Sunday, 8 May 2016

Thursday, 5 May 2016

End Product

In my opinion I believe our product turned out very well, all the aspects of what makes a Horror Movie recognizable is here and also with a story line that makes the viewer think about what would happen next makes our Product even more thrilling. My favorite part of filming was the fact that we could expand into dynamic uses of different types of angles that we were able to use and not just normal generic shots. The main issue that we had was the times that we could all film together since we have other subjects to study for. Also the time of day for it to be dark enough for us create the full effect of a horror themed film. Although we had some hold backs we pushed through and created our film opening.

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

Thriller/Horror films often open with scenes in which it gets the audience asking questions and keep them in suspense by using techniques such as music building up in pace and sound. The locations often give the impression of the type/genre of the film.

Our film incorporated these techniques for example the location, we used a forest area which is traditional of most horror flicks.  Like other horror films there is one character that is targeted out of the group. We used this to our advantage and had our character Chelsea be the target in our film.

Dialogue as well as sound/sound effects were used in the traditional horror way as the dialogue for our targeted character was scared, confused and desperate. Horror music was a must for our film opening, so we incorporated it into the tense and suspension parts of the opening.

Mise-en-Scene was also very important for the movie as we had clothing designated for specific characters. Lighting with the candles in the room was important to get the glare effect that we needed for the genre of our film. The time of day was also important as we scouted our areas during the day but filmed at night to get the full horror feel. As most horror films are in the dark we used it as the professional film industry would.

Just like the real media products we had used all different forms and conventions in our movie opening to create a horror film that would be easily recognised by anyone who were to view it. I believe that we developed upon our mistakes and have created a better product out of it.

Frame 1 of my chosen frame from our film, I chose this one because it shows a close up as well as lighting from the candle.

















Frame 2 was chosen due to the expression on Kelbie's face since it showed concentration on her task (Summoning a demon). As well as the camera spinning on a Lazy Susan that we made.
















Frame 3 was also due to the expression on my face as it showed what was happening on the scene.
















Frame 4 was used as the POV was of the demon chasing Rebecca and I picked it since not many media products use POV shots.

















Frame 5 was used to show the actual demon as well as the makeup work done by Rebecca.
















Frame 6 was picked as it showed eye line match between the character and the object (bloody hand) that she was looking at.
















Frame 7 was chosen since it showed the desperate expression on the characters face and the reflection of the phone screen.
















Frame  8 was used to show the vision of the demon and the environment of the area where the scene was set.

















Frame 9 was picked as it shows that her life is over and the battery on her phone is dead so there is no way of her to contact anyone. This is followed by the title "The Evoke".









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






















We used a tripod for the first time and learnt how to set it up. We learnt some of the basic parts of the tripod by research labelled images this helped us as when we filmed it made it a lot easier to use even if it is already very basic.

We had to use two different cameras, we used a friends camera to film the first lot of interior shots. However, the quality was extremely bad and it also had a dead pixel on the screen. We changed cameras and learnt that checking camera quality before going out filming is best.

We also used another camera on the side to take pictures of our costumes and set to avoid continuity issues we found this extremely useful to have an extra camera. We used our phones to take any extra photos and could easily share them with each other by creating a Facebook chat.

Social media helped us publicise questionnaires and videos to help create audience feedback and research on people opinions on horror films. We learnt that by using social media it helped get quick and easy answers for free. Social media also helped us to communicate with each other, when editing I filmed snippets, asking the groups opinion and changing anything necessary.

We used Song Vegas Pro 13 to edit out film opening. At first, it was difficult but slowly, with trial and error we started to understand how to create the film opening we were looking for.


Evaluation Question - How does your Media Product represent particular social groups?



Our main character Chelsea is based upon the stereotypical female, ditsy character that would typically be in a horror film. We wanted to include this type of character because it was a common occurrence in most of the horror films we looked at. We kept all of our characters costumes true to real life. This is because we wanted them to look like teenagers do now as if it was just any normal day and keep the realism of the production. All of our characters are really stereotypical, we have the jock, nerd, level headed and dumb characters.


The Antagonist character was based upon other demons we had seen in similar movies. A lot of these movies have a high percentage of teenage audiences which is who we were aiming our opening at. We all found images of what we wanted our characters to appear like and then base our costumes off those resources.

Our jock character is dressed in branded items, this makes his character appear to have money.

Our ditsy and nerd character are siblings which works well as they are the polar opposite to one another, this is a great juxtaposition of the characters as it is with all of the characters. Not one is the same.


We used the dumb character as the victim as she was vulnerable clearly from the beginning of the piece which means that the audience can almost foreshadow what we going to happen next.

Here is an example of one of our characters:



Evaluation Question - What kind of Media Institution might distribute your Media Product and why?



I think our film would be distributed by Film 4 because it is a British company that like to showcase British talent a lot in the film industry. They normally show films and documentaries that other channels would be afraid to distribute. This is because they are open to more ideas and originality. I think this is a great company for our film to work with. Film 4 would also allow us to show our film over the UK and some countries in Europe which would allow for a fan base to arise.

Film 4 aren't as strict as the BBC and less expensive to distribute films with. The BBC is an iconic company where as Film 4 is new and fresh and is viewed very often by the audience we intend to target our film opening to.

To create a buzz for our film we would send teasers to the potential distributor and make posters, trailers and other forms of advertisement to attract the target audience. We would have to think about anything that would rival the film and talk about that with the company and work out a time where our film would be the main interest for viewers at the time of showing.


Evaluation Question - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to full production?

We created our with little to no knowledge of professional camera operating or video editing. Our preliminary was much more about just getting the filming out of the way so we could learn how to edit it all together, so time and quality were not our first thoughts when filming it all or editing. After having to manage people's schedules and keep all the equipment and costume available for each filming day we have all become much more organised and learnt how to prepare everything in case of the sudden need for a meetup.


In general we have also improved our teamwork. Compared to the beginning of filming when each of us would just take charge and create the shots we personally wanted, by the end we were discussing shots to ensure everyone's satisfaction before filming. This way we could speed up the process of filming because there were no creative conflicts.


Most importantly however, looking back at the original preliminary that we made, the camera work is shaky and unprofessional especially the moving shots. However looking instead at the final piece, our camera work has become smooth and everyone has a much better ability with manipulating cameras now.


Finally, when we first had a camera in front of us we often found that we couldn't stop uncontrollable laughing. A mix of nerves and embarrassment. Whereas towards the end we could easily do a scene with neither the actors or the camera operators laughing.


Overall, we have improved our abilities behind and infront of the camera and our teamwork in general has improved.