My media product is the opening scene of a thriller film. It was burned onto a DVD to be sold online or in stores. The film has a professional look with editing, sound, and transitions. It also has a menu for choosing the main task or preliminary task. The film represents stereotypical social groups - the innocent blonde female protagonist and sinister antagonist in black. Independent film companies and British film institutions like Universal Studios, Optimum Releasing, and Soda Pictures may distribute the film. The target audience is ages 15 and over due to mild violence. Learning experiences included using cameras, lighting, editing software, and challenges of continuity and lighting when filming at night.

1. Evaluating Main Task By Alec Boyle

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product is the opening of a thriller. The film was burnt onto a DVD making it possible to be sold online or in shops. For example HMV as they tend to sell DVDS.By editing the film and including sound and transitions it gives the film a professional feel along with my media product having a menu at the beginning giving the consumer the choice to watch our main task ‘The Calling’ and our preliminary task, showing our filming skills and editing skills before we attempted our main task.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media product presents particular social groups through the traditional stereotypes. The protagonist is represented as a blonde female and the antagonist is wearing all black which shows a dark presence. The female from the start is someone that looks ‘innocent’ and is not aware about the danger coming her way. The female is seen as vulnerable as she is alone in her house and is without a hero in her home to rescue her. In the opening two minutes it can be seen that the female is oblivious to the danger that surrounds her, this is shown when she is running her bath not knowing the antagonist has entered her home. The make-up used brings about her innocence as a blonde female is always seen as ‘pure’. The ‘villain’ is portrayed as sinister, this is shown with him wearing all black. In our media project the ‘villain’ lives up to his stereotype as evil this is similar to villains like Darth Vader and scream who both wear black which signals the character is evil. As we are not able to see their face it leaves a type of mystery of who he is? and why he is doing this? In our media project the protagonist is not aware of the danger they are in and the antagonist is human(not supernatural)

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Media Institutions like play.com and Amazon would be interested in distributing my film as they are known to allowing customers to sell their products online. Also independent film companies like Universal studios will be interested in distributing my product as they are well known for distributing thriller films including The Bourne Identity and Red Dragon. British Film institutions who can distribute my media product are Optimum releasing as they favour thriller films and have distributed thrillers like ‘Orphan’ and Soda Pictures as they released ‘The Disappeared’ which was a horror/thriller. Metrodome is another institution who can distribute my media product.

5. Who would be the audience for you media product? The mean target audience for my media product is 15 years and over. It has been rated 15 as there is mild violence present but nothing to explicit to become rated 18 and not suitable for anyone below age 15. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE? My partner and I attracted the target audience by making more modern for example the clothing of the protagonist. The clothing used is what girls of this modern era are wearing and is what they tend to shop for. The clothing attracts the audience as its sexy and something you would wear on a night out, this could draw in lustful me. Also the mobile is the latest trend at the moment as a of lot teens own a blackberry of their own.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Cameras: I have learnt how to use camera angles, shots and edits to portray emotions and to create a connection between the viewer and character on screen. The use of extreme close-ups allows the audience to fill the emotions of the character. I have seen the importance of lighting and props as it was hard at the start but with teamwork it made it clear and easy to do. Editing software: The clc lab helped me edit in transitions and music in order to help my film look much more professional. The Mac computers made this experience easier with a movie software that made the editing easier and putting everything into place fun. This helped me to organise the clips and manipulate the time in movie in order to into the required time. I was able to edit music that was appropriate for the scene and this was able to suit a thriller genre.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Looking back at what I have done, I have learnt how to edit clips, the use of camera angles and shots to see the emotion of the characters. I have also learnt how to bring music into play when its necessary and have done so to emphasise the mood of scene. The preliminary was a basic task so there was not much camera angles needed for this task as it was just a person walking into and some dialogue. However, my partner and I struggled with continuity during our preliminary task and although we had believed that we had learnt from our mistakes with continuity errors. We were proven wrong by the running water in our full product. Making sure that the water was running in the right shots became difficult and during editing some mistakes became apparent, although we were able to correct for our final product. Working with my partner was great experience, It was fairly easy for us as we both showed are hunger to filming and creating the full product, whereas the reliability of our actress proved to make filming for our media product difficult, as we has decided we wanted the opening set at night, we had to find a day where our actress was free and also able to film in the evening. We struggled with natural lighting in the full product and how unpredictable it is. We were determined to film at night to cater to the usual setting of a Thriller.