1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The opening features a chase scene in which the protagonist is chasing someone. This creates a fast pace sequence. At the end of the chase there is a POV shot, when the protagonist kills the person, bringing the viewer into the action. There is tension use in the interview scene when the antagonist is interrogating the protagonist. In the interview scene the rivalry between the antagonist and protagonist is a binary opposition. Part of the opening is set in a wood and another part is set in a darkened room each of which is a setting often used in thrillers.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The opening features two main characters: both are male, white, aged in their thirties and middle class. The antagonist is in a powerful position because he has control of the situation. The protagonist is the captive of the antagonist. The protagonist, who is being interrogated throughout the opening, is represented as a ordinary middle-class person. This is achieved by the character wearing the sort of clothes a middle class man would wear, such as jeans, jumper and casual shoes, and using typical middle-class language. The camera angle on the protagonist during the majority of the interrogation is a high angle which makes him look smaller and less powerful. The antagonist, who is the interrogator in the opening, is represented as a middle-class criminal. This is communicated through his style of clothing, such as smart shirt and black trousers and the way he speaks to the protagonist. The antagonist uses middle-class language but speaks in a sinister way to convey has criminality. The antagonist is shot from a low angle for most of the interrogation to make him seem powerful and dominant. The characters are represented as they are to get empathy with the target audience of middle-class white males. It was also intended show clearly which was the antagonist and protagonist.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our media product might be distributed by TV broadcasters, for example, BBC, Channel 4 or ITV, or film distributor, such as Entertainment One UK, Icon Film Distribution or Lionsgate in the UK or Sony, Paramount or Warner Bros. in the USA. Such companies are commercial organisations which specialise in distributing our type of media product.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience of our media product will be mostly male aged 18-35.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
All the characters in the film are male and in the target audience age range. The story would appeal to the target audience because it contains action, including a chase scene which ends violently. At one point the camera was positioned from a worm's eye view showing feet running in the chase scene which heightened the action. There is also a point of view shot which makes the viewer feel like he is in the film. The characters dressed as someone in the target audience would. The different characters were used to show the struggle between someone with power and someone who does not have power. The film used a stereotype of a man wearing a suit to show power.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?
In the filming I did, I learnt how to place the object of a shot in the correct position of the frame. I also learnt how to position a camera in order to get the best shot. I observed how to carry out various editing techniques such as speeding up and slowing down a take, cropping parts of the frame and how to cut a paste footage in the timeline. When we were filming the interview scene, I learnt how to position the light and adjust the brightness of the lighting to create the right amount of light for the shot.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
I did not carry out any filing in the preliminary task and so I learnt a number of new techniques in the main task, such as how to frame a shot and camera positioning to get an ideal shot. Sound editing was not a task I took part in so did not learn a great deal in this area, although I did observe the re-positioning of sound in the editing timeline. I did not actively control the vision editing but I did give suggestions while the editing was being done and saw how to change the pace of a scene, crop footage and re-arrange sequences in a timeline. I was not involved in the development of the story of characters in the preliminary task but I did write out and decide with the rest of my group what the story was going to be and the roles and natures of the characters. I learnt how to write a synopsis of a story and how to create a plot for a thriller.