Caitlyn

AS Media-Evaluation

By Georgia Koureas 12:2

 Storyline
, -The storyline is based on a girl (Elizabeth) who has spent her whole life being manipulated by her ‘best friend’. We are
aware of some of the background to these girls as the voice over states that the girls best friend, Caitlyn always took her
stuff and was always influencing her to do things she knew were not correct. However, although Caitlyn had previously
forced her to do things before, the girls went a step to far. The result of the manipulation was that both the girls ended up
killing a young boy.

-The opening begins with a scene of young children in a park playing the children's game ‘ring-a-ring-a-roses’. This
represents the innocence of young children that we learn was not the case for the main character as her childhood had
always revolved around being manipulated by Caitlyn. Nor is the establishing shot the case for the young child they
murdered. It then goes on to show that the girl in her room performing a ritual which she believes protects her from
Caitlyn and is a way of being pure. She sees this as a method of protection as Caitlyn is scared of fire. The next scenes are
then flashbacks from when the two girls were younger and there is a particular key scene of Caitlyn whereby she steals
her toy symbolising the bullying that occurred even when younger. The scenes flicker between the girl protecting herself
and the flash backs including one of the girls walking across a bridge looking guilty. This implies they have again carried out
an offence. The voice over then reveals that she is not happy being herself and different scenes of the girls flicker and the
music beat increases. After the voice over reveals she still ‘wants to be her’, the scene flickers back to the establishing shot
and the children all fall down.

Summary:
-Two girls are the main characters one of which has always manipulated the other (Caitlyn has manipulated Elizabeth) and
she has so much power of her that she eventually leads her into committing a crime whereby they have murdered a little
boy. As the film unravels, the audience will learn that Elizabeth is finding it hard to deal with the guilt and sadness of her
criminal offence and the fact that her life is still and will always be ruled by Caitlyn.
In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?

USE-We illustrated Levi-Strauss’ establishment of binary oppositions in our film opening.For example; The
‘younger’ scenes are edited in ‘Heat wave’ and the clothes of the characters are rather bright also the general
background of a playground with swings illustrates a very happy place. These are apart of the mise en scene.
On the contrary, when the girls are older and teenagers, the mise en scene is dramatically different.Instead of a
bright area associated with joy, the setting is one of dull and depressing memoirs. The editing is also completely
different. As opposed to ‘heat-wave’,we used ‘romantic light’ which gives a more creepy feel, we felt. We also
used faced paced editing to show Elizabeth's fear and slow paced editing quite often to show the flashbacks (On
the swing).

Challenge-Our main focus and target audience is that of the younger generation
(teenagers) and this is because the main focus is on two characters who are of that age.
Therefore, it is not a typical thriller. Furthermore, films of this genre usually consist of one
‘villain’ and although Caitlyn is the manipulative friend who had led Elizabeth to do
things, they have indeed, both committed a crime by killing a little boy.
 How does your film represent particular social groups?

Our film represents children in a very stereotypical way. We have represented the child scenes as innocent and we have
done this through mise en scene (costumes, location) and also via editing the settings (Heat wave)

The costumes when younger portray innocence and happiness as they are bright coloured and vibrant. This is a contrast
to when they are teenagers as their clothes are not as bright .However, Although their clothes are what we would
consider ‘normal’ the music speeds up as the come through the tunnel in order to build up the tension and illustrate that
even though these two girls appear ‘normal’ their behaviour is criminal .

Furthermore,As can be presumed from the voice-over,Elizabeth is indeed an unhappy teenager who is ‘drownin’g in both
her guilt and sadness for the offence she has been apart of (Murdering the boy). She is portrayed as a girl who is
obviously upset and even without the music or the voice-over,her clothes would illustrate someone who is particularly
depressed and black is often a signifier for death as Ferdinand de Saussure points out in his theory.

The film also represents social groups in terms of ‘best friends’. The two girls do everything together and they appear
united because of this. However, this is not necessarily a clear representation of teenagers and their friendships as they
have gone to extreme levels and infact taken someone elses life. Also, even when the film portrays innocence in the
younger scenes (Swings),It is infact a ‘false illustration’ as their friendship has always been slightly deviant from the
norms of society as Caitlyn has always manipulated Elizabeth.
 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• We hope that many institutions would distribute our media product.

• One company in particular, I believe could distribute our film is ‘new line’-A company of which
specialise in independent films and distribute a variety of films with varying budgets. Other films
distributed from ‘New line’ are; ‘Seven’ and ‘The butterfly effect’

• Another company I believe could distribute our film is ‘Lions gate’. The reason for this again, is
that it is an independent film company and has distributed many very well known films and is
extremely well known in North America. This company has funded many films including the
recent box office hit ‘Kickass’.
 Who is the target audience?

-As the context of our film is violent,inlcluding the bullying of a teenager from a little girl and including a murder of the little boy,
the guidelines of the BBFC would classify our film as a ’15’.
-Our film could then be viewed by the majority of older teenagers, as we are not restricted middle aged teens as we have not
rated it an ’18’
-Although our film focuses on many issues such as murder and bullying, it is mainly aimed at females and is therefore gender
specific as it sees the story through a girls eyes who of which has been manipulated by her friend who is also a female.
-There have been several very successful films of the ‘horror’ genre rated ‘15’
For example;

-What lies beneath

-Shutter island
-One missed call
 How did you attract your audience?

• We used several methods and techniques in order to gain the attention of our audience and make them want to keep watching such as;
• Having a title as a name as this immediately has an effect on the audience as they want to know who the name identifies and what exactly
they are like as a person.
• Our establishing shot is one which appears peaceful and shows children playing, however due to the genre of the film the audience are aware
that this innocence is surely to be broken, so it incises them in and makes them want to keep watching.
• The first shot after the establishing shot is one of the girl in her room sitting inside a ring of candles which is seen as quite peculiar behaviour.
This therefore makes people want to watch to find out what exactly she is doing and why she is actually performing this ritual.
• We also used shots of which start slower and get faster. This attracts the audience as they become aware that something is about to happen
due to the pace of the editing.

Stereotypes
Our film includes stereotypes in the way that there’s a ‘villain’ and a ‘victim’ and due to the voice-over, we learn
immediately that Elizabeth is the victim so it can be assumed that Caitlyn is the villain due to the name of the
film. However, in a sense both the girls actually become the villains and it is infact the ‘boy’ who is the victim of
the film as he is hurt physically and killed. On the other hand, Elizabeth has still been the victim of manipulation
to the point of bullying for all her life.

Characters
Our two main characters are two teenage girls who are around 15 and this is because our aim was to attract
teenage girls of a similar age to the characters thus why we have classified our film as a ‘15’.
 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your film?

• Construction: Constructing the film has made us all learn alot about technologies and media deals with the latest
technologies and we learn to work with them. We learnt how to do different shots on the camera and use the camera
equipment effectively. We discovered the particular camera angles that are effective for particular shots for example; the
high angle shot of the girl in the candles is effective because it shows her inferiority and also clearly shows that she is sitting
a circle of fire and so is completely surrounded. However, hand held shots are also effective and we used these types of
shots for filming the sky in order to point the camera directly where we wanted it. We also discovered some of the camera
features such as ‘night mode’ and the ‘focus’ options. We found the ‘focus’ tool particularly useful as our establishing shot
has particular been filmed out or focus in order to appear slightly blury and it also looks as it someone is watching the
children.

• Editing: To edit our film we have used particular software such as; imovie and garage band. Although both programmes
seemed extremely difficult to use at the start of the course, we have become increasingly skilled at using them. On imovie
we have experimented with several different techniques. We have learnt that you can change the length of clips, are able to
adjust the colour and add effects Eg; sepia, black and white and can include transitions between scenes. Garage band has
also been extremely useful as it has enabled us to produce our desired music of which fits our film precisely and record our
vital voice over.
 Looking back at your preliminary exercise, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the film?

• We filmed our preliminary task at the very start of the media as course and so dramatic improvements have taken place.
However, the preliminary exercise was extremely useful as it allowed us to work together as a group for the first time and
start getting used to the camera. We also had to stick to some media rules for the first time for example obeying the 180
degree rule when filming.

• We also realised how difficult it was to get the continuity precise. This was an insight into just how much effort the film
makers must put into making sure every single shot flows swiftly onto the next one. We also began to understand how much
of an effect the mise-en-scene has on the continuity , for example; wearing the same clothes and having the same props on
scene. We also realised other factors had to always remain the same such as the exact position of the camera.

• After looking back on our preliminary task and receiving feedback from our class, we can now see several errors we made.
Our whole preliminary exercise is also extremely jumpy and we didn’t know how to edit smoothly or cut parts out as we
were not experienced with either the cameras or the macs.

• We had a lot of trouble with the actual editing of our clips as we didn’t know how to do the simple things that are now in
our second nature such as add transitions or change the lighting. We also found it difficult to cut the scenes and so they
appeared extremely jumpy and so our preliminary task lacked the continuity needed for a successful film.