Questions sophie

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

In our film we followed very distinct thriller conventions.
Our storyline challenges your normal convention as it is reverse linear where the end starts at the beginning and in the story is about how it happened, who the characters are and why, rather than just about the killing itself.




In our opening sequence we used an effect called ghost trail which gives a feel that something not quite right to set a mood to the film from the very beginning. We also used Black and white effect to show the present and the past which is also apparent in thrillers like Memento.

Throughout our film you never see the killers face but see body parts to show suspense as Hitchcock says “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
It’s to worry the audience as nothing is as scary as the unknown this tends to be evident in other psychological thrillers like Psycho.

In our Reverse linear we made this more visible to the audience by rewinding back clips. We also chose two different sound tracks one for the past and one for the present.

We also used typical convention of stereo type as the Girl(Sophie Pullum) is shown as the damsel in distress with blond hair and blue eyes which we feel more implied to feel sorry for and want to protect which is typical of horror and thriller which is shown in Birds and also psycho by Hitchcock.



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

In our thriller we used a very stereotypical group. We used a teenage girl with blond hair, blue eyes, pale feature as the victim. We did this to make the audience feel sympathetic toward her, to make the murderer seem more immoral and unjust.
We wanted to show the teenager as stereotypical enjoying putting make-up on and doing girly things, to demonstrate normality to show popularity within her peers.




The murderer is shown as a slightly older person maybe early 20’s by making him older than the teenager. He’s is meant to be shown as a loner with psychological issue but on the outside he appears seemingly normal. Which is also stereotypical of a murderer in the thriller convention.


3.) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I decided to 20th Century Fox which is a main and general distributor of all genres. I have chosen this as I think they can have the money to show my film worldwide so it can have a lot of coverage. It has also distributed non conventional films like fight club which is a classic example of a psychological thriller.





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

The audience we were trying to aim was 16 to 30 year olds. We used a younger person 17-18 year old and an older guy to represent the demographic audience so they can relate. I also asked people of different ages and gender if they would watch and enjoy this film. Most of the people aged 16-30 and male said they would and enjoy this genre which confirmed our indication.

Would you enjoy watching our film?



The high Majority of our audience would be 16-30 years old rather than an older group of people. We didn’t ask a younger audience as we didn’t find it inappropriate to do so as it contains violence and possibly inappropriate language.

We used an attractive female to draw male attention as this was our main audience

5.) How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a backward linear in order to make it a more interesting film to attract a thriller audience which tend to enjoy suspense and wanting to know how not just what happened.




Throughout our film we used non-digetic sound rather than dialogue to want to know more about the character to entice the audience. We tried setting the scene and the mood in order to narrate the film. Rather than giving all the answer away. We wanted the audience to come up with a conclusion of their own to be miss lead to attract the audience to get the answer to find the real truth.

We tried to make the narrative to be realistic so that the audience could relate.
We used fades between the two characters overlaps to show a link between them to show closeness and make the audience ask questions which intrigue them to keep watching.


We used a steady piano beat in the 2nd half of our film making like a build up of something that going to happen you feel the tension between the two characters.

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

Before making this film, I have never used any film equipment before. So I have learnt a great deal. I learnt how to set up the equipment in order to film like placing the camera on the tripod and being able to film correctly without jogging the camera when using it. I also learnt how difficult some camera angles are to produce and are not as simple as they may seem like our mirror scene in our film in which we found considerably difficult to capture the actress and not get the camera in the mirror which we overcame with considerable difficulty.




Also another first for me was using a Mac computer and the software which after using for a few days became very use to it but had constant support from both my group and teachers. I enjoyed using the software imovie and using all the setting available and found how time consuming it can be more so than filming. Also how editing is so important to your film and how it can change a whole mood to your movie. Even though i enjoyed using the Mac I found some of the setting considerably infuriating like the fact it didn’t have a right click button so I found doing certain things to took slightly longer working out where they may be i.e. for copy and paste.

I learnt how to use a Blog and furthermore learnt to use the setting available to me and really enjoyed using it to help with our media portfolio and help communicate with other group members helping organise and establish our film. I also liked the idea how we could use it at anytime and can upload pictures, articles and Video. I have found it a crucial aspect for our filming and communication.

Overall all I’ve learnt a great deal and been useful in practise which enabled us as a group to make the most of what we have and enabled us to understand the effort and input that films have.


7. )Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel personally that I’ve learnt how time consuming it is to do each shot and how many time we had to re take shots. We learnt how communicate as a team and talked about things we didn’t agree on and I believe we worked well as a group. Our
storyboard was similar to what we wanted to achieve but changed slightly as we also saw a male getting ready to go out not just the female.

Our group tended to be a bit inconsistent with not all member turning up which made it hard for all of us but worked round this and manage to get all our filming done with little time to spare. It was good experimenting when filming and working out the best camera angles. I learnt how important it is to be organised and set a schedule in which to do things which we tried to keep to in order to be on time for the deadline.

We didn’t have an argument throughout, we learnt to communicate our views and learn skill from each other.

I learnt how creative and fun it can to make a feel but how continuous the work is and time consuming.

Even though we had a fair idea on camera work we had focused very little on editing when thinking of the storyboard but the more we learnt about editing the more crucial it became .We learnt how colour and black and white can be used to set a narrative change a mood or an setting which we found more useful after filming.
Overall I had fantastic time filming and enjoyed learning and advancing skills in the of film industry.

(i have picture,graph,video and music i want to add to this but will be able to do this tomorrow using the macs :) )