Evaluation Question 1

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

Our media project is a thriller so we used the common concept of good vs evil, protagonist vs antagonist and followed a linear narrative in order to convey our product's elements. We chose theme of heist's and robbery as our main conventions. Our product adopted conventions from high concept thrillers such, as the use of low key lighting and setting in rundown establishmets and dark decor in order to convey the thrilling atmosphere generated from these products. The use of the 3 characters in our opening we took inspiration from the introduction of the antagonists in Kick-ass 2 using the on screen text to identify individuals rather than dialogue. On the subject of dialogue, we went against normal thriller elements of using dialogue to convey conventions and strike a response from the audience and instead stuck with silence and editing along with elements of mise en scene to illustrate the aspects of enigma and tension. On the other hand we took inspiration from the film "The Humingbird" to create our film. Finally our film also follows Todorov's theory meaning our product follows as equilibrium through to disequilbrium.

Evaluation Question 2

Question 2: How does your media project represent particular social groups?In our product we have 1 prolific age group being adults that have been split into 3 different archetypes that consist of:

Vladimir the Marksman (Male) - The Marksman is a Russian adult who wears clothes that are established in Britain so that he can fit in and not draw attention to his Russian roots. I believe that teenagers will find this character exhilarating as he can be compared with connotations of video games such as call of duty and battlefield in terms of both the infamous skills with a rifle but also the implementation of Russian personas in media.

James Jordan the Hacker (Unidentified) - The Hacker is a British adult who cloaks itself in darkness to keep its identity anonymous ,in addition to using a unisex name, that generates enigma throughout all audiences. Due to the evolution in technology the hacker archetype has grown far more popular over the years due to the serious and now realistic threats they can endeavour.

Zeus the Entrepreneur (Male) - The Entrepreneur is a Greek adult known as "Zeus" named after the god of all gods. The reason for this is to bring the aspect of power to him as he is the man who is the financial heart of the trio getting resources, weaponry and job opportunities. Zeus is brought into the classy yet hard hitting side of society as he was brought up with a silver tongue and grace but due to his "crowd" he was brought into the British "gang culture" and resorted to putting his skill set to more dangerous groups.

"Breach" being an independent UK thriller we have used the elements from UK thrillers such as deserted and rundown settings with props as the gems that make the scene come alive such as treasures, money, clothing, cast etc... We also used different nationalities on the characters to introduce aspects of multi cultural audiences from over seas. This obviously widens the target audience but also introduce different view points from social groups all around the globe from places such as Russia, Greece and the UK

Evaluation Question 3

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?In order to reach our desired target audience we will need to make sure that we network with the correct media institutions in order for our product to flourish and achieve its potential. I believe that the following media conglomerates will be best suited to our requirements due to their establishment, financial credibility and resources and finally the thriller genre is a genre that these institutions often publish:

- E One Entertainment
- Lionsgate
- Focus Features

All these institutions have the ability to make low budget films such as our film "Breach" a success through advertisement in able to tap into our target audience.

Other ways I believe could help distribute the our product is networking on social media. This is a good way to distribute our product as almost everyone uses social media so tapping into the target audience is very easy and can become very effective when aspects such as word of mouth come into affect strengthening the likelihood of distribution. Another way of distributing the product is via film festivals. Film festivals are a way not only our target audience can be informed of the product but other audiences can be introduced to "Breach" and would help distribute the product due to film festivals being widely sociable and again, word of mouth is a key aspect. Finally merchandise is a very good way to distribute the product as it allows fans something to take away and have a personal connection to.

Getting a low budget film such as ours into any platform of cinema exhibition from indie houses to multiplexes will be tough to achieve so finally the last method of distribution that I feel would be the best for our film is using websites and applications such as YouTube and Netflix. YouTube and Netflix are extremely popular applications in there own rights but, the main age group that use these platforms are the 14-24 age group we were aiming for. Consequently this is the form of distribution we believe would best suit "Breach"

Evaluation Question 6

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Lighting is a key part in the construction of film and is impossible to create cinema without it. Going into this task I briefly knew about lighting due to the preliminary task. Lighting was a key aspect in our film as it allowed us to distinguish archetypes within the product and help identify certain characters and personas throughout without requiring additional information or dialogue. In the scenes we shot in the dark using the lighting allowed us to add different atmospheres to the scene. A piece of equipment I was unfamiliar with up until this task was a reflector which helped us diffuse the intensity of the light in the shot to suit our interpretation of the shot. In addition the lighting helped us highlight characters facial expressions and body language which allowed us to again introduce a character without the use of dialogue or additional information.


When I went into this task I was very worried about the editing stage as the editing I applied to the prelim was very basic and I was anxious about having to apply more advanced techniques to improve the construction of the final product. In addition  I had never used a MAC before in my life, except the prelim, so I was nervous learning just the simple functions of the hardware before educating myself in the software. We used a program called Final Cut Pro in order to edit our piece. In synergy with this application we also used Adobe Photoshop which was applied in order to create custom text and overlays to add to our product which was very affective in helping identify characters and implementing titling. We used different transitions such as a fade to transition to the ending title sequence and cuts throughout to keep a flow throughout the piece. These were all basic techniques. In order to improve I know I needed to implement a different ratio of transitions so I used a static transition in synergy with the scene with the hacker to complement the scene as the transition and the character both have very similar connotations which was shown through the editing. Finally we used garage band, a music programme, in order to insert foley sounds and non- diegetic soundtracks into our product. Due to use of garage band at lower stages of education I was familiar with all the software and the technological aspects of it so I was able to apply my skills absolutely fine.


Using the digital cameras to record our product with we were able to have crisp clear footage to use when constructing the product. One of the techniques I learned from filming using the cameras was to be able to "make a sandwich" This was were you make sure you have excess footage at the start and end of the recording which allows you to have more variation when editing footage. This makes it so that you always have enough footage to edit, due to a fatal error being people forget this and don't have enough footage when editing, and makes "mess-ups easier to take care of. In addition I learned that using white balance was a great technique that we needed to use in order to exhibit bright and bold colour schemes in our product. Without using white balance the product becomes distorted and the colours become to saturated and turn a shade of blue or orange which can destroy the mood and atmosphere that components such as lighting and cinematography produce.