Podcast Evaluation

To sum up all of out work we had to answer some questions on our work in my group. There was seven different questions to answer which would help us reflect on our work.

These or the questions and my answers for them.

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

My film has tried to challenge the horror genre with the use of high-key lighting which is rarely used within a horror film. We have also used a bit of thriller in the start to with the mystery of who killed Nicholas. We have made the start of the film as a way of introducing all the different characters and sets the tone for the film as we know who is going to be a good guy/bad guy etc straight away. We have chosen to keep certain conventions of the genre such as, murder, red (danger), bad guy and blood. We have also got a good soundtrack at the start which builds up well to the action. The camerawork used as well is pretty simple and quite effective as we have choose to use easy shots to help keep the film going.




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

In my media piece I have shown a typical college class. It shows what kind of different kids there are in a class. It shows how popular kids,nerds and norms. We have tried to show the normal goings on in the class with simple issues such as bullying, romance etc.

The first social class that is shown in the film is the bully coming into the crowd. In the horror genre they are usually shown as bad guy in film,in the classroom they are most popular,always have some kind of sidekick that will always do there dirty work for them. In a horror film they usually end up as a victim because they get cocky and it leads to their downfall. In the film our bully is the first victim.

The next social group shown in the film is nerds. In the horror genre or any kind of film in fact they are usually social victims and always the laughing stock for bullies. They usually have one friends that they can turn to but are usually on their own. In a horror film they usually are the hero's in the end as they have got a good heart.

also in the film we have got the typical thick bimbo who just have there heads in the clouds. Then there is the norms who never get involved in any of the action but some how get drawn into the frame one way or another. There is a teacher going though stress.


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

British film companies such British National Studios or Pinewood make our film as they are very big in helping make British films great. Also for British is Film 4 or BBC because they produce a lot independent films. For foreign companies it would be Pathe and Paramount as they are quite big on the horror genre.


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

The audience for our media product would be from the ages of 15-18 based on our questionnaire. This helps the audience relate to our characters cause they are both of the same age. Our ideal audience really though would have to be from 15-25. I say this because this age has probably got the most interest in the kind of films we are making. Older people can still watch the film it just wouldn't have the same appeal to them as it does for a younger audience.


5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

When attracting our audience we had to think about the most common conventions of the horror genre as we had to make the audience want to watch the film and enjoy it. We have got murder in the film as it builds up the action right from the start of film. For our kind of horror though its not like making you scared film like Hills Have Eyes or something like that because we have tried to make it a little less cliche and hope the audience would enjoy it.

The kids in the film are of a similar age to our target audience so we hope this can go to our advantage. We are also trying to attract both genders so we hope having a mixed sex cast this can help.


6.What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In making the product i have learnt quite a bit about technology. The first thing i learnt about was setting up the camera and the tripod. This was nice and simple really until i tried doing it on my own and got my finger caught but i learnt from the mistake and learnt how to set it up pretty fast. I can now blog easily and find it enjoyable giving my opinion on my work as it helps me reflect on everything and shows me when i can improve on stuff. The editing part for me was probably the most tricky part. At first it took me a while to figure everything our properly but i am not a big fan of final cut pro and would love to edit more films


7. looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the finished product?

Overall i have enjoyed doing this task and i am now shocked at myself at actually doing this. For my task i worked with Matt Cozens and Gina Plant

My group work for this was very good. I think this because i have worked hard at it and have done my fair share of the work. I hope the other two in my group agree with this statement but in my opinion i wrote the script for the story and helped do parts of the filming and editing so there shouldn't be any arguments. We all have spend a lot of time on this and hope all of it has come to a good mark for our film. We all had communication skills as we all managed to put our opinions across and our ideas were treated fairly. It helped as well that the two in my group are very good friends with me and we have had a real laugh making the product. Our time skills in the end were bad because people kept letting us down and not turning up to the film when we needed them to be there and we had a change our actors about four times because of this. This really angered us and it could of led us to giving up on everything but we kept strong and carried on with it.

I now know about the different conventions of a horror this is things like darkness,blood,villains,hero's etc and the common settings like old Churches or buildings and woodland. I have wrote about the horror genre in other blogs.

With camera set up i now know how to use one properly. I know what the different shots are and i can use them while making a film. I know all about the 180 degrees rule when there is a conversation between two people also the match on action.

If i was going to do this task again i would do a lot of things differently. I would most defiantly get more involved in the editing sides of things as i felt i took a bit of a back seat on that. But in the end i did do quite a bit of it and i made most of the start credits for the film. I would make it so filming it all would be quick and more simple. I think having to record everything in our lunch breaks was not a good idea as it led to people dropping out and having to change our cast and people wearing different clothes and mainly getting on our nerves. Apart from that i was grateful i got this experience.