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

Our film 'Follow' follows the story of the protagonist Grace who is stalking a girl, Ella. Once Grace discovers Ella is now dating her ex-boyfriend she decides to progress her obsession and attempt to murder her. Grace tries to do this several times throughout the movie but fails, and after a fight between her and Ella she is forced to run to another town where she begins stalking a new victim.

In our opening we followed many of the conventions of our psychological thriller genre in the form, genre, narrative style and genre and uses theories to underpin the decisions that we made about our sequence and story line as a whole.

Please view the Prezi below to discover more:

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main representation that we focused on in our project was representation of gender. We wanted to have two contrasting characters of the same ender: one that conformed to the stereotypes and one that broke them in order to make the narrative plot of our film interesting and unique to the audience.

We executed this by having two female characters in our media product:

• Grace: non-stereotypical teenage girl
• Ella: stereotypical teenage girl

In order to discover the conventions of (teenage) girls in the media, we looked at real examples for inspiration. Skins was our main reference point as due to its wide cast we found characters in the TV show that both conformed to and broke the conventions of teenage girls. We specifically looked at the characters of Naomi and Michelle.

In our film we constructed our representation of the characters through the use of dress, gesture, dialogue, setting, behaviour, relationships, camera and editing. Examples of this can be seen in the table below.

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media project and why?

Our media project would most likely be distributed by an independent, British media institution. This is because our film is low budget and it's theme and plot, characters, and setting are designed to appeal to a British audience.

Production
The production company that we created for the purpose of this project is called Bugle Films. It is a small, independent, British production company based in London and it specifically chooses to produce films of the horror and thriller genre, which is why they would make a film like ours. In the real world a production budget of around £500k-£1million would be needed to produce our film. This is because the film is very technically simple and requires no no special post-production effects and the settings and costumes are very simple and achievable.

A similar example of a production company is White Lantern Films. It is an independent British production company based in Bournemouth that has produced several small thriller and horror feature films.



Distribution

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Then we were producing our film, the mass/niche audience we had in mind was fans of psychological thrillers. We also thought about our primary audience of people from the ages of 15-24 and our secondary audience of fans of British indie films.

Further information about the audience of our media product can be found in the Prezi below. Please enlarge it to see it the full information:

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience of fans of psychological thrillers and 15-24 year olds by applying the Uses and Gratifications theory. The theory told us that audiences 'are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives' and that they use media to fulfil their own gratifications, typically one of the following four:

• Identity - ability to recognise product/setting/person or role models with similar values, someone you would aspire to be
• Educate - ability to acquire information, knowledge and understanding]
• Entertain - getting enjoyment and form of escapism from consumption
• Social Interaction - ability of product to produce topic of conversation between people and spark debates

Please see the mind map below to see how we applied the theory to our media product and opening sequence:

We also used continuity editing techniques in our opening sequence such as match on actions, as seen in the GIF below. Using these techniques increases the realism of our film and therefore makes it more likely to attract the audience.

Audience Reactions

Throughout the production and creation of our film opening, we keenly gathered feedback from our audience to inform ourselves whether we were appropriately addressing the audience and to find out what we could improve.

In our surveys, we aimed to take a random selection of gender and ages from within our target audience of 15-24 year olds, and in total we gathered a sample group of 8 people. We asked our sample group for feedback at two points: after our the rough cut of our test shoot and after the we finished our final edit.

Below is a chart of the feedback results we received from the reaction to our rough edit:

Although the reaction was not on the whole positive, we received extremely useful critiques for what to change and improve in our opening sequence. The main critiques were:

• Better characterization - despite the fact we intentionally did not use the actor we planned for in our test shoot, we did not use hair and make-up as well as we could have
• Different setting - the audience noticed that the small shooting location severely hindered us and how the narrative was communicated
• More obvious storyline - the initial storyline of Grace trying to emulate Ella was hard to get across to the audience and they didn't understand the relationship between the two characters

After we completed our final edit we asked the same questions to our sample group, and got the following results:

Looking at the charts, it's clear that the audience's reaction to our opening sequence massively improved as a result of the changes we made between the production of our rough cut and final edit. This tells us that we can safely say our attempts to attract the audience were in the end successful.

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

During this process I have learned and developed my skills on the uses of both hardware and software. Looking back on the technologies that I used in the prelim and in previous years of Media Studies, I have realised how much I have progressed.

Hardware
The table below details what I have learnt from my use of hardware such as the camera, tripod etc.

Software
The software that we used included Adobe Premiere Pro, Audible and LiveType.

My greatest technical challenge was using the camera effectively to get professional-looking, clear and consistent video throughout our opening sequence. Overall my technical ability has greatly improved throughout the project and I have learnt a great deal of information about technologies and how they can be used to develop the initial idea of your media product.

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

Looking back on the Prelim and my influences, I think that I have learnt a lot in the time between the Prelim and creating my real opening sequence. This has positively impacted the final result of my opening sequence.

The Preliminary Task Brief
"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."

Here is our Prelim:

The Production Task Brief
"To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music and audio effects from a copyright-free source. It should be clear from your sequence who he target audience is."

The top three things I have learnt are:

1. The importance of thorough planning - we planned for weeks for our opening sequence compared to only an hours worth of planning for the prelim.
2. The use of continuity techniques - in the Prelim we got a chance to practice these techniques that we aimed to show that we could use effectively in our opening sequence.
3. Spending time on editing - in the Prelim we edited very quickly and I think we could have edited the cuts better. For our real opening sequence we spent much more time doing the editing and therefore it looked cleaner.

Construction Post 10: Looking back - reflections on our final outcome

I am extremely happy with how our final opening sequence turned out. Throughout the project our sequence has not looked promising, but we managed to pull it together and create a sequence that we are all pleased with.

I think that we have effectively completed our brief, as well as connoted the thriller genre of our film and the fact that it is a low-budget UK indie film. Also I think that we chose the perfect actor for our sequence, and she greatly added to the characterisation of the character Grace that we envisioned.

If I were to improve it any further, I would have used a wider variety of more creative and original shots. Although we did include a few original shots, I believe that if we added more our sequence would have been more unique and eye catching. Nevertheless I am very happy with our final product and I hope that you enjoy it as well.

When we finally showed both our target audience and teachers our final sequence, they were very impressed with it and liked all the changes that we made previously with the help of their feedback.

Construction Post 9: My technical learning curve

The skills that I improved the most in during the creation of the sequence was in editing. Although I was initially quite proficient at editing, we found that there was a lot of advanced editing techniques that we wanted to use but we weren't sure how to execute them. In order to overcome this I both Googled the answers and consulted our technician, Emma. As a result of this I picked up many skills on using video and audio affects in Premiere Pro and using tools such as the razor tool.

One lesson that I did learn through the project was the importance of balancing both time and quality during our shooting sessions. This is something that we struggled with as we had to balance daylight (and the patience of our group and actor!) along with making sure that our shots were good quality. I feel that by the end of the project I have learnt to effectively balance this and have improved my patience!

Construction post 8: My personal contribution to the edit sessions

While we were editing, I gave up nearly all of my free time during school and after school in order to devote it to the editing of our sequence. Pru and I edited the majority of the sequence in union as we agreed creatively on many shots, however we displayed our expertise in editing some parts that the other was weaker in. For example, I graded the majority of the shots and created while she adjusted the sound and created special shots such as the split screen using key frames.

In hindsight there is not much I would change regarding my contribution to editing as I felt that I put in the best effort I could with editing.

Construction Post 7: My personal contribution to the shoot sessions

I think I made a useful contribution to the shoot sessions. I worked in many different roles while we were shooting: for some shots I was director or camera operator, I gave our actor instructions on costumes, hair and make-up and helped them prep for the shoot, and I also acted in a brief part of our shoot. I enjoyed having a variety of roles throughout the day as it helped me develop all my skills and work together well with my group.

Me acting in the shoot

Construction Post 6: Reflections on edit week 2

Edit week 2 was successful and we met the deadline in good time. Pru and I worked together very well editing our sequence, working with the strengths and weaknesses we both had in particular areas and honing our editing skills.

Overall during the second editing week we:

• Added/replaced new shots and shots that we re-filmed
• Graded the shots
• Fixed the music to the new shot lengths
• Added the final titles (created on LiveType)
• Added effects to the sound and video

We showed our target audience our editing to see what aspects they liked. They gave us feedback on the titles that we used to modify them further.

Construction Post 5: The back-up shoot

Before embarking on our back-up shoot, we reviewed the feedback we had received for our sequence and created a list of shoots that we decided need to be filmed, as well as adding new shots to improve the continuity. This helped us during the back-up shoot as we compared this re-shoot list with our original shot list and helped the back-up shoot ran smoothly

The back-up shoot did not run as quickly as we expected, but we put this down to the fact that we were insistent on perfecting each shot we had to re-shoot so overall this was not too problematic.

Construction Post 4: Reflections on edit week 1

In our first editing week we agreed that we needed to work to our limit and dedicate all of our free time to the project in order to put together shots and organise what needed to be rectified during the back-up shoot that weekend. We filled out an edit schedule and wrote down when each member of the group would be editing and aimed to have as many editing sessions as possible as a whole group so we could make inclusive decisions.

During the edit week we carried out many tasks including:

• Renaming the shots and identifying the best takes
• Editing the shots and putting them together on the timeline
• Adding shots that required special/more advanced editing such as split screens and jump cuts
• Selecting a new music track
• Recording the non-diagetic sound and sourcing other clips such as the Film4 ident
• Creating basic temporary titles

Although we worked quite well as a group during the edit week, we thought it best if we split the group and into two and edit two separate sequences - Pru and I did one and Josh and Gabriel did the other. This was a hard decision but we felt that we had conflicting creative ideas on how to edit the sequence, so rather than spoil the harmony of the group we thought it would be best to just create two sequences. Despite this we still collaborated on many decisions and helped each other to edit specific scenes.

We showed our target audience our edit at the end of the week. They said that we could have showed Grace's anger better, so as a result we planned to shoot a new shot of this in our back up shoot.

Construction Post 3: Reflections on our main shoot session

Overall, our main shoot session was extremely successful compared to our test shoot. We completed all of our shots in detail with time to spare and had far less problems than on the test shoot. As a group we were really pleased with the new location that we had to shoot in and we worked well together along with our actor, Celine, for the shooting session.

When we showed our footage to our teachers, we discovered while reviewing our rushes were that a few shots broke continuity (such as shoes not being on) or some shots were shaky and out of focus. However we concluded that these were minor problems that would be easily fixable in our back-up shoot. Despite these problems after the main shoot our sequence started showing real promise to us as a group.

Construction Post 2: Our post-production kit

At school we were allocated an edit suite for our group to edit our main sequence on. This featured a dual-monitored computer with Adobe Premiere Pro set up on it. We also used a quiet back room to record our non-diagetic sound (such as Grace's friend on the phone) in order to ensure that no background noise was picked up.

The kit that we used during post production were:

• Dual-monitored computer
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Macbooks/iMacs
• LiveType (for creating titles)
• Blue Yeti Microphone
• Audacity (for recording non-diagetic sound)

Adobe Premiere Pro workspace featuring our sequence rushes

Construction Post 1: Our production kit

The kit that we used for our production were:

• Canon Legria HF G30 Camera
•  Headphones
• Tripod
• Shotgun Microphone
• Clapper board

As a group we agreed that Gabriel was to transport the kit to and from school as his house was the location, but we confirmed that we would help him do this in any way if needed.