Amy Hindmarch

The GAME

Evaluation

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

products?

Our thriller incorporates generic conventions of other crime thrillers. For example, our thriller follows the narrative sequence of other real crime thrillers such as ‘Goodfellas’ where there is a short piece of film, then the title sequence and then the rest of the film. This helped our audience to know and understand straight away that it was a crime thriller as apposed to another sub-genre.

Whilst creating the finished product 'The Game', we have used, developed and challenged traditional forms and conventions of real media products. For example, we have used one typical convention of a thriller with the extending lines and letters in the ‘Catch me if you can’ title sequence. We incorporated these lines into our own title sequence to give the effect of a real thriller opening.

c

Before beginning this task I looked at a variation of thriller texts and analysed their use of camera, editing, sound and Mise en scene. This allowed me to correctly identify the generic conventions seen in particular sub-genres.

As well as this key feature of editing, whilst researching crime thriller, we found that the colours red, white and black were commonly used throughout other title sequences as these colours connote death, mystery and evil. We however wanted to challenge these conventions. As you can see, we still used the common white writing seen in ‘The Departed’ but however changed the background to blue . Using the colour blue in our title sequence will fit with the theme and story of our thriller and represent a blue print.

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

products?In other real media products such as ‘Sin City’ an establishing shot has been used to indicate to the audience where the characters are. We used an establishing shot before the MI5 scene (See: 1:22)

Our MI5 scene Sin City

Close up’s of key items/props have also been used in many other crime thrillers. Because of this, we decided to incorporate close ups in our opening. In the film ‘Goodfellas’ A close up of the gun has been shown. In our opening, we showed a close up of the box of money (See: 0:42)

Close up’s of main characters faces have also been used in other crime thrillers, for example in ‘The Departed’. Therefore, we used a close up of the police officer in the MI5 sequence (See: 1:36)

During our opening we have tried to challenge the conventions of a typical crime thriller. For example, other real crime thrillers such as ‘Sin City’ often used low key lighting to connote a sinister and dark mood. We purposefully filmed the outside scenes in broad daylight to challenge other crime thrillers and to connote a brighter atmosphere that juxtaposed the storyline. (See: 0:05)

Our outdoor scene

Sin City outdoor scene

The use of conventions such as the close ups of main characters and key props show the audience that it is a crime thriller as opposed to another sub genre such as horror thriller. However, by us challenging previous real media products through lighting, the audience may become confused of what sub genre of thriller it is.

The real media examples that have had the most influence on our finished product are ‘Catch me if you can’ – title sequence (See: 0:43), ‘Goodfellas’ – sequencing and ‘Sin City’ – Establishing Shots (See: 1:22)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Gender is also represented in a stereotypical way with Hugo (male) being the dominant character and the police office (female) being the passive character. As well as Hugo being the main character, he has been represented as being the dominant character through a variety of camera angles. For example the low angle shot makes him seem bigger and more important.In contrast to this, we have also purposefully presented the female police officer as being on the same level and relatable to the audience through the camera being positioned at eye level.

Throughout our text we focused on the representation of our main characters in relation to class, race and gender.

Hugo Grant (The antagonist) is a young man and due to the fact he is attempting to commit a crime, this could fit the typical stereotype of young people and portray young people in a negative light.

At the beginning of our opening, the scene is set at a large manor house (See: 0:03) which connotes wealth and upper class. This is a binary opposition to the two men dressed in all black running out from behind it, this is because black connotes a lower class. This diverse range in representation of classes will attract a wider range of audiences which I feel is important to our text.

As well as the antagonist being represented as middle class due to the all black attire he is seen in, He is also seen to be wearing a purple shirt in the outdoor inter cutting café scene. Purple connotes royalty, wealth and upper class which combined with his previous dress would present him as upper class. However due to his previous actions of running out from behind the building, the audience as forced to see him as middle class.

The women in our opening have been portrayed as being strong and powerful. This has been shown through the protagonist female character having a high status and powerful job.The female is wearing a black suit (See 1:31). Black connotes power, elegance and formality. This challenges the stereotype that women should not have as important and high status jobs as men.One piece of audience feedback stated in response to the question 'Do you think the representation of characters was accurate? If no, why?' - 'No, Female was in a position of power which is un-convential for a film'.

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

Men in black suits connotes upper class, business and wealth. This could suggest that the character has an important or perhaps secretive job such as with the MI5, like in ‘The Game’.

Dream Works

The white minimalistic background symbolises the fact of mystery about the film and does not give anything away about the plot.

The idea of a true story creates a more relatable sequence for the audience as if everything they are watching is true, they will find it easier to relate to it.

The hat signifies that he works for a cruise liner or ship connoting travel. The arrows and the film title work parallel to the connotations of the hat signifying moving forward and a sense of adventure.

‘Catch me if you can’ is a crime thriller produced by the media institution ‘Dream Works’.‘Catch me if you can’ is ‘A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor’ (IMDb).As ‘Catch me if you can’ is a crime thriller and follows a similar narrative sequence of an antagonist possessing money that was not strictly theirs to ‘The Game’, it is likely that the audiences that enjoyed and watched it will be interested in watching ‘The Game’.

‘Dream Works’ is also heavily dominated by animations which evidently we have in our opening during the title sequence. This is another reason why I feel that ‘Dream Works’ will be interested in producing our work as it is again, similar to previous work they have produced.

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

Universal‘Universal Studios’ is one of the “Six

major American movie studios” and is one of the longest –living Hollywood studios around today. The institution has experience producing and distributing many other sub genre films such as ‘Love Actually ‘ and ‘Winchester 73’ meaning that they may be best to produce and distribute our opening.‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ is an Action Thriller produced by the media institution ‘Universal’.‘The Bourne Ultimatum’s’ plot summary is ‘Jason Bourne dodges a ruthless CIA official and his agents from a new assassination program while searching for the origins of his life as a trained killer’ (IMDb). This is similar to that of ‘The Game’s’ plot summary as in ‘The Game’ Hugo Grant is trying to run away from MI5 whereas in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, Jason Bourne is trying to escape from the CIA.Due to the similarity in plot, Universal studios may be a good institution to distribute our product. However, they have not got as much experience of distributing and targeting crime thrillers as Dream Works.

The only character in shot which represents a male lead, similar to ‘The Game’.

Again, the clothing he is wearing is similar to that of Hugo Grant in ‘The Game’. This shows a similarity between characters.

The gun signifies crime and danger but also connotes action and perhaps a fight scene.

Similar to ‘The Game’, the colours blue and white have been used within the text. This signifies a link between both films meaning that ‘Universal Studios’ may be the best institution to produce and distribute our product despite the lack in experience with crime thrillers.

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

I believe that our product does have the potential to be produced by the a major Hollywood title such as ‘Dream Works’. This is because I feel that the narrative structure of our film has real potential to be developed and altered so that ‘The Game’ can be distributed to cinemas.I feel that ‘The Game’ will be best suited to the distribution of a cinema as apposed to online etc. as this way it has the potential for a bigger and wider range of audiences, meaning that ‘Dream Works’ will then have the potential to make more money.

Our product will also work well as it is not a traditional crime thriller film sue to the conventions we have challenged such as the lighting aspect. This may make more people want to watch the film in the cinema rather than a traditional thriller which often has something scary or frightening within it.

I also believe that the mise en scene works well with our product and within the crime thriller genre. This is because we have used typical conventions of a crime thriller such as money however we have not used them in a typical crime thriller setting which would be in a dark alley way or such like.

After researching a number of different media institutions I have come to the conclusion that our film ‘The Game’ will be best suited to be produced and distributed by ‘Dream Works’ as opposed to ‘Universal Studios’. This is because I feel that ‘Dream Works’ have far more experience in producing and distributing crime thrillers meaning that they will be able to target the right audience and make the best sellable product out of our film that could have a future for publicity or merchandising.

Who would be the audience for your mediaproduct?

Before creating our Thriller opening, we decided to carry out research into the ‘bbfc’ about what we could and couldn’t include in our opening depending on the age category we chose. We also decided to carry out a survey to help decide on the sub genre and help towards deciding on the age category of our film. Overall we decided on an age range of 16-20 and a ‘bbfc’ rating of ‘15’.

Many other crime thrillers such as The Bourne Ultimatum have this age group as their target audience and we feel that this age group would enjoy our film the most.

If we had decided to classify the game as an ‘18’ film, we would lose the majority of our viewers as they would not legally be able to watch it in the cinema or buy it on DVD.

16-20

Through our preliminary survey, we also found out that our target gender would be male. This is because out of the people we asked that would be interested in our film, the majority were male.

Through other secondary research, we found that the leading target audience gender throughout previous real media crime thrillers such as ‘The Departed’ were also male which helped reinforce our decision.

Due to the fact we have developed and challenged generic conventions of typical crime thrillers, this widens our audience range and may make our film more relatable or enjoyable for a mass market.

However, due to the content of parts of our opening, younger viewers may not be engaged by the long narrative and the plot may be too complex for them to comprehend. This limits our audience viewing slightly but however does not affect our target audience.

How did you attract/address youraudience?

As our target audience gender was male, we decided to make our main character male. This gave the majority of the audience a chance to relate to the main character due to their similarity in gender.

The alarm sound going off outside the manor house could shock some viewers as there is a large contrast between the quiet viewing of the house and the loud alarm sound.

During the opening, we used a variety of camera angles to help the audience put themselves in the position of the main character. For example, at 00:40 the audience sees a close up of the box of money which is exactly what the main character is seeing. This again, allowed the audience to relate to the character more.

During the research process, we developed questionnaires to gain knowledge of our audiences interests; from this we learned that the majority of people enjoyed crime thrillers. At the end of our project we all posted our final piece on Facebook and Twitter along with our survey to gain feedback on what went well and what did not.

Although this strategy worked well, I feel as though our audience feedback process could have been improved due to the people being targeted for feedback were all around the same age meaning that we did not receive as wide a range of feedback that we had hoped for.

Our attempts to attract our audience could have also been improved as during the research process we focused more on the genre and not so much on finding our target audience. This could have been resolved by more people carrying out our preliminary questionnaires allowing for a wider range of results and it would have meant that we could have improved the outcome of our final piece basing it around the improved target audience.

Close up of money

Target Audience Feedback

In order to evaluate our finished product, it was important to gain as much feedback as possible from the widest range of people possible. As part of the evaluation process, we posted our product on YouTube and sent out a link to the video and our survey on both Facebook and Twitter. We then got as many people as possible to watch our thriller through verbal communication and through e-mails. After people had watched our thriller, they left comments and/or filled out our survey. These included:

• Age 41+:

‘It lulled me into a false sense of security. lovely sunny day, beautiful house, then wham, the alarm goes off, straight into the action of two men running...exciting...why are they running....’

‘Intriguing; I wanted to find out what happened? What was the robbery? Of what? By whom? Good guy or bad guy... And then I was told some of this by the MI5 sequence’

‘Very clean, simple and professional’

‘It left me wanting more’

Target Audience Feedback

• Age 16-20:

‘I loved the animation and think the concept of 'The Game' is really good and grabs the audiences attention from the very beginning’

‘Very professional’

• Age 11-15:

‘It makes you wonder if MI5 are going to catch this villain and how’

The feedback we received from the survey was very complimentary, a lot of people found that the juxtaposition between the quiet beginning and the alarm sound going off worked well with our crime thriller genre. Many people also really enjoyed our title sequence due to the quick animation and moving words. Nevertheless, we also received some criticisms of our work which we can build upon and use to help us to improve in the future. They included:

Do you feel the font and typography was appropriate to the opening?

‘No, Too basic for a film’

‘No, the colours could be more darker’

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

The camera equipment we used included an SLR camera and a SONY recording camera.One strength about using the SONY camera was that is was extremely easy to operate meaning that on shoots, we could easily reflect and improve upon previous footage without any inconveniences. This feature was especially important to me as I was the cinematographer.One weakness of using the SONY camera was that after moving it, the lens would take a while to re-focus meaning that especially during panning shots, it was hard to quickly pan and then re focus the camera.

For editing our opening we used a programme called Premier Pro. This is a large piece of software that is extremely useful when wanting to edit large pieces of footage.

I was not the main editor so therefore did not use Premier Pro as much as other members of the group however particular effects and tools that we found useful were the split tool as it allowed us to quickly cut and edit our footage when and where we wanted it.

Also the lighting effect was extremely useful as it allowed us to change the lighting (high/low key) in different situations to either fit the mood or previous shots. For example during the MI5 scene, we had to tamper with the lighting as the lighting was different during re-shoots and to keep continuity, we had to make it the same.

Throughout the process of preparing and creating our thriller opening, I learned new abilities such as a variation of editing skills and how to use the camera effectively. This was a vivid change from our continuity task where these skills were not present so simple mistakes were made such as the camera moving or jolting on what was supposed to be a still shot.

Before Editing

After Editing

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

full product?

Since the preliminary continuity task, I have learned the importance of research and planning. We only had limited time for research and planning during our continuity task which reinforced to us the extent of research and planning that needed to be done. This meant that when it came to creating our opening, we were able to leave enough time for extensive research and planning.

One of our strengths during this projects was our shooting schedule and keeping to it. Our shot list was also extremely useful as it related directly to the storyboard but would not have been successful if we did not follow it one hundred percent which we did.

When looking back at the preliminary task, we did not use a huge variety of shots. This limited us to the effect our product could have on the audience. We changed and improved on this aspect when creating our opening as we used a variety of shots including close ups, long shots, tracking and panning shots, along with high an low angle shots.

I have also learned the importance of storyboarding. Due to the lack of time available to complete our continuity task in, we were unable to storyboard our narrative sequence as much as we had liked to. In the end this did not have a huge effect on our finished product however if we had not storyboarded as intensely for our opening, it may have has a bigger effect of the finished product.

One dilemma we faced during the planning stage of our opening was that we had storyboarded our opening 30 seconds short of what it needed to be. This meant that we had to re storyboard and extra 30 seconds onto our opening. This problem reinforced to use the importance of a storyboard as we could then refer back to it whilst re storyboarding a new sequence and it also made us realise that without a storyboard, we would have just gone ahead and created our opening and realised that we were 30 seconds short after it was too late!

Through the progression from creating the continuity task to creating our full media product, I can see the vast progression made in members of my group. I feel all of our editing and camera work skills have improved tremendously meaning that our product will be the best it can be.