Question 7

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

As a group I feel we have learnt mostly about research and its importance after the preliminary task that we did in school. This gave us a greater understanding concerning who we were catering to in our production and how we could best suit it towards them. We learnt to specify who we were targeting to narrow down the many different groups that consumed film of the horror genre. We effectively did research on the internet of the genre groups, and created a survey to accommodate our target audience. This taught us how to get qualitative information we needed to shape the style of our opening and its structure. When looking at the aspect of location we independently decided upon a suitable location to shoot our opening. In order to do this we took into consideration the convenience of being able to access the various areas, as well as the flexibility we would have to express ourselves with various planned shots and angles. This gave us our most suitable location in the least amount of time.

In the filming process, we were able to gather a lot of footage when filming which allowed us to have no re-filming needs. This however, made construction of our film more difficult when it came down to editing. We needed to be able to gauge how long each shot and scene needed to be, and it made this process all the more harder. In the end when we cut our footage to a reasonable length, we did so because, we opted to go for diverse shots and angles to include in the opening. These decisions showed what we had acquired in skills over the course of the project because it meant we were able to apply our research and construction together to produce the correct result.

On the whole I think that the skills we have learnt were not the only things necessary to completing the project, but they aided us in the presentation and quality of our work in general. I feel that my group learnt that they needed to be able to utilise the technology as best possible in order to get the most out the hard work we had done.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

For our group to be able to construct our product, we were in need of experience from varying software that we were not familiar with. During this process we have learnt a lot about how they work and their capabilities.

The first piece of software we needed to be able to use well was blogger. This was one of the easiest of the technologies to pick up, because of it's clear and simplistic mechanisms. The technology was predominantly used for our coursework and was consistently used throughout the course of our project. From the program I was able to learn how to make my own unique posts and display them on my blog. This opened up a range of possibilities from embedding videos, to photos and links that could be utilised for one post. We could also include 'Prezzi' which was a different form of presentation we could put in a post for our blogs. This made the coursework easier to organise, as there was a means by which to store it efficiently.

To prepare for filming we were set a preliminary task where we filmed using an I Pad. This experience from the Preliminary task, made us aware of different frames and angles that were taken in consideration when shooting. Though these weren't the cameras we would use for our own finished openings, they provided a unique insight on camera work When shooting our actual finished opening, we found that though the camera was similar hardware to the I pad, its practicalities varied. An example of this for the I pad is that we often had issues with lighting, unless we were in natural light. For the camera our group used we didn't encounter these problems, however there were some audio related difficulties, particularly when the sound was too near or far.

For our editing process, we made first used 'I movie', which is an editing software exclusive to the Macs we were using. It was easy to use when it came to the trimming of our preliminary task, and chopping it down to a suitable length. The experience was probably made easier, because we had a specific set of shots to use. With that set in mind, using  the premiere pro software, editing was slightly more complex because there were more functions within. These included transitions and titles that could be used for our opening. The program also had a different format which only added to the complication of effectively operating it.

 The internet proved reliable to our group when it came to our research into opening titles, sound, and editing. It was an essential tool by which we could go in further depth of the in learning about the different skills needed for our finished opening. The individual sites used most were Google and YouTube. Google served as a search engine to access the websites that were vital to progress in research, e.g 'Art of the title', or 'free sound' to layer for sound editing purposes. Youtube provided some evidence and information in the formatting of videos which we could embed in our blogs. e.g How to make a good 60 second pitch.
 

Question 4 &5: Who would be the audience for your media product? and How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2: How does our media product represent particular social groups?

Gender
Our production contained both male and female lead characters. However this being said they do seem to stick to there stereotypes. This being that within the opening the main lead character (called Ben) is killed with in the first couple of scenes. Leaving the girl to run off and 'try' and hide, This however does end well as this is another stereotype in horror films that at least one female character gets killed.

Race
We did have a black cast member who was used as the murder in the coat in one of the final scenes, but none of his skin is showing the the audience do not get to see this. Having a black murdered challenges the stereotype that the black character always gets killed first when in this sense, he is the one doing the killing.

Age
All of our actors were around the same age, give or take a few months. They were all around 16/17 which is also the age of our targeted audience. for the audience; this makes it feel like there know how our characters better than if they were in a older age range such as 45+. We also played on the stereotype that they were in a relationship. In most horror movies the couple die first. One of the most note worthy films to show a scene like this is the cult classic Friday the 13th (1980) in which in the opening sequence the couple die first. 

 

Evaluation: Question 1

Question 1: In what ways does your Film Opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media products?

In our opening we decided to begin with a point of view shot in, that focused on a tent. There is only diegetic sound played during this shot, which mostly consists of the wildlife in the forest.
This creates a neutral tone and sets the premise of the opening being a typical camping scene. We made use of this convention, which can ambiguously be seen to follow the horror genre. The horror film openings we reviewed in class, most notably Dead Wood are shown to have a similar opening scene. It begins with an establishing shot of the location with diegetic ambient sound only. We implemented this effect, as it would cause some

misperception in the tone of film that is being produced. This convention is developed when we decided to use this common style of opening to create a fear for the audience. Furthermore the audience developed the fear of uncertainty via the casual mood set. 

Another way in which our media product uses a convention of real media is shown by the way we constructed our characters. In our opening we cast a teenage couple, that had been camping. During the opening we were sure to display the male assertiveness often portrayed in horror films. In this case the male character proactively and independently goes out to collect the fire wood, and the female girlfriend willingly complies.This takes root from one of the three horror film openings we reviewed in class, called 'Dead Mary'. It is a well known convention that we tried to take further and reflect, through the height of camera angles when addressing the victims. We were sure keep the early shots of the male character at eye level, in order to reinstate he is in no danger at certain points of the opening. Later on when the male character is attacked, we were sure to keep in tandem with real media products and reduce his viewing space drastically, thereby removing his power drastically.

The opening titles of Se7en are an example of a horror film with titles that quite obviously abide to the horror conventions. It uses its awkward and peculiar font to alienate the audience, and make sure that it provides no familiarity or becomes relatable in any way. We decided to go against this form of media presentation by making our titles a lot more functional, however while it is seemed rather ordinary we tweaked it slightly and made the font noticeably thinner. This gave it an off look, that pandered well to the audiences of this film. It is almost alluding to the tone with the opening of our film, that played on the audiences security on what would happen in the film.

Construction: Finished film opening

Preliminary Task