The group evaluated their media product which challenged traditional gender roles through the characters of Daniel and Alexandra. They aimed to represent strong, independent female identities and complex male identities that broke from traditional masculine stereotypes. Their thriller trailer and accompanying materials used techniques from similar genres to generate suspense and mystery around the characters' relationship and plot. New media technologies like video and image editing software and digital cameras were used to construct the trailer, poster, and magazine cover promoting the film.

1. Group Evaluation Claire Dean, Jessica Webster, Katie Kenny and Viel Fernandez

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

3. At the start of the film the characters of Daniel and Alexandra challenge traditional gender role expectations. Nowadays the binary division of male and female identities has been shattered and mainstream culture is moving away from tradition.

4. Judith Butler’s feminist manifesto of ‘Gender Trouble’ can describe the current mass media; she spoke of the creation of more forms of complex male and female identities. Traditionally women were victims, whom were wholly dependent on their male partners, however, in terms of modern representations of women, we see strong, feisty and successful icons of ‘girl power’ (dubbed from popular modern culture), characters capable of any role. Popular girl band in the 1990’s, the Spice Girls. They represented a new generation of strong, independent women. The term has even been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. DEFINITION: “power exercised by girls; spec. A self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertive and individualism.”

5. The character Alexandra, shortened to the boys name ‘Alex’, holds qualities typical of a traditional male protagonist, she is intelligent, supportive and strong. At the start of our film, although it isn’t obvious in the trailer, we wanted Alex’s character to fit within the postmodern feminist theory with these qualities. We wanted the character of Daniel to reflect the complex identity of a modern man, tough, masculine and yet equally sensitive and loving to his partner. Breaking the mould of traditional male ideals of macho, self reliant, taking on physical jobs that emphasised their masculinity and strength; men had to be emotional silent not letting personal problems affect them.

6. The film essentially centres Dan’s emotions, the ecstasy of love with Alexandra, their heartbreaking split, his grief of her murder and his deep struggle for justice. These diverse characters are able to touch the post-traditionalist audiences of today, as people can personally relate to the type of people Dan and Alex are. By the end of the film, Dan and Alex have fallen back into stereotypical gender roles, Dan is the rescuer and Alex is the ‘damsel in distress’ who needs to be saved. This follows the traditional feminist theory as it involves a patriarchal world. Bond films, particularly the earlier releases such as Dr. No 1962, are a good example of traditional gender roles. The main Bond figure is masculine, strong and heroic, his Bond girls is the ‘damsel in distress’, as only Bond can save her.

7. ‘The Deceit’ itself is relatively conventional in style for a thriller/ kidnap film; the trailer is fast-paced in order to create maximum drama and interest for a potential viewer. A film trailer we modelled our own coursework on was ‘Taken’ 2008, we felt fast pace edit, the phone call crosscutting between father and daughter and the dramatic montage built up tension and sense of mystery. We felt that the ‘Taken’ trailer was very successful in its purpose of rousing interest and hooking the audience, so we decided not to stray away far from existing thriller trailers that worked well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwF9XnhYj1M&feature=related

8. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

9. Our Thriller Trailer A screen shot from the trailer. ‘Dan meets Alex’. In the trailer it is actually black and white to imply that it may be a memory or something that is happy in the story. The Deceit shows the character of Dan as a typical modern criminal who drinks, gambles and deals with ‘gangsters’, however there is a softer side to him that only the heroine, Alex, brings out. Alex’s characteristics in the trailer also show the viewers the postmodern heroine, with a strong sense of character yet she is vulnerable in the end of the trailer, making the audience think it is going back to a more traditional feminine stereotype as the one that needs to be saved. Our trailer contains fast quick edits with dramatic and suspense building music, this creates the feel that we want so the viewers will be interested.

10. Poster The font on our poster links in very well as we have used it in all our products, the trailer and the magazine cover, and also when you look at it a hint of drama and secretiveness comes across. The poster links with the trailer as the scenes are edited to get a dark mysterious feel and so we have tried for the poster to be the same. The pictures used comes across as ‘Alex’ is the one that guides ‘Dan’ as she is looking down at him and also ‘Dan’ would do anything for ’Alex’ as he is lower than her in the poster. We have chosen a background that seems dangerous and a bit run down. This location isn't actually on the trailer, however, it is in the actual film. We haven't included it in the trailer as we did not want to give so much away because this could result in a loss of audience interest. The poster that we got our inspiration from was Public Enemies. It shows the main character with his weapon clearly stating that he is the criminal yet the hero at the same time.

11. Magazine Cover Like the movie poster we have chosen to use the same barn background but different character photographs to suit the type of product, a magazine poster. For the name of the film we have used the same font from the poster and the trailer to follow the housestyle. For the font of the magazine we have tried to edit it so it fits the thriller feel of the cover, the stains on the letters may show how Dan’s life isn’t as clean as Alex may know. In the photograph the characters are looking into each other eyes to show that it is also a love story and not only a thriller, like the trailer shows. Alex is quite happy and has a little smile while Dan has a blank expression, not giving anything away.

12. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

13. We used many different forms of new media technologies within our production work in order to create and enhance it. During the video editing stages we used Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to put together our final piece. Within this software we were able to add effects to our work in order to make it flow and cut the shots together in a manner that would draw in any potential viewers for the film. In this program it is very easy to chop multiple scenes up and put them together so as to create tension which is what we did with our piece. During the filming of the piece we used a Canon Digital Video Camera. In using this camera we were able to set up the shots well and create the optimum clarity and perfection for our production. The advantage of using a digital camera is that it makes our work easier to edit and also improves the quality.

14. Furthermore within our production of the piece we used Zoom Mics in order to record our male actor’s voice for voiceovers within the piece in order to make the sound as sharp as possible.

15. Within the print work we used an SLR digital camera for the images. By using a digital camera we were able to easily edit them on the computer and create the desired effect of anticipation for a film via the poster and the magazine cover. To further the clarity of our images we also used umbrella lights within the studio to light our images in a gloomy way to create the correct mood. In order to edit the images for the poster and the magazine cover we used Adobe Photoshop CS4. This enabled us to create the poster and the magazine front cover and match them to the genre of the film. We used multiple effects to create the gloomy scene as you can see in the poster.

16. Within our research, we looked at the styles of trailers of a similar genre, generally those focusing around a kidnap or romantic drama. In order to do this we used the internet and the website YouTube from which we could view all of the trailers to enhance our knowledge of the way kidnap and romantic drama films are put across in their trailers. Furthermore, we also viewed several student trailers on DVD in order to get a feel for the standard we needed to live up to with our trailer and possibly exceed. From looking at these trailers we were able to form the foundations of our own trailer and decide how we were going to edit it in order to create the maximum anticipation for the subsequent film.