Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our short film, Backlash, can be considered to be similar to films such as Stormbreaker with the inclusions of secret agencies and an adolescent main character. It would be considered to be part of the action, thriller genre as it is a spy movie. We initially didn't plan on taking any influence from films such as Stormbreaker however we found that out short film became more and more similar with Stormbreaker, the more we worked on it, such as our main protagonist and that of Stormbreaker as they are both male teenage boys who's relatives are linked with MI6 and spies. The film meets its key features of its genre as there are scenes containing action in our short film which is the main focus of our film. Our film sticks very closely to the themes and conventions of typical spy movies.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our short film has two characters in it. The main character, a young boy who has been kidnapped by MI6, and an MI6 integrator who has been made out to be the bad guy. In order to make him appear as the bad guy to the audience we try to distance the audience from him by leaving his identity as being mysterious and giving him a deep and unsettling voice. We also made sure that the actor playing this role was taller and bigger than the actor playing the boy in order to create this sense of him being more powerful. This is a classic stereotype of a villain which children would find easy to understand. Due to the lack of overall dialogue in the scene we decided to try and make the audience align themselves with the protagonist by making him seem innocent and helpless whilst being beaten by the bad guy. This also helped in explaining the plot of the story to the audience. To help make the young boy come across as being weak we made sure that the actor playing him was shorter and smaller than the villain.

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

When looking for a viable distributor to distribute our film we came across a company known as Entertainment Film Distributors who we thought were perfect as they are British and they distribute many independent UK films, one of which being Stormbreaker, meaning that they would've worked on similar films to ours as we could see that they work on often smaller projects , such as our own, so we'd hope to work with them as they have a lot of knowledge in films of our genre.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience would focus on people of the age 12 and up, particular teenagers as we could see a particular pattern emerging whilst doing background research as films such as Stormbreaker were mainly focused on audiences of this age group. The film would still be enjoyable for people of over the age of 18, especially as there may be some parents who take their young children to go see it but the main focus of our film would still be people of 12 to 15.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The theme of a young main character and spies would appeal to people of this age group so we thought that it'd be best for us to aim our film at this audience, especially considering that we ourselves believed that we would've enjoyed films such as this when we were younger. Despite being somewhat realistic, the film would have a very fictional appeal to it which would attract young audiences who are interested in fantasy and fiction, more than older audiences are.

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

During the production of our short film we were required to use a DV tape camcorder in order to film our short film and to edit our film we used iMacs. Recording and editing our film was not a problem for me as I had already previously used camcorders and iMacs to record and edit a film for another subject. We also used the iMacs in order to find some royalty free sound tracks to make our film sound more authentic. I also used iMacs at school and my own personal PC at home in order to add entires to my blog.

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

Our preliminary task has taught us about the importance of continuity in the editing process. Our preliminary task could've been much smoother in terms of shot transitions. We have also learnt about context since then and the necessity to establish plot and character which was not done in the preliminary task. During the preliminary task we were taught about the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot, which are sued to make films easier for audiences to follow and to not be disorientated by it. During this process we learnt about how to use the DV Tape camcorders to our full advantage and we also learnt how to import short video files on to the schools iMacs through the use of a fire-wire. This was done in preparation of making our short film so that we would be confident and familiar when it came to using the equipment that would be necessary for making our short film. The preliminary task was very beneficial for us as it made us much more confident when it came to the actual production of our short film.