EVALUATION

Evaluation

Evaluation one- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Two- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our Opening Title Sequence doesn't really focus on any social group in particular, but our target audience for the film however is between 15-35, which is quite a big age range considering our film is a Horror-Thriller Genre. 

When brainstorming ideas about our opening title sequence we wanted to use or challenge the typical character conventions used in horror-Thriller Films, for example in many films the typical 'Bad Guy' Character is a tall, dark, frightening male, which would normally not be dressed in casual clothes as the 'bad guy' would need to stand out in the opening title sequence. Although In our film we wanted to challenge the typical character conventions by having our 'Bad Guy' Character portrayed as a female dressed in casual clothes so that the audience will be intrigued to watch more. By our Characters we can begin to develop a social group, like working class as the 'Bad guy' is  dressed in the non-typical casual clothes, giving the audience the constant question about the 'Bad guy' Character within the first 2 minutes. 
For our opening sequence we decided that Lauren Gavagan would fit the part as the 'bad guy' as she wouldn't be seen as the typical bad character, Which is exactly what we wanted.

Our Age range for our film is large because our Horror-Thriller sequence doesn't have a specific target age, although as it is a Horror we decided that it should be at least over the age of 15, because we used People just above that age range we thought it would appeal more to them. There are many target audiences for films, for example Teenagers between the ages of 13-17, and young adults between the age of 18-25 and then adult between 26-35, But as our target age is between 15-35 we aimed our film to appeal to anyone of any age and any Social Group.

Evaluation Three- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As My opening title sequence and film is represented as the genre Horror-Thriller I think a media institution that represents the Horror genre would be the best to distribute my media film.

Twisted Pictures- I think that Twisted Pictures would be one of the best distributors as

its an American production company that mainly creates films of the Horror Genre. They have been associated with films like the saw trilogy's which are a bit more graphic than our film but they have also been associated with a film called Catacombs which is a little less graphic, I think this media institution would distribute our film because it revolves around the same genre and is a little different to normal horror movies which could be seen as interesting and more exciting.

Hammer Film Productions- I also think that Hammer film productions would be another good distributor as it is similar to Twisted pictures but it is based in the UK and is best known for its "hammer Horror" Classic Films. Hammer Film Productions has been associated with more psychological thrillers such as  Paranoiac (1963), which i think relate more to my film as my film has elements of psychological suspense and has mysterious twists in, which Hammer Film Productions have also been associated with.

Evaluation Four- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Five- How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract my audience I used characters that were near the same age range as the start of my target audience, so we thought that it would get our target audience to be interested as they are of the same age range. Another thing that we did in our group to try and attract our target audience was the use of sound and Mise en scene, as throughout our opening sequence there is fast paced music that creates tension and suspension that is expected in a typical horror-thriller film.

Keeping  with the conventions  of Mise en scene the location of our opening sequence was set in Charlotte Hunter’s House as we thought that it was the perfect set because we wanted a house that didn't look suspicious or eerie to confuse the audience as to what may happen within the opening sequence.

Audience Attraction 
As our opening sequence is a horror-thriller genre, there are many conventions and common themes used in these type of films, and the audience would expect to see these common themes within the first 2 minutes of the opening sequence, including the lead character that is introduced, the expectancy of death or character being murdered, the expectation of being scared and the thrill of the tension and fear in the opening sequence. Our  group made sure that we included this into our 2 minutes sequence so that it would attract the audience and want them to watch more.

I believe that adding in these specifically common themes will help our audience understand the genre and the story as well as getting into the film by the use of constant question and anticipation throughout our first 2 minutes.

Introduction to the lead character-

Expectancy of Death-

We also appealed to the audience through the use of our pre and post production by using a lot of eye-catching shots and camera angles, so that it would attract the audience and so that they would feel the intensity derived from the opening scene. 
We used the editing to create enigmas, such as the sound bridging, we used the sound of a Camera taking a photo of each of the victims, we used this to try and confuse the audience as to why there are the camera noises, but we used them to
interpret the aftermath of the murders, like a crime scene investigator taking a photo as evidence for each victim, which we thought gave the audience an idea of the story and how the ending would turn out without giving away too much.


Evaluation Six - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When creating my opening sequence I learnt a lot as we used a lot of technology to create our 2 minute clip, one programme that I used for my film to do the editing was Adobe Premiere Pro, and this programme enabled me and my group to be more creative and complex with how we wanted to edit our piece together.During the process of shooting I developed my knowledge of the equipment available to me, such as the lighting, the camera and the editing. it allowed us to add in sound and take out sound that we thought didn't go with our work, the programme allowed us to go through all of our filming and decide what was good and what we wanted to include in our film. Throughout this process I developed a lot of skills on how to add in and create certain effects to make our film flow more.

For our group we discussed a lot of things in the earlier stages of editing and experimented a lot with the effects that could be used. One thing that I personally did and learnt whilst editing was merging all the clips together to become our final piece, we used the technology to slow down some parts of filming that we thought would create an effective turn instead of the normal speed, as well as half way through our film, we stopped and rewound the whole first part as we thought it would create suspense and confusion to the audience, giving them the question of what will happen next?. Another important thing that I learnt whilst Filming this time was how to use a proffesional camera and how each shot could improve our film, because the more range of shots and camera angles used the more effective it portrays to the audience, However when working with the camera I learnt that using the tripod creates an easier way of making a shot steady, Our film includes a lot of different close up shots to show off the characters emotions, we thought this would create a tension towards the audience. I also explored some other equipment available to me such  as the light reflectors, we used this whilst filming to help create effective lighting to highlight the characters face again to show off their emotions and features which we were aiming to create throughout the filming process.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I thought that we improved a lot as we showed a lot more of our skills of filming and editing, for the preliminary task I found many faults as it wasn't as great as it could be, although for both the preliminary task and the main task we stuck with the same theme of the horror-thriller creepy genre as we felt confident in the ideas that we had for that genre. In our preliminary task our lighting wasn't very good and most of the shots that we used were blurry and very dark and it was very hard to see the characters, we learnt from this and made sure that our lighting in the main task was much better and clearer for the audience to see the expressions on our characters faces.

Bad lighting in our preliminary task

Better lighting in our main task

The progression from the preliminary task to the main task has taught me a lot in the sense of technology and how to work to the best of my ability. Both of these tasks had a similar story line but were very different in themselves.

Looking back at the preliminary task i thought that all of my skills and knowledge of media was not fully put in to the making of that task, so i then knew that i had to concentrate and put my full attention and knowledge into the final task, to make it the best it can possibly be.

Throughout this experience i have learnt a lot about the way films are made a produce, and how everything takes a lot of time and dedication to create a masterpiece. after working on the Prelim task, it really helped me to approach our planning and filming with care. Our main task provided us with a lot more complicated technology and gave us a lot more scope regarding how to create the opening sequence. It helped my group to think about the target audience and social group that we wanted, before fully getting started on the task, it helped us to understand a lot more of what the audience enjoy and what they expect in the film genre's such as the horror-thriller genre like we did for our final task. This showed us the importance of planning, and how crucial it was to check what the audience wanted.

During pre-production of the prelim, there wasn't much planning involved which i thought showed in our final product, there was no re-shoots, so it showed us how important it is to have everything planned before shooting. Personally i thought that the preliminary task taught us how to manage our time better and that wasting time is not an option if a film is opted for greatness.

Although during the filming of our prelim task we learnt that not everything can be done in one shooting session because when starting to film the main task we found out that we had to re-shoot a few things due to the lighting change at important moments.

The preliminary task, was very helpful towards preparing us for our final main task as it gave us a chance to use the equipment, so we could be familiar with it and see if we would need anything special for filming the main task, for example if we need to use a light reflector in our main task or if we needed a tripod to create better shots, one of the most important thins i learnt in the preliminary task was to shoot more footage than actually needed, even if we are not going to use the footage in the end, it is better to have back-up shots to use in case one of the shots doesn't flow with the rest of the film, or if something was to be crossed over another to create a specific effect. 

Including taking more than one shot even if everything went right within one shot, it was better to have a safe back up shot, another thing that have many different extra shots is they could be used for minor things like close-ups, wide shots, or any othere shot to create a better effect.

In the preliminary task we editing the shots together i learnt that lighting is one of the most important things to include in a film and if it is dark and gloomy like our prelim task was then the actors faces and emotions wouldnt be emotted into the film and could put the audience of the film, And when doing the editing in our main task there was an obvious difference in how we edited everything together and how we were careful about each of the shots we had filmed and how they would be edited together, to make sure that it creates the most enjoyment and excitement towards the audience that we are aiming for. Of course another thing that i learnt more whilst editing the main task was that there was a lot more editing software available to use to create a more effective outcome, This was very useful in making the main task be the best it could be.

Overall I found that the preliminary task was the best and most useful thing for practise and preparation for the main task, as it gave us a lot more awareness on what we had to do for the main task and what was needed to make the audience enjoy the opening sequence. The preliminary task gave me more confidence and determination as it made me concentrate a lot on making our film the best. Finally i enjoyed creating this project as it taught me a lot about the ways of media and filming and how it can be hard to make a film and it gave me a great insight on the cinematic media world.