my AS media evaluation

1. Witness Evaluation by Jack Parfitt

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The witness is a typical thriller, and sticks to the basic conventions of a thriller. The conventions of thriller films are, Fast tempo camera cuts, hidden plot, cliff-hangers, twists, murder, high action and suspense. We used most of these techniques in the opening sequence of the film. We cut between each shot quickly as it helped to create suspense in the story line. We create suspense by cutting between the killer and the photographer showing parallel action, this makes the audience believe the characters will meet but they don't know when. We have about 4 shots of each character before they meet, these shots show the audience what type of characters they are, the photographer is represented as an average joe type as his scenes are peaceful and bright so the audience can guess he’s not a ‘bad guy’. The killer’s shots are quite different and show him as a dark character and dangerous, we have achieved this by darkening the shots and making him look nervous as he keeps looking around. This creates tension, as the audience knows they will meet. In order to hide the film plot from the audience we used hermeneutic codes, the main code we followed was the native enigma this is great as it forces the audience to ask questions, why has the killer killed a man? Why is he burring the body? And the main one, will he meet the photographer? The film plot is based around the burring of the body as this throws up all the questions as you don't know why and you don't see the murder take place. This is one of the basic conventions of a thriller, with out it it wouldn't be one. Through out the whole film we build up the suspense, this all culminates in the foot and car chase. In the foot chase the killer gets closer and closer he dives for the photographer creating more suspense but he misses but the suspense is built up through the car chase.

3. Our characters are constructed through mise-en-scene as we have no dialogue. We have three characters, a photographer, a killer and a dead body. The photographer is constructed as a general family man ( average joe). We decided that this would make him an easier character for people to identify with and attract a wider target audience. Creating the character was easy as we did it though costume, the clothes were plain and unbranded and had no distinct features. Getting the costume right was very important as I was playing the part of a 30 year old, so we tried to make me look older. The costume was a plain leather jacket, light jeans and walking boots. I still looked young so I wore some glasses and they with the costume made look older. To construct our killer we researched the costumes worn by killers in other films. We came to the conclusion that the killer’s outfit should be one colour and quite plain. The outfits where also quite baggy like boiler suits and trench coats. We opted for a blue boiler suit for the killer. We didn't set out to represent the killer a certain age or from a certain social group so it was a lot easier to construct him. The same point can be made about the body, he just wore some old clothes and a bag on his head as he didn't represent any one or any thing. Our character construction can also be seen in our choice of cars. We used a 2007 ford fiesta and a 1989 ford escort. The photographer has the fiesta as it represents his social group, the fiesta is a modern safe and reliable car. This represents his social class and his higher moral standing. The killers car is the escort, we didn't clean it so it looked dirty which is stereotypical of killers in films, as it shows the killer as not caring on his appearance. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I believe that a small low budget company could produce the Witness. I believe this as we have shown how easy it is to make a fairly good looking film on almost zero budget. We have shown that complex car and foot chases can be done on the cheap. A low budget company could also give the film a feel that is seen in thrillers. Although if a big budget studio where to pick up the film they could add a lot more to the film. A more elaborate car chase could be made involving other vehicles and in a more realistic environment like a big city. Other obvious improvements would be high profile actor, better cars and props, but this would only be achieved through the huge budgets of Hollywood blockbusters. Looking at distribution a small company would have to create a direct campaign targeting the specific target audience for the film. Where as a large company could saturate the market. The small company would have to focus on certain newspapers and magazines, specific locations and specific tv shows and times. A great example of this would be cipher films a small independent production company behind Adulthood, their target audience was inner city youths aged 15 -25. They used a lot of direct advertising for the film as they had a very small budget. Over all a small distribution company would struggle to market Witness as we have a huge target audience and they wouldn't be able to afford to advertise to every one resulting in missing some of the target audience. A large company would use their dominance in the market and create a mass marketing campaign reaching as many people as possible. Because of their huge budget they can advertise almost everywhere, all the newspapers and magazines, radio, tv ads huge billboards, websites and many more. This would be similar to the scale of quantum of solace the latest James Bond film. The film was distributed by sony one of the industries leading media companies. For QoS they advertised with coca cola , Barclaycard and car companies. This type of advertising would best suit Witness as it has a large target audience.

9. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? The stage we are at now is a world away from the preliminary task. The shots are shaky, poor quality and the sound is terrible. A lot of lessons were learnt from the preliminary task. We didn't plan it very well and spent most of the time looking for a room to film in, we storyboarded it but didn’t make sure any rooms were free meaning we had to find a room that was free, when we did it was locked so we had to find a key. When It came to filming our final piece we had learnt from this a spent a weekend location hunting for the film. This paid of as it meant when it came to filming we turned up and got on with it. In the preliminary we only really used one defining shot which was a shot reverse shot that isn’t very hard to do. In our finale piece we have a huge range of different shots, to name a few, depth of field, deep focus, high angle, close ups and an extreme wide angle shot. this means our composition is very varied giving the film a professional look. I think another thing I learnt was the use of a sound track that goes with the footage, in our preliminary we used the song green onions which didn't have any relevance to the images on screen. In the final piece we created our own score that was made solely for the on screen action, the music changes in tempo and key when events are happening on screen. This again makes the film more professional and shows how much we have progressed since the preliminary task.