Evaluation

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

Post production research was undertaken before any planning was undertaken by Matthew and
I. We all watched the independent movie “This is England” by Shane meadows. This piece was
made by warp films and funded by film 4, warp films was an interesting company to look at as
they specialise in independent movies, and it is also a British film company. This gave us an
insight into story lines, plots, characters and settings which could influence our decision making
when completing our coursework. I felt that this research was a great insight into the
independent movie scene and what their final products were like, even when they are a lower
budget production piece. Considering that we had no fund to use for creating our piece, we
would have to use some of the strategies they did to make our film up to a high standard.

We also took a look at several thriller genre films which was a great idea, as it meant we could
see the style of production, editing and filming they used which made their film to a high
standard of the thriller genre. Such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “Psycho”, gave us a
look at the thriller genre film, and what we could do and how we can use editing to make our
film into the thriller genre. I would say that films that I have personally watched also provided
an influence for me to take and use for our thriller film. These gave me a personal look into
movies that were created with a high budget, for a blockbuster production. Even though we
knew that ours was not going to be to a high standard as to a film that has had years of planning,
production and editing we still looked at them to get editing ideas and inspiration for when we
started to plan our film.

Whilst looking through our media product after it was completed I can see that it relates to
real media products at the current stage, whilst looking into the procedures that were under
taken I think that the connections and similarities are created by our previous research that was
undertaken. Some of these similarities include such things as cuts, shots, effects; production
(equipment), pre-production and other processes that film companies go through when
creating a feature film, we tried to go through the same processes in planning, production and
editing so it was as genuine as possible compared to a real media product.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our target audience range is particularly meant for a teen/ young adult audience we felt that
the story line should include the social life representation of that age range. Using clothing,
codes of language and attitudes that relate to this sort of age range, let the audience identify the
type of film that this was going to become.

The character Charlie (main role) is a nineteen year old pyromania affected teenager, who
doesn’t belong to any particular social group; he is an individual who doesn’t care what other
people think of him. He is male, of a middle class wealth, living in an urban area.

The way we have represented him is through his style of clothing and attitude. You can tell
that he is of a wealthy, polite background, through his style and neatness and cleanliness of
clothing. We also chose to represent him as a worrier who is also warier of the people around
him, using his attitude towards running away and the police we felt we were able to get this
through to the audience through the film.

This might link into some stereotypes of certain groups of teenagers like, Emo’s, Chav’s,
Townie’s, thug’s; we wanted to make a connection through the real life of a teenager and our
character and how they have to worry a lot through the growing up stage. We felt that this
would place more social realism into the movie and make a connection the audience that we
understand the traumas that teenagers go through these days. We felt that this could connect
with the audience, as it shows that people understand and it shows that we have thought about
all possible teenagers and not a normal, smart, happy and rich, all round good teenager. We also
thought that if we changed the perspective of the teenager and made it more truthful with a hint
of abstract parts then the thriller genre would fit in more.

The character Laura is supposed to slightly older than Charlie, at the age of twenty one. We
have tried to show this by adding more maturity into Laura’s attitudes and body language and
how she deals with Charlie’s situation during the opening scene. She is still in the individual
social group with Charlie and middle class living in an urban area, surrounded everyday by
difficult decisions and situations which we have tried to show by adding stress onto the acting
of this character.

The use of the two genders shows we have looked into both, and widens our audience’s
appeal to this film. The fact that one is calmer than the other calms the film slightly and includes
different prospectuses of a teenager. It shows that we have looked into different personalities
and different social groups. Overall I feel that it is a positive thing that our characters are
different in different ways because it expands our audience’s feelings about the film.

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

When considering the type of media institution that might distribute our media product, we
looked at the more independent movie companies like Warp Films and Working title Film
Company. Warp films have produced some well known films such as the BAFTA award winning
film “This is England” which our class watched to improve our knowledge on researching the
ranges of budgets that they use for recent films and past films gave us an idea of the figures that
we would be working with and whether we felt that it could be done.

This also challenges our ideas and gave us a sense of realism in our decisions. Film
companies such as warp films look towards publishing independent, less known films that are
interesting but need the funding to be created. As our film is of a lesser budget and is considered
to be an independent production, we would look towards a film company like warp films that
would take the chance in a good plot line and would help us to create our piece.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As this was a thriller film, we knew that the age range couldn’t be too low, due to the fact it
could be scary for little kids aged 14 and below. So instead we looked at making our age range
near our own ages (16-17). We felt this was too small of a scale so we lengthened to 17- 32 year
olds. We choose 32 as the last age because at this stage in people’s lives, they have finished
education, are trying to settle down and want to go out with friends and family.
 I feel that this age range is broad and considers two different types of audience which can be
entertained at the same time. Younger students want the thriller aspect to excite them during
the study period, therefore will pay to go and see a film that they can use to escape but also
relate to their every day life.

The younger side of the audience is more of our demographic for this movie, therefore we
choose to relate the movie directly towards them, including issues they might come across. We
also wanted to create an exciting,, thrilling film that teenagers can watch to escape there every
day life. I feel as if we have achieved this by relating the characters to the younger age range and
creating a sense of similarity between the audience and the films characters personality.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Pyromania’s target audience was quite a ride range, consisting of Men and women of 17-32 year
olds. We felt we could create a film that targeted more of the teenage range and the young
adults that are starting to finish education and would have more time to go to the cinema. We
had to think about how we could attract our target audience to the cinema to watch the film. We
looked at things like characters, clothing, language and location. We felt that the way to reach
our teenage target range would be to look at style of clothing. We felt that if they saw clothes
that were more modern and in trend with the 21st century then they could relate to it. Other
than if the clothing was Victorian era or clothing that was out of date. Things like the language
used for the speech sections was very important because it meant you could almost talk directly
to your audience.

After the film was created we set out to get some audience feedback from fellow media
students who know the aspects that we needed to create in our thriller film. We knew that they
would be able to give us genuine, useful feedback which would help us determine whether our
film was successful or not, through the eyes of a media student in the age range our film was
aimed at. Through the feedback that was given they felt that the establishing shot at the
beginning of the shot, made a good clear message about where the setting was at that point. The
use of the colours for the title sequence was seen to be colour related to the movie throughout
and the theme of fire. This gave us the impact that our hard work had been noticed throughout.
They also enjoyed the jump cuts, fades the general plot and they didn’t notice any major
continuity errors. There was a negative comment about the soundtrack, saying that they
soundtrack created sounded like a branded theme tune at the beginning, because the of the
techno side of the soundtrack. We took this as a piece of constructive criticism and can now see
where they were coming from, so to change this we changed the level of volumes for the
soundtrack to mellow down the techno side.

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

The main factor that controls the process of creating a movie is the reliability of the software in
use. We found out whilst making the Prelim task that they weren’t always successful. Our movie
was first lost via the computer system and it also controlled the time scale that it took for the
movie to reload onto the computer, for us to work on it. Overall the Prelim task showed us a lot
about how situations can mess up and you have just got to deal with it and try to fix the
problems, it also taught us to make sure we have saved the document on more than one
computer and onto a memory stick as well as a extra copy. Things including budgeting were not
necessary when creating this piece as all locations, props, characters and equipment were either
our own, borrowed or free to use. The main aspects like the editing relate very clearly too real
media forms, as we used the forms that most film companies go by. Examples: - Serif movie plus
X3 was the form of software that was used to create the film, software that could and might be
used by film production companies such as Warp Films and Film 4.

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

The Preliminary task was the first filming session I had ever under took, which contributed to
an education course. I felt that I learnt a lot from this experimental process, as I gained skills in
areas which would give me an advantage when creating Pyromania. Skills such as, Filming,
editing and location scouting. All proved very useful when it came to producing the opening of a
thriller film. I learnt that you need to make sure you plan out in depth the processes you are
going to take and the equipment that would need to be taken to every shot. Following our lack
of time to plan the first shooting scene, we lost power in one of the batteries very quickly. After
preparing the equipment list, we knew that we should bring a spare battery in case something
like this happened. So evidently we had made the right decision which meant the filming was
able to continue at Windmill hill. We also learnt that it take many shots to get the right one,
before ending that scene. After shooting approximately six times for each shot, we felt that the
right shot was amongst them. Although it took a long time, the extra shots gave us the
perspective that we needed when creating the actually film. It gave us a bit of a reality check as
we didn’t think that It was take so long, we thought that after one shot it would be done, but
there is actually more work that goes into producing, editing and directing an opening scene for
a thriller.