Evaluation: Question 7

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

Here is what i had previously written as what I learnt in the preliminary task:

There are two main things that I have learnt throughout this preliminary task.

1) How to use the video recorders
2) How to use the editing software.

I felt that I have now had a wide range of experience in this type of media work, and now feel that I would be able to use this experience in my future projects.



For this project there were a few things that I was worried about:

• Time Management
• Choice of locations
• Music
• Props
• Scene selection

Luckily we did a lot of planning before we began to film so we were able to sort out the worries I had. However, time management i thought would still be an issue.

Choice of Location and Scene Selection

We made detailed story boards which contained the time scale of each scene/clip and also the location, cinematography and mise en scene. After we filmed the first few clips in the flat on the Wednesday evening we spoke to our actors and we decided to make alterations to our day scene. Originally we had planned to film in Worcester High Street and possibly a few shops who we had spoken to and asked for their permission. However, we decided that it would be difficult to film our cast without getting a lot of attention from other members of the public. Therefore we changed our location to beside the river. There were still other pedestrians however this time there was not too many to distract the audience to the extras.

During this i learnt:

• Always consider other options, you may not always be right first time
• Film the same scene as many times as possible from different angles- you may be able to use this to good affect when you come to edit your footage.

Time Management

So that we were able to manage our time affectively we wrote out a brief plan on how we should plan our time which is in our logistics. We managed to keep to this so this in the end was really well done.

During this i learnt:

• Always produce logistics. You are able to put down a plan of everything you are going to do, and include your time management. It works a treat!

Music

With our music we were very lucky as we knew someone who produces music for independent films. He offered to watch our film opening and help us produce music that would suit it perfectly. We managed to find heart beats and birds that we could use as background music as unfortunately when we were filming the sound did not record. This was a great experience and it was thoroughly enjoyed by me and Sophie.

During this i learnt:

• Always use your contacts. If you have had an offer by someone who is willing to help you, you can learn a lot from them.

Finally...

Props

Sophie and I wanted to challenge certain ceonventions and have the aviators as the main icon. The problem was is where do we purchase these? Luckily we found a perfect pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses on ebay! This was brilliant news as we were able to buy several pairs as one pair was to be worn in the day scene and the others we wanted to smash up for the night scene so that the murder scene would be visible by a reflection through the one eye of the sunglasses. We were both so happy when this scene worked well. From our feedback we were able to see that what we had done was worth it, and added tension and horror to our film.

During this i learnt:

• Try places that you wouldnt usually try for props. Many things can be used, and you may even end up surprising yourself!
• Nothing is too difficult if you put your mind to it!

Evaluation: Question 6

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

To produce our two minute film opening there are several things that we used. The cameras that we used were digital; they were Digital SLR cameras and they were used with the uses of tripods. The tripods were really useful as for the scenes beside the river we needed the camera to be steady. The cameras were nice and easy to use which was a huge help otherwise we would have struggled to produce the video at all.

After we had collected all of our footage we then needed to start editing the scenes. We used software that was called Premiere Pro which worked reasonably well. Here we were able to add our credits easily and also blend the scenes together smoothly. We used video transitions such as the credits fading in and out and also we were able to change some of the effects and lighting using the video effects. We made the lighting slightly darker so that even though we wanted it to be a bright and pleasant day we thought the light was too bright after we had recorded it. We were able to do this very easily but just changing the contrasts and brightness. In one of our scenes we had unfortunately got both characters in the scene which we didn't want. However due to us being close to the deadline of production work finished we had to make a quick decision n what would be the best thing to do. We decided that we would try and crop part of the frame. Luckily we found a tool of 'zoom' on the editing software where we were able to cut the unwanted character out.

We thought that due to the use of the software we were able to make our amateur work look slightly professional.

Evaluation: Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our audience were 16/17 year olds who could be classed in the social class 'emo' and enjoyed listening to heavy metal and indie music. We wanted to see how our audience enjoyed our film and how they reacted to the film opening so we produced this short video.

After the audience had watched the video they had to answer several questions:

(This is our Questionnaire)

Questionnaire

This questionnaire is based on the two minute film opening: Pulse. Created by Lauren Mullen and Sophie Price for our AS Level Media Coursework.

1) What genre do you think this production is?


2) Which conventions within our production helped you to decide what genre it was?


3) Which part do you believe to be the most captivating and attractive part?


4) What do you think is the story line for the rest of the film?


5) Did the first two minutes of the film make you want to watch the rest?


6) Are there any particular scenes which you felt had the best editing?


7) What scenes do you believe were the weakest in terms of relating to the genre?


8) Did you think the non-diegetic sound created an atmosphere? If so, what was this?


Thank You for Your Time

After our audience had answered the questions we then left them to go back to the classroom. To our delight the people who had watched our film were talking to their friends about it. This was really good as this was the desired response. I truely believed that we had managed to meet the demands of what our audience would want.

Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

A target audience is something that needs to be thought about carefully so that you are able to include things within your media product that will appeal to your audience. There are several groups of audience which enjoy horror films and the films also have a variety of film ratings. A film rating is one way of selecting your taregt audience.

Here are the film ratings for the film openings we analysed:
When A Stranger Calls- 15
One Missed Call- 15
Scream- 18

For our film rating we've picked 15 because we wanted our target audience tio be able to talk about our film at college and school so that it becomes popular between a similar age/audience.

Our target audience are teens/late teens, C2, yet our film will be targetted towards a mainstream audience, and as a rating it would be '15' this is because there will be quite disturbing scenes which younger children would not be able to manage with. The teens would probably be people who look for gory films with low age ratings for them to go watch. Our characters are also quite young so this would appeal to them.

Evaluation: Question 3

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

Our film will be a small film production that will have been made on quite a small budget. We would hope that it would reach a larger audience however due to the target audience being around the age of 16/17, which would hopefully suggest that they would discuss the film between friends.

One way of getting our film to become well known is by featuring it in local festivals and through advertisements and showings on smaller cinemas.

A festival which I would attend with this film would be: Frightfest - the UK's premiere fantasy and horror film festival. It is in the heart of London's West End at the prestigious Empire Cinema for five packed days of premieres, previews, personal appearances, signings and surprises. Being located in London would open up many opportunities for the film due to top production companies and other film fanatics being there, helping to promote the film through the premieres and previews.

Frightfest is also sponsored by film 4 so if we were struggling to get our film broadcasted in a cinema we would be able to have it shown here hopefully.

It would not go to a large cinema such as Vue as it is an independent movie, and the audience would not be right. We would only be able to progress to cinemas like Vue or Odeon if our film recieved a large amount of praise. The Electric House and Light House are both independent cinemas located in Birmingham which would be better suited for our audience.

The production company that we have decided to use is: 'Price Mullen Production' and it will be in association with 'Media Life Pictures'. These two companies will have helped to fund our low budget film and also help to advertise it and distribute it.

Dimension Films is another production conpany who could help produce our film; this is because our production seems to be quite independent. 'Scream' - one of the films we researched are also distributed by Dimension Films. A conglomerates such as Universal Pictures would not be suitable for our film because of our production not being a large budgeted hollywood film.

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the beginning of our film (the two minute opening) there are only two characters known to the audience a male and a female.

The Male Charcter

• White British
• 20
• Middle Class

This character is represented as being an obsessive male who is in love with the female character. We used a very stereotypical view that the stalker would be a male role which shows residual ideology, however we thought that if we followed an emergent ideology view the audience may not like it as much. You can tell the male character likes her so much, especially when he walks by her and the slow motion shows him sniffing her hair.

The Female Character

• White British
• 19
• Middle/Upper Class

This character is representated to be a naive girl who is a hedonist. Her hair is neat and straight and this shows how she likes to keep herself presentable- possibly to males. She walks with her head up high and she struts instead of walks. This is quite an emergent view due to woman now dressing and trying to appeal to men. This could be what is attracting the male character to her.

Evaluation: Question 1

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

Before the production of our two minute film opening could begin there were several things that we needed to consider, so that our film could contain similar forms and conventions of real media products.

Focusing on film genres and the conventions within a genre we looked at several other films with the genre: slasher/stalker horror. The three films we looked at were: As we were producing only the first two minutes these are the clips we analysed from these three films. All three films have young characters acted by late teens as the main characters. These characters could either be the villains or the heroes.

We needed to find actors for our characters so therefore we needed to decide on genders of both the stalker and the innocent character. In ‘when a stranger calls’ and ‘scream’ the stalkers are both male. Therefore we took this convention and we used it in our two minute film opening. The male actor we chose looked quite rough due to not being clean shaved and had slightly messy hair. However like other stalkers he did not stick out to the eye in public as being a stalker. He had normal characteristics such as normal clothing and he was not hiding his face. The clothing however is mainly black, which we had planned to create darkness upon the character and the shirt which he was wearing was white and red to connote blood and death to pureness- which in my opinion is a connotation to the colour white.

For our film opening we needed to put credits on it showing the names of the actors and the production team. For this we needed to carefully choose font type and colour. Yet again we looked at the film openings of: One missed call, scream and when a stranger calls. The positioning of all the font is in the centre (therefore we did) and also our main credits are white and are a similar font to ‘when a stranger calls’.

Even though scary movie was not one of the films I had originally analysed when the name of the film is shown near the fifth minute the font colour changes from white to red, this has a connotation of blood and death. Therefore as we liked this we included it in our film opening.

These two screen shots show the transition from white font to red font.

Our plan was to add uniqueness to our production by challenging certain forms and conventions of other slasher/stalker horror films. Darkness is one main convention that is used to create bad connotations. In our two minute film opening we did include this in the first few shots so that the audience would be able to recognise the genre so that they would be captivated immediately. Also as the beginning is actually the end this would hope them keep them watching until the end. The part which showed us challenging the convention is when the shots filmed in Worcester are filmed in the day. I thought we did this quite well as it made the setting a normal day.

Pathetic fallacy is usually created through bad weather, which is usually linked to horror films: thunder and rain. In our two minute film opening there is one main icon: the aviator sunglasses shown before and after the credits. This also challanges usual conventions of slasher/stalker horror films as the sunglasses connote sunshine, happiness and good.

Also the setting for all of the filming was in every day locations. The first location was in a flat which is a type of accommodation. Then beside the river is very normal, with people walking their dogs in the same location. However the only thing concerning the locations which could be used as a convention in a horror film is that water/rivers could often be used to dump bodies.