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Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

'Follow' follows the life of Grace,  a teenage girl we find out is obsessed with another girl, Ella. Grace's obsession with Ella only amplifies when she realises that Ella is now dating her ex-boyfriend. Upon realising this, Grace takes her mere obsession with Ella to a whole new level of jealousy, with a number of murder attempts that follow. Fortunately for Ella, Grace is unsuccessful every time and this eventually sees her run away from home to another town. 

'Choppy' editing style

The 2 minute opening sequence that we produced for 'Follow', both uses and develops the conventions of British Independent films of a psychological thriller genre. This was achieved through careful attention to form, genre, narrative structure and style, and our knowledge of key theories such as Todorov thoery and the enigma code furthered this.

(Please see the below slides to find out more)

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main social groups that we are representing are age and gender. As our film idea is strongly focused on a few characters, we were limited with the social groups we could represent; the main protagonist, Grace, is a teenage girl and Ella, one of the other 3 characters, is also a teenage girl.

Through Grace and Ella especially, we were able to effectively represent teenage girls through conforming to, and in a few cases challenging common/typical stereotypes that the would audience would already have and expect. Things such as character dress, settings, dialogue and character behaviors also helped in the representation of age and gender.

(please see the table below for examples of this)

Grace's clothing

Ella's clothing

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

British, independent media institutions are most likely to be responsible for the distribution of our media product. Typically, these type of media institutions deal with low budget films, with plots, themes, and aspects that are trying to reach and appeal to British audiences. Our film 'Follow' tries to do this as well and we therefore decided it should be distributed by Film4.

Film 4 institutional logo animation

(Please see the prezi presentation below in full screen for further information)

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of our film is fans of psychological thrillers.Within this niche, we decided that we would be primarily targeting 15-24 year olds. Furthermore, for a secondary audience we wanted to target fans of British independent films.

The prezi presentation below looks into this in greater detail. (Be sure to access it in full screen for better viewing)

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Our knowledge of the Uses and Gratifications theory helped us to ensure we successfully attracted and appealed to our target audience of psychological thriller fans. This theory means that consumers of media play an active role in deciding on a media; They do so with the aim of satisfying their specific needs. There are four things that media users aim to fulfill for themselves:

• Personal identity/identification 
• Social interaction/personal relationships
• Education
• Entertainment

The table below entails how we applied the Uses and Gratifications theory in our film opening to attract our audience and gratify their needs:

In addition to our use of the Uses and gratifications theory, we also ensured that we successfully appealed to and attracted our audience by conforming to the conventions of the psychological thriller genre that we are trying to connote. By doing this, we are able to also conform to the expectations of our target audience, further appealing to them. One way in which we did this, was through attention to Mise en Scene, such as the props that we used:

• A moodboard that grace used for the stalking of Ella 
• A knife and leather gloves that grace packed into her bag

The use of these props were effective as they not only created enigma in our film opening, but they promoted a real sense of danger, tension and uncertainty, which in turn helps to sustain the interests of our audience by keeping them intrigued and at a point of great suspense and tension.
Additionally, to further our appeal to our target audience, we used continuity techniques such as match on actions when editing. These techniques help to increase the realism of our film and the use of closely framed shots in the match on action sequences, helps to immerse them in what is going on. The GIF video below is an example of this in our film opening.

Audience reaction and feedback:

Through the production of our film opening, there were stages where we obtained feedback from members of our target audience. The feedback was very beneficial as it helped us to identify areas of/things in our film opening that worked well and not so well, which we would then use to make any changes or adjustments that we felt necessary. We decided to sample a group of 8 people from our target audience, having equal numbers of both genders in the group that varied in age between the ages of 15 and 24.

During the production process, there were two points at which we gathered feedback from this sample group:

• After the test shoot when we had created a rough cut edit
• After the main and back-up shoots when we had created the final edit

The chart below shows the feedback we received from our sample group for the rough cut edit:

Overall, the reaction we received was not positive, however with that said, the comments that lacked positivity were very useful as they contained lots of criticisms and suggestions which we took into account in the next stages. We few points of criticism that were brought to our attention were:

• "A need for better characterisation. Who is this girl and why is doing what she is doing?"

- It was not clear that Grace was stalking Ella. This could be due to the fact that we used the same actor for both roles, however even with that taken into consideration, their roles in the film are not explicit enough. Following this piece of feedback our aim was to ensure that we use the different actors for the two roles, pay attention to hair and make-up and carefully select outfits for the characters.

• "Storyline isn't obvious. What is actually happening?"

- There was no real sense of the plot; It is not clear what is going on. This is likely be down to a poor setting and a weak sense of genre caused by a poor storyline and insufficient props. To rectify this, we decided to look for an alternative shooting location, rethink our whole storyline and ensure all props ready and all brought to the shoot (the moodboard was not prepared).

The same questions were asked to the sample group but this time for the final edit where we were sure to work on areas that the audience (sample group) felt needed work and attention. The chart below shows the feedback from this:

It is clear that there is a difference between the two charts. The feedback for the final edit showed that the changes that were made had a positive effect on the reaction to our film opening. There were no areas of negative feedback and every member of our sample group said that they would go and watch the rest of the film, highlighting the successful appeal that we had created.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 The construction of our 2 minute opening sequence taught me a lot about technologies. I feel that the skills I have when working with both hardware and software have improved significantly over the process.

Hardware

For the construction of our opening sequence, we had use a number of different hardware technologies. This included:

• Camera - Cannon Legria HFG30
• Tripod

The table below details my overall experience after working with hardware.

Software

We also had to use various types of software technologies particularly for the editing process:

• Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5
• LiveType
• Audible

This table details my overall experience after working with software

In conclusion, I feel that my ability and confidence when working with technical equipment, both hardware and software, has improved. This was especially the case with software, as my biggest technological challenge came when working on the Adobe Premier Pro software to grade shots. After, consulting with my fellow editing partners and the media technician for help, by the end of the process I was able to confidently grade shots to create desired effect and atmosphere. Additionally, I am now aware of the benefits to using certain technologies instead of others.