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

Foundation Production Question 7

From looking back at the task I have used a number of different skills in order to put in hard teamwork into my group. The premliminart task was a lot to organize but because there were three of us (after Cristi left) in a group it meant that we could all focus on a certain part to make sure we could make it the best we could. 

I focused on the camera work and the editing as those were the ones i was good at and most interested in. I offered to do the camera work as I have had a lot of practise in photography skills and making the audience feel a certain way for example through lighting. I did all of the filming for our sequence as i was the most skillfull at that and I used my own personal camera. I chose the use my camera as we learnt from our first cut that our shots wern't so sharp as it would be if we used a better quality camera.

Before and After

As you can see from the picture above that the right hand side picture is a lot clearer and sharper than the left hand side. This is an example of one of the things we have learnt from this task.

When we created the preliminary task we were also told to use Hollywood style editing, this is something I had never done before, plus to make things even harder no one in my group had ever done media studies before so none of us had the experience of editing which made our task slightly harder than anyone elses. However, I didnt see this a a negative as it meant that I was able to learn new skills to make me and my groups production as good as everyone elses. I like the way I edited the beggining of our sequence as my teacher shows me how to overlay and distort the images to give the impression that something isnt right. I played a key part with editing for our sequence as I came up with idea's such as: The begginning where there are many objects that don't seem normal and over lay them on eachother.



Example from our sequence

Example of our editing line

Here are some example from our sequence to show how i edited it and what it looked like in our sequence as well as on the editing line. This shows another thing i have learn from this task as it shows my skills have adapted as the start of this task i didnt know how to edit at all.

 

Working in a team was hard at stages as there were lots of debates on ideas and everyone wanted to share their opinion. I think me and my group did extrememly well with listening to eachother and putting in our individual skills in order to make our opening sequence at a high standard as possible. At the begginning of our task there was four of us but half way through out task one of our team mates (Cristi) decided to leave which put our group in a hard situation as it meant that we would all have to put in extra work to replace the member we lost.

 

Dan and myself working together

Dan Editing

Me and Beth Editing

 My ideas in the editing side

As i said before I did a lot of editing within our work as well as this, i also came up with ideas to show the audience that something isnt quite right in some parts as our genre was horror.

Black and White Shot

Here is a shot out of sequence. I chose to put it in black and white when i edited this part as i wanted to show that the man had a costume on and that would be the sight he could see. As well as this it shows the evil side as i enhanced the brightness and contrast to show Chiaroscuro lighting as you can see on the brick wall that one half is dark and one is light to show the contrast between the two characters in our sequence.
 

The preliminary task also told us we could have a maximum of 30 seconds, ensuring we didn’t overrun this is something we would have to take on board for the final production as we had a set time of 2 minutes. Our final production over ran one minute which meant we had to cut some of the shots and made sure our man on action shots were as tight as possible.We removed any shots that weren't needed or didn't show off any of our skills. The Preliminary task was an exercise designed to test mine and my groups ability to use a camera, and edit in a Hollywood style to create a more professional looking product. I believe we have done this through the way our production has its own style and the way we have edited it really well. In order to achieve a more meaningful reflection from our target audience, we had to learn how to apply our practical skills to take and edit more unusual shots that would scare and create suspense for our audience. 

More Feedback

After discussing over the February half term about what we needed to change, we decided that most of our shots aren't to the standard that we want them to be. For example, the shot of our victim on the sofa babysitting had back lighting behind her head and therefore we are going to re shot many of our shots with a better quality camera and think through all of our shots to perfection.
The camera we will be using is: Cannon G15. We need a better camera so that it will allow us to capture better images. For example for our new ideas we wanted to capture the murderers feet but capture the detail on the ground as well so by having this better camera will allow us to shoot better clips. 





On the 25th of February we got our final cut feedback. This consisted of our teacher giving us a feedback sheet of all the things that have gone well and things that we may need to touch up. 

Teachers comments:

• Mainly cuts and could be more experimental
• Too many wide angle shots and back lighting needs to change
• Editing skills, too many bumpy jump cuts from outside to inside
• The struggle of the victim in the bathroom needs to be more dramatic
• Empty spaces of sound
• Costuming of the mysterious man (apron over his head isn't efficient enough)

Things we are going/need to change:

• Change some angles of our shots for a more dramatic climax
• Change Dan's costuming so the mysterious man has a scary disguise instead of humorous
• Use cross fade transitions in between the shots of outside to inside the house
• Re shoot the babysitting scene for a more dramatic struggle in the bathroom (change of actor)
• Use ambiance sound to fill the empty spaces

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

                  Foundation Production Question 6

 

During the construction of our media product, me and my group made sure we fully knew what was we doing, so do this we had to do a lot of research. We used many nessesary modern technologies and search engines. Example's of what we used was:

• www.google.co.uk
• www.yahoo.co.uk
• www.bing.co.uk

Without these search engines, it would of made our research a struggle and would of been hard to adapt our ideas for our film opening. Using these search engines we wouldn't have got inspiration from other films with the same genre as ours as when we did some reaearch we looked up certain film such as 'Scream' to see what sort of camera shots they used and sounds. Not only that, but we also looked up news reports that would sound good within our product.

 

Youtube was a huge help with out research as it allowed us to look up newsreports and sounds that were copyright free so we knew that we could use it within our work. We started off by looking for scary pieces of music that could help build up the tension within our production. Once we found suitable music we moved on to the news report. Luckily enough we knew what to search for as we knew there was a news report about a man who killed lots of women and we thought that would work perfectly with out story line.

 

 For out production and post production process we had to use Premier Pro Version 6. This helped us allow our production to come together. It also allowed us to:

• Put out shots in together to keep us organised
• Take out bad shots that either didnt work or we didnt like
• Cut down shots to make the product flow better
• Create titles to indicate the examiner who we are and what out product is called
• Add sound effects to our shots
• Add special effects e.g. Slow motion

Premier was a huge help in getting to where we wanted in our product as our film genre was horror. So we needed to make sure that tension was built up right to the very end where something tragic happens. So by using premier we could see a timeline of our shots that helped us keep organised and to see all at one time where we needed to put specific things such as sound, fade to black and titles.

 

Blogger has been also a huge help for me and my group as its allowed us to express our ideas without forgetting them. If we talked about different ideas of maybe different camera shots we would make sure we would put it on the blog so we could show what we was thinking as well as actually doing.

 

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

 Foundation Production Question 5

In our film opening we attracted our audience with the use of editing, sound, cinematography and the story line. We created our own specific style which we got inspiration from the film 'Se7en'. We took inspiration from the distorted images and close up of objects to hint to our audience that our film isn't going to be normal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2gsEI34CE Here is the link to see the opening sequence of the film 'Se7en'.

Our editing compared to Se7en editing

As you can see from this photograph that we have taken inspiration from the film 'Sev7n'. By doing this has allowed us to show off our skills through the editing as you can see in the left hand picture we have overlayed to shots and changed the opacity to give the effect that something isn't quite right. This attracts our audience as people wont want to see a film that doesn't have good camera work or good editing so by focusing on these skills will attract our target audience.On some of our shots we changed the colour correction to a blue/purple tint so that it gave more hints that this story isn't going to be a nice one. The use of colour correction in our film opening can also influence the audience of our film, we chose to use cold colours, such as red and orange to give the film a scary tone to it. Red is normally linked to death so by using these sort of colours can help forebode what will happen within our film.

Another way we have attracted our audience is by the way we have used a middle class setting and characters. As you can see by our opening film that the girl is in casual clothes but not to the extreme you would think she is poor, this allows the audience to relate to this character which will attract young adult females and males. By using a middle class setting and characters links with the Integration and Social Interaction topic of uses and graphication theory. 

Integration and Social Interaction

• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

This links with our opening sequence as our audience has a gaining insight to circumstances such as murder and a break in of a property. It also shows how to partly carry out roles of a baby sitter to show you must take care of a child.

We want to release our film onto DVD so by doing things like the editing and photography to attract our audience will help us with out sells on DVD. As I am a photography student myself i have made me and my group a DVD cover so that we could compare to other DVD's such as saw.

DVD Cover

Saw DVD Cover

As you can see from this picture, I have created a DVD Cover. What I have done is got a picture of our scary man and then blurred it in Photoshop so that it doesnt give away who the evil character is. I blurred it to symbolize the fact that you never really see his face and its unclear who it is. I added the title of our film which is 'Reprisal' and made it in red to represent blood and death which links in within our film. All of these characteristic of this DVD cover link with our genre which will attracts audiences.

Who would be the audience for your product?

Foundation Production Question 4

 

The audience for our groups product would be aimed at elder teenagers, approximately 15+. Young people often enjoy watching horrors as they enjoy the thrill of suspense and love the adrenaline.  However, a too young age would find the film too frightening. Other films that are similar to my media product such as 'Orphan' have an age guidance given of 15, I feel the film would fit into this category and would therefore be accessible by the target audience.
I feel that the film is aimed at both genders. Males stereotypically prefer horror as well as action films over romance films and females would enjoy it because of the excitement around being scared. As both genders would enjoy the product, people in relationships could go and see the film. There is often a romantic scenario of couples helping each other through a horror film so perhaps couples would enjoy the film.

 
Audience Demographic Profile:

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Educational background
• Social class
• Economic status
• Location
• Accessibility

According to the 'Audience Demographic Profile', our film would both attract, and would be suitable for young people, such as older teenagers, and people in their early 20s. Gender does not have a particular relevance in relation to the target audience as horror films do not have a defined gender taint, unlike a romance, which would usually appeal to females, or a sci-fi, which would usually appeal to males. Similarly, in regards to ethnicity, our production does not have a clearly stated targeted ethnic group, which therefore mean that any young person, of any ethnicity, and of either gender would be able to enjoy this film. The audience we would attract would use other types of media such as magazines, television, social networking ect...

 



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

Foundation Production Question 3

In our group we discussed about what sort of media we should choose that would be suitable for our genre. This is because they will have experience in finding a fitting audience.

Choosing what kind of media would disturibute our product was a hard situation as we needed to focus on if they have experience with our genre, if they would be sutitiable and if they had done other films with the same genre as ours. After a long descussion within my group we decided to go with 'Twisted Pictures' as we re searched into them and they focused on horror for the films they have distributed before. Here is a website I looked on to to find out a bit about the company http://www.imdb.com/company/co0137447/ this website told me what films they have done before and what they are working on in the furture. Most of the films they have done contain similiar story lines and effects our opening contains which is why we think Twisted pictures is a good company to distibute our film opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2GHo0Hmx1k - Here is the link of the clip for their company which we will include within our opening sequence.

 

Twisted pictures have done films such as: The Saw films, Dead Silence and Catacombs. Even by the name you can tell they arn't a genre of romance or comedy, which is why we think its a good idea to choose this company to distribute our product. I have seen many of the Saw films so I know that this company has had experience with working with out type of genre. Films like saw contain the same sort of colours and editing techniques that we have to create a scary effect on the audience which is why Twisted Pictures is good for our opening sequence.

 

 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Foundation Production Question 2

Our media product represents the social group of teenagers, it doesn't really differentiate to a specific sex as its aimed at both. The teenage girl in our film opening shows a typical stereotype as she is on her phone texting while watching television which is what most horror movies do as they create a contrast by having something very normal compared to something very strange and out the ordinary. The fact our teenage girl is babysitting (we know this from the text she receives from her mum) shows a stereotype as teenage girls are always babysitting for their neighbours ect... Other films that use this stereotype of teenage girl baby sitting is 'Paranormal activity 3'    

Shot from paranormal activity 3

Shot from our sequence

Here is a picture from Paranormal Activity 3 where the teenage girl is baby sitting, as you can see in the center of the image that there is a ghost like figure behind her and it is clear that she is unaware that this is behind her. This links with our film opening as in the last scene the teenage girl is running herself a bath and the man is standing behind her. The shot we got allows the audience to see that the man is behind her but the teenage girl in the film is unaware that she is there.

Here is another example from the same similar social groups for our sequence. I wanted to show other examples to show how our film opening is similar to other films of the same genre. As you can see by their facial expressions that something isn't quite right, which gives the audience a sense of suspension. This is what sort of reaction we wanted because we wanted out film opening to be quite dark and scary and make the audience on the edge of their seas.