Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

When filming the preliminary task, as a group we did not have as much experience with filming and editing as with our final piece, for example, with movements of camera, in the preliminary the movements were jolty where as with the final we got better and managed to actually film well. 

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Overall i have used "imovie" and "youtube" mainly with my product allowing me to edit the various features in my movie. The music was also edited on "imovie".

With this project I have also learnt how to move and use camera's properly, for example when I filmed the tracking shot with the triangular frame I had to re-shoot because of jolty movements, but eventually I  got the experience and knowledge and managed to get the perfect shot.

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We decided to use a font which could give the sense of a report being written, since it looks like the text is being typed onto the screen, which expresses the government feel. This therefore allows the viewer/ audience to be engaged with the whole film, including titles.

We used a heart pumping track, and looped throughout the movie, which attracted audiences even more to the film, we also layered drum beats over the track to create tension. However, there was a glitch with the tape at one point in the film, from (41 seconds - 43 seconds) this interrupted the general flow and the sound, but we did the best we could by layering the sound and changing the pitch.

here is the glitch from the tape.

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our product is aimed at students aged from 17 - 20, therefore including university students. However our film age certificate will be from 15 alowing a larger audience to watch the film.

This is a stereotypical student who we would be targeting.

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Personally i believe that "Researched" would be funded by other independant companies and distributed by "Caravan Films" who have also funded and distributed other psychological thrillers. Our company is an independant production company, our goal is to educate people on situations and events going on in the world, by using fiction film plots with hints of reality in them.

Our logo is plain and simple because it gives the effect that our films our educational and informative, therefore gives a sense of seriousness to our company. "RNK" stands for real news ok, which also gives the sense of educating people, it also stands for Reece, Natalie, and Kay which are the intials the main producers.

Finlay Mcgow is the star in the film, which is why we had "starring" at the start of our film, on the other hand Nasrin Udin only has one appearance in the film.

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We decided to portray Andrew Mathews ( Finlay Mcgow ) as a student who can be stereotyped as a "loner", we expressed this by having the character alone in the shots, focusing on his research. We hinted at the future events such as paranoia by showing how he is also aware of all the camera's and his surroundings.

This show shows the viewer that he is aware of the fact that he is being watched.

Characters such as Charles Bartowski from the tv show "Chuck" are the types of characters which Andrew Mathews could be compared to.

Reece Tiwari Evaluation Question 1

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

When deciding upon our title we focused on the main plot of the film and what Andrew Mathews actually did in the movie, he researched the government for educational purposes and for his own interests. Conversely, the government also observe the character throughout the movie, therefore we believed that "Researched" was the perfect title for the movie.

We based the idea and the plot of the film on the "illuminati" and the "Freemasons" which have numerous conspiracy theories attached to them, mainly concerned with the government taking control of the world economically without the people knowing, this is explained in more detail in films such as Invisible Empire - A New World Order. This is why we used Illuminati and masonic symbolism in our opening in order to express that the observers of Andrew Matthews were the government.

We decided to focus and use the school as the setting because it makes the situation and the character more normal. Therefore creating a greater interest by the audience to what is going on with the character.

The opening to "Researched" hints out on the current and future events of the whole film; the fact that at the very start between the aerial shot of the triangular shaped object on the ground, there are numerous short shorts of different camera's, which suggest that the government is watching.




Andrew Mathews' paranoia already starts to develop in the opening, this can be seen when he looks into the camera, and the audience can see him from the observer's perspective, Andrew Mathews then packs away his stuff quickly and walks off, quickly.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Seven

Question Seven . Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

From our preliminary task we learnt a lot of things such as the use of cameras and the different techniques we could use with it. After our preliminary task we were able to widen our use with the cameras and the techniques we used. In our preliminary task we had to do an “over the shoulder” shot which we didn’t have to use in our final movie as there was speech involved. However we had to make sure we obeyed the 180degree rule in both films.

We also had our first problem we had to overcome, where to film? For our preliminary task we had to find an empty classroom, and for our final we had to find somewhere in which was watched by a camera and we could film both our actor and the monitor where he is shown through the camera. We also had a few continuity issues with both preliminary and final tasks, but with re-filming and editing we were able to overcome these problems.
A similarity between our preliminary task and our final task was that we did a long shot of somebody walking.

The preliminary task helped a lot to get the know the cameras and to use I-movie for the first time, I’m glad we did the preliminary task as we would of found it very hard to do edit and film our movie, so us having a bit of experience helped us to complete it.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Six

Question Six . What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During this process of making our film we were taught how to use the different cameras, tripods and tracks. This process was fun to do as we could experiment with the different settings and zooms on the camera and pans and tilts on the tripod. This process was very helpful as we used all of the things we learnt for the opening of our movie.

We also used various sites to help us complete the process like; Youtube, Blogger, I-Movie, Powerpoint, Paint and Google.

The main programme we used to edit our movie was I-Movie, we were able to add transitions, special effects, arrange the shots and sort out the non-diegetic and diegetic sound. The most tedious and long part of the editing process was the sound, as there were a lot of glitches within the sound and made the film sound unprofessional. The trash tool helped a lot as there were quite a few shots that we deleted thinking we didn’t need and then we realised that we needed later, and it was there. We also learnt how to cut and split shots as well as adding in transitions and sound.

We also used online sites to gain information about the illuminate and other films similar to our own. To publish our work we used blogger.com to make our own blog with all our work on it, which was linked to our school blog which helped us link between copyright free sites and past years blogs. I think that using a blog instead of a hand written folder is a lot more affective as we were able to put videos and pictures onto it and it made it easier to explain our thriller in a more visual way.

For our particular project technology helped as a lot, as we were able to film a camera monitor filming our actor, if we were unable to do this our film would have a totally different feel to it, as having the surveillance bit in it, enabled us to engage the audience more.

One of the things which took quite a long time to do was the sound, there were a lot of glitches in as we used heart beat music on loop throughout the opening, because of this we had to overlap some of the music in order to fade out the glitches, this worked well as when we looked at it again, we didn't hear any obvious sound glitches.

Another thing I was unhappy about was the glitch we had, this was uncontrollable and unchangeable, this was unfortunate but wasn't our fault, it was a fault with the camera or tape.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Five

Question Five . How did you attract / address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using things that can relate to. The opening is set in a school playground, something in which everyone can relate to at some point in their life; we also chose this setting as it is very tight with surveillance and has a lot of cameras inside.

The opening shots are shot cuts of triangles and cameras this helps set the ideology of the film. The beginning is quite abstract and doesn’t really tell the story, it forces the audience to ask questions about what the film is about and why there are cuts of triangles and cameras there. The music is quite strange as it changes half way through to keep the audience engaged.

Our film is similar to a very film “Angels & Demons” which is the sequel to “The Da Vinci Code”. The film had a worldwide gross of $484,725,866 over a year, this is a large amount of money and as our film is similar to this we could be guaranteed to have a lot of people wanting to see our film.

Linking back to our Audience Research we asked people what they wanted from a film and they mostly said symbolism, because of this we made our opening symbolic this way it will appeal to more people as we are giving them what they want.

We based our film on the “The Arrivals” which is all about the freemasons and the illuminate; we attracted all the people that have an interest in these subjects. We also attracted students as the main character is a student and they can relate to some of the things he goes through.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Four

Question Four . Who would be the audience for your media product?

We decided for our filmed to be aimed at people around the same age as Andrew the main character which is around 17/18; we therefore decided that it should be a certificate of 15; I think this is a good certificate for this film and will allow everyone that wants to see it the ability to do so. We also targeted our film to other people who have an interest in the illuminate and government conspiracies.

We also had to look back at our Audience Research and see what the people we asked wanted from our film.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Three

Question Three . What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?

I think our thriller would be distributed by a more independent company rather than a large mainstream company like 20th Century Fox, which is known for popular thrillers including Phone Booth and Taken.

We decided to call our company “RNK Films”; I made a logo for our distribution company and compared it to 20th Century Fox’s logo.

Above is the order in which the credits are shown. We decided the company should go first as would be a good way for the audience to know the company as it is an independent company and a lot of people wouldn’t recognise it. We then decided to put the actor and actress as they are unknown and the viewers will be able to see who is starting in it and if they want to watch any other films they would be in. After we listed our names as the producers and then lastly we did the title of the film, this builds up suspense and makes the viewers want to know what the film is called and ask questions about why they are left until the end to know what it is called.

Money would come from the national lottery and other companies wanting to invest in smaller more independent movies. We would show this by at the end of our movie we would put in partnership with … and we would list other companies. This is also another way that viewers will know that it is an independent film.

Our storyline is very similar to the movie “Angels & Demons” which was distributed by “Columbia Pictures”; but that is a very large company owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment and as our film is more independent it couldn’t be distributed by this company.

Our film would be distributed by other independent thrillers include “Lions Gate”, “Working Title” and “Film 4” I think that one of these companies would be a good company to distribute our film other then our own company “RNK Films”.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question Two

Question Two . How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our main character is a college / university student studying politics and economics but finding out stuff he shouldn’t, we decided to make him look as casual as possible and as ordinary as we could.

Above is a picture of our actor Finlay and a character from the E4 show The Inbetweeners. Will (E4 character) is shown to be in a suit clutching a briefcase, whereas Andrew (Finlay) is shown to be in casual wear, jeans and jumper, with his hands in his pocket. The contrast between the two is important as some people see the university type to be very into their work and nothing else, but what we are trying to portray is that he enjoys what he does, but he also enjoys discovering secret, classified things about the government, which he is very secret about. We dressed him in very casual clothes, nothing that would make him stand out too much as his character wouldn’t want to be discovered. Will is known to stand out because of his dress sense which is the opposite of what Andrew would want. Andrew represents the “independent teenager” as he keeps to himself and likes to be alone with his studies and focuses on what he is passionate about, which is government conspiracies.

The media represent young people as violent youths. But we however have challenged this perception and showing the side of youths the media don’t show, the hard working focused on career types; even though our film is about a student finding out stuff they shouldn’t, it still shows that he is hard working and focused on what he is interested in.

Natalie Barnes . Evaluation . Question One

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

Our opening thriller sequence uses the conventions of a real psychological thriller as we used only non-diegetic music and sound, which is common with most thrillers. We got this idea through films like Donnie Darko which has no diegetic sound at the beginning to heighten the tension and to construct a bigger mystery. Another convention we adapted from different thrillers is the idea of voyeurism; this is used to position the audience as intruders into something they wouldn’t usually witness, we developed the idea into the government watching someone and having to eliminate them after finding out things which they shouldn’t. We also made a more symbolic opening rather than a narrative opening, as most thrillers start with a narrative opening, so that they can start telling the story right away. Our main theme for the film was the illuminate and government conspiracies, as this is not a topic in which most thrillers take; this allowed us to be as free as we wanted to challenge the different conventions of real media products.

The title of our thriller is “Researched” is ambiguous as it doesn’t give much away to the audience and allows them to question the narrative and what it is about. This way we were able to keep the beginning as unstructured as we liked, we did this by adding lots of intercuts of shots of cameras, this did however allow us hint to the audience what the narrative would be about. This is how we challenged the conventions of real media products.

We used a range of different camera angles and shots, including close ups, long shots, wide shots and mid shots; we also used tracking shots and zooms, we did this to give the opening surveillance feel to it. This is like many conventions of thrillers as they use different shots to convey different emotions, for example in Psycho there are many close ups to show fear or panic.

Above are nine shots from our film “Researched”. I picked these specific nine shots as they all either challenge or develop the conventions for real media products. We tried to challenge the usual perspective of physiological thrillers of someone being obsessed with someone then stalking them, the “typical” story line. We chose to do a story line about the unconventional topic of the government and the illuminate.


As our film has some connotations to surveillance so I compared it to the physiological thriller “Mind Readers”; there is a clear resemblance between the two shots as they both noticeably show two different ways of surveillance. Ours is done by cameras and monitors whereas the other is done by what looks like a night vision camera.

Despite the film being produced my an independent company we did use one special effect of speeding up part of our film, most independent films don’t use special effects, but this very small effect made a big difference to our film. However we didn’t use any visual effects as this would make it seem childlike and unreal.

Kay Musonda - Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the product?

There have been many improvements and developments made since our preliminary task, we have learnt that continuity and time were very important. The first time we did our preliminary , we weren't completely aware of the properties for the editing tools so when we uploaded it onto iMovie we only had limited editing skills; in comparison to now where we have become so familiar with iMovie.

In our preliminary we missed out the opportunity on using advanced equipment such as tripods and tracks moreover we were only given a camera and we had to make do with two characters and a camera man. The narrative surrounded two people in different rooms who then collided and conflict.

Camera techniques we used included an establishing shot, mid shot, point-of-view shot and over-the-shoulder shot plus applying them these methods to our final piece. Editing used for both the preliminary and final which included long takes , short takes, changes in pace and shot/reverse shot. Shot/reverse shot became extremely important in both pieces because it formed a double perceptive of the narratives and built tension also; this technique is shown when Character A and Character B are speaking in the preliminary and when Mathews is being watched from the CCTV monitor in our final.

Preliminary Task

Final Task


I think the preliminary task not only helped us build our knowledge on the use of camera and editing but also made us aware of what error to avoid in our final piece.

Kay Musonda - Question 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When creating our film it was vital that we used iMovie which is an application found on the Macintosh computers. I had been used to using Windows software computers so using a ‘Mac’ computer was slightly daunting. But, with all the tuition on this software I quickly got the hang of most of the tools and the effectiveness. When using iMovie I found it easier and more advanced then other editing software I’ve used, I found the quality to be even better than Windows Movie Maker and Magix.

For filming we used different kinds of camcorders, during this I learnt how to adapt to the different kinds of cameras all of which had different features, that became useful to us during the filming process. However we came across different camcorders that had different dysfunctions such as no sound, unable to upload as well as the occasional low battery, so we had to be careful which camera we used for every bit of filming we needed to do. Other equipment used in the filming process included tracks, tripods and black card that became very useful to us when filming the scenes with Mathews.

When Mathews is being watched on the monitor there is a camera displayed in the playground and we were given the opportunity to film Mathews’ character from two points of views. The problems we came across when joining these shots together were the different formats they came in when we uploaded them onto a PC making me have to drag each shot we wanted one by one onto iMovie.

During the editing process we came across issues involving sound, especially with the music. This occurred when we were kept splitting the music into bits and overlapped them together to create a dramatic feel, but formed glitches. However we overcame this problem by getting rid of some beats/octaves and overlapping the sounds correctly to create a flowing sound.

In order to gain awareness we posted our work on social networks such as Blogger, YouTube and Facebook. It was vital that we posted our work on blogger to try adapt our knowledge of technology. I had already been a blogger user so the whole experience of posting comments and blogs wasn’t new to me, but it did allow me learn about new features such as linking my video onto the blog.

I have also learnt the importance of technology especially among the youth who frequently use blogs and how it has evolved from the past two decades, because of this fact many businesses have turned to technology because it is easier and cheaper to operate.

Kay Musonda - Question 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract and relate to our audience we used actors who were around the same age and had the setting in a school; the genre conventions of a psychological thriller usually start off in a normal environment but everything is but normal. The music in the beginning is daunting then builds to become very disturbing, this helps keeps the audience intrigued about what may happen next.

What makes our film different from other films is the extensive use of symbolism (mason triangle) as well as the bizarre narrative behind the film. The fact that we based our film on the illuminati and that it’s an uncomfortable subject most people refuse to talk about and sets our film apart from other films. The fact the hero/victim in our film is a teenage male and that he ends up eliminated in the end of our film is a situation that most thrillers do not include, in fact most thriller feature male hero and female victim.

The setting chosen is a school playground, a place that is commonly associated with education and embraces youth achievement but has been distorted into a place of captivity and danger. The narrative focuses on a young male who is interested in politics and economics but when he finds out information that can prove deadly, the governments are on the look out for him.
This film can be compared with Misery because of the similar use of character portray and how the setting and narrative convey a misleading mood.

Kay Musonda - Question 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our film are predominately adolescent, male and female, ages 15-18. In order to find out the interests and opinions of this particular demographic we undertook an audience research questionnaire. We gave the questionnaire to several people in schools and colleges and asked them to answer ten questions.

Our film is also best suit for this target audience because of the masonic references and potential footage viewers may find offencive or Appropriate for a younger audience, because the film has also been given a 15 guidance rating.

Here are the questions from the Questionnaire:

Using the results from this questionnaire we found the most popular outcomes and applied them to ideas of what we should include in our film. Also from the results we found out the interests from our target audience enabling us to niche our film and create something original and unique.

Kay Musonda - Question 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our company is called RNK productions which is an abbreviation for 'Real News OK' and Our logo is this:



We have many different logo's but this particular one is a simple version using a font called 'impact' and we chose this particular logo not only to appeal our target audience of 16-25 but also to be taken seriously as a film company.

The company is an independent film institution and we specialise in films such as documentaries, real-life stories and the media conspriracies . We are funded by major film companies such as , PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and DNA films, our film is distributed through Film4, this is because we are in need of finance especially being a new film institute.

For this particular film our desired budget was £1000 pounds and that was for filming equipment, setting, actors and editing equipment. However were lucky to be given an opportunity to borrow some of pieces from a local sixth-form.