Katherine Martin: Evaluation

"In which ways does your media use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products"

We feel that our opening does use, develop and challenge the normal forms and conventions that are seen in already existing media products. From research, we learnt many conventions that were effective and would help our opening to build verisimilitude, which we feel was very effective as without our piece wouldn't have had as developed conventions. However, we also had our own ideas that challenged the typical conventions, that we feel worked or could have been better. Yet overall, we do feel our thriller opening was efficient at building the conventions we wanted it to.

'Face/Off' & 'Orphan' both have a narrative sequence for their opening. As we research into the conventions of these, we understood the effect of doing a narrative opening over a title sequence and therefore tried to do the same.
The films 'Seven' & 'Pulp Fiction' both have opening titles instead of a narrative sequence. However, although they differ from ours, these are both extremely successful thriller productions.

In terms of the narrative themselves and building a relationship of the characters, we researched into which did these. 'The Family' includes four main character, yet despite that you are given a perspective and detailed story of each character. Therefore, allowing audiences to know the roles they all had in the narrative. 'The Godfather' also demonstrates this. As the main character is allowed to be very understood and have a developed relationship with the audiences, yet the same effect was created in 'the family'.
'Fast & furious' is different from ours, as it includes a lot of characters to which their roles in the narrative are fully developed.

'Orphan' & 'Fargo' have production titles that are much like ours. Specifically as Fargo as well looks similar in font to a type writer. The titles both have a signficant meaning to the narrative as well, as Orphan is the role of the antagonist and later reveals a big plot twist & Fargo means " A place outside your normal existence that, once visited, alters your life forever", complementing the plot as the main character get involved in crime, which he has no experience in and affects his life.
Our title is unlike 'The silence of the lambs' & the rom/com '10 things I hate about you'
I put the rom/com there to show how successful thriller can also be longer, but it's more typical for them to be shorter.

Our production is like the films 'The Family' & 'Shutter Island'. Due to how in the family, they have typical everyday settings, as they show a stereotypical dining room with a family - which makes the plot include verisimilitude. 'Shutter Island' complements out idea of having a setting that is significant to the antagonist/narrative. As they both included a prison to demonstrate a crime thriller.

'Batman', 'The Family' & 'Kill Bill' all have similar properties to our production. For example, in 'The Family' the props, specifically the weapons are very real life. As the woman uses petrol when in a garage, a girl uses a broken tennis racket and the boy uses mental strength of wit. Also, we learnt in Kill Bill that the weapon can demonstrate personality into the character, which we incorporated.
However, two thrillers that use different conventions of props are 'Misery' & 'Mr & Mrs Smith'. For example, Mr & Mrs smith just use typical guns which are available in their job. Although it demonstrates character verisimilitude, we preferred to be more stereotypical and really highlight the character.

The video below explains why we chose the items of clothing we did, the effect of the costume with challenges & stereotypes and the issues that were raised.

and then I created a video to explain the motif of the second outfit

The two thrillers that are similar to our own are 'Gone Girl' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'. The clothing here is very real and representative of the social groups within that genre. We also did this as we thought it was more effective within a micro-budget production to be more representative of real life characters and as a consequence, of the audience.
We thought that 'Kill Bill' and 'Batman' were less similar to our production because they included very adapted clothing which brings in the genre of action more.

The powtoon below explains why we used the shots and framing we did, including clips from our production (which take a few seconds to load)

I made another Powtoon to show why we used certain edits and the effect of them. With similarities to other productions.

"How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

The IMovie underneath shows who and how we represented the particular social groups, including gender, age and information from UK tribes

Mind Map created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

As highlighted above in the video, we knew that our character was the main way we presented different social groups. To show this is done in other media as well, I looked into the character Belle Blake from the film 'The Family' (A crime thriller). She is very much like our character, as it breaks the stereotypes, and therefore because it does this- complements and mirrors the social groups of leading edge and alternative. Whilst demonstrating that stereotypes can successfully be broken for both teenagers and females. As the text states above, she is 17 - the same age as our antagonist. She also appears to not the be the type to partake in violent acts, yet the actions are the opposite. As the antagonist does kill, much like ours. Also, the other main point that draws our antagonist to Belle is that they still include conventions that are very realistic, as the plot still needs to include verisimilitude for audiences. Therefore, they both include things such as teenage emotions such as love, relationships with overs and jealously. In terms of mise-en-scene, the characters dress normal for their age, as the girl in our production doesn't wear office clothes for an older woman, they both use weapons to kill and performance is very confident. Both films show how each of the antagonist, even if female and younger than stereotypes can be successful within a crime thriller with the help of conventions.

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

The logos below are our production titles, which can see seen at the start. We tried to make these look like actual companies, such as including animation and soundtrack for each. Yet, these companies would be independent and work at the micro-budget.

The three companies above, 'Warner Brothers', '20th Century Fox' and 'Metro Goldwyn Mayer' are part of the 5 major hollywood film studios. The reason I put them here is to highlight why they would not be appropriate companies to produce and distribute our production. These companies work with the biggest of films that generate the bigger gross and audience numbers. Therefore, as our product is part of the niche, micro-budget level these wouldn't consider working with a product at such a low level. Our opening simply doesn't have the correct budget and target audience to create a film that will be able to compete against USA productions which have the support from these companies.

For example, the information below about Warner Brothers shows how our production wouldn't 'qualify'.
(prezi)

However, the above companies may be suitable for our product if we carried on with production, had generated a budget and convergence of other companies. These companies generally work with films that are of the low-budget (as micro-budget is distributed by own, such as online). These companies are more about distributing a worthy, art house cinema production rather than generating as much profit as possible. Of which many of this products stay within the UK and do not have much DVD release. For example, 'Warp Films' distributed 'Submarine'

For example, the information on Studio Canal shows how they may be suitable to distribute our production.

Phoenix Cinema, Leicester

4.4 stars/5 (16 reviews)
"Cinema, Art and Cafe"

Showing at the Moment:
.Wild Tales (15)
. A Little Chaos (12A)
.Dark Horse (PG)
. M.L.E (15)

The phoenix is supportive of low budget films. As they put more effort in showing good quality films for their audience instead of generating a large profit. They show a large passion towards supporting low-budget films that are art-house and have new talents. As well as showing films they show a numerous amount of art styles, such as documentaries, art galleries and photography.

The phoenix would be suitable for our production if it was carried on because they appreciate lower-budget productions and new talents.

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

The presentation below explains our target audience and social groups with a voice over

The cue cards below show how the age certificates fitted into our production

Flash Card Deck created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

Note created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

The prezi below shows how our expected social groups fitted into our target audience
and how we aimed our production towards them

^ This is an example of were our target audience would watch our production, as the phoenix in Leicester is an art house cinema that is supportive of micro and low budget productions.