Media: AS Coursework Conclusion

I have learned a lot from this course about film making and much more. I have developed by knowledge and skills of both a range of hardware and software such as editing programs like 'adobe'. Through it  I have learned much about the horror genre and the roles of different people in making a short film.I have also learned about the stereotypical characteristics of a good conventional horror film opening, including a title sequence and a quick introduction to the story. Overall I have enjoyed and learned much from the course with a better understanding on all I have covered previously on this AS media blog.

Evaluation 7 - "Looking back at the preliminary task what have you learnt in progression from it to the full product ?"

The preliminary task we accomplished awhile ago i believe taught me more about camera work such as the '180 degree rule' and editing, preparing me for the horror opening we have recently completed. I believe that i have progressed a lot from then in both my camerawork and editing skills. After learning from the preliminary task and a couple other films, which helped with practice further, along with a variety of research into shot types etc i think have made me improve with both factors for the final product of our horror opening 'The River'.

There was a substainal change in work load to begin with from a 30 second clip to a 2 minute clip which we planned ourselves. I feel I have greatly improved since the preliminanry task  as it was already planned out for us  which meant editing wasn't needed as much as it is in 'The River'. In the River sections of film had to be moved around and a range of effects had to be added such as a 'black and white effect' colour change in Michael's hanging scene. We also used other effects such as the 'ghosting effect' however as i've said previouslythis didn't go to plan when it was exported. We also used a variety of titles like the opening credits and the final title, we also used transitions and various editing techniques such as cuts and fades. We put a conventional soundtrack together too by using the site 'Free SFX'. Putting designs on titles was also another thing I didn't do in the preliminary task by putting a 'rippling effect' on the title 'The River' for example. Much editing wasn't needed in the Preliminary task in comparison, only a few sharper cuts and the dd title and fade added, greatly dwarfed through 'The River's editing.

The Preliminary task came with a plan of a variety of shot types of which we had to use and from this i feel ai have taken this on board and used a large variety of shots in our horror production including the 180 degree rule which was established in the preliminary task.

I think my improvement from the preliminary task then our first individual group video to 'The River' has meant quite a jump for me, I have, i feel improved quite far on directing as well as editing from these previous tasks and I have learned a lot in the process.

media evaluation 6 - "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through the process of coming up with the idea of 'the river' to filming and editing I have learned a substantial amount of media through the use of physical equipment such as the camera to software such as
Adobe Photo-Shop. Below i will explain what programs and equipment we used to make 'The River'

This shot ->

is of myself filming the beginning scene with the camera on the tripod, holding the storyboard to keep track of the shots. The storyboard didn't take too long to create after i made a story, so this storyboard with a variety of shot types was very efficient in filming the horror movie because it planned every step of the way for filming the opening itself. The tripod was also very helpful when filming, it kept the camera somewhat straight however it wasn't the easiest thing to adjust due to the uneven ground and a stiff leg that the tripod has, it did pay off however as it kept the camera stable and overall made the piece more professional due to its varying heights etc, making it easier to take clearer shots/footage. We were able to do better looking pans and also make the camera actually static. Originally we wanted to use boom mics for the movie to give better sound quality however when these weren't available we just made do.

The camera was a very effective tool which is quite clear as it allowed us to film, both on and off a tripod, as sometimes it was used for hand-held shots, primarily POV shots giving the perspective of various characters such as the masked ones as well as the main characters such as Rowen Elliot's. Although I already knew how to use a camera like this, more practice is always helpful by giving more experience for future filming etc.The camera worked well however it didn't always pick up sound perfectly but we managed to get past this through louder speaking as well as holding the camera closer to the action itself.

Photoshop and other picture editing programmes like 'Paint' were effective in making the logo for our film production as well as putting pictures together for evaluations such as this,both worked well for these purposes, allowing me to be more organized with evaluations by editing pictures together and also to design a better logo, such as the one above by editing a picture, and creating writing in our chosen style to cover it.

Other programmes such as Microsoft publisher helped in arranging and displaying our critics' findings effectively also as shown in the graph below.

Adobe premiere was probably the most effective software of which we used for our movie, it allowed us to drastically improve the finished product by removing bad takes and sharp cuts which we replaced with smoother transitions, effects and edits like fades etc. Premiere allowed us to create a much better film overall with the additions to the movie such as putting in music appropriate to the genre of horror as well as putting in title sequences and special effects, generally making it flow better, too appear more professional and conventional to the genre. The programme has also added to my knowledge of editing which will become necessary for future media tasks.

The site 'Blogger' itself has been extremely helpful, allowing me to display my research into the genre of horror and the steps of planning to completing our horror opening and my general knowledge taken from the AS Level course. It's been helpful by allowing me to upload a variety of pictures and videos and display them in an appropriate, organized way allowing me to edit posts if i make a mistake for example, overall the site has allowed me to display my findings and my basic development in the course effectively.


The variety of mediums of which i have used to create the horror opening 'The River' have all been extremely helpful for both making it as well as displaying it on this site, they have all had there parts in making our opening what it is and we couldn't have accomplished it without one of these technologies both hardware or software, all allowing us to complete and display a conventional horror opening. We also used the site 'Free SFX which allowed us to find a free un-copyrighted but still a conventional soundtrack for our final production.

Initial issues with Evaluation 5

Evaluation 5 took me a while to begin, i had issues with my email and setting up an account on youtube however i eventually fixed it and managed to complete evaluation 5 to an acceptable standard I believe. Evaluation 5 follows on from other evaluations such as 3 and 4, through it i discuss why we used certain aspects of our film through youtube annotations for example i discuss why certain things like 'POV' shots relate to other horror films and also discussion things such as why we choose the logo and what made it conventional for example. The hyperlink also didn't work when put on my blog either however it can still be easily accessed through highlighting then copy and pasting to the top search bar.

Evaluation 5 "How did you attract our audience?"

I completed this evaluation on youtube with its annotations tools. In this evaluation I addressed how our opening relates to other horror films and also how it attracts to my target audience. Through it I have expressed the films USP (unique selling point)  as well as its conventions and use of music.

Here is the link to my evaluation 5 of my short horror media opening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJINfBkPgyQ
For some reason the hyper link hasn't worked properly so please highlight and copy and paste it into the top search bar and it will work thank you, sorry for the inconvenience.

AS media coursework Evaluation 4 -"Who would the auidience be for your media product ?" part 2 (Female target auidience profile for 'The River')

 

This is only a small addition  to my previous evaluation post as generally the same applies to the female audience as much as the males however there are a few differences of which i will cover. Generally the female audience have similar musical tastes such as rock and indie and fit into the similar brackets of E-C1 focusing on the 'E' brackets as the main audience is casual workers and students. Our female audience will generally have similar tastes to the male audience of films and also wear casual clothing. The audience can be a variety of races however the age will tend to be 16-24.

AS media coursework Evaluation 4 - "Who would be the auidience for your media product?" part 1 (Male target auidience profile for 'The River')

 

This is a photo of the male target audience for our film, these are three examples we found to be appropriate after conducting a survey.

Demographics

The age of the target audience for 'The River' we felt would be between the ages of 16-24 as the film is aimed at a younger audience with violence and special effects as well as a simple conventional storyline, the film is also aimed at both genders however we feel that it will attract a larger male audience due to the semantic fields of violence and gore the film posses however we still believe we will receive a female audience also. The film will generally be aimed at working to middle class audiences as the characters as well as the setting are more relatible to those classes. Our movie will be aimed at all races however geographical wise a British audience will probably find it most appealing by relating to the country etc.

Psycho-graphics

We found that our target audience enjoy socializing and generally having a good time, texting, music video games etc so I think that our film will attract the right audience as the cast (primarily teenagers) will par take in activities similar to them making it more relatible to our audience as they'll understand what the characters are going through further. I believe that our story is very engaging for our audience and the camera shots such as POV shots accompanied by the tense music will engross viewers and add further to the appeal value of our film.

Further research

We found that our male audience will be between the E-C1 brackets as it fits in with the classes of working and middle also however we primarily will focus on the 'E' bracket.We think young students for example will partake in viewing our film as well as those doing apprenticeships or just casual workers. Our male audience will obviously need to enjoy going to the cinema and watching horror films. We discovered further information from surveys that our audience will generally come from towns and cities rather then villages and have musical tastes of rock, metal and alternative, they also wear casual clothing which is sometimes dark.

Constructing an auidience

when we planned our film we thought through the kind of audience that it would have which we felt was between the brackets E-C1 however mainly focusing E-C2 column we felt it would appeal best to a young audience of 16-24 and theses brackets managed to fit well with the criteria of our film. I will discuss the audience for our final media product further mentioning their tastes,dislikes age etc in evaluation 4 of which I will discuss the male side of our audience as well as the female side.

Surveys and their contribution to our movie

Surveys and questionnaires have also been extremely helpful when we wanted information on how we can improve our horror production, and so we gave a list of questions to the class to receive their feedback, what they thought was good and also what they didn't like. This allowed us to edit our movie and therefore achieving a higher standard for it. Surveys such as this would also give an idea of audience if we gave it to a variety of people of different ages and backgrounds, this would allow us a better understanding of the audience we are targeting the production at which in turn will allow us to do some audience profiling which I will mention in furthur detail through evaluation 4.

Questionaires about the auidience

Questionnaires and surveys can be very helpful in locating an audience for your movie. We found that a 'Vue' cinema found from a survey that there was a large Turkish population nearby so they played some recent hits in Turkish cinemas there to entice them in, this is a key example of how surveys and questionnaires like this can really help in bringing in an audience to a cinema. 


We found questionnaires to be helpful due to one we filled out our selves in class, through it someone can gain knowledge of the place i live my age and what i do for a living, my hobbies and also my favourite genre of film which is key to marketing and distribution when knowing if I'm the person they would like to aim a film at for example. This is a method of target audience profiling which allows a distributor to know what people to aim their film at due to my tastes etc. If the film is of the horror genre for example and it's a film about teenagers then it would be best to aim that particular film at horror lovers at a young age for example perhaps 15-24.

Surveys and questionnaires have also been extremely helpful when we wanted information on how we can improve our horror production, and so we gave a list of questions to the class to receive their feedback, what they thought was good and also what they didn't like.

Cinema habits surveys

We were asked to create and retrieve answers from at-least twenty different people of a wide age range in the form of a survey this allowed us to gain a wider understanding of target audience profiling and see people's average cinema habits which in turn gave us a better understanding of how if how film was put in a cinema who'd watch it, when and how this showed the age group we were targeting, the social background/class and also when they'd be watching it, premiere, two weeks after release etc and generally if they would download it or not watch it t the cinema at all and just purchase the DVD/Blu Ray. This information is key when audience profiling and we found this was very helpful indeed in showing just how far you must think about your audience even after its been in the cinema awhile, findings I will develop further through evaluation 4.

Getting the voiceover done

The Directors commentary went well i thought, we managed to record it the first time round and it was also relatively simple to apply it to our film. All though the script was slightly too long for our video the section we missed out had little importance to begin with basically biding goodbye to the listener however I believe the script sounds just as good without it as we managed to cover the key points of the Evaluation 3 criteria nevertheless.

Media AS evaluation 3 : What kind of instituition might distribute your media product and why ?

This is our directors commentary for our horror opening 'The River'. Through it we have expressed details on the features of our horror short which we originally planned through a script. Through our voiceover we refer to our production company, the distributor for our film,where the funding came from aswell as our own particular roles in the film and we have also mentioned films such as 'monsters' that we would like 'The River' to be released in a similar way to.

British independant films : Slumdog Millionaire + The King's Speech

Independent British films such as 'The King's Speech and more low budget film such as 'The Slum dog Millionaire' that have been extremely successful despite being by independent, both have claimed a range of awards including 'best film'. Films such as these are good examples of how British independent films can be quite successful movies despite the low budget which is encouragement to movie makers alike. 'Slum Dog Millionaire' for example was merely planned as a 'straight to DVD' release however it claimed much more getting into cinemas and claiming a range of awards. I believe this shows that just because Hollywood films have a bigger budget etc there is still hope for the small and independent movies like our own through good marketing/distribution can be key but also a good script and director are needed.

Evaluation 3 - Directors Commentary (The script) part 2

Evaluation 3 - Directors Commentary (The script) part 1

After research distributors etc like film 4, we began to plan a script. Although the initial plan wasn't perfect we began to improve it greatly as a group (myself, Josh Spoelstra and Jonathon Fromont).  This is the script we finally came up with together which we were pleased with, we all have a fair amount to say through it and I think it covers 'Evaluation 3' nicely.   This is our script which we will soon turn into our directors commentary over aour final version of 'The River.'

Evaluation 3 - The voiceover/Director's commentary - 'Film 4' research

Like I discussed in my previous post we choose Film 4 as our distributor over companies like 'Working Title' due to their comedy origins. Film 4 we decided was the most appropriate  through its great reputation in British cinema and one of the more successful film companies in the UK. They have worked on other horror shorts like our own such as 'Monsters' which they have distributed through places such as the 'Edinburugh Film festival'.  Film 4 have also worked on productions including 'Enduring Love' a psychological thriller which also can relate to our own genre of 'horror'. We thought that due to our horror short that we could snugly fit into Film 4's average range of films, fitting in well to this category.  We believed due To film 4's previous successes in similar genres such as 'Enduring Love' that it would encourage a greater audience to our film  by knowing Film 4 ( a respectable film distributor) wanted involvement in our production 'The River'

Evaluation 3 - The voiceover (gathering infomation)

For the question of evaluation 3 'What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why ?'we had to research distribution companies. The role of a distributor is to bring a movie to the market place and deliver the correct audience to the chosen film. This is done through finding a films USP (unique selling point) and using this to aim a film at an audience, blockbusters like 'King Kong' or 'Transformers' for example to be aimed at children and the family so best to show these in the summer months etc. British independent distribution companies do this through  a similar way  acquiring ideas from film festivals such as 'Cannes' for example.

We found this information through our research, due to my sick leave however i started this research a bit later then planned however i soon caught up. We began looking for a distribution for our own 'short horror' looking into  various companies such as 'working title' however due to their 'comedy' reputation with making films like 'Paul' with comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost we choose to avoid them as our own film was that of the horror genre.

We ultimately found Film 4 (a well known and successful film distributor) was the best choice for our horror short 'The River' with its work on films such as 'Monsters' and 'The Cat With Hands' we thought they would be best to distribute our film with links such as these.

Final version of 'The River'

We originally believed that the previous draft of our movie would be the final version of our film however we later discovered that we should have put our jobs into the opening title sequence. Although it was harder to fit in as we had to still allow reading time for the audience while making sure it fitted in with the movie overall we managed it, mentioning the my role as writer and director, Josh Spoelstra's roles as editor and producer as well as Jonathon Fromont's role as director of photography.

Here is the final version of our film at last, enjoy :

Media horror opening evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particuluar social groups ?

In our horror movie we made sure that the characters were relatible, relating to specific social groups as well as being stereotypical to the horror genre eg. an antagonist through a murderer, creature etc. This was shown how we choose masked villains, which clearly relate to many other horror films which included masked villains, 'Jason',Halloween as well as the scream franchise etc. We picked characters that we felt resembled the stereotypical and conventional cast of the horror genre and hopefully showed this quite clearly in our production. The character from the film who i will be using as an example to explain how we linked characters to a social group(s) i will explore below. -

In this evaluation i will be comparing the main character of my horror movie opening 'The River' with the main protagonist from 'A stranger calls'. Although their roles vary slightly they do have quite a few similarities, for example they both resemble a similar group of people being teens of the ages 17-19. Both characters appear quite similar in personalities also, getting annoyed at a younger brothers,texting on phones etc which both are quite stereotypical aspects for the social group of a typical teen. Teenagers often feature in horror films,so the use of  characters such as these are quite conventional to the genre. Teenagers like these are used in horror so frequently, as stereotypically they are thought of as vulnerable to an audience, and also they appear with a lesser intellect on average, again to heighten the mistakes they make thus furthering the gore and violence in a horror film. Teens are also used a lot in horror as the main  target audience is generally people of the same age so this makes them much more relatible to the audience, being the same age and being put in similar situations etc.

The two characters above are both targeted by the antagonist of the film and this is another way they relate, being victims of some sort of evil/horrific attack, they both have similar stereotypical personalities of a teenager and this is needed for their place in the horror genre, both characters also appear to be somewhat similar so i think it is evident of their relations.

Horror Movie Opening Evaluation: Activity 1

Activity one: In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

After studying various horror film openings such as 'Halloween' and ' A Stranger Calls' , we made our own by carefully following the key conventions of the horror genre such as the correct lighting, music, characters, story, location etc. After making an appropriate story and planning a storyboard we found our chosen location which we chose as the woods, we gathered the props and a stereotypical horror cast of our own group, (Jonathon Fromant and Josh Spoelstra) and additions in Rowen Elliot, Michael Walters and Harry Smith. After editing, finding a logo  and finally after a critical evaluation from the class, we improved the opening for our own evaluations.

I am going to analyze our horror opening myself by exploring how our product uses, develops, and challenges the forms and conventions of real media products by examining nine key shots below. I decided to choose these shots as they are key to the opening in representing many aspects of our film, such as the title, the setting,costumes,camerawork,the title's font,the story, the genre and the introduction of characters as well as some of the special effects used in it.

This is the production logo for our horror opening and it is also the first shot in our film. We choose this as our logo because a raven is stereotypically though of as a symbol of death, and this has been its general connotation throughout time so I thought it would be appropriate in linking with the genre of horror. This makes it link quite nicely with the conventions of a typical horror film. The logo also looks quite modern and by it coming out of a blue screen it links with the 3D era that is a very popular at the moment, it also emphasis that our films are detailed,modern and also have a classic feel to them with this neat font. This appears to challenge the conventions of horror as it doesn't look as modern as the logo itself does, however it does imply that our logo has classic elements from films that modern films lack, and this is what I wanted to convey to the audience. The general colours such as red,orange and black also clearly connote death/danger which goes along with the general conventions of horror films today.

This is our second shot from our horror opening, our title sequence. Our title sequence is a pan across the river itself, with black titles appearing slowly then disappearing. I did this because a river can be a dangerous thing with connotations of drowning etc, it also links with the title of the production as well. The shot acts as an establishing shot too by showing that our opening is based around a river and a wood. the isolation that comes with this shot is also quite efficient especially for the conventions of horror as it shows that our characters are all alone and the river,bare trees and the shadows here shown here also connote horror as the audience has most likely seen other horror films in woods so they can already have some expectation of what could happen here. The font used also looks quite ominous.

This was our main prop throughout our opening and it was very effective in driving the story forward as the whole plot featured around it. This is sometimes the case in other horror movies like a group looking for something etc but not for all, so it can be seen as to both challenge and use the convention in the horror film. Although the ball may not be completely conventional to the genre it's the reason why the children go deeper into the wood. It later acts as a tragic device as after its found the first time and a scream is heard the audience expects that whenever its found something bad will happen so this gives the audience a bit of predictability, developing conventions of such other horror films, so the audience can begin to feel the rise in tension produced in the scene. The ball also shows the increase of evil throughout the opening as with the colour white (a connotation for purity) then being tainted by blood connotation of evil/danger, showing how the children s purity and innocence has been taken away by evil forces.

This shot is the climax of our opening and it works well by foreboding whats to come to the audience. This shot was originally filled with numerous effects such as ghosting, which made the two masked men appear inhuman, the two masked characters themselves can easily be related to films such as 'Scream' as well as 'Halloween' so they clearly link with the horror genre, the original special effects worked very well and really appealed well to the horror conventions however in the end they had to be removed because they went blurry, this is a shame as it would have greatly added to our opening, effects like this are used quite often in horror productions featuring ghosts etc.

This shot  comes near the end of our horror opening and this was done to show that what just happened is nothing to whats to come so this gives many expectations for the audience to look forward to. The titles in horror films are often shown after the opening itself, like in 'Drag Me To Hell' for example, by giving an explanation of the title and also hooks them into what to expect further on. The title itself links with the typical conventions of horror as films often use 'the' then something else as titles, for example 'The Others', 'The Thing' etc, so i thought 'The River' would be quite appropriate. The title itself is in quite an ominous font and the 'waving' of it links to it through water etc. The colours are also key here as 'white' connotes goodness whilst 'black' connotes evil, as their is more black here it emphasizes the sheer amount of evil compared to good in the film.

The story is set up quite nicely with the introduction of the two antagonists of our opening it clearly addresses the genre through a masked villain and also sets up the story to come, that its about strange masked men in the woods, so this shot is very effective in setting up the story to come for the film by including such key conventions of the horror genre. This shot also gives a look into costume with the white mask, it shows how a simple mask can add the difference, just a normal man wouldn't appear as scary as this does, so the mask does add a lot and links to other horror films such as 'Scream' and 'Halloween' as I mentioned previously. So overall our horror film both addresses the story and forebodes what is to come as well as establishing the genre of our production.

This shot is near the beginning of our opening and it nicely introduces the main characters to the audience with their names appearing near them, allowing them to link names to faces, this is done in various other films also, not horror alone. The audience get to see the opening's victim's relationship and realize that they are average people which makes them quite relatible indeed. In this shot the two are addressed in a mid-shot, so both characters are visible side by side, showing their relationship etc. The two characters also link to stereotypical victims of a average horror movie as well, seeming young,weak and defenseless, following the conventions of typical horror victims.

This shot is of Michael (the first victim of our opening). For this low angle shot we didn't have a ladder so i needed to kneel down on the ground to give it the point of view of Rowen, showing that the character is higher up then he actually is, so it seems more realistic when the drop of blood fell on the ball from a high. This shot adds to the realism and fools the audience in thinking hat he is high up in a tree, rather then just on the ground. For this shot we used a skipping rope as the rope that was use to hang him and we also decided to put this shot in black and white to show that 'Rowen's' world has just crashed around her, seeing her brother in such a way. I think this shot develops the conventions of horror with a variety of shot types, showing that evil can be lurking anywhere and i think this is good  to show to the audience so they don't expect where the danger will come from and this is clearly developed from this scene as the danger surprisingly comes from above. I feel that the editing is key in this scene as well, again using dark colours known to the horror genre and a variety of editing effects should make it more engaging for the audience.


I believe that our media product has incorporated the conventions of horror well and also has developed such conventions, which is shown by the tense atmosphere of the production beginning with a reasonably happy scene which begins to spiral out of control until the main cast of the opening die, I think this is very accurate to horror and story as a whole beginning with a happy scene then transferring to a complication as it were.