Evaluation: Codes and Conventions

Evaluation: Target Audience and Representations

Who would be the audience for your media product?
How did you attract/address your audience?
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation: Technologies

What have you learnt from technologies in the construction of your product?

From the very start of researching, planning and creating our product, technology has palyed an essential part. We have used it to find out and store information, to plan and discuss ideas our product, to keep a track of all that we have done with our product, to actually produce our product, and also to evaluate it. We have used a range of technologies throughtouttbeh course of our Media Studies coursework, including technologies from the internet and various different pieces of equpment. Overall, we have used: 

THE RESEARCH STAGE. 

The first thing we did once we had chosen our genre for our opening was to reseach said genre and find out what its codes and conventions were. We also had to research into the history of our genre, and find out which influential people were a part of it, and also what the codes and conventions were then, and how they compare to the ones now. We then had to research who our audience for our genre would be, what their demographics were and what they expected of the genre. To do this, we used:

• TVs, DVDs and Youtube- We used these three pieces of technology to search for examples of real life psychological thriller openings to find out what the specific codes and conventions of the genre are. Since using these technologies for the purpose of my Media product, I have learnt how not only can these websites and eqipment be used for fun and lesuire, but can also be used to help aid my work and provide evidence and examples for work in my other subjects.

  

We did this so that we were able to understand what is expected of typical psychological thrillers and so that when we came to plan our own, it would fit into the definition of the genre.

• Youtube to MP4 converter- We learnt how to use a MP4 converter to download these openings onto our IMACs to analyse them. Aside from my coursewrk, knowning how to use this type of technology can be extremely useful, as I am now able to download important files and information in the future .

  

Again, we analsyed our chosen openings to discover the set codes and conventions of the genre so that our own opening would be as believable as possible.

• Google- We used google to search for the history of Psyhcological Thrillers and to find a bit more about the people orginally involved in the genre. We also used a couple of other websites linked to google to do this, such as Wikipedia and Slideshare.

  

This information helped a lot when planning our own product, as it gave us a foundation to work on. Looking at past examples of psychological thrillers and the diferent people who influenced the genre, such as Alfred Hitchcock gave us an idea of what has always worked when creating a psychological thriller, and what aspects needed to be changed to create a convincing product.

• The last piece of technology we used in our research was SurveyMonkey- We used this website to find out who our target audience was, and to find out what they expected to see in a psychological thriller opening. We did this because we needed to know who we would be selling our product to, to ensure that we made it so that it was attractive for them, so that they would be likely to want to go and see it. This is because our aim was to make money, and the best way to do that would be to create a film which would engage and compell people to see it. We did this by creating a survey, asking basic information about the participant eg. age/gender, and also a lot of questions about their expectations of a psychologica thriller, what they think would occur in the openign, what characters they thought they would be introduced to and also what they thought wouldn't happen in the opening. We sent out the link to the questionnaire via Email, and asked the peopel who we sent it to if they could take out five minutes to complete it. This gave us a very clear idea of what sort of aspects we had to include in the opening, and what not to include to make our opening as successful as possible.

  

SurveyMonkey was a completely new piece of technology to me when we first started this course, however, since frequently using it for the research of my production, I have learnt a graet deal about it, and now feel confident in using it in everyday life, as I believe that it could be a very valuable website to be able to navigate.

THE PLANNING STAGE.

For the planning of our product, we came up with our final idea for our opening, then constructed a storyline, scrpit, character profiles and a shooting schedual for the filming of it. 

For ideas of our opening, we used Prezi as an easy and efficient way to get our ideas across. Prezi isn't like most websites where you display information; it's fun and a bit different, so you'll be much more likely to keep your audiences attention. I was only introduced to prezi for the purpose of our opening, however, since learning how to use it, I have found it useful in many of my other subjects for revising and sharing information with my classes.

All of our next work was then completed using Celtx, which I had used once before. We used Celtx to create our:

• Storyboard
• Shooting Schedual
• Character Profiles
• Script

Being able to use this technology was very important in the planning of our product, as each aspect let us know exactly what we were going to do, why we were doing it, and ensure that we stayed on track of what were we doing.
The script ensured that we knew exactly what was being said, when it was being said and that it all fit into the two minutes. Next, the storyboard helped us make sure that what we had didn't run critically over or under time, and let us know what was going on in each scene, and which shots were giong to be used. Our character profiles allowed our actors to immerse themselves in their characetrs to make them seem as believeable as possible. Lastly, the shooting schedual ensured that everyone turned up in the right place at the right time with all necessary props with them. This all consequently made our production of the opening a lot smoother and less time consuming. 

THE PRODUCTION STAGE.

Moving on to the production stage, we had to fully film our opening, and then edit it all together. We used a digital camera to film, and then Imovie on the Imac's to edit. For the filming, we used Lauren's Canon E051100D which had a large zoom in scale, which was extremely useful for scenes such as the zooming in on the photo of Christian and Alice, and also when zooming in on Alice's face when she returned from the dead. I have never used a camera of this size and qualtiy, and it was a big difference to using my normal small digital camera as we had to work out which settings were best for which scenes, how to get the focus and zoom on the camera just right for both recording and taking photos, and also how to frame our scenes to create a sense of continuity within the whole piece. The camera was a DSLR, which meant that we could use the focus ring to create a more professional and realistic feel to our opening, and it also allowed us to focus on certain aspects such as the missing poster whilst Christian walked behind it. 

We also used a tripod with the camera, which I have used used once before. However, as I only had little knowlegde of how to set it up and use it, we again had to read an instruction sheet so that we knew what we were doing. Once we knew how to set it up properly, we found that the tripod helped a lot with keeping the filming steady and keeping the right framing. It also enabled us to use various camera movements such as pan and tilt. 

After we had filmed the whole fo our opening, we moved onto editing it with Imovie. This editing software was great to use because it allowed us to edit scene together, crop certain parts that we didn't like, or that didn't work well, and different effects to certain scenes eg. the flashback of Matthew killing himself, insert music throught the opening, add transitions from one scen to another and overall add a better quality and improve the filming which we had previously done. This was my second time at using this software, although we used it in a lot more depth than I had previously used. Since using it for this course, I have learnt how to download and embed music, clips and fonts onto Imovie to use in our construction, I have learnt about the different effects and edits I can use to enhance my work, and I have also learnt how to embed and upload my productions onto youtube and any other websites on the internet. I feel like I have become secure and confident in Imovie, and that I know what I am doing on there for the future.

KEEPING TRACK OF MY WORK.

Throughout the course of researching, planning and then producing our opening, we have constantly used the website BLOGGER to keep a track of what we have done, how we did it, and why we did it. I have never used blogger before, and had some troubles with reguarally updating my work, however, I felt that it helped me feel more secure in what I was doing and why I was doing it. I have learnt a lot about blogger in these past couple of weeks; I have learnt how to construct a single post, how to embed videos, images, music and other pieces of work such as prezis onto a post and I have learnt how to custamize and edit my blog to make it reflect the genre that I am working on. I feel a lot more confident using blogger now than I was when we first started this course, and I believe that these new skills will help me in the future if I ever wanted to start another blog, or to even help me with my own personal blogs that I may have.

Blogger was the main piece of technology that was used and is where everything that we researched, planned and constructed was posted onto. I have never used Blogger before starting our coursework. I have learnt now how to use Blogger and what it can be used for. I have also learnt how to embed videos, photos, prezi's etc. I feel that by doing this coursework I can use Blogger again and feel much more confident using it.

At the end of this course, I am now able to realise how much technology is actually available for us to use, and it doesn't always have to be for fun and leisure, technology such as youtube or blogger can be used to enhance your work and skills throughout your whole lives. I am now able to acknowledge the variety of ways we are able to get information across, from soundbites and video clips, to prezi's, survey's and blogs.
This knowledge will help me a lot in the future, not just for Media, but also for my other subjects, then work and eventually to teach others how to use it.  

Evaluation: Institutions

Prelim Task

AS MEDIA STUDIES: PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER OPENING

Here is our finished product: Our Psychological Thriller Opening.

Edited Script

When filming, we found that we had to change and edit our original script a little, as we were not able to fit it all into two minutes. We had to change some of the voice overs and cut one out, but I believe that it worked better in the end and created more of an enigma for the audience.

Here is our new version of our script:

Shooting Schedule

 We created a shooting schedule, again by using Celtx so that we know step by step what we are doing and when to ensure that we don't fall behind or stray off track of what we are supposed to be doing:

Here we show what days we are going to film on, what scenes we are going to film and what time we will film them.

Here shows a description of what we're going to film in each scene:

Storyboard

We created a storyboard using Celtx to show what we are going to do in each individual scene, step by step, and to also show what camera movements we are going to use in them. We have four different scenes, including the opening credits, consisting of 'The Field Scene', 'The Bedroom Scene' and 'The Street Scene'. Embedded in 'The Street Scene' is also a flashback which is sort of a scene inside a scene.

 

This storyboard is going to be our guideline to what we will film, how we will film it and what shots will be used when filming our opening. We have included a range of shots such as establishing shots eg. the field, and two-shots eg. when Christian is carrying Alice. This will help us to stay on track of what we are doing to produce our film as well as we are able to.

Character Profiles

This is the character profile we completed for Christian Carter.

 

 

 

We also completed profiles for each of our characters featured in our opening (Christian Carter, Alice Nate, Matthew Carter and Anna Mckenley; who plays the therapist). We did this so that the actors and actresses performing in the opening were able to get into the role of the character and portray the exactly how we wanted. 

 

 

Here is our character profile for Matthew Carter.

 

 



This is our character profile for Alice Nate.

 

 

This is our last character profile, and is for Anna Mckenely.

 

 

Script for Opening

We completed our script for our opening to ensure that we could fit everything in the amount of time we had (two minutes) and so we knew exactly what the characters were saying and when they were saying it to make sure that the opening was as smooth as it could be.

Final Idea

To come up with an overall idea for our psychological thriller, we put our two individual ideas together to compare them and work out which aspects we liked best about each others. We then came up with the basis of our final idea:

We then came up with the details of our opening, which were again based on both of our separate ideas. We have the protagonist (Christian Carter) beginning the opening by killing his girlfriend (Alice Nate).
The first things we see and hear is a black screen and then Alice's scream followed by two gun shots. We are then shown Christina carrying Alice through a deserted field who we can clearly see has been killed.
Christian then jolts awake in his bed with a voice over explaining that he experiences the same nightmare every night, but that that the incident actually happened. We are then introduced to a photo of him and Alice smiling together, except Alice's eyes have now been crossed out.
We decided to do this as we wanted to create a sort of enigma to why Christian has killed Alice, and to make our audience wan to find out his reasons for this. The photo will then dissolve into a missing poster of Alice, showing that she has not been found, and people are unsure of whether she is actually dead or not.
Christian appears walking down the street, and another voice over is used to introduce a flashback to when he was younger and found his brother on the floor, dead. He will then state that this event caused him to have to see a therapist.
When he arrives at the therapists office, she opens the door to greet him and Alice steps out, but only Christian notices her, connoting that she is a ghost or some sort of figment of his distorted mind. This is the end of the opening.

 

When looking at Todorov's Narrative Structure Theory, we found that our opening idea does not in fact follow the 'rules' of a film, as we do not start nor end with an equilibrium, meaning that we consequently have nothing to disrupt the start or restore at the end. However, I believe that this works well for our specific genre as Psychological Thrillers are supposed to be out of the ordinary and follow their own set of rules which are separate to other genres.  

We also completed a codes and conventions table which allowed us to figure out how we were going to create enigma, how we were going to set up the plot, how we were going to introduce the characters and what the pace and rhythm and the mood and tone were going to be like, and whether or not they would work well together to attract our audience.

Psychological Thriller Documentary

To summarise our research on Psychological Thrillers, we have created a documentary containing codes and conventions of psychological thrillers, the history of psychological thrillers, our target audience and also how our findings have all come together to help us produce our opening. We have included a lot of research which we have found throughout this stage of our production, and this documentary will ultimately be our guide to what we shall and shan't do in our opening.
We have used a range of technologies within our document such as voice overs, clips and music. However, I believe we could have made it even better by embedding these technologies together, such as inserting clips into the history of the genre. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER DOCUMENTARY:

Target Audience

I have made a mood board based on the demographics of my target audience. I have chosen these images as they represent the types of teenagers that we found would enjoy our film. We found that our target audience enjoyed spending their time doing activities such as surfing the internet, doing their nails, playing on game consoles and listening to music. The range of ages that we found was 16-18, which meant that our target audience would still be completing their education. We found all of this information out via both survey monkey and our focus group.

 

Psychological Thriller Opening Ideas

Focus group document

This is a video of the actual focus group that took place. As well as the questionnaires, we also had the participants take part in a small discussion about each of the films, and also a discussion about which they preferred and why. Our focus group was very effective, as we had a diverse range of people attend and it allowed us to understand more about the demographics of our target audience, and also their opinions of psychological thrillers; what they like and dislike, what they expect, what they don't expect and what works well and what doesn't.

Focus Group

For our focus group, we showed our audience two Psychological Thriller openings: The Sixth Sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCqv7ReKz4 and We Need To Talk About Kevin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHdvs01QEA. They watched the openings, then completed three questionnaires we construced about both themselves and the openings. We did this to get a greater understanding of the demographics of our target audience, and also what their opinions on Psychological Thrillers are.  

History of Psychological Thrillers: Alfred Hitchcock

When researching Psychological Thriller, we believed it would be a good idea to include aspects of Psychological Thrillers from when they were first created. We looked back on the history of them to find out who had the most influence in starting the genre and making it what it is today.

When the genre was first introduced, the main aspects that made it identifiable were the levels of suspense, tension and excitement the genre conveyed in contrast to other film genres.
One of the most influential film directors in the genre was Alfred Hitchcock. (13^th August 1899 – 29^th April 1980)  Hitchcock was an English film director and producer who established many of the techniques we find in the suspense and Psychological Thriller genres today and

was named England's best director after his successful career in silent films and talkies.

Hitchcock’s first thriller was his third silent film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), which was a Jack the Ripper story. The Lodger introduced many themes, which would later run through most of Hitchcock’s work, and the director himself would refer to The Lodger as the first true ‘Hitchcock film’.
Hitchcock continued to direct and produce films through the 30s and 40s, then began to add colour in the 50s with films such as Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954).
After his mass of classics in the 50s, Hitchcock released the shocking and engrossing thriller: Psycho (1960) about an encounter between a secretary, a motel's disturbed owner-manager.  Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but eventually led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations including best Director for Hitchcock.

It is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a work of cinematic art by international film critics and film scholars. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films.

In 1992, the US Library of congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and is now known as the icon for Psychological Thrillers.

The 1970s and 1980s saw Psychological Thrillers becoming vivid, explicit and violent. Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) was given a R rating as a consequence of an explicit strangulation scene.

Psychological Thriller Openings

We decided to look deeper into the openings of Psychological Thrillers to really understand how they are constructed and how they work. Out of our choice of opeings, I looked closely at four of them to expand my understanding of what makes a Psychological Thiller.

The openings I chose were 'Shutter Island', 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Side Effects', and 'Silence of the Lambs'.
To get a clear understanding, I looked for how my openings:

• Created Enigma
• Introduced the Characters
• Set up the Plot
• Used Pace and Rhythm
• Set the Mood and Tone

Pschological Thriller Openings: Analysis

As we have decided on the genre of 'Psychological Thriller' for our opening, we decided to look at openings of other Psychological Thrillers to understand how the codes and conventions work together to convey what the genre is.



We looked at the film 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' to get a better understanding of how these codes and conventions can work together to produce a Psychological Thriller. The openings includes many typical aspects found in Psychological Thrillers, for example, it begins with what apears to be a desterted house with a single open window who's curtains are being blown about. The lighting inside the house is minimal, with only the light from the window allowing us to see what is going on which conveys an eerie, creepy atmosphere. The scene then jumps to a serge of people tainted red as they are covered in some sort of raw, bloodied meat. This connotes some of the common themes we found in our research, such as death and maybe murder. The redness of the meat also fits in with the typical iconography we have found, as it connoted blood and the devil, and evilness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHdvs01QEA

 

We also studied the film 'Donnie Darko' which is the story about a schizophrenic boy who has come off his medication. Donnie Darko is the stereotypical 'mentally incapeable' character of a psychological thriller, and also has an imaginary friend who is able to influence him to do certain things. The film overall is a great example of a psychological thriller, as it features many of the stereotypical codes and conventions which we found are common in the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyBaFYFySk

 



Another opening which fits the typical codes and conventions is 'American Psycho' a film about Patrick Bateman, a man who by day works on Wall Street, and by night descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence. In the beginning of the opening, we are introduced to an incredibly white and sterile environment, and then to the character himself, who completes a sort of workout, then goes on to wash himself. We can gather from this that this man may be quite OCD  about things being clean and tidy, and after he places a susbstance onto his face, which he then proceeds to peel off, we start to understand that there may be something wrong with this man; he may have some sort of mental disorder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGeAMVK75T4

 

Examples of various Psychological Thrillers

 

    

Audience Research: Survey Monkey

We wanted to understand our audience better, to find out who they are and what they do and don't like in psychological thrillers, so, we decided to use the website www.surveymonkey.com to compose a survey which would allow us to collect primary data from open and closed questions to get some answers. This will ensure that when completing our opening, we will use the stereotypical traits of typical pschological thrillers that people enjoy watching. Our use of open and closed questions will allow us to be able to gain both qualative and quantitative data, which will greatly benefit us when choosing what to add in our opening.  

 We E-mailed the link to our survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3QS6Q7 to a variety of people to ensure diverse results

Our survey.

Psychological Thriller: Research into the genre.

To help us get an idea of what is expected in a Psychological Thriller, we looked at a selection of films and opeings of the genre. We wrote down our findings in this table, showing the stereotypical traits which make up a Psychological Thriller. These included the typical themes, characters, plot, settings, narrative and iconography found in the genre.

WHAT WE FOUND.

• We found that the typical Stock Settings of a pschological thriller usually involve quite personal places to the main character, such as their homes (particularly their bedrooms), schools, a therapists/councillors’ office and their own private place (a field or deserted house).
• We also found out that the main character was most likely to be a teeager or a child with a strange mental ability or disability, and that their parents didn't understand them, hence the need for a councillor or therapist. A police man or detecive was almost always involved as a consequence of the main character committing a crime which either harms themselves or others. The last key characters we found were romantic interests and a 'special' friend (a friend that was either really close and knew all of their secrets, or an imaginary friend.)
• The typical Themes of a Psychological Thriller tend to involve a murder or crime, a serious case of mental instability, the contrast of death and existance, and various perceptions of life and situations.
• The Narrative usually involves features such as flash backs, voice overs and strong binary opposites such as Good Vs Evil and Light Vs Dark
• We found that the stereotypical iconography of a Psychlogical Thriller includes a lot of dark, mysterious objects; real and surreal (dreams/nightmares, devils/demons, writing on walls that only the protagonist can see), churches and crosses and nature which has rotted (hanging trees, dead flowers ect).



Our table of the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller.
 

 To summerise our findings in a creative manner, we decided to present them in the form of a booklet, which will allow easy access to our information whilst also being entertaining to read.


Our booklet summerising the codes and conventions.

First lesson: What are we going to research, why and how?

For our first Media lesson, we made a plan of what we were going to research throughout the course. We studied what, where and why we were going to research these aspects of our work, and how we were going to do this. This will help us when actually carrying out my research, as it will guide us with what we are researching and why.

We decided that the most important aspects to research would be our audience and their demographics, and the openings of other Psychological Thrilers.

Researching locations for our opening and actors/acresses who we would have perform in it will also be an important job, but relies on the information from our audience research to carry out.



Our table showing what we are going to research, why and how we are going to do it.
 

To gain information about our audience, and to find out who they are, what they enjoy and what they do and don't like in Psychological Thriller, we decided that the most effective option would be to host focus groups and get people to fill in questionnaires/surveys. This would give us the primary research we need to let us know what sort of plot we will use in our opening.

To find out the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller, we decided that we would search openings of other films of the genre on youtube and rent out DVDs, and also look at other students coursework to see what did and didn't work for them.