Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 4 (Wai,Imogen,Sophie&Elise)

 Question 4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

                                                 

The audience for our media product is teenagers and young adults. We feel that this is the right target audience because it is more interesting and understandable for those who are in the age range to experience the type of scenario that is occurring in our opening sequence. We feel that the teenagers and young adults are able to relate more to the scenario and are able to question themselves if they were in the same position which gets them to think throughout watching the opening sequence resulting in them wanting to carry on watching the rest of the film.

Read More

Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 3 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (think about the companies you learnt about for institutions and audiences)

We believe that Film4 and Working Titles are the best institutions for our film to be distributed by because they are small British institution which distribute low budget British films just like ours. They also produce a wide variety of films which also allows our film to fit in with what films they distribute. As our film is low budget therefore, we don't use any special effects we think the best media institutions are those which are known for making similar low budget films.

Film4 Logo:




Working Titles Logo:

Read More

Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 2 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 2) How does your media product represent different social groups? (Think about TV Drama stereotypes in this answer)

Our media product represents different social groups as we have the vulnerable young girl, emotionless male and the sympathetic older female.

Young girls are often considered naive and innocent, which is why we portray our victim in this away. By conforming to this stereotype it allows the audience to predict that something bad is going to happen to the young girl. This builds tension as the audience is on edge wondering what is going to happen to the girl.

Men are often considered as hard and emotionless. I think by creating our psychopath as an emotionless male we have met this stereotype which allow the audience to instantly see the character as threatening.

Older women are often considered maternal and that their role is to look after others which also fits our investigator's character. In our opening sequence we can see the sadness and sympathy when he investigator gets the phone call.

Read More

Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 1 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 1) In what ways does your media product (opening sequence) use, develop  or challenge forms and conventions from real media?

Firstly we found that our title met the forms of real media. For example, our title is The Register and horror films have similar titles such as 'The Purge'. By having a similar and typical title it shows that we are meeting the standard horror movie criteria. We thought that snappy titles are usually better for horror movies as they grip the audience therefore, we changed our title from The Psychopath Behind the Smile' to ' The Register'.

Although in some areas we used forms and conventions from real media, we also challenged it in some areas. For example, we believe that the psychopath strayed away from the stereotypical looking psychopath. Usually the psychopath is cast as a old man whereas, we used a young man instead. We also challenge forms of real media as we set our opening sequence is a school. Although this has been done before usually horror movies are located in an abandoned building or a deserted forest. By having it in a school which is considered a safe place it challenges the idea of horror movies being set in locations that are considered 'creepy'.

Read More

Task 19 - Target audience feedback (Imogen&Sophie)

"Pivotal moment of the opening sequence"

"It made me want to watch more"

"For the more intense parts there should be darker lighting"

"I enjoyed the music as it created tension throughout the clip"

"I think you could use a more mysterious character to build tension"

We gathered a sample of our target audience age group and showed them our opening sequence. From this we found what our target audience views and ideas were on our opening sequence and what they thought we did well and what we could improve on.Overall, all of the group enjoyed the opening sequence and found it engaging and tense. The improvements included "I think for the more intense parts there should be darker lighting" and this allows us to see what we could of done in order to make our opening sequence better. Many of the group enjoyed the ending (the hand against the window) as they found it extremely tense and gripping and made them want to continue to see the rest of the film.
I think it is important that we find out what the target audience think of our opening sequence as this allows us to see where we went wrong and what we did well. This then allows us to see what we could of done to meet all of the needs and expectations of our target audience.

Read More

Task 18 - Use of opening sequence convention

In our opening sequence we defiantly knew that we wanted it to portray and real-life assumption and  be relatable and realistic. We done this by thinking of serious and realistic scenarios

 By looking back at the task 'What is a opening sequence?' when analysing the opening sequence for the film 'Scream' we noticed that in the scene, mise-en-scene was used when presented with the ringing of the telephone. The sound of the ringing gives the audience the thought of someone mysterious calling and this builds up tension in the scene. In our opening sequence we used this to build up tension however it was presented in a shot of a blank screen rather then showing the phone ringing therefore we had the use of non-diagetic sounds.

At first we decided to have a lot of scrip in our opening sequence however after evaluating the opening sequences for the films 'Up' and 'Se7en' we realised that we didn't necessarily need a lot of script in order to get our story across to the audience. We noticed that we were able to evaluate more and understand more of the storyline from watching the opening sequence with less script work. In addition to this we thought that this would get the audience thinking more about what is to come next and keep them on the edge of their seats and to carry on watching. Consequently, the only script we had was after the investigator said "Hello.", after saying this nothing else was said therefore showing and telling the audience that something was wrong but not entirely sure what.

As well as this, we thought of focusing our opening sequence on 3 main characters, Daisy, Taylor and the investigator. However, we changed it to only having the main focus on Daisy and Taylor because we thought that this would be more effective and we didn't want to give away too much of the answers of the storyline to the audience, resulting in the audience wanting to carry on watching.



Read More

Task 17 - Editing Process

Editing Process

To edit our opening sequence, we used a program called "Final Cut Pro"

Firstly, I decided what clips to use and how much of the clip we needed.

To do this, I reviewed each clip and decided which scenes went best. Once decided, I used the blade tool to cut the clips and deleted the parts that were not needed. 

I decided that the clips sounded good with background noise as well as music, however, some of the clips were too loud.

 Therefore, I dragged the volume down on certain parts of the clips.

Once I had cut all of the clips down, I began editing in detail. This started by adding transitions between the "real time" scenes and the flashbacks, to show the difference in time.

We wanted the scenes to look as if it were the evening time, therefore, I decided to add a dark and gloomy filter to every clip.

I attempted to use the "earthquake" filter on the flashback scenes to make them look more shaky/scary, however it looked too over dramatic and we decided to delete the filter.

To build tension, I slowed down the scene in which the psychopath's face appears in the window.  I also decided to speed up the scene in which the girl is grabbed as it makes the moment seem more sharp.

 To create the feeling that the girl has been hit and "blacked out" I included a blank screen and the sound effect of ear-ringing. The music then changes to a more tense track.

For the majority of the track, i used the same 'horror' loop that helped to build tension within the clips. I decided to fade the music in and out so that the track didn't start too dramatically.

Read More