1).In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?My thriller opening, "Eaton Park", is inspired by quite a few other movies like "Sin City" directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez because in the opening of their movie there is a tracking shot up the body of a girl which I thought was a good way in revealing her character so I decided to put this into my opening by starting at her feet and movie upwards so her face is the last thing to be seen by the audience to create a sense of 'hidden identity'. Another movie my opening is inspired by is "Psycho" directed by Alfred Hitchcock because the actress in the movie who plays Marion doesn't have a lot of dialogue but uses her facial expressions to show how she feels, and what is happening which I asked my actress, Georgia Sinclair, to do because I didn't want hardly any dialogue in the opening except for when the girl speaks at the end. A third movie I was inspired by was "Heat" because they use several over the shoulder shots in the opening of "Heat" which I used in my opening to create the feeling of being watched but also to create the feeling of panic the girl is feeling.
For the opening I used the location of Eaton Park which is a wide space with interesting buildings, and 'eerie' looking trees which look quite scary. The park provides interesting objects for the movie like the bandstand in the park, and the benches which circle the bandstand which reminds me of the 1961 movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" where two men have a conversation together even though "Breakfast at Tiffany's" isn't a thriller movie. I like the wide spaces in Eaton Park as well, the wide stretch of grass which gives a sense of being able to run but if you did the grass is never ending. In the beginning of my thriller opening my character's seem stereotypical because the boy is following the girl, and the girl is blonde and innocent which makes the audience seem to guess what is going to happen and the boy is dressed completely in black. When it came to the casting of the movie I wanted a girl who seemed typical when it came to a thriller, so a blonde who usually ends up being killed in the opening to start off the rest of the movie like the horror movie "Scream" directed by Wes Craven where the blonde is murdered in the opening so when it came to the end of the movie and the actress said that she killed the boy the audience would be totally wrong in their thinking and shocked. When choosing the costume for the girl I wanted a costume which girls watching the thriller opening could relate to like the thriller film "The Uninvited" directed by Charles and Thomas Guard because the main character in the movie, Anna, wears trendy clothes which makes her seem like any other teenage girl but she turns out to be a mentally ill girl after the death of her mother so I wanted my character to wear clothes which were trendy but she turns out to be mentally ill whereas the boy in my thriller opening wears all black so this connotes he is associated with something 'evil' and the audience separate him. The music I chose for the opening creates a creepy atmosphere because of the instruments used and I chose this music because it wasn't the usual music used like jumpy, and loud to make the audience jump but I wanted music which made the audience feel on edge because the music makes you feel tense. I called my thriller "Eaton Park" because it makes the audience wonder what the importance is of the location and at the end you realize its the place where the murder takes place and the rest of the movie would probably be based on this location.
2).How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My thriller opening represents particular social groups like gender and 'cliques' which means the same people will hang out with the same people. For example in my thriller the guy in the hoodie is stereotyped because he is wearing a hoodie which makes the girl scared of him and in modern Britain a lot of teenagers in gangs do wear hoodies which has made people begin to fear people in hoodies because you can't see their identity which is a big reason why I made the male character where a hoodie. With gender I chose a innocent blonde girl to emphasize the femininity of her.
3).What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My movie would probably be shown in an independent cinema like CinemaCity/picturehouse because my movie isn't mainstream because mainstream usually follow typical plots so the same audiences view the movies so they make money while independent movies experiment with different plots and my plot appears to be a typical plot where a boy stalks a girl but at the end you realize the girl has killed off the boy, which I think makes the movie independent because the plot line changes and challenges typical plot lines. Most independent movies aren't advertised very well, rarely shown on television but will be advertised occasionally. Most of the independent movies I watch are discovered over the internet.
4).Who would be the audience for your media product?
The primary audience for "Eaton Park" would 16-25 year old's because the actors in the opening are 16/17 year old's and the audience will be able to relate to these characters. Also younger people are more aware of the stalker crime rate and are more worried about this because the age of victims would be around this age so the audience can engage in the girl's worry at the start of the movie and the male audience will be able to feel sympathy for the male character at the end because it is usually men that girl's worry about when walking home. In my audience research I asked the audience their preferred gender for the main role and they said either so I have placed a girl and boy so they share the main role, and the people I asked and said they preferred pschyological thrillers were 16-25 year old's.
5).How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract the audience I used issues which are raised in the media regularly like being safe when out alone, and the issue of 'stalkers'. I wanted to turn this on its head, and that not only girls are at risk of being hurt or murdered. The audience can easily relate to the issue of stalking because of how much they read about in the newspapers of this crime. I made three people watch my thriller opening and two of them were 17 year old's, but I also asked a 46 year old to see how they responded to the opening. They said that it was tense and the twist at the end was also shocking but they said one of my weaknesses was the shots where people walked for too long and they started to feel bored.
6).What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Through the process of creating a thriller I have learnt how to use new technologies. I now know how to use blogger.com much better for example how to upload and scan in storyboards, how to embed videos into my blog, and by using a blog I don't lose any work because I have it all saved. Even though I used YouTube a little bit before my thriller opening I have began to understand it much better for example how to upload videos and then embedding them onto my blog. I have learnt how to use a camcorder, whereas before I didn't know how to use them, and I can avoid shaky shots and how to make shots look interesting. I have learnt how to use Adobe Premier to edit my thriller and make it look good by using smooth transitions to the next shot and adding titles like adding the actors names and the name of the thriller at the end of the movie.
7).Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Before filming the thriller opening we filmed a preliminary task to understand how to make storyboards, shooting maps and using camcorders. My preliminary task had shaky shots in, and people talking behind the camera in the shot. By filming a preliminary task I have understood how to use different shots and I am also confident about using these shots. When it came to start planning our thriller film I already understood certain aspects because of the preliminary task like storyboards and camera shots. I improved the storyboards because I made sure the shots were much better, and also the shot list was longer and much better. With the thriller films we planned costumes, lighting and characters whereas with the preliminary task we didn't go into this much detail. With the thriller film we had to cast characters who fitted the character we had created in our minds and on paper so I chose a girl who looked innocent and very girly whereas the boy I chose didn't matter so much because his face is always hidden but the height of the boy I used makes the character seem imposing. For our preliminary task we didn't have to find a soundtrack but for the thriller film we had to which was quite challenging because you had to find music which wasn't copyrighted but you also had to find music which fitted the mood to your thriller opening. The editing was quite easy because of the practice with the preliminary task but during the editing of the thriller opening I learnt new techniques like how to add a voice over the shots.
The advert for 'Armani Code' by Giorgio Armani suggests that buying this product will make you a glamorous, confident woman, with eyes all on you. 
