Evaluation

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

The general conventions of Horror films are that the lighting is low key in a lot of horror films when the action happens this creates suspense and tension for the audience.Typically diagetic sound usually includes talking, screaming, foot steps, trees rustling this all ties in with the lighting because all these diagetic sounds create suspense and tension for the audience. The non- diagetic sound in horror films is the echo's, the eerie music, creepy creeks in the floor and other things. More conventions is the location most horror films are either set in a creepy external environment (woods, fields or parks) or the other is low key creepy internal environment (houses, abandoned factories or cellars etc), from the location conventions of horror it sets the mood and tone of the scene and the film. The costumes in horror films are generally recognisable for example the killer in films wears dark clothes so that you cannot see the killers face and the victim is generally a good looking young female victim so that the audience feels sorry for her and they do not know who the killer is. Editing in horror films is generally slow paced and then some invisible cuts and fased paced cuts because it creates suspense when it slows down and then when it speeds up the audience is ready for it and then they jump when it actually happens. Props also in horror films are used to create suspense the general convention of a weapon in horror films is usually blunt items or things like knives. Conventions of the binary oppositions are things like 'good vs evil' and 'killer and victims', and we expect to see there in Horror films. We would expect to see the title after the credits at the beginning of the films opening but all the credits and the title should come after the production logo. The enigma's created also are conventions in them selves because they create questions that the audience want the film to be answered before the end and the questions answered are asked at the beginning.

This is a classic example of all the above conventions because it has all of them on:



All of these conventions work together to create suspense and tension for the audience so that they enjoy the film and the thrill of it, they also know whats coming so that theyexpect it and then the director can suprise the audience by making nothing happen then a sudden jump factor comes into it.

We have used, developed and challenged a range of these conventions.

The conventions we used that were kept the same as other horror film conventions:

·         The weapon we used in the production was a hammer this sticks to the convention of weapons in horror films because in some films they use hammers as the killing weapon. The audience knows what will happen with the hammer they just do not know when so it creates suspense.

This is the same as Horror film conventions because a lot of Horror film's use blunt weapons or things like knives for example in scream the weapon of choice is a knife, for example:

·         The young female victim, creates sympathy because she is young attractive and she has a younger sister or a daughter it is not really made very clear but all we can tell is that the young girl will not be looked after because her sister/ mother has been taken.

Horror films use attractive young actors because it draws male and female audiences, for example in the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre Jessica Biel is the victim:

·         The point of view shot when the hammer hits the woman, in the background the tree branches and the tops of houses these shots are used quite regularly in horror films because it is a good way to show the audience what is coming to the victim.

In the film Psycho the point of view shot is similar because it show her seeing the knife, for example:

·         The setting in the cellar is very popular in horror films because it has low key lighting which makes the audience weary of what will happen next.

Just like in the film The Messengers where the ghosts are in the basement/ cellar and that is where a lot of the film is set, for example:

·         In the production, gender is represented as males being dominant, in charge and powerful. Whereas the woman is represented as being weak, useless and not at all in charge. This is  a common convention of horror because of the way the camera is used the males are seen in low angle shots making them look big and the females in high angleshots  because it shows how small they are in the production.

·         Non- diagetic sound is used in horror films for example the music is mostly eerie and scary we have used eerie and scary music, the sound effects used such as echo's are there to create suspense and a sense of the film being twisted

·         The lighting is low key because it is a horror film, we used this because the connatation of low key lighting is that something bad is going to happen and that the mood has changed, the audience automatically knows that either something bad is going to happen or that they are about to be spooked.

In the film saw a lot of the film is set in low key lighting because it is a common convention, for example:

·         The young woman is wearing everyday clothing so that the audience knows that she is the victim in all of this and it signifies that she has no idea this man wants to take her, he sister/ daughter is wearing her pj's signifying that she is young at that it is her bed time soon. Showing the audience that she is vulnerable and they feel sympathy for her and the little girl when the young woman is taken.

·         The enigma's created are questions like:

·         Who is the hooded man?

·         Why is he doing this?

·         What relation is she to the little girl?

·         What are the other dead bodies doing there?

·         Where is the girl and the bodies being kept?

All these questions are answered throughout the film but are made at the beggining. These are conventions because they are sticking to the convention  of horror.

Developed conventions in our production basically means that the normal things we expect to see in a horror have been changed slightly but not completly different to the conventions, here are some we used:

·         The time we have set ours at is dusk and the significance of this is that horror films are set at night normally and we have used the opportunity to challenge the idea of horror's being set at night.

In the film Nightmare On Elm Street the setting is at night' for example:

·         The use of titles and credits in our production has been developed because the original way to set out film titles and credits is to have the title after the credits but we have decided to put the title befor the credits and have the logo before all of this, this. This is good because the audience will not be expecting it so they will have a change of orders in which they watch it which will automatically get them involved and interested.

Whereas in Most film's the order of titles is this:

·         The costumes that the male killer is wearing has been developed because when you watch a horror, the killer/ murderer is wearing dark, robbery clothes but in our production we have made the killer look everyday so that he fits in to the everyday street that he walked up to start with. The man is wearing everyday clothes that also are dark and mysterious so that the audience still thinks who is this. The idea of the hood is to keep the identity of the killer mysterious because if the audience knows who it is right away it is not as scary.

Whereas in most Horror films the killer wears costumes we recognise or that we can tell that they are the killer for example Jason Voorhees from the film Friday The 13th, for example:

We also challenged conventions in our production. This means that the conventions have been completly changed, here are examples of what conventions we challenged in our production:

·         The narrative in our production is non- linear but in most horror films the narrative is linear this is because the idea of horror films are not to confuse the audience but to make sense so that  they can guess who the killer is etc. The use of non- linear narrative in our production makes it unique also because only a handful of horror's have used non- linear narrative.We know it is non- linear because the 2 minute film opening is the end of the film and then after the 2 minutes it shows you why this is happening, so it goes back in time.

·         The fact that the scene was set on the side of the busy road when in alot of horror films thay are set in a urban quite environment because then the audience thinks that the killer will get away with it so that he/ she can keep killing and not get away with it until the end of the film.

Whereas in horror films it is set in a rural or empty area, for example in Sleepy Hollow the film is set in a small village away from city's and in a creepy wood:

In my conclusion I think that the conventions of horror films have been developed and challenged well in my production because the idea of horror being predictable and samey is boring and horror would just get boring but when conventions are developed and challenged especially in our production, it makes the idea of horror much more enjoyable.

Question 2

Question 3

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

A film distributor is a company responsible for releasing films to the public, theatrically or for home viewing: (DVD, Blue ray, video or download.) They make it possible for the audience to view the production this inolves making sure that there is enough film copies for the sales also involves the shipping of the DVD's etc around the world. For example 20th century fox is a film studio with its its own distributor arm.

Our film production company is a small studio therefore it would need a small independent film distributor to distribute the film locally to independent small cinema's and film festivals. For our production dogwoof would be a good film distributor to use because they charge a small monthley fee to distribute films for companies, they use film festivals to show of the film they are trying to promote.

 I think our production would be able to make it from the film festival to the small screen cinema's and then after that to DVD and then in the main cinema screening. I think it would be far better if it was to be distributed by a film distributor such as dogwoof because it would stand a better chance starting off small and working its way up than just being metoforically 'chucked in at the deep end; with a big budget when it may not appeal to mass audience.

In 1999 The Blair Witch Project was made for $60,000 and turned over a sum of $249 million worldwide, this is a great example of low budget films becoming a huge success because this film became one of the most well known films worldwide. The reason The Blair Witch Project made it was because it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. After this Steven Rothenberg came up with a strategy to help distibute the film which was to suggest that the film was recorded of real events, this helped the film look less budget because it looked like it was real, this strategy paid of and The Blair Witch Project, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time.

Our production would start of at an independent art house cinema which is an independent screaning venue aimed at the niche market whilst ours is aimed at the mass market, the film production 'Something In The Way' we hope will hopefully go from the independent art house cinema to a multiplex for example: VUE, UGC and Odeon, because I think that the film is good enough to get there.

I think that because our film is a Horror and the target audience is men and women aged between 18 and 35. I think that our film production should be marketed on sites such as facebook because a wide range of people on facebook meet the demagraphic. Youtube is also a good example of where the product should be targeted because people go on it to see what is there and then they see the trailer and want to watch the film. Aswell as Youtube trailers we could put interesting video clips onto Youtube to advertise our production this is called viral advertising and it helps because if someone becomes interested then they can view our production when it comes out. lots of film trailers are on youtube such as Jeepers Creepers movie trailer:

I also believe that our production should meet a global audience because it has the quality and the proffesionalism about it to allow this and to do this and let the whole world see it I would put in on websites that anyone in the world can access and watch the production, websites such as http://www.firstlightmovies.com/ because this website helps and fund young movie makers and put there films on so that they can be viewed globally. I also think that it would spread via word of mouth because if the viewer likes it and they tell other people that it is good then they will view it and so on. By this I can tell if my production is good or bad I think it would be mostly good.

Question 4

Evaluation 4 for media

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Question 5

Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

To start with we produced a questionairre for our target audience so that we knew what sort of things made them watch Horror films.This helped us decide on what to include in our production. The questions we asked were clear and although there were fewer questions compared to other questionairres, we believed that it gave us enough information to generate an effective product that would attract the target audience. Before we did the questionairre we looked at the target audience research by The UK Film Council (as seen in question 4). The reason we looked at the target audience was so that we knew what sort of people to interview and question. We needed to consider age, class and gender to ensure we appealed to the target audience.

We asked 4 questions that were deliberatly asked as open to get fair, detailed and qualitative results:

Question 1 was, 'Do you enjoy watching Horror films?' The feedback we got was positive from both the male and the female. This was good because the target audience we had looked at previously was correct about the gender and age because they were the first 2 people we asked and we knew that this meant  that we would defiantaly aim our production at males from the age of 18 and females below the age of 35.

Question 2 was, 'Why do you enjoy watching Horror films?' The response we got for this question was that the male enjoyed watching something other than tv and the female liked to snuggle up and feel safe. This showed us that we should have a fear factor and a jump factor because people like to snuggle up and feel safe. The males feedback was good because we knew that people do not like to be bored therefore will watch Horror films to keep their mind occupied because Horror films allow the audience to wonder who the killer is.

Question 3 was, 'Whats your favourite Horror film and why?' We had two different answers in this question the males was The Ring because it had the fear factor and with that came dislike but by the end i grew to like it. By this response we were certain that the product had to have a fear factor for two reasons the response to that answer and the response by the female in question 2. The female said Saw because it was had gore and it made her feel safe when the people nearly get free. So by the womans response we knew we needed some teasers for the audience so further on in the production the woman may try to escape and therefore the audience will feel like 'yes she is escaping' and then he catches her again.

Question 4 was, 'Whats your favourite sub- genre of a Horror?' Both the questiones said psychological Horror because it makes there mind work because of the enigma's created, so we have incorporated that into our production having it being silent and with no diaglogue, with the hitting and the cellar it makes the audience think about what has happened and creates enigma's that must be answered.

An example of a Psychological Horror film is Lake Dead:

While we did the questionairre we noticed that the best selling film of that period which was the last quarter of 2011 (october to december)  was a horror so we knew we had the right film genre, the best selling film in the last quarter in 2011 was paranormal activity 3. The correct target audience and the right research before we started to film our production.

All the research mentioned above helped us with the use of shots we used the lighting used and the editing we had chosen to use because they all make the points I made above. For example the fear factor and the slow editing helps with that because if the editing is slow then it will create suspense and the audience will have their heart rate raised in anticipation of an event. When we were filming we took the target audience questionairre and we made sure our shots met the needs of the target audience because then if the audience is happy they will stay and watch the whole production. We attracted our audience by using the shots they wanted there and using conventions they like to see in other horror films. For example the shot of the hammer being raised is very similar to Psycho because it is a point of view shot of the woman seeing the hammer come down to her and in Psycho we see a very similar shot and that worked on the audience of that film. All together we have addressed and attracted our audience by using shots they know about and would expect to see in the horror genre. For example we stuck to conventions of young attractive actors the age of them and the style of clothing they are wearing all of these attract and address the audience because it works in alot of Horror films so why change the conventions of them.

We would promote our production on websites such as Facebook because it is a very easy form of word of mouth, Youtube because then people can see a snipet of our production therefore tempting them to watch it and websites such as www.firstlightmovies.com because it is websites like that, that will help a new movie launch into the film industry and from there it will hit the multiplex cinemas faster.

Question 6

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

During our project we went through 3 main stages. First was planning and research. We used the macs to do our research. We looked at a few websites for the target audience we did and they were: the UK Film Council because they have all the information on their website to determine the target audience, the BBFC because we needed to classify our film for the appropriate age.

We looked at the Box Office Mojo because we wanted to know what genre of film was selling the best at that point in time. Interestingley we noticed that Horror was selling the best at that time with Paranormal Activity 3.

I also used Youtube for the videos I have embeded into my blog because I think that when looking at someones analysis it is good to have the video to reference.

I used google images for the images I have used so that I can support my points in the analyses.

I have used Blogger to put all my points accross because it is a good and easy way of analysing and embedding video, images and audio.

We did our preliminary task with the PANASONIC NV-GS500 it has a good quality shot and produced a good finished product. The camera's main properties are that you can change the focus on some shots as we did in the cellar when she is waking up. We were able to change the aspect ratio, zooms and what type of shot it was the camera helped with the project because of all of these factors.

I used a website called slideshare to embed slideshows so that instead of just plain text there is a wide variety of written pieces on my blog i used it in the analysis of the hangover, ideas and I used it in my evaluation.

During the construction of the actual product the technologies that helped me construct my final product were:

• The PANASONIC NV-GS500 because we used it for the whole process and we did not use any other equipment to film with along with the camera, I used a tripod to set the camera on to give the project a steady finish, along with these I used a mike to achieve the best sound possible so that when it came to editing we would only have to foley a few parts of the audio.
• The software I used when the filming was done to edit the project together was Abode Premier Pro this is a editing software that allows you to create films and import video clips that you have filmed and then allows you to edit them together without any hassle.
• We used the macs to use Premier Pro these were good because they are all very reliable and fast to use. We have used the sound booth to record the scream so that we got the best scream possible, and that the effects sounded good.
• During my evaluation I have used Microsoft Word because I needed to write my work up this was good because it is easy to use and would be good to write up anything that needed to be written up when coming to scripting, which is also where we used microsoft Word.
• I used my acer laptop to write up my evaluation question answers because then I could take it home to finish and it is easier to use than the macs because it is small light and compact. I have used Slideshare during my evaluation so that I can show the variation of media used in my project also I will be using Youtube and Google search engine to find the images and videos so that I can embed them so I am helping my points come across to anyone who may be looking at my blog. 
• I had never used blogger or digital cameras before so all of this has been a learning curve, because I have learnt the stuff from fresh and adapted to the usage of this equipment easily.

All in all I think that the programs, software and hardware we have used are easy to use because i have learnt fast and need to work more than some other people because i have never used it before.