Evaluation Question 7

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

Looking back, I think I have vastly improved my filming skills. I have learnt to use camera angles to add atmosphere and emotion to the shots in my thriller.

My preliminary task consisted of mainly some bird's eye view shots, medium close up shot, tracking shot and shot-reverse shot, while my thriller consisted of all these previously mentioned shots but we added some long shots, handheld pan, low angled, handheld tracking, point of view and over the shoulder shots.

As i changed the software i was editing on from Adobe in our prelim task to iMovie on my personal computer, I gained a basic knowledge on how to work both of these softwares, but managed to deepen my knowledge and refine my ability on using iMovie.

I have also learnt a lot about differentiating between various target audiences and different ways of targeting these specific audiences, for example via the internet.  

Question 5

Question 5

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Evaluation Question 6

Question 6

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Question 4 Evaluation Rough draft

Question 4 evaluation media

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Question 3 Evaluation Rough draft

Question 3:

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

'Voyeur' is an independent low budget film, which is aimed to attract alternative, niche audiences, as it is not a four-quadrant mainstream blockbuster. 

I think that companies like, for example, Warp films would be the best company to distribute our film, because it handles the distribution of independent movies.

Audiences would be attracted by 'Voyeur''s suspenseful and bitter realistic storyline and the character's strong personalities rather than the use of special effects, expensive locations and high profile names in the film industry (famous actors, directors, producers etc).

Like Animal Kingdom, the hype for our thriller film could be heightened by advertising on main social networking websites such as Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter. This would be a cheap way of targeting a large amount of people as most teenagers have access to these websites, so this would be an easy and cheap way to catch their attention. Also, they can easily share trailers/teasers/images and so on, and spread the word. 

One could also pout adverts on youtube.com, various cinema websites like 'picture house cinemas' or online streaming websites.

I think Picture House, who operate a line of 18 independent theatres throughout the UK, would be a good line of of cinema's to show and advertise 'Voyeur' in. In Norwich, this would be 'Cinema City'.

I think 'Voyeur' would also gain attention and appreciation by our targeted fanbase by being released via various film festivals, like Sundance, Raindance or the London Independent Film Festival.

Various film rental companies, like LoveFilm and Studiocanal, could offer to stream 'Voyeur' to their audiences.

Or obviously, there is also the option of releasing the film straight to DVD, but I think this would not be the most effective distribution method for our film and it would not gather enough attention from viewers.

Evaluation Question 2

Question 2:

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

Gender

Our thriller conforms to the stereotype that the man is the stalker and the woman is the sort of victim or the pray.

She isn't really a femme fatale and this is challenging the idea that women in thrillers tend to either only be a femme fatales or irrelevant characters, because thriller films and altogether the media nowadays are ruled by men mostly.

A good example for this is Eve in Once Upon a Time in America. She is the victim of the law when she is shot by the corrupt police officers who are actually seeking to kill/catch her gangster lover.

Another good example is Josh's girlfriend in Animal Kingdom, who is killed by Pope, J's uncle, who then carries out her corpse lays it down to rot in the garden, so as to hide her death. 

The stereotype of dominant men which is reflected upon in our thriller is originally influenced by Norman Bates in 'Pyscho'.

He is also shown in a predatory, animalistic role as he preys on Marion Crane, 'Crane' being a type of bird. 

Other than in all these examples, in our thriller, the girl is not objectified or glamourised because she is mainly completely covered, but she still seems unable to shake off the behaviour of her stalker, which means there must be some deeper reason for his obsession.

Social class 

The first time you see the girl, in the scene when she's walking along the beach, you could think that, based on her costume and the situation, she could be from the working class.

Maybe also because she's at the beach on a morning, meaning maybe she doesn't go to school?

or maybe she's on the beach thinking about/trying to run away from some criminal act he's done?

But then the second environment you see her in, she's well dressed and looks quite sophisticated walking into the library after which you then see her sitting at a computer in what the audience could suspect is either an ordinary library or a school/university library- either way, you can assume that she's in education. The location and the atmosphere reflect her in a slightly more middle class social situation. 

The region

Our thriller shows Norfolk's beautiful coast in quite a melancholic/mysterious atmosphere.

Mood of the time

I think our story taps into the Zeitgeist of contemporary Britain by showing how new technologies are influencing the youth's lives more and more. 

The storyline shows a young man stalking a teenage girl through the internet and he contacts her via e-mail, which is a very modern and new method, but for us teenagers by now completely habitual.

Pretty much every teenager in Britain has access to the internet nowadays and young people are expected to have an e-mail address or even a Facebook account, so this could happen to anyone.

It's amazing how much information any stranger can access about one specific person purely through their virtual internet existence on Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Email etc.

This is why i think our thriller would appeal to most teenagers, because it is such a easily possible situation.

Evaluation Question 1

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

The main character in our thriller is a seventeen year old girl named 'Rihannon Hayleys' (short Ree).

This name was inspired by the main character Hayley Stark in the 2005 canadian indie film 'Hard Candy'.

This film shows a 14-year old girl who meets a 32-year old man on the internet,  suspecting him to be pedophile. She therefore slips an anaesthetic into his drink, ties him up to a chair and when we awakes, starts to torture him. 

Rihannon's first name shortens to 'Ree'. This name is a reference to the lead girl character in Winter's Bone, also named Ree.

Our girl's costume was also inspired by the Ree in Winter's Bone, being slightly used up and dirty. Ree Dolly's clothes reflect her hard upbringing and broken family situation, she dresses not to impress but to survive, with clothes that keep her warm and protected by the cold, rather than make her look good. The costume our girl Ree Haileys is wearing beach scene in Voyeur is heavily influenced by this. However it is also a reflection of casual slightly american-urban-streetwear inspired casual teenage clothing.

One of the locations we used in our thriller is a beach very similar to that in "The Piano".

An important generic thriller convention we approached in our thriller is the scenes taking place in unglamorous locations and locations with wide open spaces. As my teacher explained to me, the brooding sky and sea references the pessimistic and threatening mood associated with the film noir. Personally, I think we have managed to mirror the dark atmosphere of the film noir times nicely in our thriller, mainly during the beach scene, using effects like the 'vignette' to blacken the edges of the shot and adjusting the saturation and contrast to create a perfect greyness.  

A shot from Jane Campion's 1993 'The Piano'

A shot from West Runton beach in our thriller

 Its mysterious atmosphere is set through the fog and clouds in the early hours of the january winter's day. The grey sky and gloomy surroundings helped add a quite sad, but dreamy effect to the scenes we shot out in West Runton beach.

A shot from the sea in West Runton from our thriller

A shot from the Essex marchers in Terry Windsor's 'Essex Boys'

A similar location which inspired us are the Essex Marchers in the 2000 thriller "Essex Boys", when Jason Lock leaves a man behind in the middle of nowhere in the marchers after having beaten him up and showering his face in acid. 

The West Runton beach we used alternates between areas of cold, wet sand, big, strong stones and hard concrete.

It is quite hard to walk on barefoot, like Ree is doing. This mirrors how hard the path is that lays in front of her int he next few days according to the rest of the plot, when she finds out the she is being stalked by someone very unexpected. 


Parallel to the fact that we live in Norfolk and we chose to film our thriller close to home, so if we needed to add some scenes (which we actually also ended up having to return to and film some more), we could easily access our filming location, we were also inspired by the 2009 film 'The Scouting Book for Boys', which also takes place on the Norfolk coast.

Another thriller in which a woman is alone, vulnerably seeking help on a beach is "Jeopardy",  which also helped inspire our initial idea of the girl in this particular location.