Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses various forms and conventions, these include the names of the characters - Dan Loomis and Chris Voorhees, Loomis is a name that has occured various times in horror film history in classic films such as Halloween and Psycho, Voorhees is the surname of the central antagonist in teh Friday the 13th film series.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product depicts two C2 social group characters from the North of England. This will appeal mostly to the C1C1DE range but not excluding A and B although it is unlikely that they will watch the film. The two characters are C2-class public school pupils who are not wearing uniform (signifying that they are in the 6th form/post 16 group (16-18 years))

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Although most films that depict the North of England are limited with their box office success there have been some success stories such as This is England and Billy Elliot but it is most likely that my product would be distibuted by a smaller company ot perhaps even an indie as these do not strictly apply to a mainstream audience, such companies unclude Warp Films, Working Title and Film4 but I would like my product to tap into the mainstream, UK-wide (perhaps even global) audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience (as described earlier in the blog) would be the 15-34 age range, this is due to the face that it is a horror film and so is unsuitable for younger audiences and not of interest to much of the older audience and also due to the face that the two characters shown in the intro are teenagers which would heighten tge appeal to this age range.

How did you attract your audience?
I attracted my primary audience by using two teenage, caucasian male characters, this would appeal to a wide range of audiences and not just teenage males.
Later scenes in the film could include non-caucasian characters and also females to broaden the appeal even further.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Since the start of the process I have learnt a lot about how to edit films (my previous experience was limited because I was away on a geography field trip for the editing process of the preliminary task but I think I learnt enough to make a good standard of product. I have also learned various camera techniques such as how to adjust the white balance on the camcorders and that using a tripod is a very good method of filming. Although I didn't use my own sound in the final product I did try out Garageband (another piece of software for the Mac) and learned things from it that I didn't know before.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progession from it to the full product?
Firstly, I have learned that, although a large group was harder to work in because of the conflicting opinions on what to do, working individually increases the workload by a lot and because of this I feel that I was unable to produce the product to the standard that I could have made it in a pair.

During my task I encountered a number of problems which I beleive affected the quality of my final product, these included not being able to film as early as I wanted to due to the unavailabilty of cast members, this led to me reducing the number of characters from 3 to 2 and even then one of my cast members couldn't make it and as I was low on time I decided to take the role myself, this limited the quality of the actual filming as I was relying heavily on a tripod which led to some scenes being of lower quality than they could have been although I am still impressed with what I managed to do for my final product.
I also missed out on some school work time when I was selected to take part in a visit to RAF Valley in Wales (I am a member of the Air Cadets).