Evaluation Q2 Samuel Storey Evans

Evaluation Q2

2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The 3 characters shown in the opening to Dream State belong to 2 different social groups. We have the protagonist Carl who is a working class man, you can tell this from the way he dresses and the house he lives in, for example he dresses smartly, he wears jeans with leather shoes and a shirt typical clothes of the working class average man. He also lives in a nice house that would typically be too expensive for lower class but not nice enough for upper class people. Carl's social class and status are also shown through the way he is portrayed by the camera angles, the camera is never very close to his face this is because his character is not an aggressive character and close ups of people tend to make the audience feel as though that character is aggressive and dangerous, and that's not how we want the audience to view Carl, Carl is kind and brave, he is only aggressive when he absolutely has to be. Also he is mostly shown in a mid shot style this is so the viewers/audience can fully see his attire and can see his mannerisms, to give them a good idea of his social class, and his mental state. 

Carl is portrayed as brave and kind both of these traits are traits you would expect to see from a police officer, like Carl. His kindness is shown through his willingness to return the package immediately after receiving it. His bravery is shown through the way in which he handled being kidnapped, although he was shaken up by the whole thing he showed bravery in the face of danger and stayed much calmer than your average man, showing the audience that he is brave and has most likely dealt with a lot of life threatening situations, which will match his characters profession later on in the film as police officers need these traits. We wanted to portray Carl in this way as we didn't want to make him any different from other stereotypical police officers, as the story of dream state is quite complex, and making the characters back story's too complex would have made the film harder to follow and would have risked losing the viewers attention. 

The other two characters are the antagonists of the story and are represented only through camera work and mise en scene, They are shown to belong to most likely the lower class. This is shown through there clothing and mannerisms for example they both are wearing hoodies, hoodies are stereotypically warn by lower class criminals, and so the audience make this assumption, this assumption is then strongly reinforced by the actions of the two characters as they kidnap and attempt to kill the protagonist. As well as this the camera work is closer to the faces of the antagonists and they are often shown to be in the way of the camera and therefore blocking the audiences view of whats going on, this is to reflect the ignorance and aggression of the two antagonists so the audience knows without a doubt what kind of people the antagonists are. 

Jordan Spencer Question 3

I think the kind of media institution to distribute our product would be a cinema because it is where films are distributed and shown, however over the time of the films release this would change, for example for the first few months it would be shown in cinema because it is a brand new film, and then after about 6 months of release it would be on DVD/ Blu- ray because then it is far from new in cinema and people may be thinking after 6 months of seeing the film that they want to re watch it and the only way to do that would be on DVD or Blu-ray, then after about a year of release i would say that streaming services such as NOW TV, Amazon Video and Netflix would be a way to watch the film because then companies such as these would want to buy it and it wouldn't be as expensive because it has been out for a while so they will have them on there website.

Jordan Spencer Question 2

Our media product (Dream State) our short thriller opening can represent multiple social groups, for example the main character, Carl is a character who is quite particular i see him as a formal adult who does good but can be stern at the same time, however being that he is a policeman he always does right and must be brave, and i think that this is represented through Mise en scene because he wears a shirt and smart trousers, he has smart hair and lives in a nice house, so this kind of character or social group is represented in a friendly, kind way. When it comes to camera techniques he is represented in a way that is quite friendly as there aren't many close ups and are all mid shots which isn't intimidating or seen as threatening to the audience or viewer, this is the same with the pace of the editing because the cuts are quite slow with easy to watch footage, and also the background music is slow and it also brings you to his side a little bit because you feel the build up as he does so it puts you in his shoes and makes you like him.

However the other character 'Victor' could actually be seen as the opposite as Carl, this is because Victor is represented completely different to him. Victor is a man who seeks revenge for what Carl did to his dad, so driven by that i think that he fits in quite a badly represented social group of druggies and criminals, and threatening people, such as Victor, he is shown this way through miss en scene because he wears a hood and talks with a southern London accent, he also looks like he has been in a fight with dirty clothes and a rough looking face. also when Victor comes into the film the first thing he does is put a hood over Carl and kidnaps him, which instantly makes the audience believe that he is a bad guy, and after that all his scenes are quite fast paced when it comes to editing and there is a lot of close ups on him which can be seen as quite intimidating to the viewer so its obvious that he is stereotypically the bad guy.

Power and status also comes into play because you could say that between the two characters Carl and Victor one, socially is more powerful because Carl is socially expectable because he's polite and well mannered and a kind person who people would like, while people like Victor may be looked down up with a lower class and bad morals people could disagree on the way they act so i think that Carl would have more power and a higher status which is clearly shown to the viewers.

Evaluation Q5 Samuel Storey Evans

Evaluation Q5
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience threw use of comprehensive camera work that created a piece that flowed from one scene to the next, this helped to attract the older market as they believe that it is a quality product and feel as though it will be a good film. As well as this we attracted our audience by creating a compelling story that would both intrigue our audience and hold our audiences attention. We did this by making sure the story was clever and filled with enigmas, this kept to the conventions of the genre of film we were making as well as keeping the audience interested and on the edge of there seats, we asked people what there thoughts on various storyboards in order to know which story would be best to go ahead with an intern which story would hold the viewers attention for the longest period of time whilst entertaining them and transporting them into another world through good editing, good camera work, and good actors, which all helped to make the piece flow. 

As well as this we chose a story that had a some what relatable main character, which helped to attract our target audience as they could get more engrossed and more attached to the story as it would feel like that could happen in real life to them or someone they know. 

                                                                                                                                                     

Evaluation Question 4 Samuel Storey Evans

Evaluation Q4

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for Dream State would be 15 year olds upwards, this is because the plot would be too complex for younger kids to understand as well as the visuals being potentially too graphic. 

Teens from 15 upwards stereotypically enjoy thriller films and films including action this therefore means that our film/media product is perfect for older teens, as well as this, Dream State has a slightly complicated plot which requires thought and this therefore makes it perfect for adults of all ages, this is because adults stereotypically like films that have complicated plots mixed with action, thus making our film/media product perfect for that demographic of people. 

We have attempted to aim our film at the biggest demographic of people possible so that if it was released more people would watch it and more profit would be made from it. 

However we made sure that we didn't make the product boring in order to hit such a diverse target market, as it would have been easy to either make things to complicated and fill it with too much action, and or to go the other way and make it not complicated enough and not fill it with enough action, one way we ensured that we didn't do this was to have other people of various ages watch the product during the editing phase, and tell us what they thought, this allowed us to improve the product accordingly and not fall into the trap of over or under exaggerating key traits of our product. 

Also we chose not to go for young kids as a part of our demographic, as it is very hard to make a film thrilling without using violence or graphic images, also in order to create an enigma around the plot you have to have a complex plot, that most young kids would not be able to follow and would therefore lose focus during the film, and this in turn wold ruin it for others around them as well as not enjoying the film themselves. Also the film would be made too boring for older viewers as they would be able to figure out the plot easily and would not be entertained by the action as it would have to be made appropriate for younger viewers. 

Example of the type of action scenes that would not be suitable for younger viewers 

In conclusion we have chosen a very large demographic of people but have ensured that we have not made the product so suitable to all that it is boring, we have been sure to choose the ages carefully to ensure they have similar interests and so they would entertained by the same type of content.  

Evaluation Q6 Samuel Storey Evans

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We as a group improved our abilities in using the technology necessary to film our main task, we did this by researching the technology we were using e.g. Camera,Mic, final cut pro this in turn improved our ability to use the technology and in turn improved our final piece. 

                                                                                    

Here are some video clip's which go through all the details of what we learnt about the technology and how that helped to improve our final piece:

Tom Verco Question 1

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

In our media product we tried to use as much forms and conventions as possible. We used different camera techniques to create a felling of suspense and mystery for the audience, for example we used a range of different angles, shots and establishing shots. This created suspense as the establishing shot was a shot of an abandoned house. At the very beginning of our product we have a close up of our protagonist sleeping to then be woken by a knock at the door and this foreshadows something later on to happen. For the scene where our protagonist was sleeping we used low key lighting. 

in order to build tension throughout our thriller opening we researched a lot of thriller openings in order to get a good idea on what works well and what wouldn't work as well. We got moat of our ideas from the inception and mad max openings.

In our product we haven't got much dialogue until the end scene when our protagonist gets captured, this is because we wanted to build tension and suspense till the end. 

in the Inception opening the use of camera techniques the the uses of not much dialogue is what we tried to use to build tension throughout the opening, i like how in inception they use a lot of close ups so the audience can see how the character is felling and that is what we tried to incorporate into our opening. This also gets the audience to focus on one key moment and this is what we did with ours when our protagonist is waking up in bed.