1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Creative Response - Mind Map:
Written Response:
Our film opening, “Judgement is due”, is associated amongst the horror genre and therefore incorporates similar conventions that are popularly presented in other horror films. We decided to follow a lot of conventions in regards to horror, but have also challenged some issues within our piece. We did this so we could successfully portray our genre to the audience, and use ways in which to present the expected elements in a horror film, but in a unique way. Through the use of our narrative and micro – elements, we highlighted the key conventions, and those that we challenged and developed.
Through our narrative, it clearly showed the storyline of a young couple watching a movie together, yet it leads to the boy getting possessed and supposedly ends up killing his girlfriend. I feel our narrative clearly outlined the horror genre, especially as it connoted the ideas of isolation and vulnerable for attack, (amongst the female character). It is known that in a horror genre film, stereotypically a three act structure is presented. This involves the idea of: First Stage – the central character is shown to be in a strange and threatening setting; Second Stage – where the audience and protagonist feel the sense of violence and danger; and the Final Stage – where it reaches a climax and a dramatic atmosphere is presented between the protagonist and the antagonist, with varying outcome results. We successfully used this three act structure to effectively give our opening horror idea structure, and follow a popular convention used. (As you can see in the screenshots on the right), these are the three points within our piece that present this structure. We also followed a common theme of death in our piece, especially at the end; however we abruptly stopped the piece and showed the main titles. We did this to leave the audience to wonder what they might think may happen next, even though it is a popular thought of death to be the outcome. For example, in the end scene of “Paranormal Activity 4”, it also doesn’t show a certain end to the protagonist’s life. It suddenly stops and shows an antagonist pouncing forwards towards the screen leading to a blackout. This effectively also gives the audience room to imagine what maybe happens next, leaving them confused and pondering. This can be successful as within our piece it would make the audience want to continue watching the film, and in “Paranormal Activity 4”, the audience would want there to be a sequel they can watch to get answers from. |
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<-- "Paranormal Activity 4" (1:56 till the end) : This presents the idea of leaving the audience to ponder on what they may think would happen next, as the movie doesn't leave clear details what does happen, but does suggest death is a key play.
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Through our technical codes, the mise-en-scene within our opening does follow quite a bit of the stereotypical forms that is expected to feature within it. In the idea of location, it is commonly known for horror to occur within an isolated or small communal area. This is due to the idea it creates the sense of being alone and evokes more fear as there is no escape, or little help that can be received by the protagonist. However, we set our location in an urban location where it is quite populated. This shows that we slightly challenged the stereotypical location and portray the idea that no matter where you are, evil is present; even in the places you call “safe” and “home”, aren't exactly “fear free”.
The lighting we used within our piece was quite dark and followed quite a subtle colour scheme, with the incorporation of red, especially due to the colour scheme of the living room. This greatly follows a horror convention of darkness, which links to death, evil and danger. The lighting amongst our piece is all naturalistic, creating the sense of danger within a typical normal situation.
Another element is the idea of sound. The use of both non-diegetic sound and diegetic sound is a major convention and plays a massive part in the production of a horror film, setting the atmosphere and emphasising the build up of tension and suspense. We followed this convention, thinking clear how we would incorporate both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds together. The use of diegetic sound creates the sense of realism in contrast to the possession storyline. We followed popular forms of non-diegetic sounds where jump scares are added into the plot. The use of sound for this creates great effect, in the idea of coming out of the blue as a shock to the audience, making them feel scared and jumpy. The use of an eerie, dark score is thought about clearly to create an effective atmosphere throughout a horror film. This made us decide that our score was going to be subtle and mysterious to build up the suspense to our jump scares we included.
The lighting we used within our piece was quite dark and followed quite a subtle colour scheme, with the incorporation of red, especially due to the colour scheme of the living room. This greatly follows a horror convention of darkness, which links to death, evil and danger. The lighting amongst our piece is all naturalistic, creating the sense of danger within a typical normal situation.
Another element is the idea of sound. The use of both non-diegetic sound and diegetic sound is a major convention and plays a massive part in the production of a horror film, setting the atmosphere and emphasising the build up of tension and suspense. We followed this convention, thinking clear how we would incorporate both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds together. The use of diegetic sound creates the sense of realism in contrast to the possession storyline. We followed popular forms of non-diegetic sounds where jump scares are added into the plot. The use of sound for this creates great effect, in the idea of coming out of the blue as a shock to the audience, making them feel scared and jumpy. The use of an eerie, dark score is thought about clearly to create an effective atmosphere throughout a horror film. This made us decide that our score was going to be subtle and mysterious to build up the suspense to our jump scares we included.
Another element that helped us follow the conventions of darkness involved in horror, is within our titling, (shown in the screenshot on the right). We wanted to keep the tilting quite plain and simple, to not make it a main focus. However we effectively incorporated it within our opening at the start, to create the build up of tension, through cutting to black with titling after a clip. It added to the effect of us wanting our opening to be quite slow paced, and then gradually build up as it gets further into our opening. The score at the start also related to the titling, as it was subtle and created an eerie atmosphere alongside the blackness.
Props also play a big part in horror films and incorporates the use of common conventional objects such as religious objects, weapons, costumes etc. The props help to highlight the genre clearly and adds to the suspense and build up of tension. We effectively incorporated the element of a bible prop with the words “judgement is due” in blood, (shown in the screenshot on the right), and the use of red contact lenses. These helped to emphasise a tense atmosphere, making the audience feel uneasy as what is to come next, and the sense of shock and how something isn't right in the situation. It also helps to highlight a religious theme to the plot, which is present in many other films such as “The Exorcist” and “The Devil Inside”, (shown in the screenshot on the right). The idea of religion and death linking together effectively, helps to create an interesting plot that makes the audience feel disturbed. This helped to develop the conventions of horror props being used to emphasise the storyline. In a typical horror film the camera movements and shots help to present the ideas of fear and letting the audience evoke the characters emotions. The use of POV’s in a horror is a common thing to see, in the sense to allow the audience to be in the characters position. It makes them feel equally as scared, imagining themselves being them. We included many POV’s from the protagonists view, to make the audience feel inclusive within the plot and have the same emotions as them . Also, close ups are popularly used to get the audience to sense the panic and fear through character’s facial expressions. We developed this convention, as in our earlier stages of producing our opening, we didn't realise the importance of close ups, until further research proved us wrong. For example in the film, “Sinister”, it incorporates a moving ghost and the camera shot shows a close up of the protagonists face, (shown in the screenshot on the right). It makes us as the audience feel the emotions he presents of confusion, and proves that us ourselves feel exactly the same. Also the use of wide spaces are significantly seen, and we used this popular form in order to highlight the idea of isolation and vulnerability. We presented our character to be in the middle of quite a large room in order to emphasise the idea of her being trapped in a threatening setting, (shown in the screenshot on the right). It is also a convention in horror, the use of sharp cuts from clips through editing. This helps to create tension and build up suspense. We filled our opening with many cuts to set the pace, and also lead the audience to the unexpected circumstances. We followed the stereotypical characters you would find in most horror films. The idea of us using a young girl who plays victim, highlights the idea of vulnerability and makes the audience sympathise with her easily. She is presented to do the typical logic of a girl in a horror film, where they would go up the stairs towards danger instead of away from it. We incorporated an extremely common element of modern day horror of a spiritual nature. We included this form through the act of a possession upon an innocent boy. Therefore, our media product does use, develop and challenge conventions of real media products that follow the genre of horror. |
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Written Response:
Representation incorporated within films is the way in which it portrays particular social groups from ideologies or value perspectives. Areas of representation, which can be looked into, are the ideas of age, gender, social class and race etc. Throughout our film opening, we represented the ideas of age
and gender through our two main characters and the situation they are presented
within.
We represented the aspect of gender within our opening, using both male and female characters to show the difference between the two. Our female character is presented to conform to the stereotypical female role that is commonly seen in a horror film. She is shown to be young and vulnerable, making the audience sympathise for her, as she is in a dangerous setting. Through the use of our technical codes, we were able to show the stereotypical representation of the female. She is represented to be quite naïve to the danger that is right in front of her. Through the use of dialogue, she is portrayed to be quite innocent, not noticing that the boyfriend is acting weird and possessed - a dangerous threat. She also represents the idea of women being more emotional. We showed this through the close ups of her face, that she is shocked and full of fear, (shown in the screenshot on the right). This contrasts to the man’s face that just shows pure emotionless. We effectively reversed the stereotypical element of the women being the weaker gender compared to the man. We showed it to be the man becoming possessed which suggests that the possession element found him to be weaker and saw him as an easier target to end up killing the girl. We showed our male character to be the killer; due to the idea an evil spirit possessed him. It stereotypically conveys the idea of the male being the “bad guy”, however it also shows him to be the victim in the scenario alongside the women, as he is possessed, while she is his target to kill. We do show how the male is portrayed to be in control over the female, the stereotypical sense of being more dominant. We showed this through a wide shot of the couple sitting together on the sofa; the girl is shown to be laying upon the boy, and him having his arm around her looking quite stern and broad. It gives a sense of him being in control over the relationship, which contrasts to the possession element that makes him seem weaker than he was initially shown to be. We also highlighted the representation of age within our piece briefly. We subverted the age element, as we used a much more younger casts of the ages of 16-17 years old. Normally it is common for a horror cast to range between the ages of 25-35 and older, if the plot involves targeting a family in its plot. Us using a younger cast brings somewhat of an effect onto our piece as it means that our target audience would easily be able to relate to our characters and feel more sympathy towards them, as they are young and vulnerable. |
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Written Response:
A film distributor is known to be an individual or company who are responsible for the marketing of a film. They may handle the theatrical release dates of film in different countries, and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, like on DVD or TV. It is through the distributor that films are lead to their success worldwide. For our film opening, due to the idea it is of low budget and horror genre, I have done research into a few distribution companies that my film opening may work with.
An example of a successful distribution company is Fox Searchlight Pictures, which has its headquarters based in Los Angeles, USA. This American film distribution company was established in 1994, and was founded by Thomas Rothman. It is a subsidiary company and it distributes within the Fox entertainment company. This is a sister company to the larger Fox Studio 20th Century Fox – its parent. It is known to specialise in distributing independent, British, dramedy, horror and non-English language films. It is a successful company, making revenue of $6.5 million (2007). It has made many films successful, especially the American psychological thriller/horror film “Black Swan”. It had a budget of $13 million, and sold around $329 million in its box office sales. It was shown to be a huge, successful film in the box office. This can relate to our opening film, as we have produced independently, which fox searchlight specialises to distribute. The fact that we have a low budget opening contrasts with the high budget production of the “Black Swan”, therefore Fox Searchlight wouldn’t produce our type of opening. This is because our opening isn’t guaranteed to be a huge success with such a low budget with such a large distribution company. However, it has a possibility to distribute our opening due to the idea that they distribute a lot of independent British films, and therefore it could be a suitable choice. Another film distribution company is Entertainment Film Distributors. It is a British company that distributes independent films in the UK and Ireland, for various production companies. It was founded in 1978 by Michael Green, and its headquarters is located in London, UK. It has been successful in distributing some of the countries ‘most British’ films, such as “the inbetweeners”. They have produced a number of films in the horror genre, including the films, “the fourth kind”, “final destination”, and “Texas Chainsaw”. “The fourth kind” is a sci-fi thriller/horror film. The fourth kind was a successful film and made $47.71 million in cinemas worldwide, from a budget of $10 million. This goes to show that this company is well-known and successful for making a hit out of horror films. This highlights that my opening could possibly be distributed under Entertainment Film, especially as they are based in the UK and are the UK’s leading independent film distributor. An alternative distribution company that my opening film could work with is Hammer Films Productions. They are a UK based company and were founded in 1934 by William Hinds. It is known to be a smaller based media institute, but has many profitable successes that have led to their expansion. It focuses on the distribution and production on a lot of horror films. The Hammer Films Productions have a major experience in horror, especially in relation to target the target audiences. They have popularly distributed films that target the younger generation, but it is still a big success in the horror genre film industry, even if it is a small institute. During their most successful years, it was shown that they were dominating the horror film market. They have distributed/produced films such as “The Woman in Black”, “The Mummy” and “Wake Wood”. “Wake Wood” is a supernatural horror film, which is quite similar to the “supernatural” element in our opening film. It was only in cinema for a couple of days, and produced only £1251 in box office. However, it received high ratings including an 80% rating from a review website: Rotten Tomatoes. In relation to our film opening, this company shows that they specialise in the distribution of horror films and can make them successful, even if they are of low budget. It suggests that if our film was to distribute with this company it would have success, especially as it’s a small company and therefore they specifically handle the distribution stages. To conclude, I believe that Hammer Film Productions would be the best distributor for our film opening. This is due to the fact that it is a small company and therefore it would be cheap to produce and distribute it. Also, it effectively targets the younger audience, which is what our film targets as well. It mainly focuses on the horror genre and has a great success in the industry. |
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4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Creative Response - Questionnaire and Mind Map:
Written response:
For our film, “Judgement is Due”, our audience would be those who love the thrill of fear and enjoy the genre of horror. We decided that our audience should be able to relate to the characters within the film, as it further grips them within the plot and they can imagine themselves in the same situation as them. We believe that our main demographic would be both males and females of the ages: 15-25. We decided this age range due to the idea of the audience being able to relate to the characters presented and the situations they are shown to be in; i.e. being in relationships is popular to take place in that particular age range. Our audience may be students, a group of young friends, or even young couples on a night out – all fitting into our demographic ideas of being a young adult. We knew that our certificate rating would be a 15, due to the horror aspect and addition of violence within our plot. The BBFC, (British board of film classification), states that a 15 can include:
· Strong violence
· Frequent use of strong language
· Portrayals of sexual activity
· Strong verbal references to sex
· Sexual nudity
· Brief sense of sexual violence or reference to it
· Discriminatory language or behaviour
· Drug taking
· Strong threat and horror, as long as no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat
· Frequent use of strong language
· Portrayals of sexual activity
· Strong verbal references to sex
· Sexual nudity
· Brief sense of sexual violence or reference to it
· Discriminatory language or behaviour
· Drug taking
· Strong threat and horror, as long as no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat
Within our film it doesn’t show such explicit content, but due to the nature of it including supernatural elements, possessions, gruesome and frightening killing and events, means that our film rating would suit and fit in to be a 15.
Our questionnaire further helped us understand who we wanted our audience to be, and proved that the younger generation were a perfect fit. We found out that many between the age brackets of 15-25 like to watch horror films, and therefore we made them to be our primary target audience. However that doesn’t mean that the older generation wouldn’t watch or be interested in our film, it just means they wouldn’t relate as close to the characters as the younger generation would.
Our questionnaire further helped us understand who we wanted our audience to be, and proved that the younger generation were a perfect fit. We found out that many between the age brackets of 15-25 like to watch horror films, and therefore we made them to be our primary target audience. However that doesn’t mean that the older generation wouldn’t watch or be interested in our film, it just means they wouldn’t relate as close to the characters as the younger generation would.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Creative Response - Video Interviews:
We did a video response towards this question to gain a better insight into what our audience thought. We wanted to attract and address our audience by letting them relate to our characters and empathise towards them.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Written Response:
Whilst producing our film opening, we had to use a variety of different technologies in order to make our product successful to reach its potential. We had to develop on our skills and learn new ones when it came to using both technology we were familiar with, and unfamiliar with.
Camera
Originally in the start of our film making process we were assigned a JVC HD Camera. However, we used this camera for our test shots and the quality wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be, therefore we changed cameras. We changed to use a Sony handycam CX320E HD camera, and due to it being in high definition, it was in great quality. Being able to shoot a video was a new thing to me. But through continuous practice I learnt and developed on my camera skills, creating an effect through the types of shots and camera movements. However, we experienced challenges alongside with this camera. Once we had shot our clips and imported into them into iMovie, we noticed that through the importing process it had sped up our clips and created a distribution throughout the production. In order to fix this we had to take a visit to our school IT technician who helped us convert and fix the clips we had recorded. In the end we were able to create a professional looking film opening, all down to upgrading the quality of our camera, and the help from our IT technician.
Originally in the start of our film making process we were assigned a JVC HD Camera. However, we used this camera for our test shots and the quality wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be, therefore we changed cameras. We changed to use a Sony handycam CX320E HD camera, and due to it being in high definition, it was in great quality. Being able to shoot a video was a new thing to me. But through continuous practice I learnt and developed on my camera skills, creating an effect through the types of shots and camera movements. However, we experienced challenges alongside with this camera. Once we had shot our clips and imported into them into iMovie, we noticed that through the importing process it had sped up our clips and created a distribution throughout the production. In order to fix this we had to take a visit to our school IT technician who helped us convert and fix the clips we had recorded. In the end we were able to create a professional looking film opening, all down to upgrading the quality of our camera, and the help from our IT technician.
iMovie
iMovie is video editing software we used to edit our clips and merge them all together to create our final piece. It is an application sold by Apple for the iOS and Mac, (the computer we used the application on). At my first browse through iMovie, it all seemed so new and confusing that I thought I would never be able to learn all its features. However once I started to use it, editing small clips, it was easy to get to grips with it and learn all about how it works. Through the course we were set with beginning, small tasks to help us with our camera and editing skills. Through this I was able to develop all the basic skills and learn new ones, which is what we were able to use to create our final film opening project. The iMovie application was good in regards to being able to edit so simply and create an effect upon our piece. I learnt how to add more of an effect upon our opening in regards to either shots being too dark or too slow etc. However iMovie did cause a slight problem with our titling that we initially had planned, but through more research into horror titling, we decided that plain and simple can create a bigger effect.
iMovie is video editing software we used to edit our clips and merge them all together to create our final piece. It is an application sold by Apple for the iOS and Mac, (the computer we used the application on). At my first browse through iMovie, it all seemed so new and confusing that I thought I would never be able to learn all its features. However once I started to use it, editing small clips, it was easy to get to grips with it and learn all about how it works. Through the course we were set with beginning, small tasks to help us with our camera and editing skills. Through this I was able to develop all the basic skills and learn new ones, which is what we were able to use to create our final film opening project. The iMovie application was good in regards to being able to edit so simply and create an effect upon our piece. I learnt how to add more of an effect upon our opening in regards to either shots being too dark or too slow etc. However iMovie did cause a slight problem with our titling that we initially had planned, but through more research into horror titling, we decided that plain and simple can create a bigger effect.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can upload, view and share videos. It is worldwide known and therefore I had great knowledge initially in the way YouTube works. It was great usefulness in helping within our planning and research, as it gave us the chance to view many videos on the different genres we were learning about. The use of researching videos on YouTube led to the influence of my group deciding to do a film opening for the horror genre industry. We also used it to analyse films and see why the director did things in order to portray effectiveness and meanings. A wide range of videos gave us ideas and elements we ourselves could include within our final project. YouTube also was also our source to search for music and sound effects we wanted to incorporate in our final project such as deep breaths, jump scares, subtle music etc. Its option to upload gave us the chance to upload our mini tasks, animatic, test shots and our final film opening onto YouTube. This allowed us to be able to import our videos on our weebly website through YouTube, but at the same time letting the public, including family and friends, watch our projects. Through the course I have learnt that YouTube isn’t only for entertainment, but can be used as an educational tool to help us learn and explore media elements in films. We were able to develop our ideas not just from our initial thoughts, but also from the influence of videos we had access to via YouTube.
YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can upload, view and share videos. It is worldwide known and therefore I had great knowledge initially in the way YouTube works. It was great usefulness in helping within our planning and research, as it gave us the chance to view many videos on the different genres we were learning about. The use of researching videos on YouTube led to the influence of my group deciding to do a film opening for the horror genre industry. We also used it to analyse films and see why the director did things in order to portray effectiveness and meanings. A wide range of videos gave us ideas and elements we ourselves could include within our final project. YouTube also was also our source to search for music and sound effects we wanted to incorporate in our final project such as deep breaths, jump scares, subtle music etc. Its option to upload gave us the chance to upload our mini tasks, animatic, test shots and our final film opening onto YouTube. This allowed us to be able to import our videos on our weebly website through YouTube, but at the same time letting the public, including family and friends, watch our projects. Through the course I have learnt that YouTube isn’t only for entertainment, but can be used as an educational tool to help us learn and explore media elements in films. We were able to develop our ideas not just from our initial thoughts, but also from the influence of videos we had access to via YouTube.
Weebly
Weebly is a web-hosting service that provides its own website builder. We all had to create websites and this is what we used in order to create them. It is a simplistic widget-based site builder, making it easy and simple to use. Within our websites we put our preliminary task, planning, research, final project and evaluations up. Weebly helped us keep track of our progress and gave us a sense of organisation of all our coursework. We started from scratch, from a design template, into building our own full website we made ourselves as a group.
Weebly is a web-hosting service that provides its own website builder. We all had to create websites and this is what we used in order to create them. It is a simplistic widget-based site builder, making it easy and simple to use. Within our websites we put our preliminary task, planning, research, final project and evaluations up. Weebly helped us keep track of our progress and gave us a sense of organisation of all our coursework. We started from scratch, from a design template, into building our own full website we made ourselves as a group.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from this to the full product?
Creative Response - Rap Video:
Written Response:
There are many areas within our production process that I have learnt from back to our preliminary task, to now at our final project. I have learnt great progression in the areas of filming, editing, acting and even teamwork.
I have significantly improved in the use of my camera skills while shooting my mini projects. At first I was very uncomfortable with using the camera and decided to stick to using basic camera skills. However this led to average quality videos and I knew I had to venture out more and explore my camera skills. I also had to learn to become more confident in my acting and dialogue on camera, making my voice sound realistic. I made progression that can be seen within my final film opening and learnt that I shouldn’t stay in the comfort zone, but should expand out and reach full potential.
I feel that another progression element I made, is the idea of working in a team to produce our final project. Initially I thought that we would all be conflicting and wouldn’t work well together, due to the fact my group was full of upbeat people. However we ended up working well together and helping each other to create a successful film opening. I progressed in the idea of being able to listen to others and combine ideas together to create something better, unlike in our preliminary task where we stuck to our first idea and created an average, boring piece.
Comparing back from our preliminary task to our final project, we have progressed greatly in the idea of planning. Initially, us as a group, we would get an idea and rush to start filming without actually thinking clearly how we wanted every shot to be, and how they would relate to each other. This left us with good projects, but with average creativity. However, in our final project we took a lot more time on our planning, knowing that it is essential to. It led us to create a successful piece and know that with good planning, it is easy to get through filming knowing exactly what you want.
In conclusion, there was many areas that I progressed in, leading to the success of our final film opening.
I have significantly improved in the use of my camera skills while shooting my mini projects. At first I was very uncomfortable with using the camera and decided to stick to using basic camera skills. However this led to average quality videos and I knew I had to venture out more and explore my camera skills. I also had to learn to become more confident in my acting and dialogue on camera, making my voice sound realistic. I made progression that can be seen within my final film opening and learnt that I shouldn’t stay in the comfort zone, but should expand out and reach full potential.
I feel that another progression element I made, is the idea of working in a team to produce our final project. Initially I thought that we would all be conflicting and wouldn’t work well together, due to the fact my group was full of upbeat people. However we ended up working well together and helping each other to create a successful film opening. I progressed in the idea of being able to listen to others and combine ideas together to create something better, unlike in our preliminary task where we stuck to our first idea and created an average, boring piece.
Comparing back from our preliminary task to our final project, we have progressed greatly in the idea of planning. Initially, us as a group, we would get an idea and rush to start filming without actually thinking clearly how we wanted every shot to be, and how they would relate to each other. This left us with good projects, but with average creativity. However, in our final project we took a lot more time on our planning, knowing that it is essential to. It led us to create a successful piece and know that with good planning, it is easy to get through filming knowing exactly what you want.
In conclusion, there was many areas that I progressed in, leading to the success of our final film opening.