, Scott, cutting up pictures of the victim, Abigail. This adds a more psychotic feel to our thriller, showing his obsession with her, yet leading to brutally killing her.

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

Laura plays the victim. We chose a female victim as this is conventionally used, and suggests that the victim is inferior. This is a representation currently and widely utilized, as women have always been seen as a weaker sex, both physically and mentally. Her costume is immaculate, with heavily applied, yet flawless, and some shots you see her looking almost mischievous- This creates the femme fatale character with the generic conventions of the character and facial expression- also leaving a mystery and uneasiness. Her character has strong similarities with ‘Lila’ from ‘Psycho’, sweet and innocent look but there is deviousness behind her eyes. This leaves the audience wandering- did she get what she deserved?

Lila from ‘Psycho’

On the other hand our representation of evil is somewhat stereotypical of a murderer- dressed fully in black with his hair covering his eyes so no emotional connection can be made. Heavy boots are worn and he carries her own knife to kill her with. This shows a twisted bitterness in the murderer, adding to the shocking scenes.

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

I think we would begin by uploading the finished product onto websites such as ‘You-tube’ as this would make it available to the public straight away, without the need for funding. ‘You-tube’ has become incredibly popular- in January 2008 alone, nearly 79 million users had made over 3 billion video views. This statistic proves it is very worth-while uploading videos, as word of mouth spreads a video can become famous over-night. Also, I would argue that our thriller opening is also, in some respects, innovative. It has elements of the film ‘Psycho’ but the twist of the friend arriving whilst she is being killed adds far more mystery- leaving the audience wandering if she has any involvement in the killing. For this reason, funding could therefore be possible from Warp films for instance. On the other hand, our product could also be considered to have the conventions of a main-stream film, drawing complete contrast to most independent films, such as ‘London to Brighton’ where it is gritty and v

iolent, with unknown actresses and actors. I can see our product as the opposite to that.

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

I think this would appeal to an older audience, and not particularly to teenagers. As the production draws elements of ‘Psycho’ (1960) then it would appeal to those who watched the film longer ago. However, because of the current and modern and setting, it may appeal to a wider audience, particularly to females because of the femme fatale, whom they may find aspiring (until they discover she is killed) and the friend who arrives on the scene. After doing thriller research it seemed that the most popular female character was out of ‘The Third Man’ with our character has definite elements of, with a classic and timeless costume and make-up. The friend, Lisa, later reveals a ‘Jackie Brown’ personality, feisty, strong and certainly devious. These characters would not only appeal to females but also liked by males because she has such a strong personality.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

As earlier mentioned, we used interesting, appealing and also conventional characters. I don’t think we have made any risks within our characters, using generic conventions for both the killer and the femme-fatale. This gives the audience what they would expect from a thriller, which can be considered a bad thing and a good thing. The characters have been proven to succeed in thrilling and creating uneasiness in thriller films time and time again, so there is no reason why our characters cannot succeed also. On the other hand, because they are not different and pushing the rules it may not have the audience as hooked as a more challenging thriller film.

The costume, especially of the female actresses would be popular with the audience. The victim and friend wear popular high street fashion, appealing to the female audience especially, from shops such as ‘Topshop’. This also absorbs the audience into the film as they can relate to the characters more than if the film was set in the past.

We found the sound track on an unsigned band website- it boasts a chilling and eerie atmosphere, perfect for the feel of our film. The screeching sounds builds tension to the situation and panic, especially when the friend panics and tries to ring the door bell over and over.

Because the film has support from films such as ‘Psycho’, where have we have utilized similar aspects into our product, it means that those who enjoyed ‘Psycho’ would feel more inclined to watch our product. On the other hand, as ‘Psycho’ is such a classic thriller, other members of the public may feel that it is another re-make of the film and stand by the original, feeling it should not be re-made again.

Our product brings up many issues in today’s world; knife crime for instance is a rising statistic and highlights how easy it would be to get hold of one. It of course also highlights how obsession can lead to stalking and then to a lot of danger, making (mainly females) aware they should not trust people so easily. This can be a sinister thought of course, and could be very unnerving for some audience members, but this in-turn is a benefit for marketing of our product as the audience would feel they are really in-touch with what they are watching.

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

Firstly, putting our work onto a blog has been useful for me. As there is only one teacher to a class it means that we can get direct feed-back from teachers straight onto our blog, and can get opinions from other class members on ideas within the planning period.

Whilst filming I have learnt a lot about how a digital camera works. We spent a lot of time concentrating on the camera angles and lighting. We wanted to create the effects we had planned which meant a lot of our time was spent on creating shadows and chiascuro lighting. We all learnt to experiment with different shot types, trying scenes from lots of different angles so we had a lot to choose from when it came to editing. We also felt far more confident with filming as we progressed through the shots; we had to re-shoot some scenes due to the lighting being too dark, this was in a sense a blessing as we then made better, more articulate angles and shots.

Editing became very hard as there was a problem with our tape, and took a long time to capture all of the footage onto the computer. After we completed this however it was reasonably simple to edit the footage and we worked through it quickly, making up time for the tediousness of capturing it originally.

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

In the preliminary task, although I contributed to what I thought would be good camera angles etc, I was more involved in acting within the task so had a feel for that more than the construction of the product. However, when it came to editing I was the first to try this, and got to grips with the programme and technique very quickly. This helped me a lot when it came to editing our thriller film, but I found it more of a struggle to use the digital camera and experiment with shot types and camera angles.

Laura, Libby and I worked together in the preliminary task with 2 others. The group worked well together, and we were the first to finish filming. Sam and Sabrina did most of the filming and had worked with cameras before so found it simple to construct. We also learned about the 180 degree rule, and how important this is- we were sure to remember this for when we started planning out shots.

Editing proved a lot simpler than I originally thought. Our group split into 2, and therefore made 2 products. Looking back on ours it is not at all immaculate, and has proved just how much we have learned through this process as I know we could do so much better now.

The one thing the preliminary task didn’t do was inform us of the importance of soundtrack as we didn’t have to hunt for one ourselves- therefore ignoring the importance of it until the last minute.

Planning our thriller opening was a lengthily process. We began by making story boards of our original plot-line. We were going to have a completely different plot before, using a shed, where a ‘Jackie Brown’ style femme-fatale enters and searches for money. However we soon realised many flaws in this, such as the lack of drama. The reason we thought of this, I think, is because at the beginning we felt that it was only the opening two minutes- forgetting that we need to keep the audience hooked for if we ever made a feature length version. We then re-designed the plot, and it has only slightly been altered since (alterations continue further on).

For the killer we wanted an older man, not a teenager our age, to make it look far more believable and justified. Libby’s Dad was keen on getting involved. This also meant we were able to film in his house, and use the large summer-house at the end of the garden, acting as the killer’s home. We never had any problems with the location; however we did for casting actors. Much later into filming we desperately needed to shoot scenes where the victim’s boyfriend arrives, however we couldn’t get anyone available. We tried using Libby’s uncle, however he is actually younger than us, therefore he did not look mature enough for the role. We also tried to dress me believably enough to play a man, but making sure my face was never in the shot, but this proved very unbelievable. We then made a last minute change to the plot-line and cast me as a friend, instead of the boyfriend.

We also had another problem. We were originally going to smash red wine, instead of the flowers. We loved this idea of the red wine pouring out in slow motion, connoting the idea of blood and violence, however due to health and safety this was not feasible. We then decided on red roses, breaking away some of the petals so that they fall more dramatically.

Although we spent a lot of time on lighting effects we never experienced problems particularly, other than re-shooting some scenes earlier in the day, not to do with torches etc. We did however experience problems on and off with the digital cameras, where they would not accept the tape, or wouldn’t charge etc, which meant a lot of wasted time was spent. This meant we were often rushed to meet deadlines, and delayed editing time.

As mentioned earlier, we were not prepared for the timeless attempts of getting a sound-track for our product. We originally decided on “Rite of Spring” by Stravansky however after searching constantly to find s copy out of copy-write seemed very much impossible. We were then suddenly met with other editing problems, such as our tape would not let us capture footage easily etc, which meant the soundtrack was forgotten about. The week leading to the dead-line was intense and in the literal last 10 minutes found the perfect sound-track for our piece on an un-signed band website.

We did feel constant pressure in the last month before the deadline. We had first started filming in the Christmas holidays, earlier than many people had, but seemed to be far more behind than anyone else towards the end. We did struggle and technology let us down in some cases but, in the end, managed to successfully create “The Lodger”.