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

The concept around our idea is a simple one, a chase scene with the girl running away from someone or something that seems to be chasing her since she got off the bus. Following the conventions of a stereotypical damsel in distress in a horror thriller the girl was unable to defend herself from something that was going to hurt her. The selected music we used was set to a creepy theme to assist with setting the scene, the orchestral music was used in the chase for intensity and to enhance the eeriness and excitement.

In the opening scene the person chasing the girl is not seen, instead the hunter is represented by P.OV shots and different handheld camera shots such as running with the camera making it seem as if the person is running. This is the sort of style used by the makers of “Blair witch project” however in our opening scene the cameraman is the pursuer. Not showing the chaser helped develop the convention of mystery, as the audience were not aware of what the appearance of the killer looks like.

The pace of the scene is relatively quick when action is taking place and there were a couple of themes included such as isolation, vulnerability, loneliness all represented through the female being chased. The use of conventions indicate what kind of sub-genre the scene is from, just from having the woman being chased would indicate to the audience that its likely to be a horror as the woman is in danger of her life. The main thriller that influenced by groups opening scene was Blair witch project.


2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product had one main character which was a female, for any other horror thrillers the woman is always the victim such as Casey from Scream. In most thrillers the males would play the antagonist (serial killer) however the protagonist is the savior that has to defeat the villain this is mostly men but can be women. In our opening scene the woman was represented as a young black girl, between the ages of 17-19 coming back from college. The gender is represented in a stereotypical way because she seems passive and submissive to run away from danger. The audience expects a woman to be physically weaker then a man as this is realistically possible, seeing a man being overpowered by a weaker person would be developing the conventions.

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

The kind of media institution that would distribute our media product would be a major Hollywood film production, a production company like Miramax studios would be interested as they have distributed other thriller films with a horror sub genre such as Halloween: curse of Michael Myers and Dracula 3. The film would firstly be shown in Cinemas and distributed worldwide, firstly UK and USA. The movie should then raise a substantial amount of money from other opportunities also such as merchandising, selling clothes and action figures. After 6 months it can then be shown on television and recoup more revenue from broadcasters airing the film.



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

The primary audience for our media product is young adults 19-23 and older teenagers 16-18, this is the main audience in relevance to the narrative and style of the film. The main actor is a student which the audience will relate to as they will be either studying or just come out education matching the characters with audience.
The secondary audience is the middle aged adults 24-30 based on the reception on a similar film, Blair witch project. The reception for this film was warm due to the publicity however the film was widely marketed on the internet, our film will be marketed on television where we will target out audience through advertisements during different peak time slots.

5) How did you attract / address your particular audience?

We attracted our particular audience by making the film relate to them, as the character is around the same age of the target audience they will be able to understand her actions. For example, most students can recount times when they left college by themselves and had to walk alone on their journey feeling as if they are being watched, especially females. That moment of the opening scene will grip the female section of the audience engaging them into the rest of the film.
The audience are also allowed to put themselves in the position of the killer, with the point of view shots they feel as if they are the killer themselves which adds more intensity for the male section of the audience, having the experience of being in the film makes it more enjoyable and also for the audience it backs the suspense with the audience thinking what would they do next and then seeing what actions the killer actually takes.

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


The camera equipment was a massive help with ensuring out sequence was of the best quality, with the filming process we faced a couple problems such as not having actors but it was easily resolved with a person from the group electing to do it. When media technician showed us how to use all the equipment such as the camera and the editing software everything was quite simple to operate, the camera man was able to use the camera to its full ability which helped the editor, myself, to have more shots to choose from. Final cut express was quite easy to use when I learned the instructions and all the short cuts such as learning how to use different effects to change shots and to make it black and white which was used to give the opening scene a scary and thrilling end product.

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

What we have learned is that a lot of input and planning needs to be put in to ensure something great comes out the other side, after planning exactly what we wanted to do its became more easy to produce the thriller, just by knowing what shots need to be shot and what editing techniques are going to be used everything was done more swift. Doing research into the genre helped us know what is expected and the storyboard outlined the storyline.
Afterwards dealing with the equipment our confidence was raised as the group had used it before therefore had experience and had a idea of how to make it work e.g. the useage of final cut express allowed us to use techniques we used in the preliminary task. If the group hadn’t done the preliminary task we wouldn’t had been able to make the opening scene what is was, It would have been more amateurish.