1. The Coopers’ Company and Coborn School
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Final Presentation
Matthew Cumbers

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our thriller ‘Music Box’ is a thriller that ahs links with various films combined. The main influences were ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and ‘Creep’. These films use different ideas of thriller conventions such as extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations and also a crime at the core of the narrative (often murder, but not necessarily).
My group and I liked the idea used in ‘The Blair Witch Project’ of the footage being filmed by the protagonists home video camera. This gave us the idea of having footage filmed in a amateur way. Another factor that attracted us to this idea was its creative and unique ways. There are not many first person films, with amateur filming.
Another film incorporated into our idea, which gave us the majority of the idea, was ‘Creep’. The idea of being at a train station in the dark with minimal light we thought gave the antagonist a more tense, more of an enigma to who and what he looks like to the audience. This idea has more of a sense of realism to the audience as well as millions of people use the trains daily. So this also creates an effect on the audience.
Conventions it incorporates:
No Talking about what it is about just a general conversation leaving audience on enigma.
Core narrative is the boy and the 4 students.
A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.
Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations.
Titles often reflect an aspect of the pro/antagonist’s psychological state.

3. Thriller Conventions incorporated in ‘Music Box’
There are a few conventions throughout the opening scenes that are used in other films in the real media world. One of them is, a narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved. The little boy will create an enigma with the audience as to who he is, what he is and why he is doing what he is doing. This the audience will expect to be resolved by the end of the film but will leave them wondering throughout the film. Another convention Is Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations. The scene is filmed in a everyday location where millions of people a day go. This will mean the audience can relate to the film and will bring realism into their emotions. There is no talking about what is happening or who anyone is, just a general conversation leaving audience on enigma is another convention involved as it leaves the audience to have to guess what is going to happen and who is on who’s side.

4. Do the thriller conventions you have used indicate a sub-genre?
Our thriller opening sequence doesn’t have a sub-genre attached to it as it uses ideas from mixed thrillers and our own ideas to give it a mixture of sub-genres. We did a survey at the start to find out who in our particular audience age range liked what sub-genre. We found out that action as a sub-genre was the favorite but we decided this was because it is the most promoted and advertised films, also the most expensive films are in the action sub-genre meaning there is a lot more to the films. We came to the conclusion that we could not really do an action film as we did not have the resources as a amateur film group and only media students with no money. This was the case for a lot of the other liked genres as they needed special resources like a stunt car, guns, fire, collapsing walls and projections which is very hard work and a lot of money to do. So our thriller has a mixture of sub genres that was possible to create as amateurs. It included the drama sub genre, with the mystery and who is who. Another one is horror as the boy may be a spirit or a possessed child.
Our thriller opening sequence doesn’t necessarily connote a specific thriller sub-genre but instead simply follows and uses generic conventions found in the successful thriller films.
When carrying out our preliminary research we found that action thrillers were the most popular, however we did come to the conclusion that it is probably the most popular due to it being the most advertised genre and probably includes the most popular films around which are categorised under this genre. Specific sub-genres require specific key points which make it this genre, for example; Action thrillers include car chases or stunts, Crime thrillers include deaths and weapons and violence and disaster thrillers include some sort of natural hazard like a hurricane or earthquake. As you can see it would be very hard for us to make our own thriller to each of these specific genres as they require a lot of money and time to make.
As I said overall our opening sequence to a thriller doesn't fit into any specific thriller sub-genre, however there are elements of it which may categorise it into a particular one. Firstly our thriller could be categorised into the Action genre due to there being a mystery/missing person in it, a crime may have been committed but as its only the opening sequence we don’t know yet. Our thriller could also be in the drama category/sub-genre due to the story consisting of elements from a drama and thriller. An example of this is the mystery and hidden identity of the young boy this creates drama as his character would most probably be developed throughout the thriller, there are also other plots and twists to be answered, like “where are the friends?”

5. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
As for social groups, my group decided to go for the option we knew most about. Teenagers. We are all teenagers in our group and surrounding us throughout the school is over a thousand other teenagers. This meant we had a lot of information we could use to attract to the target audience of teenagers. Also teenagers are a lot less experienced in the world and have a lot more fears. Also we incorporated the fact it was aimed at teenagers by making it seem more realistic. We did this by having the killer as a young boy instead of a adult male to bring it closer to them making it seem evermore realistic, as this could happen to them to make them think every time they are at a station about the film. The film is also aimed at a middle class sort of group as it relates a lot more to them as the characters are middle class and everything throughout the film has a relation to being middle class. E.G the train is a nice train, the clothes are clean and nice. He main social group we aimed for was a middle class teenager as this was the group we knew most things about.

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Firstly we will distribute our media product to small companies to see what they think of it and see whether it is successful. If so, we will pitch our idea to an international or larger media company. Distributing and showing our media product to both small companies and large companies will quickly broaden the audience base and the film title will become more popular so we should gain a bigger audience from that.
By distributing our media product to a smaller company first will allow us to get feedback and let us know how successful our media product will be before we move on to larger companies which would have wasted our time if it was not successful.
Distributing to larger companies we would increase the films reputation which will increase the amount of people wanting to see it therefore increasing profit.
We should firstly show our film at amateur cinemas to gain popularity within local areas and see whether the potential is great enough to make it at larger cinemas.
If this film is only successful in amateur cinemas a DVD will be produced a month or so after the film was shown at the cinema for a week. If the film is successful at larger cinemas a DVD will be produced about 2-3 months after the film has been at the cinema for 3 weeks

7. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience is year olds male and female. In relation to our storyboard and our idea, we think that it is suitable and meets requirements of this audience. The age group of the characters is years old so fits in with the target audience and allows them to relate to them and the story more.
Our story relates to our target audience through our setting. One of the most popular forms of transport these days for young adults (16-25) is trains. Now days people travel further to go shopping, watch the football etc. and to get to these places need the trains as it is cheaper and faster than anyway else.
Also, a younger generation will understand the social aspect of the setting and this will increase the interest they have as they too will have been in that situation.
In our research we found that the film ‘creep’ was similar to ours in many ways for example this film was set at a train station and on a train itself. There is a main antagonist in which every one is scared of and there are protagonists also.

8. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted the audience by going for something slightly unique but something people of our target audience would be able to relate to. So the train station is a place where most teenagers will visit as it is public transport. This will get the audience attracted as it is not a normal location for a film but is a thriller location that they could have a situation themselves in. Another place that’s not very popular in films that may attract the audience is the alley way. This is because ally ways have a bad name due to illegal issues. This will also attract the target audience as it is unusual and already has a name. we found these where easy to use and were unusual places as we couldn’t find many thrillers with them locations and also they where local places to film meaning it was easy to get there. . Also the fact it was close meant it has a larger sense of realism as you can tell it is a local town and not a set and that its not made up so it could happen. This attracts the teenagers a lot more as they feel they may have been in a situation before, like at a station where they have felt uneasy or walking down an ally at night without looking behind you is pretty impossible, when your alone, so it creates a larger sense of fear.

9. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
I have learnt a decent amount while filming our opening thriller sequence. Although we were using simple equipment like a DV camera and tape, we were also using half decent programs to edit it with. The filming process was pretty simple as we had a story board to help us know what shots we needed, also we had spare batteries for the camera and tapes incase we ran out of space on the original tape. We then as a group decided when we could film and set a date and went out to film. Then came our first problem. The software we was using to upload the footage was dropping frames. This meant we was loosing footage which we required. This happened three times meaning we was over 3 hours trying to upload the footage. Eventually we got it working and had the footage on the computer. Now the editing process. We used Serif movieplus x3 to edit the footage. We did the cutting the cross fading, adding and reducing sound, all sorts of different things. Another program we used was after effects. This is a motion software that is very technical and advanced software. We use this to create our title and intro. This was a difficult process but worked well.

10. Most of our sounds throughout the film are from two websites, one was the other was . These two were very key to our opening scene as we needed the music from dilandau for the music box sound and we needed various sounds from freesound to exaggerate certain sounds making it more suspenseful. Overall I have learnt a fair amount on the technologies throughout the process of making the opening sequence.

11. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at my preliminary task and seeing my ideas and how I used camera shots also how I performed the other parts to the process E.G. the editing, the effects and transitions. I feel that I have learnt a lot in many different areas. One particular area is my brain. I feel I have learnt how to develop ideas more to make it more appealing to the audience and have more to the clip.
Another area is my editing, I feel my editing skills have improved a lot on different programs especially after effects. Meaning my clip will be a lot better cut and there for easier to watch for the audience.
My camera shots as well I feel have come on very strongly as I know how to use a camera shot to show something that’s not obvious but has a meaning. E.G. Have two people in a camera shot and have one when they talk from a lower angle than the other. This would show that the one shown with the lowest angle is the more important person. So I feel I have developed my skills in that.

12. Another key one is sound
Another key one is sound. I feel I have learnt a lot from how the slightest sound can make a clip better. I now know that sound is a must in a film and should be linked to the time era and location of the footage to fit perfectly. Overall I feel through doing different projects (sound project, preliminary task, video game project) throughout the year I have learnt a lot about the process and how much every aspect of the clip needs to link with the other aspects to make it perfect.