Evaluation Question 1

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

At a technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity, and the language of film and editing?

When creating our film we attempted to create a product that kept to the basic rules of filming whilst also challenging them as and when needed to create dramatic effect. Our films continuity was altered during the flashback scenes, we did this so that we could show our viewer some backstory to our narrative and to also display the confusion of our protagonist. Other than this example we kept to the conventions of continuity. When editing we attempted to show how blurred the timeline of our main character had become, we did this by slotting in flashbacks as mentioned above and also overlapping shots with a slight delay to give them a blurred look. We also did a large amount of sound editing to add to the overall experience of these scenes. As well as this we did fast paced editing for fight and chase scenes and slightly sped up some footage to add to the action on screen.

In terms of the content, how does your film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre you are working in? Does it fulfil the nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?

Our genre of psychological thriller was a great genre to work within as we had such a wide range of filmmaking and editing techniques to study and then replicate in our own work. We made a large effort to stay true to the thriller section of our genre by filming action scenes and a small car chase that ended with a fistfight. The psychological side of our film was shown through our protagonist’s confusion and also his distorted view of reality. In terms of subverting the genre we tried to make the audience empathise with our main character John and this is something that films in this genre particularly do. In terms of filming techniques rather than narrative we stayed very close to the traits of the genre and reflected them closely to stay within the genre. We also didn’t have any parody of other films but took small aspects of many to create out final piece.

What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have achieved this?

When making our film we wanted to make the audience emotionally connected to our protagonist and associate with the problems he is going through. We did this by John having a younger daughter; this was key to the plot as it meant that the target audience could possibly relate to the storyline. Despite our plot having a saddening ending we wanted the audience to have a sense of release as John is finally at rest. This may not have been pleasurable for all of our audience but it will have provoked emotion no the less.

When compared with current media I believe our product was a success and we achieved the overall goal of our film.