Evaluation

We began our A2 coursework very early on in the academic year. We came up with some initial ideas for a film that we would be expected to make a trailer, magazine cover and website homepage for (as well as a radio advertisement, as an additional piece). During this time we were also given lessons in how to use the programmes we would be needing to create out magazine covers and homepage’s: Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver, as practice for when it came to creating the real things.
Some months later, when it came to developing these initial ideas and putting our skills into use, we were prepared and had a fairly clear idea of what we needed to do. We began the long filmmaking process by developing our ideas for the film. We had decided that we wanted to make a thriller genred film, and had come up with several ideas and names previously that we could develop. We soon decided upon the idea of a troubled young man who goes to escape to his uncle’s home in the Dorset countryside. After a few days at his uncles secluded home on the beach, he decides to take the dog out for a walk, upon this walk however, he comes across a dead body washed up on the shore. As the story develops a hidden crime-ring is discovered, revealing the deaths and cover ups of dozens of foreign immigrants. We decided to call it: Castle Cove. We developed Castle Cove into a more fully realised idea, created the scripts and storyboards and began our research, getting all of the necessary paperwork sorted ready for production. During this time however we found some problems with our idea, noticing details that weren’t very realistic for us to film. We changed and developed the initial idea for so long that time was getting short, and so we were forced to change out idea for the last time. Our final idea became an interview session: one half on the trailer would be our lead protagonist –who we named Ethan- being interview about the traumatic events he went through, -talking in the past tense to the camera, while the other half –which would we cut and edited in between the interview shots, as Ethan explained the events- were of the events he is describing, such as seeing the dead body, being chased, seeing his home being broken into, etc. The effect that we were after was that of Ethan explaining the events in the past tense, then there being flash backs to the said event. Although the idea wasn’t our initial one, it still worked really well with our genre of thriller and what we had in mind.

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?