Final Product - Insanity

I am Mohyadin Hassan: 6070

 

I worked with;

Omolara Lawal  7913

Fatma Mustafa: 7107

Suweda Shire: 7128

 

INSANITY

 

Evaluation: Question 1) In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

Evaluation - Question 1) In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions? from Mohyadin

Question 5) How did you attract/address your target audience

The importance of doing the secondary research

It’s important to do secondary research before making the film because you need to know what your audience is expecting from you. You should gather data by asking your audience.
 

Before planning my thriller opening idea and joining my group that I've been assigned to, I created a questionnaire to gather primary information from students of the age 16-18. Doing the questionnaire has helped me understand many things such as what they are into, what they know about films, what's their favorite film etc.  In my questionnaire, I’ve found out the most voted convention is the victim, I believe that they picked the victim as their favorite convention because the victim is the one who ‘brings’ or ‘moves’ the story forward, without the victim the story is just going to be about the protagonist as well as the antagonist. The story will not make sense without the victim, there’s always a victim in films. The second most convention is the iconography, I believe they pick this because the iconography is one of the key aspects in thriller. Iconography helps represent the characters in the story…

After I've done my research, I've met with my group and we all showed our questionnaire and results. It was important that everyone in our group had done some kind of research and gathered primary information because doing this will make it easier for us to decided what kind of opening thriller we should make, what conventions to use etc., and also know what the audience expectations is.

Who do I believe is the most suitable target audience for our thriller?

After researching and gathering information from people, from different ethnic groups, both male and female. They were all the ages of 16-18 from our school, meaning that they are all in full time education. Most of them either watch movies at home with their friends or going to the cinema with their friends.

Usually, teenagers are the ones who watches thriller films because of the tension and excitement more than adults do, therefore we decided that our target audience should be the teenagers between the age 16-18.

Some images of my questionnaire and results

 

 



 

 

Four key closed questions

In my questionnaire, I’ve added closed questionnaire so that it will be easier for them to just pick the boxes that I’ve given them. Here is some of the closed questions.

1) What age certificate do you usually watch?

U      PG     12    12A      15     18    R18

2) How do you feel when you're watching thriller?
 
Excited         Sad        Scared       Frighten       Other

3) Which convention do you think is the most common in thrillers? (Pick three)

Mise en scene          Iconography      High angle      Low Key        Lighting     Victim
 

In the first image, I asked that first question to find out what age rating my target watches. This has helped my group made a decision on what age rating we should give for our thriller opening. We decided to give our thriller opening a 15, we looked up the BBFC age rating to make sure it doesn’t have anything that makes it an 18 for example; Graphical violence, nudity, racism etc. 

I also asked my target audience how they feel when watching a thriller so that I can find out if my target audience gets easily scared if my thriller happens to show something unpleasant.

In one of my questions in my questionnaire, I asked my target audience which convention do they think is the most common in thriller? I asked this to find out if they know anything about thrillers and what conventions is has.  

The first two quotes that I got from my open ended questions that helped me make key decisions in ensure that you were attracting and addressing my questions for

Two open answers

In my questionnaire, I've asked an open question which was "Why do you like/love genre?", this question allows them to write as much as they want about why they like the genre they've picked for question 4.

Another open question I've gave them was "What's your most hated thriller?", I've asked this to find out what thriller they hate and why so I can give them a thriller that they will like.

Audience Feedback

After creating my thriller opening, I held a focus group that will allow me to gain feedback from my target audience. The audience who watched my thriller opening were aged 15 and above, after they have finished watching my opening I asked them questions to gain feedback. Doing this will allow to know what was good about and what was bad.


Focus Group Images

Soundcloud
 

Zakaria said that the credits on screen wasn't long enough so he couldn't tell who participated in my thriller. What he said was right, the credits should have been long enough for the audience to know who participated in my thriller opening. I will take this into consideration and make sure the next time I film, I will put the credits longer than this opening.


Hazel said that there should have been more edits as it could have been conventional to thriller genre. This made me think because the opening had enough edits however if I focused on editing it could have been more attractive to my audience.



Gizem said that she liked the complex narrative in my thriller opening, this has gave me confidence as I know that my research and planning has helped me get an idea of a narrative for my thriller opening. I'm also glad that I've pre-edited the scenes as it has attracted my audience.



Layla said that the jump cuts that was used for the antagonist has made the intensity increased making it look more dominant and sinister. This has gave me confidence as I'd made the right decision to use jump cut in the end of the thriller opening.


Why was the primary research important and how has this attract and address my target audience?


The primary research was important because it had allowed us to know and understand what the audience expectations is and what they wanted. If we didn't do primary research then making our thriller would be a struggle because we wouldn't know what the audience wanted and is expecting from us.

Doing the questionnaire has helped me and others in our group to read other people opinion about thriller, thus making our decisions easier.

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

What was the preliminary task and what were its main aims?  
The preliminary task was a short 30 second clip that shows two students talking with each other, this task was part of our coursework which was giving by our teacher. The preliminary task can be seen as a practice video because it will allow us to spot our mistakes and improve them.

The purpose for it was to get an experience of behind the camera for the first time, and also getting used to it - knowing someone is recording us and have to be in our character that we made. It has also helped us practice taking shots, angles and capturing movement. Apart from practising, the preliminary task has gave us a chance to work together and get to know each other well before making/filming a real opening.     

We had to make a 30 second video which was hard and tricky because we had to cut out bits while trying to keep the important sections and making sure that the video makes sense to the audience or whoever we're showing. To edit and cut, we used a program, on an Apple IMac, called Final Cut Pro.

In our preliminary task, we've set it in the school where two students is planning a date on the stairways.

Identify 4 things you are now better with and more confident with doing in terms of

After making the preliminary task, we've found four key things that we've now felt more confident:

Filming - We have learnt how to take different shots.

Editing - We have learnt how to use a program called Final Cut pro, after using it countless of times we are now used to this program and know how to cut and edit our videos.

Filming - We have learnt how to use the tripod properly, we has allowed us to take our shots without any shaky movements.

Editing - We have learnt how to transition well.


Shots

There was various shots that was taken such as high angle, low angle, middle shot etc.. with different lightings and movement.

 - Dark lighting


 - Fade to white during her death scene

 High angle using the tripod


      Over the shoulder shot

Comparing, preliminary task and thriller opening

 



Over the shoulder shot: If you compare the over the shoulder     shot, you can see that the over shoulder shot which was taken in  the thriller opening looks much better than the one that was taken in the preliminary task. There was unneeded space around

Suweda  unlike the professor scene where there’s only him and the laptop and not a lot of unneeded space.

 

 
 
 

High angle shot: In the thriller opening, the high angle shot that shows Lara throwing her chair violently looks better than the shot that was taken in the preliminary task that shows me walking downstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

Movement: The movement that was caught for the opening is better than the one in the preliminary task. It was more clear and focused. We got more better at filming the action.  

 

 

 

 
 

Lighting: There was many lighting that was used in our thriller opening because we had more time to set up and prepare unlike the preliminary task where we only had a sort amount of time to get it recorded so we couldn’t fix the lighting.
They both have dark lightning in the opening. In the preliminary task, there wasn’t much lighting.

 

 

 

Storyboard, Group roles and Pre-production Paperwork

In the preliminary task, our group had a sort amount of time to record a 30 second video and because of that, we didn’t have enough time to set up and prepare. The preliminary task has helped me realize that you can’t plan everything in a sort time, without planning you will only end up producing a bad-quality video. Before creating our thriller opening, we all had to create a storyboard for our story so we will know what characters are there, who will play the role, how long the scene will be, where the scene is located at etc. After doing that we decided which storyboard matches up the story and to use, doing this has helped us get prepared for what to expect.

We was all given a job role which suits us, everyone did their part in the film making. Before making the opening we created a pre-production paperwork which is a document needed for our film opening.

 

 

 

 

Personal reflection

The preliminary task has gave my group a chance to find out what skill does everyone has and what everyone can’t do that involves filming and editing as well as getting to know each other and getting used to working together. After doing the preliminary task, I’ve realized what my strong and weak spot are and how I can overcome them. The preliminary task and the thriller opening can be seen as a proof that our performance in editing and filming has improved greatly.

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

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

Question 2) How does your media product represent particular social group?