Jake Parsons - Shadow Runner - Thriller - Certificate 15
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
I feel my thriller film is similar to other thriller films because it contains most of the characteristics for a film to be defined a crime film.
It is set in an urban setting and the camera angles used are fast paced and contain a lot of variety. There is a lot of suspense in my film which is used in a lot of thriller films. We did this by using a variety of camera angles and effects. We received comments praising the choice of location and suspense.
We also used chase scenes involving stairs as this creates tension and fast paced action.
The music we chose to use, called “D1 – Dubstep Warz”, is a typical slow and urban song. However, it helps build up the tension and in my opinion suited the video perfectly. We acquired permission for this video which we are very grateful for. Again, we recieved positive comments about the music choice.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The victim is portrayed as a sneaky and shifty character. I used my research to plan this and I think it helped us make a better character.
The way he is portrayed could represent him as a yob. This could be because of his dress code and the way he is sneaking around. This could be seen as a typical stereotype of teenagers. Character dresses and acts like young social groups, e.g. Chavs. We represent then as criminals who like violence, and have a need to break the law.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would like to think that small film companies could distribute our product, as they are the ones that promote filmmakers on low budgets. For example, Coffee Films or Vertigo Films. These two are both leading British film companies who promote budget films. This type of company publish via social networks such as YouTube and Facebook which creates interest and helps promote the video.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
After researching using various websites, we have found the desired target audience for our product. The audience for my media product would generally focus more on younger people due to the style of recording, music and general feel to the film. Also, I feel it will be more focused on males due to the grunge and darkness feel to the video.
I believe my media product would hold a 15 certificate rating as it contains violence in some parts.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Our target audience was young adults, mostly male. The fact that the main character is a young adult, and male, would help to attract many people.
I believe my film would attract audiences because it contains everything you could want to entertain you. It has a mix of fast paced and slow scenes and I believe it keeps the viewer interested throughout.
The location used is a very urban genre and will appeal to young people and the fact that it is a real life location. This also applies to the characters as he appears to be a typical youth, who are stereotyped to be always up to no good.
After reviewing my questionnaire results I have found that my film contains the most popular choice for each question thus meaning our film is what some people may watch, however, some people will not like our film as their preferences wont suit it.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I believe the internet has helped greatly in regards to researching crime films. I managed to find loads of information and facts which helped me plan my film and achieve the quality it is. The most useful websites I found were, www.IMDB.com and www.wikipedia.org . This is because they both contained facts and figures and vital details that helped my research.
Blogger.com was an excellent website and extremely useful for creating my blog, it looks professional and easy to view. The address of my blog is http://jake-p.blogspot.com/.
I learnt a lot about digital cameras when creating my film, I now feel confident using all of the features to the best of my ability.
The program we used for editing was called Final Cut Pro. It contains many good features such as effects and transitions, such as, slow motion, zoom/pan and various transitions. However, I found it was quite hard to use with little experience but after a little experience it improved. Overall, I feel that Final Cut is a great program to use with experience but it can be a little tedious to begin with.
If we could repeat the task, I would want to use a HD video camera for better quality and more professional look. Also, I would learn more about Final Cuts features in order to use it to its best ability.
Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When I first started on the preliminary, I had very vague ideas of filming and basic skills of how to use the camera. Throughout the filming process I have practised improving my skills, and understanding how important each and every shot is on each scene to make it effective. When we did our thriller, my group had better skills on working well with the camera and we used more variety of shots and angles, enabling us to come up with something even better than our preliminary. We had to learn and incorporate the basics of continuity editing and piecing our footage together. We have also learnt to adhere to the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse-shot and match on action. The editing process was easier the second time, as we were already familiar with the software and how to edit/rearrange our footage.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel our media coursework has been a success and we have worked well in a group to achieve a professional looking video which incorporates all the main aspects of video editing and recording. I have been able to do this with the help of my research and the preliminary task.
After getting feedback such as “I think your film is very good, it built up the tension and kept me watching throughout, I was really impressed. After completing the film, I feel filming a video was a lot more demanding than I originally thought. It requires a lot of planning and recording to be able to fill a short video.
After completing all my research, planning, preliminary task and our video, I feel they have all been successful and completed as planned and to a good standard.
