As Media Studies Foundation Portfolio 2010

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.

 Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist said that meaning, including narrative depends on binary opposites, he explores these in terms of underlying typical themes rather than events. Conflict helps to drive the narrative. I did some theory research and i now fully understand Levi's theory, below are a few openings which i applied his theory to. We hope to show this theory in our opening sequence.

 An example of this is the film Seven. Here, one of the oppositions is between the optimistic love of humanity as seen in the Brad Pitt character and the pessimistic hatred of humanity which is felt by the killer. The two oppositions are resolved in the ending where the Morgan Freeman character who has always been unfriendly and pessimistic, realises that he can mix his distaste for the people around him in the dreadful world of the film with a wish to continue in his work of trying to save them.

I will be analysing CSI Miami Season 7 Episode 7 'cheating death'. This episode is about the gruesome murder of a male prostitute who drugs married women then robs them. The main character is the criminologist Horatio Caine who is the protagonist. He is very protective of his team who affectionately call him 'H'. The criminologists are very important as they investigate and find the murderers.

At the beginning it's not clear who is behind the murder as the audience are not shown who killed the man. A woman is shown sleeping on the bed and lying next to her is a man handcuffed to the bed post and dead. The director shows a close up of the woman's hand on the bed then when she lifts up her hand there is blood all over it, He also uses several close ups of the body and a medium shot of the man tied up and in a pool of his blood. This creates suspense and enigma in the thriller as this leads the audience into thinking that the woman is the murderer however it leaves questions such as how she was able to lie in the same bed as the man she has killed. Later on the doctor who takes the man's body to the morgue identifies him as Steve Howell.

The editor uses flashbacks to give the audience an idea of the incidents which have already taken place before or after the murder. Later on the audience find out that the woman's name is Christina and that she ordered a 'kinky box' and the handcuffs where from that box. The audience find out that Christina is a prostitute and Steve was just another guy she was going to sleep with for money. However Steve drugged her before she had sex with him so just when she handcuffs him to the bed she passes out and leaves Steve vulnerable. This rules her out as a suspect because she was drugged and couldn’t possibly have killed Steve.

The criminologists found some skin underneath Steve’s nails and the DNA showed that they belonged to females. This causes suspense as it leads the audience to question how he managed to get women’s skin underneath his nails. They find Audrey Yates, her DNA matched with the ones under Steve’s nails which connotes to the audience that she may be the killer however she reveals that the only reason her skin was found under Steve’s nails is because he's a tanning butler which would explain why he had many different women's skin ender his nails.

At this point the audience still don't have any idea who the antagonist could be, the criminologists find another suspect Dan becks Christina's husband. Later on they find out the type of knife used to stab Steve it matches with the knife Dan owns. They suspect that he went into the hotel to kill Steve but the editor uses a flashback to tell the audience what really happened, Dan did go to the hotel room with the knife but he didn’t kill Steve. After he saw his wife in the bed he ran off and left the knife near the bed.

Enigma is created as they find another suspect Lisa Rradley, she slept with Steve and was also drugged by him when she woke up he had stolen from her. The director uses medium shots and long shots in this scene, when Horatio questioned her she showed him a fake receipt which leads to more questions of whether she is the killer. This also causes suspense and there's action when they catch up with Lisa and find bloodstained clothes in the boot of her car. She's then arrested and the audience see her being handcuffed and sent away.

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Hello, i'm Abigail and this is my AS Media Studies blog. This blog will show a step by step guide to the building up of my media coursework and will also include any notes or ideas i may have along the way. I will be taking on the role as the Camera operator in our 2 minute opening sequence.