Coursewok Evaluation

1 : In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Whilst making an opening to a contemporary film noir thriller, we made sure that the codes and conventions of a traditional film noir were still included, but instead of using the old traditions and values of a traditional film noir we had updated them so that the audience today can level with today's environment.

Our main character of the film Jason Brown (Played By Myself) was our typical male in a traditional film noir, We made sure that he was based around males in other film noirs, being the fall guy who has nothing and has an opportunity to gain something more than he has got but because he is living in a cruel world he has the worst luck in the world and he ends up having less than he had in the first place. We also used an antagonist, this is the hooded man (played by conna) who sets Jason Brown up to get him into trouble with the police. This scenario is not unheard of in typical film noirs.

From the research, it provided us with some vital information that the start to a film noir opening is crucial to keeping the audience hooked, the way you do this is to create enigmas to keep the audience wondering what is happening and to keep them guessing the unpredictable, because of this we knew that we needed to create enigmas to keep our audience guessing. After the film opening was watched by an audience we knew we had done the job because people were thinking who killed Kate Mayfair? Who was the hooded man? Who was the woman on the phone and was she the woman who was walking off in the distance? With all of these enigmas created we managed to keep the audience interested.

The reason we picked crime as one of our genres in our film was because crime is the most common genre in film noir, this is because of the characters which are old American gangsters and dark smoky areas for example rooms or dark lanes where the underground crimes are committed.

2 : How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

The age range that is represented in our film is between the ages of 18 and 25, male and females. But these characters are around danger and consequences. Our film opening contained the characters of a stereotypical film noir, the fall guy who ends up in trouble with a woman, the femme fatale who controls the man over everything, the antagonist who gets the fall guy stitched up into trouble. We managed to pull off these characters by dressing them up accordingly, props and costumes were key to help point out these characters.

I realised that the male characters in the film noir were realistic and typical males, that males think they are number one and top of the food chain, with a high confidence level and a massive ego. On the contrary the femme fatale hasn't got the same stereotypes as most people would see them, she is a blonde female who nowadays most people would portray her as a bit slow and dumb, but in this case she is actually the opposite, she is the one who controls the situation and who is the most intelligent of them all.

3 : What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

Because our film would never become a “blockbuster film” due to the fact that we don't have the well known actors, director, producers worldwide, we aren't ever going to be able to make our film a big hit. This means our film is an independent film, I feel that our film would be most successful at film festivals that focus on independently made films, this is where people go who are mostly interested in independently made film rather than major hit blockbusters. Also because the film is a low budget film I think that if the opening was to appear on television I think that it would appear on Channel 4 because they show independently made films on off peak times, that is where I think our film would go because its not a hit not many people are going to watch it.

I feel that the type of film distribution company that would distribute our film would be one that has distributed independent film noir thrillers before for example Optimum Releasing, they are one of a many independent film distributers