Our media production was a thriller/horror opening sequence, and in many ways used conventions of real thriller and horror films:
We used a dim-lighted room and POV shots from our antagonist, which is commonly used in horror films to create a sense of mystery and fear of the unknown.
We incorporated violence into our sequence, the aftermath showing the dead body and a police detective investigating it. This is a convention of thriller films; to show the crime scene and the detective.
The antagonist left a signature item behind on his victim, which is conventional for serial killer films, such as 'Se7en' (Fincher, 1999) and 'Subject Zero' (Merhige, 2004) whose serial killers have a specific motive and way of killing their victims. 
The form for our opening sequence was linear, and showed two lines of action inter-cut, and short scenes from a flash-back. I believe this is developing on the forms of real thriller and horror film openings, as they usually show a flashback at the start and then continue the narrative in the present, whereas our production integrates the flashbacks and main line of action into the same sequence. However, the flashbacks were in black and white which implies that they are in the past. Most films will show a flashback in a different colour wash to the main line of action, including black and white, so this technique is a convention of all films.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product has three characters, all of which are male. The victim is from a middle-class background which is shown by his costume and props, as he is wearing a suit and holding a laptop bag. In our production, he is represented as an 'average' young adult with no stereotypes being displayed. The detective is also represented in this way, which is a dominant ideology in thriller films, that the 'good' characters are successful (conveyed through the use of costume as they wear suits) characters from a middle class background.
The social background of the antagonist is not explicitly shown, although it can be conveyed that he had a challenging upbringing which made him psychologically insecure which makes him commit the crimes, and possibly from a working class background. This is conveyed through his costume, consisting of dark clothing including a hoodey and tracksuit. However, this ideology is somewhat challenged, as he commits the murder successfully, has committed previous murders and leaves clues for the detective implying that he is intelligent, which stereotypically would not have been expected from someone from a working class background.
Our production conforms to dominant ideologies in film productions, as it is an action-driven sequence with the protagonist and antagonist being males, which is conventional for most thriller films. However, the victim is a male character, which may be seen as challenging dominant ideologies of women being the victims of a serial killer as they may be stereotypically portrayed as vulnerable. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe that our product would most likely be produced by a conglomerate, and therefore an industrial film. This is because our production conforms to many thriller/horror convention as previously mentioned, and thriller films appeal to a mass audience of 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45+ as they feature action, appealing to the younger audiences, and mystery which appeals to the wider audience.
Our production is a conventional thriller film, with horror elements such as the violence, so would be produced and distributed by a conglomerate, such as NBC Universal. The company would make use of symbiotic relations between the production, distribution and exhibition companies, all owned by the same conglomerate.
The production company, such as Universal Studios, would invest a lot of time and money into producing the film using sets and shooting on suitable locations. The distribution companies, for example Optimum Releasing, will organise how the film will be advertised, most likely through television and cinema advertisements in the form of trailers, posters, billboards and making use of Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Youtube to spread to a wider range of audiences. The film would then be exhibited on a wide release, being shown in multiplexes across the market territory to obtain a wide range of audiences.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt how to use the HD cameras that we recorded our footage on, and I have learnt to use Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0 which we used to edit our footage by;
- Cutting
- Organising our clips
- Applying effects
- Applying transitions
- Applying titles
- Exporting our final product
The effects we added to our production included a black and white colour wash, to indicate that the sequence in black and white happened in the past, and also a fade to white, which we used as a transition between the two lines of action. An editing technique which we used effectively were jump cuts, which we used with a blur effect, during our murder sequence. A video of the effects we used can be found here.
We used freesound.org to find and download sound effects for our production, including a sound used to build tension and the sound of a camera taking a photograph which we used at the end of our opening. Other sounds, such as the music, we obtained from a copyright free source on the school system.
Using blogger.com has also been highly beneficial for the entire group, as it has enabled us to keep track of our production and post a record of our research, group decisions and shoots. The blog archive also enabled us to keep track of our work, and the ability to edit our posts allowed us to improve on past work.
I have also learnt to use Prezi, a presentation software which is free to use on the internet. This enabled me to pitch our opening sequence in an interactive way and allowed our group to add to our moodboard of ideas.
Surveymonkey.com allowed the group to conduct audience research into what the audience expect from a thriller film opening and if they thought that our idea of a thriller film opening would be enjoyable and conventional. The website allowed the survey to be taken online, and our survey was taken by 19 individuals. Our results helped us to adapt our opening so that it would be a successful conventional thriller opening, and allowed us to decide on the font we wanted for our title and the iconography we were going to use.
Another website we used was youtube.com, which allowed us to post our preliminary task, final opening sequence and interviews onto the Internet, enabling us to get an embed code which allows us to embed our clips and post them on our blog.
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