Evaluation for Main Task 'Incognito'

1. Incognito
Evaluation

2. In what ways does your media product
use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
 Our media product is representative of the common codes and conventions of the
thriller genre, however we have also tried to hybridize our product with the horror
genre. By looking at films andTV series' such as 'American Horror Story' and 'The Blair
Witch Project' we decided to include some key horror motifs in our sequence, one of
which can be seen in the POV handheld camera footage that is edited in. We took
direct inspiration from 'The Blair Witch Project' in this case as it was described as
being one of the films most gripping features because of the way it made the viewer
feel involved in the action. Our product follows the traditional conventions of a
thriller in that it has the main character in some form of danger as well as there
being an ongoing chase/stalking. We decided to challenge convention in the same
way that the movie 'Se7en' did in that we did not reveal the antagonist's face at first
but instead using the reveal as a climax of the events on screen. Obviously ‘Se7en’
was a full length film so they had a lot longer to build up to the climax, whereas we
were only making a sequence meaning if we wanted to include any interesting
plotlines it had to be explored fairly quickly or at least teased at them.This
technique builds suspense as well as making the villain more intimidating as people
are known to fear what they cannot see/understand.

3. In what ways does your media product
use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
 A large inspiration for our title sequence’s
more eerie scenes came from the movie ‘The
BlairWitch Project’. This is a ‘found footage’
style horror film shot entirely in the woods,
this means the only camera used was a
handheld being operated by one of the actors.
This is an extremely low budget technique
meaning that virtually anyone can make use of
it, we took advantage of this by implementing
handheld camera shots into our sequence.The
angle and motion of the shot makes audiences
feel connected with what is happening on
screen as it seems more authentic, therefore
making them engage more with the suspense
and tense atmosphere.

4. In what ways does your media product
use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
 Significance of font
When we began coming up with the initial ideas for
‘Incognito’ I made the title screen that can be seen on
the right, however we developed the idea further and
with that came a change in appearance for the title
itself. We decided to take a more modern approach to
the title and after researching popular thrillers we
found that a lot of them had large spacing between
characters and quite often had a very basic
background. Looking back at the transition we made;
the finished title is a lot easier to read, is more
memorable/iconic and also looks a lot more
professional than the original.

5. How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
 We have two main characters in our sequence; the detective,
who represents the police and enforcement of law that is
commonly seen in the thriller genre and we have the killer,
who is the main antagonist of the sequence and portrays a
mysterious villain rather than the usual bank robber or
murderer.We tried to create a sense of the supernatural and
an animalistic portrayal of this villain as we felt it was more
intimidating to the viewer.We achieved this by using
whispering audio motifs whenever the antagonist is present
which creates an eerie sense around the character.We also
used POV shots from the killer's perspective that make it look
as if he is stalking the detective like an animal; combining this
with the heavy breathing, the whispering and the sound
effects it allowed us to create an eerie and threatening
antagonist.The detective is not really in the spotlight,
although he does hold a significant part of the screen time the
focus is mainly on the antagonists pursuit of the detective.We
tried to make him look like an off duty police officer to give the
impression that he is looking for the killer on his own time,
suggesting the killer has become an obsession of his, a lot like
the character John Luther from theTV series 'Luther'.A lot of
the time in thrillers the protagonist is a 'loose cannon' type of
character and we tried to reflect this in our protagonist as well.

6. • What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
 If the sequence were to become a full product I feel that it could be distributed by a
variety of media institutions. It wouldn't be in a documentary or educational style
which rules out institutions such as National Geographic. Because the sequence isn't
nailed down entirely to one genre or theme and the lines between genres in the
current generation have been blurred (even though we have labeled it as a thriller) it
could be distributed by most companies ranging from Netflix to the BBC, the
product wouldn't be absolute on any themes and wouldn't have anything unsuitable
for viewers around the age of 12 meaning the product would have variety in who
would distribute it.The most realistic form of distribution our media product would
have is on social media, the product would be posted toYouTube and promoted
through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

7. • Who would be the audience for your media product?
 The sequence was intended to be suitable for viewers from the age of 12 upwards,
this is why we rated it a 12 on the bbfc age ratings. We took age into consideration
but also took current interest in specific TV shows as a major factor in the decisions
we made during the production of the sequence.

8. • How did you attract/address your audience?
 At the moment the traditional thriller e.g. 'Die
Hard' isn't necessarily the most gripping or interesting
thing to audiences, a lot of the most popular shows and
movies today have supernatural themes or something
that at least makes the viewer think e.g. 'Inception' and
'Interstellar'.The top threeTV shows on IMDB at the
moment are 'TheWalking Dead', 'Daredevil' and 'Game
ofThrones'; all shows with supernatural or fantasy
based themes. When creating our thriller
we didn't want to follow the basic and pretty much
outdated thriller template and instead looked at the
modern audience and what interests they had.This is
represented in the scene where our main character
confronts another version of himself. Originally we
hadn't intended for there to be a supernatural theme in
the sequence but after the first and second draft
seemed to be building up to an anti-climax we decided
to add the scene in.The whole sequence gave the
impression of someone watching the protagonist so
the supernatural theme fit in quite well with the
already established eerie atmosphere

9. • What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
 When creating the sequence we had to learn to use and understand camera work, editing and
sound.Out of the three I think I am most confident with camera and editing whereas sound was
more improvised but still to an acceptable standard.We filmed on a CanonG16 and I edited on
Final Cut Pro X. I learnt that you don't need the best equipment to make a good product, its
more about the technique and the person using the equipment that makes good products.Take
the fact that we were using the built-in mic on the camera for the entire sequence, we didn't
have a industry level mic but we managed to create a sequence with decent sound that still
conveyed the right message through editing and improvisation.The camera we were using was
amazing but wasn't exactly built for the type of filming we were doing yet we still made it
look really good even if there are some shots that could be improved. I originally was editing on
Premiere then I moved over to Final Cut which I had to learn how to use but ultimately I ended
up having a better understanding of FinalCut than I ever did of Premiere.

10. Looking back at your task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
 Overall I feel I have learnt a lot from the task, I think I have developed a good
understanding of camera work as well as editing while also developing my skills in
teamwork. Looking back I feel I could have experimented with sound more but the
final product wasn't too heavily affected by this.