Evaluation Activity 6

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

Admittedly, at the start of the process I knew absolutely nothing about the technology we needed to use to create our film, in particular, the editing software - Adobe Premiere Elements. This could have been seen as a downfall as this software was instrumental in our post-production process, yet we didn’t really know how to use it. Similarly, due to our inexperience, this software was the only choice we had when it came to editing, whereas other more experienced groups often had software which was to a higher standard of their own. Despite this, I believe we made the most out of a combination of our lack of ability and the software, which enabled us to produce a film of a reasonably high standard. This software gave us all the basic components required to successfully edit our film – it allowed us to cut and match the footage, as well as edit and mix the audio and had the application of titles and credits. The editing tools were especially efficient which helped greatly as it allowed the titles to look professional and sophisticated. I think that this was one of the key factors in raising the standard of our film, and I think the titles are probably my favourite aspect to our opening. Whilst this was very useful in the post-production process, it did not have colour correct or grading in the way that we needed to produce a fully professional looking film. Due to the overexposure of the camera and the inability to focus manually, some of the scenes, despite being filmed at the same time, appeared to be a different colour. This was a downfall in both the editing equipment and the camera as it meant that even when the scenes were cut exactly to match, which should have produced an effortless movement between the two shots, they looked mismatched because of the change in colour. Similarly, there were also problems relating to the computer rather than the software such as difficulties when saving and uploading, and also with rendering which in turn made it difficult to edit correctly. Although this led to a very stressful process as scenes often had the tendency to disappear, we eventually managed to construct our final piece.

The camera we decided to use of our opening scene was a Fujifilm with 1080 HD movie recording, however I have discussed in a previous post which should hopefully cover the basics of the camera. In a similar way to the editing software, we encountered a few minor difficulties with the camera, but it still provided us with all the basic needs to produce a successful opening scene. Again, due to our inexperience within this industry, our choice of camera was limited due to the available resources; however luckily, it was of quite a high standard. For this reason, we did not choose our camera based on its skills, which could have been a mistake but we had little choice. As the camera was Laura’s, she was already aware of many of its features, however as mentioned previously, we were unable to manually focus it which limited our ability to incorporate creative depths of field which is something we would have liked to experiment with. Similarly, it didn’t have a stabilisation feature which meant we needed to employ the use of a tri-pod. This was not necessarily a downfall as although it was very static, which may have made the audience feel like they were watching the action rather than taking part, in turn slightly preventing them from fully engaging with the film, it allowed us to create steady shots which were better quality than without a tri-pod.

Through the use of these two technologies, and the tri-pod which we used for stabilisation, we did not feel the need to employ the use of any other technology, be it software or hardware. Through the use of these two technologies we massively developed our knowledge, and became slightly more confident in the technical side of the film making process, although we still have a lot more to learn. Hopefully, we have opened up wider opportunities for any future products, which will undoubtedly come in handy if we carry on media next year. If this is the case, we will need to explore more techniques and features to further increase our knowledge and ability. 

Evaluation Activity 5

Intrusion Annotations

Audience Feedback

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From our research and planning, we were able to establish that the most predominant age group our opening two minutes should be aimed at was 15-24. This was because this age group tends to have the largest variety of tastes meaning that it would be likely to have a wide appeal, and similarly, because we discovered that this target audience enjoy engaging films which slowly increase the suspense. As this is what we aimed to produce, we thought it would be best to use that age group for our target audience as it would realistically have the highest chance of being successful. As we found, teenagers/young adults also tend to enjoy films which have a relative amount of sophistication, and watch films of high regard. Usually, it is the actors which capture their attention before the plot line, so when planning our film, we decided to follow the stereotypes as best we could and use two main actors, rather than lots of equally important actors. Due to our limited sources, we were unfortunately unable to borrow high brow actors and actresses for our film, so we decided to try and just follow the pattern of successful, well reviewed films. By doing this, we decided that using two main actors would suggest that the plot of the film would be successful. We based our decision on the latest box office success, Gravity 2013 which received 7 out of its 10 Academy Nominations despite only using two infamous actors – Sandra Bullock and George Clooney throughout the entire film. We thought that using many actors would take away from the enigmas we planned to use as it may be difficult to keep track, as well as suggesting that the film was less sophisticated because typically, the more actors, the lower the success of the cast which is why more, less successful actors are used in an attempt to appeal to a wider target audience. As we have learnt from experience and research, the more attractive the cast, the smaller the cast is as they attract a wide enough target audience for the film to be a success on their own.

From our research, using the films Taken and Intrusion we also were able to establish that our chosen genres, crime, thriller and action were slightly more popular with males, however not as much as we'd expected. The viewers of Taken 2 were 54% male and 46% female, and surprisingly, Inception was equal with the viewers consisting of 50% female and 50% male. Using this information, we decided to aim our film towards both males and females by using a female protagonist in which males would be attracted to but females would also be able to relate to. Aiming our film towards both genders created a wider target audience, and because the 15-24 age bracket has the most amount of disposable money, we also thought they would be a beneficial target audience as it would allow the film to have a higher budget, in turn appealing to the target audience even more as it would hopefully create a more successful, sophisticated film. Despite this, we are well aware that there are downfalls to our chosen target audience. Due to the relatively young age, they typically have other, larger commitments such as work or school, meaning they would have less free time than an older target audience, and so there is a chance the film would receive lower viewings. Although this is something we took into consideration, we found that the majority of successful box office hits have a young target audience such as ours, meaning that they still manage to find time to go to the cinema. Similarly, as a lot of films are targeted at the same age group, there is a chance that the film could go unnoticed if other attractive films were released at the same time, making it very competitive. To target this audience successfully, we would have to build up a hype for the film, which would involve making sure that the trailers and posters are shared on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In this age group many are influenced by their friend's recommendations, so it is vital that we employ a viral marketing campaign similar to 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey', which successfully exploited teenage usage of Facebook and Youtube.

Although young men remain one of the lightest viewing audiences, they are still one of the most profitable. Their viewing is typically centred around their interests and daily schedules, however they are often easily influenced by female partners or friends. Despite this not being entirely relative, we found that this group are more likely to watch films post-pub than any other, where comedies and general entertainment feature highly as a relatively light viewing which suits the mood perfectly. We thought about this a lot when choosing our target audience, however we decided that even though one of their most popular genres was almost opposite to ours was not a major concern. Although it may be true that the comedy genre is the most popular amongst men on weeknights, we did not intend to release our film at this sort of time. Due to the young age of our target audience, we would release our film at a weekend as we believe it would receive the highest viewings. This means that young men would still be able to enjoy late night weekday comedy viewings, but also still have time to be able to watch the sophisticated, high brow film (we we hoped to produce) at the cinema, slightly reducing the competition. Alternatively, the expected genre viewing stereotypes went against what we found from our research, shown through our surprise when the target audience for stereotypically male dominated genres such as thriller and action were almost equal between men and women. Young women are big consumers of media on the whole, making them a suitable target audience for our film. Compared to men of the same age group, women have a much broader variety of tastes, with nearly half falling into the medium to heavy viewer categories which increased the chance of our film being a success within both genders. Our expectations, based on the stereotypes of the genders were proved wrong by many of the statistics, which allowed us to aim our film towards both genders rather than just males, which we had initially planned to do.

Overall, I think our film would appeal to the 15-24 male and female target audience in the way that we intended. Through the slow build up to the film with little given away about the characters, tension and suspense was created which is an aspect this age group in known to enjoy. Similarly, I think our film would work well with this target audience because it helps to counter the work in their everyday life be it from school or work as it provides a sense of escapism, which is also something which would appeal to them, making it a selling point in our film. Although we did not want to base our opening scene around a period drama or classic novel because of our lack of experience and resources, it works to our, and our target audience’s advantage as I do not feel like this would appeal or be a selling point as it may seem too realistic, causing them to relate it back to work. As mentioned previously, one problem with our film is that it could be lost amongst other, more popular releases and so we would need to make sure that within the marketing we focus on positive reviews and a good reception to make sure I gains the attention needed to make it successful. Although I think our film would be appealing to our target audience, I believe that fast paced action sequences or even casual light-hearted comedies may be slightly more successful. From our research and planning we were aware of this however decided against this due to our inexperience and so believed we would be unable to produce a film which would be better quality than this one. To ensure the success of our film against other competitive genres such as comedy or action, we would need to take advantage of the social networking sites which are popular amongst our target audience to advertise our film. Despite this, I do believe that we provided some of the elements that this demographic would want in a film, and with our limited knowledge I am quite pleased with what we produced.

Director's Commentary

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

Here we have aimed to provide a short director's commentary for our opening two minutes. In order to provide more information about our film process, we have talked about how we ideally wanted to finance our film, as well as behind the scene thoughts about the production and distribution. This should give the audience an idea as to the thought we put into our film and where we gained inspiration from.

Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film we decided to stick to the stereotypes as we know that they have previously been successful. Taken was a film which had a significant influence on our production and so we decided to use a main character which was similar to the protagonist of Taken because it had similar genres and so in turn, a similar target audience. Kim – the protagonist in Taken is a 17 year old girl, portrayed to be overly vulnerable through the use of her over protective Father who retired from the CIA to be closer to his daughter. This almost over exaggerates the helplessness of the protagonist as it suggests she is incapable of looking after herself as her Father has had to leave his seemingly important job to be nearer to her. We referred back to Taken, in particular the character of Kim, many times throughout our planning process, both to gain inspiration from her, or to make sure our protagonist wasn't too similar to her due to the slightly different plot.

In terms of appearance, there are many similarities between Kim and Christie, our protagonist of 'Intrusion'. It appears that Taken had also chosen to follow the stereotypes as typically, a young, blonde, attractive female character is chosen to play the vulnerable character as this is what is expected in society. As the target audience consists of the general public, it makes sense to use a character in which they will expect to be the ‘vulnerable’ one in order to help involve the audience with the plot, and in our case make it more relatable as the target audience will be of a similar age. For this reason, we made sure to chose a protagonist which would easily be recognised by the audience as the victim. Like Kim, Christie is young, blonde and attractive which helps to provide reasoning behind the plot, making it more realistic as it could be understood why she would be a point of interest. Similarly, Christie is quite small, again reinforcing her helplessness but has a slim figure which helps to fit with the plot as she is introduced whilst running. In comparison to Kim, Christie is a lot smaller which fits more with the stereotypical conventions of the female victim than Kim's character as it could suggest she would be older and/or too strong to be taken advantage of, however they are both fit and slim. This reinforces their youth, but also gives a slight feel of hope or even independence as it suggests they look after themselves, and fits well with the genres as it implies they have a chance of surviving/escaping. Both characters are also white which again is stereotypical and conforms to the conventions of the genre as it is usually thought that young white females are more spoilt and rely on their parents whereas other races often seem exotic or invincible, therefore in the eyes of society, making them less susceptible to danger. For this reason, we decided that a white victim would fit better with our plot due to the audience's expectations. 

It is difficult to compare our protagonist's costume to what is stereotypically expected of the female victim because there are no clear guidelines as to what they are expected to wear. To an extent, it is suggested that they are not usually dressed conservatively which plays a part in why they are maybe more noticeable than other members of the public, however there is no dress code so to speak, like the very clearly defined 'James Bond' suit or the dark and mysterious spy attire. For that reason we decided to dress Christie suitably for her purpose as she was going on a run, but we also wanted to represent her wealthy background which is also something expected from a young white female victim. To do this, we dressed Christie all in black with recognisably branded trainers, and a simple stripe of pink down her sides. We also kitted her out with the full running gear such as a headband and ipod holder which is not necessarily necessary, however we thought this would help to represent her affluence. There are both similarities and differences between the protagonist's clothing in Taken and 'Intrusion'. They are both dressed appropriately for their situation - Kim is dressed less conservatively due to the holiday feel the plot represents however this could make her seem more vulnerable than Christie as she would stand out more against a crowd. Similarly, Kim is dressed more colourfully which illustrates her youth but makes her seem less sophisticated in comparison to Christie. It could be argued that this was done purposely in order to emphasise the vulnerability of Kim's situation but I don't believe that Christie's lack of colour undermines the effectiveness of her costume. It is more classy which is something we were aiming for, and makes her look professional which helps to enforce our plot as it allows the audience to believe that the crime may have been premeditated, adding to the suspense and creating enigmas. The pink stripes down her side are minimal but add a sense of youth to her character allowing them to remember that she may be more vulnerable than she portrays, and also help to make her seem more approachable which would help appeal to a wider audience. Due to the differences in each film which would have an impact on the costumes such as the location and the plot, I believe that the protagonist's costumes are as similar as they could be. They both represent youth, (although one is more obvious than the other) they both fit their purpose and they are both relateable to their target audience, successfully helping to suggest they are a victim.

Again it is difficult to compare the similarities of the characters' role in the play as they are different films with different plots and characters. On a basic level, both characters are cast as the 'targeted vulnerable teen' however this is as far as the similarities extend due to the differences in plot. As it is only an opening scene, little is given away about the character's background in our film meaning it is difficult to determine what the protagonist's role in the play is, however it is not suggested that the character is as helpless as Kim's character is in Taken. Christie is portrayed as mature through her body language and activities and maybe slightly naive due to her obliviousness through the use of headphones, nevertheless this probably goes unnoticed as it is something expected of a modern day runner. In comparison, it is implied that Kim is helpless due to the need for her Father to give up his job and move closer and for his over protectiveness, which may be considered over the top even for an ex Central Intelligence Agent. Similarly, her lack of clothing and bright colours despite the touristy location also suggest she is oblivious to the dangers around her, implying that her kidnap is her own fault. I do not believe that Christie's character/role in the film suggests this about her, however I am unsure whether this is due to her costume and demeanor, or just simply because there is not enough time for her character to be introduced completely.