Final Product

Dear Examiner,
This is my final product which of course is what the blog is based on. If you need to get rid of the annotations press the speech bubble which will then go white and there gone.

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

Looking back to our basic prelim from when we first started media and becoming familiar with the camera, to making our own thriller, there is a clear difference in the two; such as the sophistication of our planning and how everything is a lot more indepth in our thriller.



Our prelim looks very messy and it is evident that we have tried to cram in as many different angles from wide shot to over the shoulder within the space of 20 seconds. This was clearly just to experiment with working the camera and is very apparent. However our thriller is much more tidy in the shots that we have chosen to use and because its much more simplistic is hopefully a lot easier for audiences to understand and a lot better to watch. We have improved in aspects of how to use the camera, different angles which best suit situations, sticking to the 180* rule.



Sound wise is also a lot cleaner and clearer in the thriller in comparison to our prelim. The dialogue in the prelim, although does try and tell a story, had no ambience or depth. Whereas in our thriller our music and atmospheric sound is so much better in the sense that it conveys a story, and allows the audience to see what genre of television or film they are watching.

Visually our thriller is much more narrative than our prelim. In our prelim there is no real story line, and no insight to what the story even is. Thus gives the audience no clues as to what is going on and leaves it up to the audience to create their own idea of what the story could be. Our thriller visually indicates that it is about death and illness due to the clues from the posters, various bodies and blood.

When it came to working on FINAL CUT it took me a while to work out how to use it and I found it difficult to remember what every button did etc and how to remember where everything was and how it worked. Although I did finally start to work out how to use everything which will help me a lot more for next year. I found AFTER EFFECTS much easier to use and really enjoyed doing all the different effects with the titles and including all of the blood, smoke and glass effects. It shows a much more sophisticated knowledge on camera work and editing, unlike our prelim which looks very amateur.

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

Here we have edited annotations onto our thriller to show how we have developed our skills in editing and what we did to create the final product through the use of technology.

Task 5 How did you attract/address your audience?

We believe that our main target audience is men. The statistics showed that a strong ratio within the 15-34 range, 28 Days Later was proved extremely popular with men.

As our thriller is very medecine and scientific based this was designed to attract men as it is traditionally a field which men were interested in, as well as woman. From the small percentage of woman found to enjoy scientific based thrillers we see that woman who are in the medecine field will equally be drawn to this type of film.

The main hero in our thriller who rescues the world from the pathogen and multiple virus's is a man, which will attract men in the respect that males have a fantasy and aspiration to feel powerful, strong and of use so it could be inspiring, a replica of Jason Bourne if you will. Somebody all men have a desire to be like. However in some aspects this will also attract woman who are attracted to fight scenes (like myself).

It will also attract people who are interested in political and geographic happenings as it invites opinions on the third world country and its poverty which will be witnessed in the film as countries in Africa carry a lot of diseases and stereotypically shown to be brought from Africa through virus infected animals and food. Because of its ethinicity issues it will also attract political people in the sense that the film creates a conflict between rich and the poor and how even though the rich have money they are equally unable to protect themselves. We see that it becomes a multi-cultural problem in this next still image.

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

As our thriller is based on an end of the world scenario in which a disease has wiped out the majority of the population, it could be suited to a wide variety of audience and ages.

I think that people who have a particular interest in geographic disasters as well as medical interests will enjoy our thriller as it is about health issues and the need for medical survival. It also is about the self destruction of the planet through loss of civilisation and care.

It could also target an age from 15+ as naturally, as human beings we are particularly interested in the wellfare of our planet and the idea of surviving. I would say that any human on this planet is particularly scared of the thought of the human race being wiped out by some kind of illness. This will probably lure in people who are interested in the idea of suriviving and staying safe and could also attract people who are terrified of the idea of the loss of civilisation.

Previously when researching and planning I looked on YouTube and thought about how 28 Days Later effected its audience. The statistics on YouTube showed that it was equally popular with men and women from a range of age groups varying from 13-17 (female) and 17-25/25-34 (male). 

Now statistically in 2006 and 2007, in terms of gender, it was shown that 58% of men and 42% of women went to watch I Am Legend. Which suggests to us and the producers that our film may evenly attract a well balanced ratio from female to male. However we notice that in the same year, the statistics for 28 Days Later show that 63% of men and 37% of women came to see it. This film perhaps is much more relatable to our own as it contains the same gore and probably won't have the lead attracting main multimillionare lead role which will attract the women. I know that's mainly why I went to see I Am Legend.

Statistically in age group it suggests that 28 Days Later attracted 42.7% from 15-24 which gives us a rough idea of who will potentially be interested in coming to see our thriller. Also it is proven that approximately 32% of video games for 'PS3' and 'Xbox' are based around zombies which relates to the idea of our thriller, attracting 'gamers' and males.

Also we could see that this film could appeal to male in the sense that, the leading male in our thriller stereotypically saves the world from being incurable and has a romance with the leading woman. Which is a dream for most men, to feel wanted, heroic and also to be able to have a romance with a beautiful woman.

Task 3 What kind of Comany would make our film?

As our thriller is not going to have the biggest budget and a limited cast as well as most probably a niche audience. I have realistic expectations about which company would consider distributing our film. I highly doubt that a big company like Warner Bros. and Universal will take on such a low budget film like ours.

Instead I have researched which sort of company is most likely to produce and distribute our film, which is one which has a history in working with independent films. SUMMIT, momentum and Lionsgate are just examples of the sort of distributors who would take on our film.

I like the idea of SUMMIT distributing our film as they have produced a lot of independent films like 'The Calling' and 'FACE' as well of a lot of successful and popular films such a 'The Twilight Saga' and 'Man on a Ledge' starring Sam Worthington who I am a big fan of.

In order to really promote our film I would like to create an official website which although would give us no profit because it would be free, would theoretically give us profit in the fact that it encourages people to come and watch it. We could also create posters, perhaps a billboard to help get people to watch it. I think that the best way to grab peoples attention is through 'word of mouth'. So I think we should book advance screenings and previews before the film actually comes in order for people to discourage or recommend.

Task 2 How does our Media product represent particular social groups?

As our thriller does not contain any people (apart from dead ones) in the title sequence, it isn't really subverting or ahering to any gender stereotypes. But as the film continues we may start to see representations to status and class and the film will show how class suggests you can live at a certain standard and how the rich will try and use money and power to escape their terrible death through illness. However as our film progresses it will show that rich and poor have their equalities and that there is nothing to be done to cure them.

We will also see conflict between ethnicities and how throughout the duration of the film it is about finding a cure for a disease in Africa which could show a positive light due to the fact that we're trying to help people, but also negative as it represents Africa as being unhealthy and polluted. We see that the hero of our film is a white South African man, which adheres to the stereotype of dominance and control over Africa in History and how the whites had power.

We will have a seen where the Hero of our film is rescuing a small child and helps to cure it before it dies amongst the ruckass of dead bodies, which will juxtapose between the baby and the dead bodies and show a representation of the circle of life. It also subverts to the stereotype of men and how woman are usually seen as the caring, maternal figures. This shows men to be more of a 'family man' and the practical adult.

In our class we created a grid which portrayed the stereotypical opposites between male and female.
For example; Male - Obsessed with sex, Female - Romantic.
This was interesting to do because looking at some of the stereotypes that we had to put in the grid it was interesting to see which ones adherred and subverted to what we thought and also what was portrayed in peoples thrillers.

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

I created a powerpoint to convey how I used and challenged conventions in my thriller. Unfortunately scribd crashed so I've uploaded the slides as JPEG.