1. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products In our product our thriller dons the conventions of the thriller genre, by initially portraying the protagonist, a typical white teenage female, in the thriller genre this is usually presented as weaker persona . Very much like in the film Silence of the lambs, the initial interpretation of the protagonist women coupled with the strong presence of Hannibal lector, in the scene where the first meet, shadows her and bolsters the on screen strength of Hannibal creating a wider dominance. Continued, the protagonists weakness is structured by the use of Mise en-scene such as her drunken stagger to the door, her muttering expressing extreme regret and fear, the broken heel suggesting the worse and her smudged with unkempt hair suggest a broken down image of what she once was. This plethora of identifiers point towards a drunken night, the way she staggers to the door suggests a rapid drop in fatigue and integrity portraying weakness and vulnerability. The darkness and lack of clear shots to her face, majority shrouded with shadows and carefully placed shots keep the audience guessing and wanting to see her face another common convention. The shrouds upon her create a elegance of mystery a sense of withdrawal from the full story , commonly used in thrillers setting the audience up for the evidential fact that this film will not give away much till the very end. The music coincides directly with the theme of mystery that is evident, the low toned slow audio is rather neutral but dark and sinister at the same time, a common type of music used in thrillers, again keeping the audience guessing the circumstances evolving before their eyes. Although in retrospect this thriller contains a evident sub genre of horror, what with the darkness involved and the way the plot line folds out, the Caucasian policeman at the scene of the crime is a common convention of the horror genre from films like “SAW” but the sub genre is always bolstered by the drink and the drugs from the party, suggesting thriller again. Unlike many thriller our did not recreate and incorporate a variety of strong colours identifiers of other meanings, although this was the factor in our initial ideas, it seems this became mis-strewn and out of the window. This was a unfortunate conclusion, obviously a challenging point to generic conventions of the thriller genre. One shot I am particularly pleased with was the iconic shot in the field, with the shoes in the foreground and the searching police in the background, this shot promotes so much and develops the conventions of the thriller most elegantly the props in the shot suggest so much is such a simplistic way, promoting the fact of the classic “Missing” person, with the shoes, and the policemen in the dog, also harshly linking to real life accounts.

2. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? The representation only complies to the teenage social group within our film, striving to emulate a “Skins” type feel, that raw gritty English feel as it were. And what better way to do that than to link it to parties drink, drink and drugs something most teenagers do on a regular basis, but the evident police investigation invokes what all the teenagers fear, of something going terribly wrong while in their moment of ecstasy indulging on the common vices of life. To portray our party scene we used a excellent desolate field, strewn with various bottles, initially suggesting the after math of a good party. The second field shot, shows a policeman opening a bag containing drugs, representing the teen social group nicely, but presenting a realization a dawn following the thriller genre, that something is a mishap. This then graphic matches later on to two policeman scouring the field for “Evidence” as is seems to be in the shot, with the camera placed with two trainers in the foreground nestled in the grass, the trainers again bolster the teen orientated theme, and people that would be there, and also suggests a sinister happening. The actress used is a white girl, wearing rather middleclass and neutral attire, in a middle class house nothing can be solely derived from her as it were, but the female aspect subverts what we usually see, but weakness is reinforced, along with the disorientation and broken clothes, a common state teenagers can sometimes be in after parties and the likes, linking to the social group, the Caucasian policeman is solely neutral and plainly represents the figure of authority and power over the situation, also promoting grim and bad circumstances.

3. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The grittiness and teenage representation of our work, would most evidently be backed by a British film company, such as other films like ‘This is England’ and ‘Harry Brown’ the target audience would most certainly only be a English majority , although the simplistic plot line within the film could perhaps not give a broader horizon to cinema showings, and merchandising opportunities would be short sought, due to the fact that the story line could not hold integrity to do such also with the type of film it is. I believe a television company would be willing to show the film as a one of movie title, and furthermore I feel channel four would be willing to show this movie, with other titles underneath their belt such as “Skins” and “Misfits” I Believe this theme of the film would be great for them, due to the fact that a lot of their television programmers although gritty and giving a real life interoperation of extreme teenage youth life, also contain hidden meaning that seek to educate. Much like our piece of film could generate with the sense of bad always going with evil.

4. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product. The chosen audience would be a group around 16+ British teenagers, due to the fact of partying vice and the character set being majorly teenager. The film also sets about to relate with this audience, and subsequently working best for them, although the film could be universally seen, the desired audience is the 16+ range. I think the outlook of male or female majority is not a concern, although my belief is that a male audience will be larger, although the protagonist is a female, possibly attracting females, the bigger picture of partying and vice will wholly attract males, with the promise of murder and violence, this type of film will cater much more for a male generation .

5. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? Initially I feel the music promotes the suspense straight away in our scene, it is that type of music that leads us on, presents mystery thoroughly believing that this could attract the audience from first in, crude as it may be the protagonist is rather good looking, and would attract a male audience indefinitely , the audience of 16+ would be intrigued by her, and what's more the shrouded face, is a lead on, more over holding their interests for a moment longing enough to envelop them into the film. The substantial attraction to our audience would be the link to real life, that feeling of being able to heavily relate to that scene of partying and drugs, and drink, with strewn vodka and veer cans across the field, on that particular scene, it tries to relate to the audience, as after all the makers have experienced such themselves and find it a comforting and complacent theme to work with, evidently helping us to relate and link as much as possible. The Flashbacks envelop us into the thoughts of our protagonists emerging us with her experience, a common technique used to drawn the audience in, as if watching it through their eyes, or at least their thoughts. The raw grittiness as some appeal to our age group, especially with provocative scene of the shoes, showing a stank reality to what has actually happened, also it links to real life accounts, police searching for missing bodies in fields, commonly seen on the news.

6. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product. In retrospect our whole idea from the preliminary task has altered vastly throughout the whole process, s in some view nothing may have been learnt, but deeper delving plots a plausible learning curve, initially the idea alteration that altered dramatically taught us the significant lesson of change, although personally I thought our initial idea was the best to stick too it was vastly complicated, and perhaps a little cliché to say the least thus prompting the first lesson, that complication especially within the opening of a film is not plausible due to the fact that over complication can sometimes confuse and intimidate the audience especially for a thriller. From vast research on a variety of films such as “Watchmen” and “Sin city” we got a lot of inspiration, subsequently teaching me a lesson that originality is rarely seen, and ideas have to be pick and mixed from various films, the more films examines the better use of ideas and techniques are unlocked. In a short directors rendition focused on the acclaimed director M Night. Shyamalan, taught us the importance of the story boarding process thus we set out to create great story boards, armed with a great artist in our group, we was able to produce some spectacular storyboard images and a great Anamatic, learning that storyboard is in deep very important due to the fact it gives the director and film crew a clear picture of what is needed to be done, evidently aiding the process significantly. Spending a vat quantity of time filming our various altered ideas gave us a good idea on how lighting and props really make the bit of difference quite a look over fact when it comes down to filming, so during the process we was able to add more and more to each altered shot made, subsequently improving our over all piece, timing and weather lighting also mattered and various rebooked filming times helped us get the right shots. Patience is key, and we used this to what I think produce a good final piece. The music involved at first start was going to be a very important process, I feel the fact that the use of copyrighted music was prohibited was a huge hindrance to our ideas and what we could achieve. As our idea developed that importance of music dwindled and it ended up being a last minute thing, I felt the music did not work well enough and we should have most definitely spent longer of picking the right sound track, thus learning the music is one of the most important factors to the thriller genre especially when it is trying to create suspense, and establishing our film. Throughout the filming practice we also learnt about the importance of placing the right shots, a variety of shots are most important, in my continuity task I was praised for the use of various the shoulders and high angle shots, spurring me onto trying to use these within our final piece, the constant filming really aided us in securing some well placed shots, most notably the shot at the flash back towards the end, the one we like to call “The shoe shot” was one of the best shots within the film, what I had set up.

7. 7. Continued… Although in a way the constant changes made to our idea aided and taught us some lessons I feel it was wholly unnecessary, evidently as the idea progressed and changed we did not get nearly enough filming time to finish the final thing, to be honest the final piece was a rush, and the who confusion and wasting of time within the whole auditory could have well avoided with more careful planning and evidently consideration to quality over quantity but it is all a learning process. Furthermore the filming process as previously mentioned was rushed thus meaning a lot of shots that could of meant something were miss-strewn and neglected the rush let us become complacent and less allowed experimentation to flow. Simple shots equal simple narrative in my personal opinion. But on the other hand a lot of the shots I felt were well taken, the shroud constantly on our actors face was masterful in connoting mystery and suspense, keeping the audience gripped and guessing. Additionally I feel the confidence placed within each shot did show through in the final piece, each shot was nice and steady and showed careful and precise use of the equipment, and the understanding of the generic convention needed. In ways of editing I feel the shots transitioned greatly, through thorough practice and constant changing the saying of “Practice makes perfect” shone through brightly as the scene changes are done with great ease, and the narrative of the film plays out nicely with perfectly timed transitions, and scene swaps. The editing to the lighting was done superbly and helped conotate various underline messages within our piece. And finally the titles were done with beautiful effeteness, looking great and adding that thriller san serif convention of text, and also polishing up the film nicely with a professional look bolstering its integrity. The final piece was not as I had initially imagined but I feel for a rush job held its own elegantly, thinking at least it was not a ghastly piece I say I am confident with what we have emulated. And feel the learning process was a major curve, saying that I can also safely say that if I had another chance knowing what I know now we could increase the film ten fold. The constant changing of the idea hindered us increasingly but as previously stated it is all learning. On a final note I would like to note one of the substation lesson learnt within this experience is that teamwork is everything, making sure all members put 110% effort in and leadership is established as well as roles presented to each helps stop the mistrewn concept that its an all for all grab. What is what I think we may have had slightly, but unlike perhaps other groups our team worked together excellently. With the exception with a little slacking accountable by perhaps all of us in some form or another, but I doubt any other group had experienced a perfect ride. I definite learning process, a lot learnt.