HW: 7279 Key Links

Evaluation

Title Sequence

Initial Audience Research

Preliminary Task

Wilderness Woods

Group 7 Pitch

Animatic

Technical Analysis

Film Openings Research

TW: 7276 Key Links

Evaluation

Title Sequence

Initial Audience Research

Preliminary Task

Wilderness Woods Footage

Group 7 Pitch

Animatic

Technical Analysis

Film Openings Research

FA: 7354 Key Links

Evaluation
 
Title Sequence
 
Initial Audience Research 
 
Pitch 

Preliminary Task  
 
Wilderness Woods Location Reccie 
 
Animatic

Film Openings Research

Technical Analysis

FA: 7354 Evaluation

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

·We have incorporated certain conventional horror film aspects within our film opening sequence, for example the way that the protagonistwas alone and isolated within the locations, increasing the sense of fear and tension, and increasing the exposition of the strong, independent antagonist character.

·Our locations were also similar to traditional horror conventions as we used locations such as woods and a graveyard, which are both commonly used in many horror films. These locations increase the enigma by suggesting how isolated the protagonist is, and how the theme of death is apparent.

·Teenagers are seen to be more vulnerable than adults, so are commonly used within this genre. We reflected this by having our protagonist to be around the age of 16. Female teenagers are also seen to be more helpless and defenceless than males, so our protagonist is also female, meaning the audience may be able to sympathize with her more easily.

·Anotherconventional aspect of horrorfilms we included was having our antagonist wear a mask, disguising his face to make him seem more inhumane and anonymous. This is shown in many horror films, including The Strangers (Bertino, 2008).
 

 

·Some of our antagonist conventions included POV shots and CU shots of just his feet for example. This also creates less exposition of this character which is also characteristic of horror films.


 

·Equilibrium was created in our opening sequence by having a montage of short clips of our protagonist in her house doing day-to-day activities which implies verisimilitude. We wanted to create a realistic setting of the scene but also a way to build tension within the sequence.

·We researched titles and especially liked the titles in Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009) and Panic Room (Fincher, 2002), as the titles interacted with the action on screen, the soundtrack and also the diegetic sound, which made the sequence more exciting.
 

 
 ·The soundtrack we created was conventional of traditional horror, as we used traditional methods of distinguishing the killer from any other characters by using a sound motif created on Cubase software. The sound used for him highlights his sinister profile and the mysteriousness that surrounds him, and creates a distinct iconography. We repeated this sound when he was shown on screen, which emphasises his character exposition. In addition to this, the soundtrack we used included a simple ambient soundscape with added individual effects such as a high screeching and a low crescendo. This soundtrack enables tension and suspension to be built. 

 

 

 

 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

·In our film opening sequence, the protagonist is female, and the antagonist is male, conforming to traditional horror conventions. Our protagonist is portrayed positively as she is shown to be a normal teenage girl in contemporary society. She represents stereotypical female characteristics by becoming nervous when she hears suspicious noises, again seeming vulnerable.

·However, she could be seen as challenging social norms in the way that she goes out into the woods by herself, but this is a convention of horror that occurs in many films, and is used to build tension.

·This is emphasised by mise-en-scene; being the only person in a large woodland area during the day.

·This solitude is similar to that in Silence Of The Lambs (Demme, 1991), where in the opening sequence, the protagonist is running alone in the woods with an eerie soundtrack in the background. We chose to enhance this seclusion also with a tense, dramatic but unnerving soundtrack featuring instruments such as the cello, suggesting the genre from the very beginning.

·Our antagonist is male, but age, race, social status and any other typical conventions of males are unknown to the audience as his identity is completely concealed by his mask. He is portrayed negatively as this disguise covers most of his humanity, which makes him seem more threatening.

·The costumes in our opening sequence follow traditional conventions of horror, as male ‘baddies’ tend to be dressed in dark colours which portrays them as being aggressive, frightening and to almost be seen without colour, which connotes the dark personality of a person. We made our antagonist seem as threatening as possible by making him stand very still in all of his shots except ones where he was following the protagonist, making him seem fully focussed on stalking the teenage girl. We also increased this sense of fear by creating a sound motif for the antagonist which consisted of a disturbing music box whirring and an atmospheric child’s laugh, along with heavy breathing and a heartbeat.

·Our film opening sequence reinforces traditional horror conventions of disguised male antagonists. This is because each film which also includes this ideology is very successful at startling the audience, due to the fact that their humanity is unrecognisable, such as The Strangers (Bertino, 2008).

 

·It also reinforces the ‘damsel in distress’ stock character as the protagonist is seen to become frantic and worried, but also remaining to have a little courage as she carries on her journey to the graveyard. This use of females represents a residual ideology which challenges dominant ideologies of gender in society.

 

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

·Once a film is completed (filming and editing), the production company need to secure a distribution agreement offering a cut of the box office/DVD sales. It will then be up to distributors to invest in designing the marketing (posters, trailers etc.), print copies of the film and distribute copies to cinemas. They must clearly recognise the target audience and make a decision on how much to invest in promoting it (usually around 50% of the whole budget of large scale films will be for marketing purposes), whether to go nationwide to all of the big multiplexes, for example Odeon, or to target a niche art house cinema audience.

 

 

·As a group, we would like a British independent distribution company to distribute our film, as they contend with low budget films, so we chose Vertigo Films. This suits our budget of £50,000, and they will distribute our film to independent cinemas, such as Curzon, and to local theatres to be screened, for example The Assembly Halls and Trinity, both in the centre of Tunbridge Wells. This is much like the platform release of Brick (Johnson, 2005) However, to appeal to a wider mainstream audience, we would launch a viral marketing campaign online, for example creating social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter. We would also continue to show our opening preview on Youtube to create buzzamong our target market, and then we would distribute it online so it is fully available for our audience to watch.

 

 

4/5. Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

• As ‘Snatched’ is a horror film, our target audience is a typical horror audience aged between 15 and 24. Despite members of the core audience traditionally being predominantly male, we think that our film will appeal to both genders.

• Before planning our opening, we agreed that our target audience would be the core ‘horror’ audience in terms of age, with a focus on appealing to both genders. However, to ensure that this was accurate, we surveyed a range of people both in and out of our original target audience to see if it would appeal to them, including different ages and genders.

• From this, we found that the idea and initial concepts of our film did appeal to our audience. We also got feedback on ideas for titles and themes to see if they appealed to our target audience too.

• Many horror films feature a male antagonist, and therefore appeals to a largely male audience. However, when we surveyed our target audience before making our opening, we found that the majority of our respondents didn’t mind which gender the character was. We then decided to support the stereotypical horror convention of having a weaker, vulnerable female protagonist and an older male as the antagonist.

• We felt that as the protagonist in our opening sequence is female, it would seem appealing to a female audience, and at the same time as it has a typical horror plot, it will target itself to a larger male audience as well.

• Also due to the fact that our protagonist is a teenage female, our target audience of 15-24 year olds would be able to relate to this character. In our opening, the audience is positioned with the female protagonist as we felt that our target audience would be able to identify with her due to her age and also the recognisable mise-en-scene, for example the costume that she wears.

• We presented the protagonist as being in a vulnerable state and being exposed to dangers and threats, and as the rest of the narrative in the opening sequence follows this character, the storyline would appeal to both males and females.

Audience research prior to 'Greenlight'

• Our initial audience research conducted before the pitch, sent out via surveymonkey.com, reflected the fact that our target audience was the core horror audience as 95.9% of our respondents were aged between 15 and 24. This affected our decision to create a film which would have a 15 certificate, so that none of our target audience would be excluded from viewing it.

• This link is to our pitch which was mainly based on our initial audience research, and also to the pitch's feedback from our teachers and peers.

Pitch

Pitch Feedback

 

• Furthermore, our results influenced our choice of genre; initially we had expressed preference to make a combination of horror/thriller film. The fact that our respondents were predominantly from the core horror audience and wanted to see a horror film rather than a thriller reinforced our decision to create this for them, and that it would be a successful choice.

• The fact that we got our target audience’s approval for our initial ideas gave us more confidence in our work, as we felt we could deliver something that they wanted to see.

• We also consulted our target audience about how much of the killer’s face should be visible in a horror genre of film, and found that 79.2% of the respondents preferred to not be able to see the killer’s face properly as they thought that it would make the horror genre more effective.

• Based on our initial research and also secondary research, we decided that our film should feature a young female character and an older male character, as these would be most relatable to our target audience, which was something considered to be quite important by the respondents in our survey.

• We also decided that we would use realistic locations which would also be relatable to them, such as the house and the woods.

• We were pleased that people considered having an interesting plot and also a climax at the end of our opening sequence to be an important aspect, as this made it more achievable for us to create something that they would all enjoy.

• The soundtrack and sound motifs to represent characters were also considered to be quite important from the survey results, so for this reason, we incorporated a tense soundtrack that ‘built up’ to a climax at the end of the opening sequence. We also used a sound motif to distinguish the killer when he or something representing him came onto the screen.

Feedback on Rough Cut
The rough cut was submitted on the 11th March, and shown to peers and teachers to gain vital feedback for our group to improve our film opening sequence. At this point in the production the aspects of the opening we were looking at were:

• continuity
• variety of shots
• 180 degree rule
• action codes
• drawing in the audience
• titles
• sound and Dialogue

The positive feedback we recieved was:

• good use of titles and the way they worked within the shots
• good continuity editing
• creative shot ideas, using varying distances and angles

However some negative feedback and parts of the production we need to work on were:

• too many long shots
• some shots not relevant
• too long
• some editing was too sharp
• some shots were in the wrong order
• requires more CU's of characters
• not enough action

We made sure to respond to our constructive feedback and harness our strengths. We responded to our feedback adding in a scene before which adds some depth to the plot as well as making the whole opening more interesting. We also shortened the shots of the protagonist walking as we realised we could focus on more action orientated shots.

Screening to Audience

• We showed the opening of ‘Snatched’ at a screening for our class, and issued them with questionnaires on the effectiveness of various aspects of the opening, such as understanding of the narrative, effectiveness of the titles, how successful the soundtrack and visuals were, and general opinions of the film opening sequence. This allowed us to gain in-depth responses which could be easily analysed, therefore giving us feedback on how successful and effective our production was in general.

• Our results assured us that we had successfully engaged with the target audience, and that we had created a production that everyone enjoyed and were interested in.

 

• We feel that we have successfully reassured the dominant horror ideology by creating the stereotypical scene of a young, vulnerable girl being stalked by an older, fierce male, with the idea being accepted by the audience.

• This pie chart shows that the aspect our target audience would improve most was the repetitiveness of the child’s laughter when the antagonist appeared on screen, as some viewers thought that the sound motif occurred too often. Other aspects that some people wanted improving included less walking of the protagonist and more action, and to have a crescendo on the end shot such as a scream.

• We were very pleased with the reaction to our soundtrack as we created this ourselves on Cubase software. This was one of the aspects of our film opening sequence that we personally considered to be a strong point. Creating our soundtrack ourselves allowed us to combine the isolation of the protagonist, and the fear of the antagonist too which appealed to our core audience of 15-24 year olds. Other aspects of our production that our audience particularly liked included props such as the lollipop, knife, blood and the mask. As well as this, our respondents also found the killer character engaging to watch on screen.

• We were also very pleased with the response to our window shot as this was one of the shots that we considered to be one of our best shots and of a high standard. Our respondents said that they found this shot to be one of the most frightening, and that it built up the precise amount of tension needed in our opening sequence.

• We asked the respondents if they understood the meaning of the opening sequence, to which over half of them did they did understand. Other people had said that they didn’t understand the meaning; however some of them had written that they would watch the rest of the film to then understand.

• Our locations were chosen because our audience may have been able to relate to them, as well as ease of access when we needed to film. The deserted woods and graveyard is traditionally associated with the horror genre which was another reason we chose to film there, as we wanted to comply with dominant horror ideologies.

• We contrasted this with the domesticity of the house scenes, which would also be relevant to our audience, and encouraged them to identify with the female character.

• In general, the responses suggest that our audience appreciated the clues given about the nature of both characters, and that the sequence created a sense of enigma. Because of this, we feel satisfied to the extent that we have completed a successful project that conveys the correct amount of horror needed for the horror genre.

 

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

• As a group, we used ICT continuously throughout our project, and in order to work successfully as a group, we used a blog to collaboratively present our ideas and concepts of our project in the planning and makingprocess. The blog website allowed us to personalise our page, giving it a generic feel by choosing aspects such as font and background. We uploaded secondary researchof other horror film openings which we could draw inspiration from through information, stills and embedded clips, and our progress throughout the project. We posted our preliminary task video and also a short sequence we created from our location reccie to Wilderness Woods, which were both uploaded to Youtube to present this progress. We also uploaded regular concept development posts and update posts which shows our progress throughout the process, and allowed us to share our ideas.

• The way that both of these videos were on Youtube was beneficial for us as we were able to send the links to others via web 2.0, through emails and also by social networking sites such as Facebook, which allowed us to receive feedback which would be vital in improving our final sequence. As well as using an online survey (surveymonkey.com) to gain feedback, we also used Prezi to upload our pitch onto the blog to present our ideas and intentions.

• The use of digital camcorders allowed us to playback some of our footage and look for ways to improve it whilst in the location, so we could re-shoot straight away if necessary in order to improve it. In our production, we used a Fujifilm Finepix S4400.

• When filming, we used a tripod for the majority of our shots so that they looked more professional, as this meant that the camerawas steady. It also allowed us to pan and tilt easily, while keeping a smooth motion. We did not have access to a track, so we had to do this using steadicam, which became a minor issue for us as this motion was unstable and slightly shaky.

• Our opening sequence used few special effects, mainly just transitions, for example, dip to black and soft glow which we created on Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0, as we wanted to make it as realistic as possible so that the audience could possibly relate to or even just sympathise with the protagonist. We also used colour balance to edit some of the shots so that they matched each other if the lighting had changed at the location, but also to make the shot appear darker and gloomier.

• There were some limitations whilst editing, as the software, Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0, is somewhat basic in terms of effects, so complex special effects had to be made using Aftereffects software. In Aftereffects, we created 3D titles that could not be created on Premiere.

 

• Other limitations were due to lighting problems; when filming in the graveyard, the light changed rapidly and the skies became dark and gloomy as the day grew towards nightfall. This meant we had to go back to the location on another day to finish our filming, which ‘set us back’ a few days in our schedule as we thought we were going to have finished filmingby that point.

• Our production process was not overly different to that of a real film production, as we went through the same process of shooting until we were sure that the footage we had captured was of a high enough quality. During the editing, we selected the footage that would work best in our sequence and in which specific order, and continued to cut the clips to the right length and speed. Once we had edited a proportion of our opening sequence, we showed this rough cut to our peers and teachers, in order to gain feedback on our progress, similar to what the editor and directorwould do in a real film production. After taking into consideration their comments and suggestions, we implemented any changes we deemed to be necessary, and then created the final cut, ready to be exported.


• Once we had finished the finished opening sequence, we exportedit onto the D-drive as an mpeg file, and the copied it onto an external hard drive, ready to be distributed to the makeshift cinema that was put together for exhibition.

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

Question 7