Evaluation: Chloe Rickards' Evaluation Writeup

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

Our media product is a film about a teenager called Mika who was attacked by a sexual abuser called Jonathan, she is on the hunt to seek out vengeance on her behalf and is driven by hatred and determination to kill Jonathan and as well as his subordinate Lisa. This film is based on the psychological thriller genre. For the planning of making this film we had to create a hand-drawn storyboard for us to refer to in future when it comes to developing the film, we also used survey monkey to reach out to our potential audience and asked them some questions on what they are interested in and what genre type they like, whether the protagonist should be a male or a female and whether the last scene should be in a dark, low key light set to create a dark, creepy atmosphere, or what the characters should wear, this was very useful since it allowed us to see what the majority of people are interested in and what they would like to see from our film. When we did scene three, comparing it to the basement scene in The Silence Of the Lambs when Clarice is in the dark and can't see, both scenes are similar because Mika is in the dark and she turns to see a shadow but doesn't know who it is whereas Clarice is in the dark and she cant see who is trying to touch her hair.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film, it does follow the binary structure as well as challenging it. For example for the class social group, beginning of the film, which introduction where Mika lives represents the middle class type of houses that a middle class person/character would live in, which also shows that Mika is a middle class character. Also in the film, when we introduced Mika in the bathroom, the clothes that she was wearing represented that she was a middle class character, and this is shown through scene two as well. When we introduced the set for scene two, the park shows that it was a middle class area. When introducing Jonathan and Lisa, the clothes that they were both wearing were simple, common clothes which showed the viewers that they were middle class characters as well, showing that the protagonist and the antagonists were all in the same class.

For the gender social groups, at the beginning when introducing Mika, when she is looking at the mirror and can hear the voice of Jonathan echoing in the background shows that psychologically she is vulnerable due to being attacked previously by Jonathan showing that the gender social group of the binary structure has not been challenged because, in the gender social group the, the males are always going to be the stronger and more powerful ones on top of the binary structure, whereas, the females are the vulnerable, weaker ones compared to the males.  However, the story plot in this movie is that the protagonist, Mika, is seeking out vengeance towards Jonathan due to being sexually attacked by him previously which is shown in scene three, the story plot challenges the binary structure because she is going to be hunting down Jonathan and is going to take revenge of being abused.

  For the race social group, when we introduced Lisa, she was shown to be weaker than Jonathan due to her gender being female and as well as her race which was black. In the binary structure, the black males and females are lower than the white males and as well as white females.

  For the age social group, when introducing Mika to the audience, she is seen to be the hateful teenager who is allowing her hate to control her and to commit reckless actions, which could cause the audience to think that she is a reckless teenager who will end up staying weaker than the adult who are Jonathan and Lisa. When it came to introducing Lisa and Jonathan, Jonathan was the eldest out of the characters since he was going to be the more intelligent and powerful character and that he was a male which showed that he was the most powerful and dominant one out of the casts; Lisa is slightly younger than Jonathan but is still more intelligent than Mika but is still weaker than Jonathan.

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

The media institution that might distribute our media product would be YouTube, I think this is because since it is free to everyone who has the internet at home, the vast majority of people are most likely to go onto youtube and watch videos for free. Another reason why Youtube might distribute our media product is because it is free to use and that since our film is an amateur film and not a very professional one like the Hollywood films and that we haven't got a budget to use, we chose Youtube since it was free and that it was also very well known and is used worldwide meaning that not only can our media product be viewed nationally it also viewed globally as well, Another reason why we used Youtube to distribute our media product was to also to see if people enjoyed the opening scene of the film, bearing in mind that the film isn't a complete film, youtube is very goo to distribute a taster to our film to see if it caught the audiences attention and if people would want us to continue the film or not.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media would be British teens from 17 and over and from both genders, however, when we asked some people to view our media product, there were more female than males, which showed us that female teens were the ones most likely to watch our media product which was a psychological thriller, I think that the majority of the viewers were female due to there being more female casts compared to the male casts which only had one male cast, also another reason why that the majority of females were female because of the protagonist being female instead of it being male, this could have also affected the amount of females that were watching it compared to the males who would most likely prefer the male to be the protagonist and a female being the antagonist.

How did you attract/address your audience?

When it came to planning the film, we used survey monkey to set up a survey on where we should set certain scenes and whether a female should be the protagonist rather than an antagonist, this really helped place a setting stone for use because it allowed us to see what the audience we are targeting for are interested in and what they expect to see in the media product that we were going to make, so the majority of the answers that we had received and tried to use it in order to make the media product a good product. So from the results that we had gathered, we made the female a protagonist and had one male character and one female character to play as the antagonists, the set for scene two was meant to be in a room in front of a cafe but we weren't able to find a place that would allow us to do that so we had change the set for scene two in a park. The set for scene three, people expected it to be a dark, and creepy atmospheric set and in order for us to do this we used the drama studio and I had changed the lighting in the room to be set as a low key lighting to add effect to the scene.

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

I have learned new technology software's that we used in order to complete our media product. The first software application that I used through the construction of our media product is called Adobe Premiere, this software was used to edit videos that we had recorded such as each section of a scene that we had recorded we would cut out some unnecessary parts of it that weren't needed and to also try to stay within in a 2 minute target and we had also used it for our pod-casts that we did along the way as well; the software was also used to insert music for the media product for each scene and the software allowed us to change how loud the background sound of the clips were to be and how loud the music was allowed to be as well, when this software was first introduced to me, I wasn't very keen on it, but when I gave it a try and continued to use it through our groups journey in making the media product that we had made, I had started to grow confident in the software and was very exciting to use and interesting as well, since personally, I would might possibly need to use this type of software for what I would like to do in future is to be an animator of some sort. The next piece of technology software that I had learned about was the Prezi maker, I had no idea how to use at first and thought that it was going to be very difficult, so at first I sort of wanted to avoid using it but, when I made my first prezi for the construction, it was good, I understand why we would use that rather than slideshare because it gets the viewers attention more and that each time the clicked the mouse the prezi would move to one circle to another in a good transition rather than a boring slide to slide motion on powerpoint.

Adobe Premiere

Prezi

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 the preliminary task that was assigned to me, I think was very, very helpful, it gave me a really good insight in camera use and the use of different, necessary camera shots and angles that would be required for a certain part in each scene. It allowed me to physically study the usage of editing as well rather than watching it be done by someone else or reading a step by step guide. I think if we weren't assigned the preliminary task, I would have definitely struggled in the process of filming the scenes for our media product and that would have been a serious thing due to the deadline not being very long and if we were never assigned the preliminary task we wouldn't have been able to finish filming and editing on time. Another reason why I am glad that we were assigned the preliminary task was that we could use the premiere software and learn it quicker by actually editing a short clip and creating continuity and making the continuity very crisp so that it flows very well, which was a good skill to learn and to use in our construction for the media product that we have finished.

Evaluation: Who is the exact target audience for our film?

The main target audience for our film opener is British teenagers of all races and of the female gender. It is a necessity that we attract people who fit this demographic. We need British people to be attracted to our film opener because, England is the country of origin and different countries tend to have different tastes in movies. We identified the need to target British people because, these are the people which are more than likely going to understand the movie opener without either lacking understanding or language/accent barriers of communication. Therefore, we decided to input content which would work for people who are from England as they may prefer our movie compared to people in America.

 We 360 productions decided to target teenagers for our movie, this is because, we need a target audience in the age demographic because, when we came up with the teenager age range we knew what would be acceptable and well liked and what would not. We have chosen teenagers because, we believe that they are easiest target demographic to attract therefore they would be a good selling point. Also with 360 productions all being teenagers we know what the average trends are therefore we could include them in our movie. We had conducted a lot of research throughout the year which has was aimed at the teenage demographic therefore we decided to stick with them for our target audience. Teenagers are also the easiest demographic to reach out to by using Media. 

This list shows how much Media a teenager uses per day. 

This list shows the percentage of these Media activities of which teenagers take part in each day.

Our film appeals more to females. This is because, we tried to centre them as the main gender for our target audience. The reason why we decided to come up with a gender target audience is because, it is crucial in creating a film to which gender it will appeal to the most. I was also on the internet research statistics on which gender prefers watching thriller movies and I came up with a result which states women have a higher percentage. 

Therefore, we as a group decided to try and make our film appeal to both genders however we decided to focus more on the female demographic because, of this statistic.

Our film opener does not really focus on a race demographic. This is because, we did not want to stereotype in this way because, there was no need to do so. People of different races of the same nationality and from the same region tend to like the same type of movies.

Evaluation- Target Market Research

We decided to create a questionnaire to help us to gather feedback to improve the quality of our film. We cover a wide range of aspects such as the plot and characters which need the most development.

This was the first stage of choosing the type of survey. We ended up choosing the customer satisfactory template. This is because, it goes into the depth we need to gather our results.

This is what the creation process looks like

We edited the questions so that it was no longer about the default company but about our film. 

We had to delete the previous question and type in what we wanted, to help us to gather our results. To get the correct amount of answers for this particular question I had to delete some extra answer boxes from the previous question. This was by clicking the red X.

We chose to add a comment field, to do this we had to tick the comment field box.

 We chose to name the box as ‘other please specify’. We then changed the amount of which could be written in the box to a paragraph of text. This is so we are able to get a fairly detailed response of the question asked.  We then clicked on save to save the question to the questionnaire.

The rest of the finalized questionnaire took the same steps as shown in the first question. The final questionnaire looks like this. 

Evaluation: How did we attract our target audiance?

The main target audience for our film opener is British middle class female teenagers of all races. We attracted this target audience during our films by using different techniques. First of all, we based the characters around the age of our target audience, the idea of the characters being the same age as the target audience and may make them feel closer to the characters and enhance their emotions towards characters because they can relate.  

Below is an image of a horror movie which is supposedly classed as a ‘teenager horror film’: Unfriended.

  We also reached out to our target audience through social media. We conducted various surveys: prior our film and after to gain knowledge on potentially could be added to our film and what was good and needed to be improved.  92% of teenager’s log on to social media per day and putting our questionnaire on social media means we have exposed it to our target audience, allowing us to gain feedback from our intended audience.

Below is a demographic bar chart of the internet age percentage of people who use social Media. 81% of teenagers use social Media and 89% of 18-29 year olds use social Media. Considering the 18-year-old demographic is still a part of our target audience this is a lot of social Media usage. This is what makes it such a great way to communicate our product to a large audience.

 Similarly, we distributed our film on YouTube to reach our target audience, a lot of teenagers use YouTube whether it to be to watch videos or to even post them. Below is a statistic from the internet of how many teenagers use YouTube. Compared to other social networking sites it is visible that YouTube is extremely popular with our target audience.

We interviewed people who watched our film from the specified target audience. The interview was relaxed and we asked questions which would help us develop our film. 

From these interviews we gathered together and decided what aspects of our film we would change if we could. The main response from the group was an overhaul of scene 2. This is because, of research which was gathered during the interview and the questionnaire both pointed to scene 2 being the weakest scene and needing the most development. The main reason for improvement is the acting and dialect which was performed because, it seemed unnatural when watching it back.

Evaluation: Jessica Homawoo Evaluation Writeup

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

Our media text uses the media conventions of real media products in its representation of females, in our media text both females act subserviently to the male character, which adheres to Laura Mulvey's theory of the Gaze in media. Further in Scene 2 where Johnathan is looking at the pictures of the girls he is attempting to be scopophillic as the girls don't know they are being watched but, Johnathan is also looking at them for pleasure. However our media product challenges the binary structure in the gaze through the female character, Mika acting in voyeuristic manner in scene 2, where in most media texts voyeurism is normally committed by males which follows the binary construct. Therefore by having Mika committing voyeurism she has the power as Johnathan is aware of being watched and has no control of the information Mika has of him.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product both follows and challenges the binary structure of the social group: gender - with males at the top, with the most power and females at the bottom, deemed weak. In Vengeance, Mika portrayed as weak and vulnerable as a cause of Johnathan's abuse(seen in scene 3), which her entire character is based around - her anger and hunger for vengeance. Further when Johnathan is looking through the pictures of girls in scene 2, Johnathan has the power as he sends Lisa to find girls and speaks to her in a very harsh tone and he also has the power over which girl he chooses, which objectifies females. However through voyeurism in our film, we gave Mika power , which is against the binary construct of gender. Voyeurism is where a person is being watched without their knowledge, making hem very vulnerable as they now have knowledge which the person being watched cannot control, thus giving Mika the upper hand and changing the power dynamic.

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

Due to our film being amateur and very low budget, we will distribute our film on YouTube. YouTube is an ideal place to distribute our film as it is free and with our film being made with a low budget we lose nothing in distributing it on YouTube. Further, our film isn't complete therefore, if we were to eventually complete it we would want feedback to make a better version and YouTube allows us to get feedback through the comments section worldwide. In addition, YouTube is generally used by our target audience and it would be beneficial to get their response, and as they are not known to us we are more likely to get the most honest feedback. Moreover, having our film on YouTube exposes us to the potential of being noticed by investors who would be able to provide professional advice and feedback alongside money for better equipment and possibly actors. With an improved film we could take our film to an independent cinema or a film festival where we are likely to get even more investments and recognition. This could take our film to national cinema and eventually international cinema.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience are British Middle Classed Female Teenagers, although we tried not to make our film target a specific audience we found our cast being predominantly female - giving little room for males to make an attachment with characters due to the limited male casting.  Looking at theories of why people watch media, with Lacan's theory of the Ideal-I and the Mirror Stage - watching because we see the desirable characteristics in a character we believe we have or share with them: desiring to identify with Jonathan is unlikely as he is portrayed as a sexual abuser. However. the 2 female characters give the female viewers the ability to choose who they can associate them-self with, more so as Mika being the protagonist and Lisa the antagonist. Aside from our attempt to make our Target audience gender specific, we successfully didn't make our film target any specific race as our cast is multicultural and we didn't play to any stereotypes of any cultures presented in our film. Consequently, addressing the British public was made easier as there was a larger audience we could reach; Britain being a multicultural society our film appears more real especially to the Middle Class where a wider range of races can be found compared to the upper class. Naturally, our film is targeted towards the British public due to our cast being Britons as well as the language used and the Mise-en-Scene of the film as the Setting and Costume relates to British culture as we used typical sets and clothing: only recognisable to British.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using environments which would be familiar to the British Middle Classed Teenagers: a typical park and a typical house, by doing this we keep the characters relatable through the Mise-en-Scene of the set. When planning the film we conducted a survey on things that the audience would like to see, although we didn't ask if the surveillance scene would be suited in a park the results showed that familiar and public places were valued equally. After creating the film we conducted a survey which showed that Mika's age also attracted and addressed the audience as the majority of the viewers identified her age to make vulnerable which could be due to the audience feeling compassion as they are a similar age. Moreover, the outrageous nature of scene 2 where Johnathan looks through the pictures also addresses the audience as females may be offended by the comments as it addresses their appearance and makes them feel preyed upon. From our interviews and general comments from other peers, we found that giving little away of the characters background caused great intrigue, as people often commented on the fact that they wanted to see more.

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

While constructing our media product I became aware of how many different technologies we would be needing to use in order to create a media product, what's more a successful one. I didn't expect to be using so many different forms of technology- Celtx, Blogger, Survey Monkey and many others, it was also unexpected how much they would lend to our film. Survey monkey, YouTube and Blogger played the greatest part in our film making process, survey monkey helped gain an understanding of what our target audience expected and wanted to see. Furthermore, Survey Monkey and YouTube also helped us gain feedback on our film.

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

The preliminary coursework lent to our final product more heavily than I thought; we were constantly referring to the shots we learnt from our coursework - thinking about why we used it and the effect would have on the audience. For example we had to consider how we would build tension by doing closer shots from various angles, with this we also had to consider continuity which we also learnt from the preliminary work. We had to remember hand positions and when we didn't keep it in the right positions we had to go back and refilm those scenes. We developed what we learnt from the preliminary coursework by using different shots and angles which meant we had to think carefully about how we were transitioning  from one shot to another, especially form the full shot to a POV, which required various takes after realising the mistakes during editing.

Evaluation: Conor What I learned about Media and Technology

Evaluation- Conor Penna-FitzGerald Writeup

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

The movie which our group 360 productions created and develops the theory of how real Media products convey their messages. It is clear what the power dynamic is in our movie. It is the same as most actual Media products we do not change the binary structure. The person with the most power in this movie is Jonathan who is white and a male. He shows his power by being Lisa’s superior who is a female black teenager. However, they both have power over Mika. Mika is of oriental background and she is a very slight teenager. All three teenagers are also represented in a bad light. This can be seen because, you have the two main characters who are portrayed as antagonists but even the protagonist in this movie opener is being portrayed as vengeful and vindictive for everything of which has happened in her past. By our film opener it is clear that we our developing and using the general Media theories into our product. 

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?

The movie which we created presents different social groups in different ways. However in our production we made the white male (Jonathan) to look like the strongest character. This can be because, he is the main antagonist, and it is obvious by the way we tried to present Johnathon as a character. He was the ‘tough guy’, in this situation. He had a hold over both of the other characters in the movie. Our movie represents the black race in this movie to be followers. As by watching the movie you notice that Lisa is a big supporter of Johnathon, she is the sidekick in this situation. Also with the fact of Lisa being a female we decided to make her be portrayed as ‘second fiddle’, this is because, it would be more appealing to the larger audience to have the main antagonist to be portrayed by a male. However in the production it is arguable that the weakest character is Mika who is played by Chloe. Mika is a petite female with an oriental looking background. It portrays the females once again to be weak and because, of Mika being oriental we believed that it would allow the viewer to feel more sympathy to her as a victim because, of how Orientals can be portrayed in the Media on separate occasions. We do also portray teenagers in a bad way as this movie takes the age stereotype and makes it stronger. As Jonathan and Lisa are teenagers also and they are two antagonists. However Mika is also a teenager and although she is a protagonist she is also vindictive and spiteful as a person when put in the situation which she has been put into. 

                                                                                                                                                                                






                                               

What kind of Media institution might distribute your Media product and why?

The main Media institution which may be interested in our film opening is YouTube. This is because, the film which we created is not perfect. There are bound to be mistakes in the filming and/or editing and the acting may not be the best. The film opening overall is of amateur quality, this is mainly due to the equipment. We did not use equipment that would be good enough to display in a cinema or home television. However, another reason why YouTube may distribute our product is because, YouTube is a starting ground for people who would rather be known more. People do not start off automatically putting a film together and it being as good as a Hollywood movie. So YouTube is a good Media institution to begin with to start because, it allows our movie to be viewed by potentially billions of people, and with the comment system we will be able to gather feedback about the movie in order to improve it. It is also a chance for ourselves (360 productions) to get recognised more, with the like and subscriber system on YouTube and if enough people visit our YouTube chancel then the more chance we have at getting scouted and climbing the rankings. YouTube is also free and because, our film is very low budget it is a good starting point. It also allows our target audience to get invested in us and if we are successful it could lead onto bigger and better things such as film festivals.

Who would be the audience for your Media product?

The audience for our film is more for mature teenagers so around the 13-18 range. This is because, the way we chose to represent Mika was too distressing for a child of 12-year-old to witness. As the final scene can be fairly disturbing and if the viewer is younger it may leave lingering thoughts on their imagination. The final scene can also be intimidating to watch therefore we suggest children under the age of 13 should not be able to watch the production. We also suggest that the film we created should be viewed by only mature audiences because, of the perverted nature. Such as in the second scene when Jonathan is handed the images of innocent young victims, it is not intended that the film should be watched by anyone under the age of 13 because, it could be a bad influence on the child as the film does include psychological scenes and we do not want to be held responsible for any inspired attacks. With the movie opener having a violent scent we believe it attracts the teenage demographic to watch the movie.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The first strategy we used to try and attract this age range is that we based the characters which we portrayed at around the age group which was targeted. We believe that because, the main protagonist and the two antagonists were in the 15-18-year age gap that it would make the viewers around this age imagine that they themselves were experiencing what was going on in the story. We believe it will engross those more into the storyline itself and makes them feel a deeper sympathy and anger towards the characters which we want them to feel that way towards. We do intend on attracting this age group by putting questionnaires about the film onto social media. This is because, it is proven that 92% of teenagers log onto some sort of social networking daily. Therefore we will try to attract them to our film by advertising it on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. We will also use YouTube to attract our target audience. This is because, a lot of people use YouTube to either relax to or make a living out of. A lot of people who use the YouTube programme are teenagers or people around that age, YouTube is also one of the Media institutions which allow lots of viewers so we have more chance of attracting our target audience to watch the film opener when it is on YouTube. 

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

I have learned a lot about different technologies whilst trying to put together a film. I have learned about the usage of a camera, although I am not the best person to work with a camera I now know how to. I have learned different techniques by using a camera such as by trying to build tension, by taking close ups etc.  I have also learned about the Tripod. I originally had no idea on how to work one of them. However, throughout the progression of the course and we had to use them I had learned how to make it taller/shorter and how to adjust the camera whilst it was in the hold. I have also learned about different software technologies such as premier. This is where we edit the video which we created so we are able to get rid of anything which does not fit the movie. I did not know anything about editing at first, however I was taught how to do it and what other features are available such as a fade to light or a black dim (fade from light). I also learned about the SD card and how important it was. Before constructing the opening scenes of a film I had heard of an SD card however I did not know what it did.  I learned what it was and how important it was during the process of making the first few scenes as it was what we saved the scenes onto every time we finished filming so we did not lose any wanted progress. I have learned about YouTube also as, before making this movie I did not know anything about how YouTube worked. All I knew was how to watch videos. I now know how to publish videos and I know how the like and subscribe buttons work and it has deepened my interest into YouTube as a modern day technology. I have also discovered a new form of software which I had not heard of before the construction of making the film, this software is called Celtx. I was not an organised person in comparison to some people before the construction of this video, however once coming to learn about Celtx and how it worked I became a lot more organised than I was before. This is because, of the features which are available on the software to help keep our group organised. Keeping our group organised taught me to become more organised so as a result of using Celtx I am now a much more of an organised person and it taught me the importance of being so. 

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learned from the progression from it to the full product?

I personally have learned a lot from the preliminary work. I have just recently looked over it, as that work was the first part of the coursework at the beginning of a year, I knew hardly anything/if anything at that point and we were told that we had to create a film. At first I was very optimistic this is because, I had no clue how to film. Then I suddenly became extremely pessimistic because, I knew what the filming process involved and how complicated it was. I have now learned different aspects of filming such as what works in a film and what is able to be completed as an amateur. Some of the ideas which we originally came up in September-December which we thought at the time we would have been able to do it. However, we did not think it through and it’s with experiences like that in which we learn our limits as an amateur. I have learned how to use a camera properly now and I have learned different techniques in which we could use to make the film better if we had all of that time all over again. Techniques such as learning how to build suspense by zooming the camera in, I have learned that before we start a particular scene we need to set it by having a long shot. I have learned how to edit a film and I had no clue in how to edit when I first started the coursework. I have learned about and learned to use different software such as Celtx and this has given me nice ideas/strategies to help keep myself organised and I have also learned how important good organisation was as it was key to our group completing the film and coursework on time at a high standard. I have also learned more about YouTube instead of just knowing how to watch a video I know now how to upload videos and I know what all the different features are. I have also learned how important YouTube was in our film opener as it helped to get us recognised and also helped us to gather feedback with our survey. I have learned how to create a Pod cast. When we started I had no clue what a Pod cast was but now I know what it is and how to complete one if asked. Overall I have learned a lot since the preliminary coursework and the development of the film.