As Media Studies Foundation Portfolio 2010

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

 Social groups are a very important part of today’s society however our product does not really represent a range of social groups. There are three characters in our opening however we chose to focus on two of these characters as we don’t reveal the identity of the antagonist. In terms of class, our main character is from a middle class background as she is dressed in fashionable clothes and acts in a manner which shows that she’s not from a working class background. Our product also represents the working class through the location we used. For example the living room features typical things found in the homes of working class people such as the television which is simple and not grand.

 Also gender is represented in our product in a stereotypical way as in most thrillers the female plays the passive role and the male plays the dominant role. We chose to follow this convention as our audience would be able to recognise this. Also Melinda, our second antagonist is a female we did this as we wanted to challenge the codes and conventions of a typical thriller. In a thriller the typical stereotype for Melinda would be an older, evil looking woman, but in our film we went against that stereotype and chose a black young adult with an innocent face. We did this as the audience would be shocked and would possibly alter their views on the characters featured in our thriller. A thriller which influenced our film is ‘Taken’ as in the film Kim is a victim similar to Jessica who is kidnapped.



 Above are two images of girls placed side by side in order for me to compare them. The key character from our opening which I have chosen to compare to a character in a movie is Jessica Brown. The reason why I chose Jessica is because she depicts a scared, nervous character. I decided to compare her with Maggie Grace, who plays Kim a kidnapped girl in the film ‘Taken’. I have chosen to compare Kim to Jessica as although the two films may have different storylines, they share some similarities.

 Jessica Brown is the daughter of a rich business man; the story unfolds later on in the rest of the film. Jessica is seen running from a hooded figure which makes the audience feel sympathy for her. She knocks on a door of a friendly looking woman and asks for help. However what she doesn’t know is that the young woman who promises to help her is actually part of the scheme to kidnap her. Jessica is a strong character and fights her way through the troubles which face her. As the audience watch the opening sequence it becomes apparent that Jessica has walked into a trap and the audience are put into suspense as enigmas are introduced such as ‘what’s going to happen to Jessica?’ this will motivate our audience into wanting to watch the rest of our film to find out.

 Kim’s character is quiet similar to Jessica’s, she’s the daughter of a decorated and highly-skilled CIA officer and is also an only child. She travels to France with her friend and gets kidnapped. Kim is about the same age as Jessica so there may be teenagers or young adults interested in the film. However there are some differences in the two storylines. In ‘Taken’ Kim gets kidnapped for drugs and prostitution but in our story Jessica is taken because of revenge and the antagonists wants Jessica’s father to pay some money in exchange for Jessica. People will sympathise for Jessica’s character as she seems innocent and hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t think people will feel as sorry for Kim’s character as she lied to her parents about where she was going to live.

Q 3

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

 Our media product is mainly aimed towards females and males aged 15-25 who are interested in watching thriller and action films. My reason for this is that our main character is a female and is also a victim; this is likely to make our audience feel sympathy for her. We handed out 20 questionnaires, 11 went to females and 9 went to males. They were all between the ages of 15-21; this was done in order for us to get a better understanding of our target audience and the things they look for in a thriller. We asked questions such as ‘what thriller sub-genre are you most drawn to?’ and ‘what components do you like most in an opening sequence?’ From looking at the results we became more confident in creating a product which would suit the needs our target audience.

 This pushed us into doing some research on the ‘British Board of Film Classification’ to identify the age certificate suitable for our film. We decided our film is best suited to a 15 certificate as there will be some use of language in our film and there will be scenes containing violence. Our media product appeals to our target audience as the characters in our film are young our target audience would be able to relate to them and the use of Mise-en-scene will attract them as the character’s dress in the way most of our target audience would dress. Also the use of score music helps to attract our target audience as they are interested in slow paced music which draws them into the film.

This is an example of a person who would be our target audience:




 The reason why Marian would be a great example of someone from our target audience is that she is open minded; this is an advantage as our film explores different issues such as torture and violence. As she listens to different types of music she will be interested in our score music and how we combine it into our film.

5)  How did you attract/address your audience?

 The genre of our film is a thriller therefore in order to appeal to our audience we needed to ensure that we portrayed typical codes and conventions associated with thrillers. The use of suspense in our product appeals to mostly males, combined with non-Diegetic sound which causes tension and unease. We showed a female running away from an unknown person this would attract our audience, as they are familiar with watching thrillers, which portray the female character as weak, and a typical damsel in distress.

 A method we decided to use to attract our audience was to create a facebook page. One feature is the facebook fan page, a fan page is a tool by which can be used to expand social networking. We created a fan page on our facebook, as it would enable us to get feedback various different people. Also it helped us in our questionnaire research as we collected responses from different people. Also we will create posters and distribute them in stores and we will set up a website for our film advertising our Production Company and distributor as well as clips of our film. The unique selling point of our product is the fact that it's based in London and the cast are young. This will benefit our target audience as most of them are from the U.K and would possibly be able to relate.

Addressing the audience:

 Our questionnaire results allowed us to identify who our target audience would be; this allowed us to focus our opening sequence on the things they would look for in a thriller. We chose a thriller film as we knew that most teenagers and young adults would be familiar with this genre and would enjoy watching our film. Also we used Levi-Strauss theory of binary opposites in our opening. We had Good vs. Evil with the antagonist and the victim and strong vs. Weak with the antagonist and victim once again as we showed the victim running away from the antagonist.

 We used key iconography in our piece e.g. a modern kitchen where the second villain lives. We appealed to the audience by making our opening seem real and normal so the audience could relate to this. We chose to shoot during the day as people tend to feel safer during the day however we showed an element of fear when Jessica went to the kitchen to find the batteries removed from the phone. This introduced enigmas and kept the audience in suspense. The use of a variety of shots in our product such us close-ups and medium close ups kept the audience involved throughout and drew our audience closer.

Annotation of Sequence :

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


 Over the past few months of filming our opening, the use of technology has made it easier for us to produce a film. We used software such as Final cut pro when editing our media product; it made it easier to edit film clips and to edit a sequence of events. We included sound, titles, special effects and transitions to put everything together. As I was assigned the role of camera operator I had to familiarise myself with the video camera and the tripod, At first I found it quite difficult as every time we moved the tripod we had to ensure that the bubble was in the middle and that the tripod was on even ground. These equipments were very important in the production of our opening sequence. The director and I assisted the editor in editing as we all had to decide which shots we thought would be good for our opening.

 Looking back on our preliminary task I feel we have improved a lot when it comes to filming and editing a sequence. My understanding of certain aspects of filming has improved drastically as before I didn’t understand the terms used in filming such as match on action and shot reverse shot. I learnt the importance of planning our media product and the methods such as storyboards, treatment, scripts and synopsis. Without these things we would not have been able to achieve our final media product.

Things I've learnt about filming:

• Mainly I learnt how important lighting is when trying to shoot a thriller. When we were filming the exterior scenes we had a few problems with the lighting as there was too much light being reflected on the camera lens. We had to ensure that we had the perfect lighting to create the right atmosphere for a thriller.
• We realised that it’s not always possible to stick to the storyboard, we decided to be creative with our shots and we shot scenes from different angles in order for us to have a lot of frames to choose from when editing.
• Making sure the weather was right when shooting was very important as there were days where it would rain and it wasn’t possible for us to film.
• Communication was important when shooting as we had to inform our cast on the dates we would be filming. Without communication we wouldn’t know what’s going on and things would be disorganised.

Technologies we used:

Q 7

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
What conventions of professional products have you used in your own film? (narrative conventions, character conventions, genre, camerawork, sound, editing, special effects, mise-en-scene? Use screen grabs of your own sequence to illustrate each example where you have followed conventions or gone against (challenged) conventions. Also use images from the films that have influenced you where relevant.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? (gender, age, ethnicity etc.)
Compare a character in your sequence to a character in a professional film (use images). If you have included a villain/victim character, does the character follow conventions of characters in professional films. For example, is your villain male? Is your victim female? Therefore how are you representing gender?

3. What kind of media institution would distribute your media product?

Discuss similar professional films and their production companies (use images of the films and logos). Which production Company do you think would distribute your film? (if it was professional and if you had made the full film).

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? (BBFC and target audience) Use images from a similar product with a similar target audience. Remember that target audience is not the same as classification.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Refer to Significant moments in your sequence where you have tried to generate a response from the spectator (a close up to encourage identification with a character, music that encourages the spectator to feel suspense, tense, visceral reaction etc.) What techniques have you used to encourage the spectator to want to see the rest of the film? (Clues about narrative, character, etc.) Use screen grabs of your own sequence.

6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your product?

(blog, camera equipment, editing software – Final Cut Express, istopmotion, Garageband etc.) Use screen grabs/photos of all these things. Be very specific about tools/effects/techniques learnt not just ‘I have learnt a lot about the software’

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?
Discuss your second preliminary task that you did in a week before starting Thriller. Discuss what you have learnt since then about construction of micro elements in order to create meaning, how to use different techniques, practical skills etc. How have you built on your knowledge that you learnt from the prelim task? Use screen grabs of your prelim task and your sequence where relevant.