Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

One way in which we constructed our film, in order to achieve our target audience, was via the gender of our cast. The cast is completely male, but this was not intended to achieve our target audience, but because the gender of our group and our planning for the opening sequence. The female gender in this clip is not represented in the clip, however not by choice, this does not hinder the idea of females watching the clip, but just favours the older, male gender. We included violence and some mature, psychological themes which would attract an older possibly male audience. such themes as reality and death are usually unsuitable for younger audiences, which is why we have aimed at around 15+. Typically, the themes we used would make a real media product rated at around 15+ by the bbfc for cinematic release.

The score which was used on top of the opening sequence was generally quite gritty, similar to that of such films as "Se7en" which also was a psychological thriller. Another convention which was used was the setting of a dirty alleyway, for the fight scene between Rob Thompson and The Stranger, typically used in modern stalker/ thriller films and highlights this place to be dangerous, connoted by its ill-kept manner. all of these themes and conventions are typical of the thriller genre, and meets the expectations of a thriller audience.

Not much discernible feedback was given to us when our media product was uploaded it to such mediums as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but however some criticisms were made. The general consensus was praise by those we know. However one person stated that at the very end of the clip, as rob runs to find the stranger "you can't really see the path properly... you can just see leaves at the end where he walks out" this does not make it clear wether the stranger has disappear and a proper point of view of Rob isn't greatly achieved due to the obstruction of the bush.

Another, female viewer deemed that some parts of the clip "scared" her, because of the inclusion of violence and a quick "jump-scare" as the stranger appears in Robs mirror. we found this helped prove that our target audience had been achieved as a female that wasn't part of the target audience found some parts of the clip distressing, whereas other male reviewers didn't.

Finally, another criticism  was a continuity error that had been spotted, because the film had been shot on separate days and hadn't been noticed in post production, when Rob looks out of the window a car is not parked, but as he runs downstairs, a car appears to be parked in the driveway despite the shots being within a few seconds of each other. The general praise that we received from showing the opening sequence was that the clip was "very professional" and "flowed brilliantly". Another specific piece of praise was that "The part where he is there and then not is very well done... well edited as well". we had to concede that some reviews may have been biased due to being given by friends and close family members.

We also used a group screening in order to get some feedback on our film. We brought some people into a classroom and put it on the big screen, they all watched it and filled out a questionnaire about the film giving their views, with which we got good criticism and praise

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Before producing our final media product, we as a group had to use a range of different technologies during the process of creating our product.

First, we had to gather and organise information that we could use to benefit our products, this ranged from researching exactly what the thriller genre was to learning different types of the genre itself which we each placed on our group blog to present to other group members.
 After finding out exactly what genre is we delved deeper into the subject researching forms and conventions of exciting thriller films as well as opening sequences backed up by pictures and videos to show our understanding of the subject and how we could benefit from it, enhancing the range of our research to really create that thrilling feel you get from thriller movies.

Second, after gathering all the research we needed, we went onto to the next step planning exactly who would play what part and where we film everything. With the use of our phones we were able take pictures that we could directly transfer to our blog for all our members to view and give their opinions on the move not cutting anyone’s time. Apart from our phones we would come up with ideas and plans over Facebook since it was the social media that everybody had access to and gave us the capabilities to share videos and music links that we thought would be good to use for our product.

Third was the production. This had us use a range of technological devices to create our product, within our arsenal we had an SD camera which was portable due to its miniaturisation, it’s easy to afford price. Its user friendly interface allowed for auto focus, auto white balance and auto zoom which made the capturing of our product all the more easier.


However with its ups the camera also had its down, due to its cheap affordable price it lack quality footage leaving a grainy drained image as shown in our preliminary video.With an built in microphone the cameras not only picked up the casts voices but the unwanted ambient sounds around us as well, to counter-act this we chose moments where are setting was completely quiet and planned a limited range of dialogue to minimise this negative attribute.

Finally all that was left was our post production. This had us using mac laptops with a very handy programme called I-movie which helped with our post production. I-movie was a non-linear editing software that allowed the user to edit out of sequence non-destructively.

Since this product was a consumer audience programme it was user friendly, filled with pre-loaded sounds, scores, transitions and effects whilst being cost effective, free for mac computers and laptops. The downside to this was its limited compatibility to other camera not in its consumer audience and lack of a detailed sound resource meaning we had to source royalty free scores and sound effects from websites on the internet.

Evaluation Question 7: looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

Post Production

Post production involved taking the raw footage and making it into a complete sequence. A great tool that we used for this was iMovie for the Apple MacBook pros. This program allowed us to splice the footage together and even delete some of the footage if the clip was too long. The advantage of this program was that it was incredibly user friendly and was multimedia, which meant we could include picture indents which were made on adobe photoshop, music that we obtained from royalty free websites and the footage itself.

It was at the point with review of the footage that we realised we needed to re film some parts of the sequence which was a big help and advantage in our final sequence.

With the help from our group we were easily able to fit the clips of footage together to make a flowing sequence. In some cases we need to shorten the clips to make such techniques as match on action. Moreover, as this process wasn't permanent like earlier forms of editing we could delete clips if the were wrongly edited and put them back in the sequence as they were.

Obtaining royalty free music was a pain but we achieved it by finding suitable scores and sound effects. Websites allowed us to test the sound before downloading them, which was an advantage as we could see if they fit before actually getting them, moreover iMovie allowed us to put these in the sequence parallel to the video which meant it was easy to correctly place the music in the right place to fit the mood and situation of the sequence.

The production idents were made via Adobe photoshop and were implemented into the start of the sequence to give a professional feel to the sequence and make it feel like a proper opening to a film.

Production process

For the production of our opening sequence we used a normal SD camera to film it and a tripod for stability of the camera in shots. The majority of the sequence was filmed withing Joes house and the rest the road outside it and a local alleyway. filming took around 5 hours over the coourse of two seperate weekends. filming on two different weekends was necessary as upon review of the shots we had taken we realised we had such problems as silhouettes in shots and sequences such as the walk at the begining of the sequence being too short.

A positive that can be drawn from the production is that despite being filmed on two different days the sequence still flows and looks well together. we managed to get the shots close to the script which was a major help when shooting.

Some negatives is the final shot ends with Rob looking to see what happened to the stranger, upon review we realised that we didnt reveal the whole path of where the stranger went, with an obstruction of a bush. moreover, filming at a house people were coming and going alot, continuity was disrupted where a car outside the house was there in one shot then gone a couple seconds later, but when shown to a wider audience noone picked up on it.
If we were to redo the shooting those would be the errors we would aim to correct.