media evaluation

1. Evaluation Certificate - 18 Alex Williams Media AS Contents Niall Evans and Elliot Smith Film - White lies Genre - crime film

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our film is a gangster film because we have based it on the actions of a member of a mob and how he got to this point in his life. Our crime film is similar to real life crime films because we used most of the typical features and conventions of crime films, Like location we stuck to the dark dingy private club which is very common in crime genres. We have used props like beer cans and cigarettes to create the adult club atmosphere, which are also common in crime films. We made our film a gangster film and to keep to this genre we dressed the cast in suits and smart clothes our research showed us that the mafia wore suits so we stayed kept this an important aspect in our film. We used dull lighting to show that there is misbehavior happening also to keep it in gangster crime genre. We based the film about a mob and around a profitable drug deal. However what is different is the main character was once a villain. Films that are similar to ours would be films like goodfellas (Martin Scorsese 1990) and the godfather( Francis Ford Coppola 1972) our research of these and others have helped us to find the common conventions in a gangster crime, by showing us the different locations props that are used in a crime film. Our research also helped us with the music as we it helped us create suspense where we needed it and to get a general idea of what the music would be like however we changed the style of music as we could not create the same style as it was to complex. By researching other gangster crimes it showed us how they would act and dress all this helped us film and edit our intro. Contents

4. How does your media product represent particular social groups? In our film the mob are portrayed in a positive manner our research has shown us that some mobs are powerful enough to over throw the police so from this we made our gangsters look rich and powerful by dressing them in suits we have also used a bodyguard/bounce to show this this shows they are also protected , this way our film glamorizes the mafia making it look important. By doing this it allows the film to portray common aspects in a gangster film we followed stereotypes by only using male characters to show a male dominating atmosphere and we had them drinking and smoking these help portray the mafia in a positive manner because in most of the gangster related crime films we researched portrayed to mafia to be powerful and rich so we followed this and tried to show it in the film. In our intro we don’t show the true criminal but this makes the viewers more interested and wanting to watch more. However we have showed a victim in our clip and we show him tied up and in a dark cellar by doing this we show how the mafia abuse there suspects to get every bit of knowledge they can. Viewers of our film do not have to sympathise with the characters in our film but some of the main characters choices may allow them to sympathise with him. Contents

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Contents To distribute this the easiest way would be to promote ourselves through social network sites like facebook and myspace, I could also use YouTube to upload our film. If we wanted to properly distribute our film we could contact small independent British film companies like vertigo films or coffee films, coffee films which seem to be better at distributing crime genre films these companies would be good because they are low budget, this suits or film so would be ideal to get involved with one of these cfompanies.

6. Who would be the audience for your media product? The target audience for our product would be middle aged because through our research we have found most crime films are aimed at this audience, we also found this from our questionnaire and the most popular age group was over 18 and 20-30.our film is also aimed at men we have achieved this by having a male dominating atmosphere. We have classed this film as an 18 as the material is in breach of the criminal law, and we planned to have a detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use which is classed by the bbfc as an 18. we found this out by researching on their website. Contents

7. How did you attract/address your audience? To attract our audience we stayed to the common characteristics of a gangster film which our target audience enjoys they would like our film because by following the general ideas in crime films the audience would like it more, one issue with our film was the cast we needed them to be old so we only selected to older looking males to be in our film.Our use of mise en scene helped attract the audience as we dimly lit the locations and the props we used were appropriate. we also attracted the audience by adding a sense of mystery to the clip although we had a voice over of the main characters thoughts we didn’t show his face to give him a mysterious aspect. We tried to get a complicated plot in the film however we also kept it simple enough for the viewer to understand it. Contents

8. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? We learnt a lot throughout the production of the a gangster crime film, with different aspects of technology including camera work and editing. We developed knowledge on how to use the camera in ways of shooting angles as to get the best shot you had to record the same shot from different angle to find the best one, we then edited the different shots together to give the best possible outcome, with this range of shots this was accomplished. We also used different shot types in the making of our film we used a range of shots from over the shoulder to high angle ones. We learnt the best ways to incorporate different shots and we used them to the best of our ability. with editing the clip together we found some useful techniques to help us like slowing down shots and adding transitions we also learnt we could reverse a shot so this would have been useful in filming the very last scene however we could not gain access to the cellar another time so we were unable to re-film it. After a few try's we all became confident with using the program and this helped us in the final editing stages, and the editing became easier and quicker to do. When adding music to the film we used a program called garage band where we created our own music clip for it, this was the hardest part of the editing as we didn’t have any experience with composing a piece of music. However we stayed with a basic alternating bass tune throughout the clip and added a beat to create suspense, we also had to time it with the clip which was a tedious task but we managed to over come this. also in research technology was useful the bbfc website told us the classification of films and the imbd website had a lot of information on films Contents

9. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Contents The preliminary task taught me a lot about how to use a camera like where the better angles are and how taking multiple of the same shots is better in the long run, also the task helped me with choosing suitable locations because it made me think of things like posters on the wall and the colour of the room itself, it also helped us with lighting because on the camera the room looks lighted than normal so I started to think about how to make the rooms darker. some of the techniques in filming I used were helpful I was able to use match on match in our film, we didn’t use the shot reverse shot because we had no conversation however I liked the shot it would have been usefull

10. Conclusion Contents In my research generally researched all aspects of crime films then when we decided to do a gangster film I researched more fully in the common conventions seen in a crime film, we brainstormed ideas for films in the group then we chose the best ideas. We had some complications while filming due to location because we had originally planned on filming it in a pub however the owner wouldn’t let us film so we did all our filming in collage, another issue with filming was the cast as we were filming in the day for us to get adults to be in the film it would have been a greater hassle and managing them with there work would of taken time so we used elder looking friends as they were more accessible, I found editing was quite easy however it took quite a long time because we had to get used to using a Mac. The hardest task was creating the music. Using garage band was a challenge as we had to create a music in the style of other crime films however we overcame this by using an upbeat bass track that fitted in to film nicely. Overall I think the project went well but I felt I was rushed to do it with not having the correct equipment at the start of the year, if this was not the case we would have tried more pubs to try and film in.