Finished Film.

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

Selected frames from our film.

1.) This frame shows the title of the film, it also gives the audience extra clues about what the film is going to be about. The fact that is called 'Chapter 4' suggests that the film may be about or related to a book, and that this plays a major role in the plot of the film. Also, the font of the title is similar to handwriting, which also emphasises the fact that the storyline is about a book.


2.) This camera shot introduces the location that the film  is set in, it is a fairly modern house with other past owners. This allows the audience to easily relate to the characters of the film, which will make them more likely to have a greater interest in the film.


3.) This frame shows some of the props and the costumes that our characters wear. These costumes are typial of a young normal couple that have just brought their first house. This also adds personal identity to our film, so the audience can relate and picture themselves in the film.


4.) This shot shows some of the various camera shots that we used in our film, this one is a POV  shot of the shadowy figure in our title sequence. This will give the audience an idea of what she is doing, and how it will relate to the rest of the film.


5.) The font and style of the titles in the title sequence also, like the title of the film, give the audience clues about what genre the film is, and what it is about. We chose the titles to have the same font and colour as the main title of the film because it shows consistency throughout the whole title sequence. 


6.) This camera frame opens the film, and directly says to the audience that it is a horror film. It does this by showing the strange figure in the mirror and the main character being scared by it, because the fact that it is there is unexpected in itself and it surprises her. This frame will hopefully also surprise the audience, because it is so unexpected, leading them to anticipate the rest of the film, after seeing what happened in the first scene.

7.) This frame could suggest that the film is a horror/thriller, because it is so dark and mysterious. The frame gives little information about what is actually happening, so the audience will want to know what is actually going on. This will also encourage the audiene to watch more of the film, because they know so little about what is happening, but they know enough information to give them an idea.


8.) The characters are introduced right at the beginning at the opening scene. It shows a young couple who have just moved into their new house, it also shows a stereotypical view of men, sat down and watching TV when he should be doing work. A stereotypical view of women is also shown by the fact that she shouts at her husband shows that is the more dominant one in the relationship, this, however, is also a countertype of what women are usually portrayed as in horror films. They are usually the weaker out of the group of people that is being attacked by an antagonist, but this scene shows her to be powerful and fearful.

9.) This shows some of the special effects that we used in our opening sequence, this was done to create tension and suspense through the title sequence, so the audience will anticipate what is in the rest of the film. It also helps the audience understand that it is a horror film, because of the slow transition and the low key lighting that is present.

How does your media represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


On the right is one of the main protagonists of our horror film, and below is a main protagonist from Insidious, another well known horror film.

Similarities;

-Both characters are protagonists, they both attempt to fight off the antagonists in the film.

-Both are in a relationship and have just moved into a new house with their partner.

-They are both dressed very similar, they both look reasonably fashionable.

We tried to make our main protagonist similar to other protagonists in other horror films, this would make them stereotypical of the horror genre and easily recognisable for the audience. We also tried to make our character in a relationship, like the protagonist in insidious, because it shows that they care for someone, and that they will try to protect them, and will give him a reason to fight the antagonists off.

Differences;

- Our main protagonist does not have children, whereas the main protagonist from Insidious does.

- The main protagonist in Insidious is older than our main character, he has a stable family while our main protagonist is just settling down.

However we also tried to make the character slightly different, so he is not too stereotypical and so the audience wont see him as exactly the same as other protagonists in other horror films. This will attract more attention and interest in our film because the main protagonist is slightly different, making the film more appealing and unique. 

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

What kind of media institution will distribute our film and why?

                           

Who would be your audience for your media product?

Target Audience;

Male Taregt Audience

Female Target Audience

Demographic;


The main age of our taget audience is young people between the ages of 15 and 24, this is in class E,which is where students fall into. We chose this target audience and the class because of the research that we did before we produced our film, and we found that the main group of people who like Horror/Thriller films is students. This would put our film into the demographic class of E. Our film is aimed at both males and females, because both genders like and enjoy watching horror films, our film is also aimed at all races. We did not select a specific geographical location for our films because we thought the film would appeal to a wide area across the country.


Because the main characters in our film are young people under the age of 20, we also chose to aim our film at young poeple under the age of 20. This is because this audience will find it easier to relate to the characters in the film, because they are of roughly the same age, which will make the film more appealing to them.


Psychographics;


As teenagers are very interested in socialising and going out with their friends, we though we could use this interest in an advantage to the marketing of our film. Teenagers often like to go to the cinema with their friends and watch a film, often a thriller or a horror film. We thought that the main target audience for our film would be teenagers, as they often visit the cinema and are the most likely to relate to our film, because the main protagonists are young people themselves.


We want our film to be beleivable and actually feel that the events in the film happened, this would cause them to relate more towards the film. We also want our film to freighten our audience or cause tension to rise, which would encourage them to watch the rest of the film, after feeling the tension that is in the first scene.


Target audience reseach;


For my target audience research, i created a survey which consisted of 9 questions designed to find out about what films people in my nearby area watch and how they watch them. I asked 8 people to fill out my questionaire, mainly between the ages of 12-17, and found out that the favourite genre of film was comedy, and horror/thriller the second most popular film. I also gained that about half of the people I asked like horror films, and a few had never seen one. We now know that we are aiming our film at the right audience, because most of the people who answered my questionaire like horror/thriller films.



How did you attract/address your audience?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVuXeAtRoKc&context=C3a2b2efADOEgsToPDskKxatiKWesOV3YxJ9O06P8T

This is the link for our film with annotations about similarities to other horror films and what we did and why in our film.

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

The technology and equipment that we used in the production of our film.

This shows the editing software that we used to edit and complete our footage. I have learnt how to use this software while editing our footage by using the 'cut' tool to delete and move our footage and to add special effects, to create the tension that we wanted.

These pictures show us using the camera and the tripod that we used to film our movie, also us using Adobe Premier to edit our footage. As well as these two key features of our film production, we also used many other internet programmes to help with our production, such as YouTube and Photoshop. Youtube has helped us complete some of the evaluation tasks and allowed us to get some audience feedback for the first draft of our film. Photoshop has also allowed us to complete some evaluation tasks.

 



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

Preliminary task;

From my preliminary task I have learnt different camera and editing techniques that have helped us in our final production. An example of these is the 180 degree rule, this prevents the audience from becoming confused into which way a character is walking for example. The 180 degree rule is followed by not filming anything behind an 'imaginary line', this is done to show the clarity of the scene, so the audience do not get confused as to the layout of the setting. However, the 180 degree rule can be broken to show confusion in a chase scene for example.

How we used the 180 degree rule in our preliminary task.

Another camera/editing technique that I learnt how to do successfully was match on action, this involves 'missing out' a bit of unnecessary footage that was not needed. For example, someone walking into a room, then cutting to the same person sitting on a chair, this is what we used in our preliminary task. By doing this unneeded footage is removed that will potentially make a scene longer than it needs to be and run the risk of the audience losing interest in what they are watching. We used this in our final production, when our main character is walking through the hallway and into the kitchen, we deleted a bit of footage out because we felt that the scene was too long and it worked without that footage in.

How we used match on action in our preliminary task.
How we used match on action in our final production.
Using this on our final production has allowed the scene to flow more easily, and quickly show the movement by the characters while also keeping the audience interested.

I have also learnt how to edit successfully using Adobe Premier, this involved deleting the footage that we no longer needed for our finished product, and adding titles to the finished footage.

Original film before some changes were made.

This is our film that was watched by the rest of the class, they offered some improvements to our film.


Some of the improvements that were suggested were;
-Make some of the footage longer in the tiltle sequence, the class thought the story of the sequence would be easier to follow if some of the shots were longer.
-There was an unintentional edit error on the fade between the title sequence and the opening scene, it showed a piece of footage from the menu screen of the television, which needed to be edited out.
-Edit the last shot out, were claire looks in the kitchen to look for the figure, this because the sudience thought that she was too casual while looking for the figure, and in real life she would be panicing a lot more.
-The roles we chose inside our group needed to be change on the title sequence, so 'camera' was changed to 'director of photography' etc.
-Add background music to when the book is found to build tension.

Shot List.

Title Sequence;


1.) Mid shot of a candle in the dark being lit by someone with the name of the production company.
2.) Title of the name of our production company - 'Big Scream Productions'.
3.) Mid shot of a book showing the initials 'E.J.hon a table next to a candle
4.) Title showing the director of the film.
5.) Over the shoulder shot of a woman writing on a piece of paper next to the book and the candle.
6.) Title showing the director of photography.
7.) Close up of a hand writing on some paper.
8.) Title showing the the director of visual effects.
9.) Close up from a different view showing the hand of the figure writing on the paper.
10.) Title showing the Audio Director.
11.) Mid shot showing the back of the figure writing.
12.) Title of our film.

Opening scene;

13.) Close up of the television screen, which zooms and pans out to a mid shot of our main character, Ryan, sat in the chair watching the tv.
14.) Mid shot of our other main character, Claire, in the kitchen.
15.) Another Mid shot of Ryan sat in the chair, until Claire walks in and it turns into a long shot as the characters move.
16.) Long shot pan of Ryan walking down the hallway of the house.
17.) Pan which shows Ryan putting a book in a box.
18.) Close up zoom of the book in the box.
19.) Mid shot of Claire walking down the hallway.
20.) Close up of Claire as she sees a figure in the mirror.

Storyboards for our title sequence and our opening scene.

These are the storyboards for the title sequence.

This is the first storyboard for our film, the first shot is the production company sequence, which shows a person lighting a candle, the low key lighting that the candlelight produces connotes Horror majorly, it also relates to the rest of our title sequence, which is aslo lit by candlelight. We decided to put the production company logo at the beginning of the film because we saw that most other films did so.




The tiltle sequence in general  shows different shots of a dark figure writing on paper next to the book, which gives an idea to the ausience that the book was written by that same character, or that they are getting some ideas from it. This shows that the book and the person writing the book is clinical to the storyline of the rest of the film.

The storyboards for our opening scene.



The first shot of the film shows two news reporters reporting on the story that the local library has been burnt down, this is foreshadowing the future events of the film, the main plot is about a book and the whole film ends with a fire.








We included an argument between the new couple that had just moved in because it made the situation seem more realistic, so the audience would find it easier to relate to the story.








We also included a shot of the book on its own in a box, this shows that the book will play an important role in the storyline of the film and is to be feared.


The mid-shot of Claire seeing a ghostly figure in the mirror straight after the close up of the book in the box also emphasises the fact that the book plays a major role in the events of the film.