Friday 12 March 2010

Media Evaluation

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Sunday 7 March 2010

Evaluation - Emma Jopson


Introduction
The project I have done for coursework was to create the opening of a film to last the maximum of two minutes. All of the material that I used must have been original and produced by me and my group, I worked with Alix Sampford and Aamir Shah. Any music that we were to use was to be copyright free. I helped find the music for the opening sequence by looking through copyright free CDs and looking on internet websites. I was to do posts on the blog as well as the other members in my group, http://c2asampfordejopsonashah.blogspot.com, I was also to cast the actors/actresses to be in the opening sequence and decided who they would play. I helped to edit the footage down into the opening sequence. I was supposed to help film the clips, unfortunately there was heavy snow over Christmas when we were supposed to film, so I did not get the chance to be part of the filming experience. 

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of our film was to be a horror/thriller because we thought that it would be the easiest genre to make a plot for. 
The only ones of these things that we did not include in our opening sequence are the blood and use of weapons. It is vital to use typical conventions of a genre so that the audience will know that it is the right type of genre film that they want to see. We did not do anything different apart from not use blood and a weapon, but it would have been good too as horror films need new and exciting things so that horror/thriller films do not get too predictable, N. Lacey said that films were the ‘same but different’. Our choices worked well when it came to our audience testing as people liked that we had the stalker watching the girl from the trees on the other side of the road. However people thought that the clip was too long when she was walking to the party as it was just shots of her walking and nothing else. People also thought that we could have improved the ending by showing her getting killed but others thought that they were supposed to wonder ‘what will happen to the girl?.’
An opening sequence is supposed to tell the audience;
·         What type of genre the film is?
·         Who made the film?
·          Who will star in it?
·         What the title of the film is.
I think that we have managed to do this as we have included all of these pieces of information and more including;
·         Who found the music?
·         Who casted the actors/actresses.
We have managed to include the things that tell the audience that it is a horror/thriller. The trailer to ‘creep’ tells the audience that it is a horror/thriller very well by using the conventions of this genre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZUzM_p6a1k.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our opening sequence we have represented teenage people and how much danger they are in when they are out alone at night, we have represented criminals and victims as a person is stabbed by a stalker. We also represented that men are more dominant than men as we have a man being the murderer and stalker and the girl being the innocent defenseless person. We represented the criminal stalker by not seeing him until the title of the film and when he is shown in the clip he is wearing a dark colored hoodie covering his face, he has no facial expressions as we cannot see his face and he has no dialogue which adds to the mystery of the character. He is only shown in low key lighting so that the audience cannot see much of the killer to add tension and mystery. 

The girl wears a casual looking outfit as she is going to a house party, we tried to keep her costume as simple as possible as she is not a main character in the film and she is only in the film for the opening sequence, however the audience are invited to relate to her as though she could be a main character, this adds to the chock at the end of the sequence as she has been killed. At the beginning we had her happy and excited as she is getting ready to go to a house party at her friends. To make this clearer we could have had her on the phone to her friend talking about the party. We showed her styling her hair before she left the house, by taking shots of her looking in the mirror touching and styling her hair. After she had left the house we wanted her to look lonely and vulnerable so we picked a quite street to film on so that the killer would be able to follow her without public attention. The girl had a small part of dialogue which she has to say. I personally think that she could have acted the lines better than she did as it did not seem authentic. We decided to shoot the beginning in the girl’s house as there would be no other place for her to get ready. And we picked a quiet street for her to walk along so that she would look isolated. I think that the clip shows the dominant ideologies of victims and criminals. 
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The French romantic/ thriller ‘He Loves Me He Loves Me Not’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZsMrRSXD8A  was distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The 2009 horror/ thriller ‘Tormented’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJP23OYS1Q was distributed and produced by Pathe pictures, Warner bros, BBC Films, Slingshot and IFC Films. These two films are films that have a similar genre to the project I made. These companies may consider financially backing our project as it is like the films that they have previously produced. It would be good to get a company like BBC Films or Working Title http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/ to financially back and distribute my project as they are British and would support British films. they make commercial/ mainstream British films that appeal to foreign markets.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
Media theories will help me describe our target audience. A demographic way of discussing our target audience is by using gender, race, age and socio-economic status. We will want to attract male and females of any race to watch our film. I think that anyone above the age of 15 would be able to watch this product as it does not have harsh killings, sexual references or bad use of language. We want a cinema going audience who like to watch horror/thriller films to be attracted. The socio-economic status of our audience will be anyone that can afford to buy a ticket to the cinemas or buy a DVD. This is a good target audience as it is a large mass of audience members that will be able to see our project. From our target audience questionnaires we found that people liked the music however people thought that ‘the attack could be longer and could have shown what happened to the girl’.
How did you attract/ address your audience?
We set up an equilibrium by;
·         Showing her life in her house and surrounding areas
·         Showing her getting ready for a party that she was going to
·         Showing the audience what her everyday life is like
We then made a disruption to this equilibrium by;
·         Showing he alone and isolated
·         Showing her getting scared by her friend
·         And showing her friend get stabbed by a scary stalker man
We made a disruption take place when she was walking along the street by herself. However we did make a small disruption through the news report as it was showing that someone had been killed and informing people to not go out alone.
 We did not have any flash backs in our project, we kept the opening sequence very chronological with invisible editing so that the audience would not get confused with sense of time so early into the film. A big enigma that we made in the opening sequence was ‘What is going to happen to the girl?’ as the title of the film came up on screen as the girl screamed, the audience will not know what has happened to her. The use of captions in the news report is because we wanted to have the report on mute as the girl is supposed to be blanking the new report out to give the audience more knowledge to what is going on than the girl does. So we used captions over the news report so that the audience could read this. We built up tension using the tensional music that starts when she leaves the house as it tells the audience that something bad is going to happen. A member of our target audience said ‘the background music created a terrifying atmosphere’, we wanted to create this atmosphere as our aim was for this to be a horror/thriller film and in order to do this we had to somehow create a terrifying atmosphere. I think that we managed to create ideologies in this opening sequence as we showed crimes and victims, what can happen to people when they are alone at night in the streets and how women are perceived the weaker sex than men. The use of music gave the opening sequence tension, the sound was realistic. I think that the editing could have been slightly faster as people in our audience testing said that ‘the shots of the girls loneliness when she was walking caused me to lose interest’.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst in the process of completing this project I have learnt to use;
·         A digital video camera
·         Tripod
·         Imac computer
·         Imovie
·         www.blogger.com
·         Digital camera stills
·         External hard drives
I have used the internet to help me with research whist writing posts on the blog, I have used www.youtube.com many times to look at other types of horror/thriller films. I just www.google.co.uk to look on websites like www.jamendo.com to find music for the opening sequence. The cameras have helped us film the opening sequence, the Imac and Imovie have allowed us to edit our footage and blogger has allowed us to write about our project. All of these things helped us to achieve our finished project. However we did have to ask for help on certain things like how to upload music onto the opening sequence so that we could edit the clips to the music. There was a problem with the music as I listened to many copyright free CDs with music on however we did not realize that a track that we had used was not copyright free. Fortunately someone did and we had to change this track to another that was copyright free. The technologies allowed us to film an audience viewing that we posted on the blog http://c2asampfordejopsonashah.blogspot.com/2010/01/audience-viewing.html , it allowed us to edit the clips so that we would be able to just see a small part of them watching it and all of what they had to say about the opening sequence including the questions that went with the questions. 
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?
Looking back at our preliminary task http://c2asampfordejopsonashah.blogspot.com/2009/11/preliminary-task.html  that I quite liked I have realized that setting is very important when filming something. I think that the editing is better in our main task than in our preliminary. I quite liked the track that we used in our preliminary task because it suited the clip well, but the music in our main project has made me realize that it is quite hard to find copyright free music. I think that we have improved on the lighting as in our preliminary task it was quite hard to see  faces as the lighting was back-lighting which created a silhouette around the person which made it hard to see the persons facial expressions.
Conclusion
I think that as a group we have managed to do a lot without opening sequence however, I still think that the story line of our project could have been better and that we could have shown the girl getting stabbed at the end before the title of the film came up on screen. http://c2asampfordejopsonashah.blogspot.com/2010/01/main-task.html

Emma Jopson

Friday 29 January 2010

Target Audience

Media theories will help me describe our target audience. A demographic way of disscussing our target audience is by using gender, race, age and socio-economic status. We will be wanting to attract male and females of any race to watch our film. We are wanting a cinema going audience who like to watch horror/thriller films to be attracted. The socio-economic staus of our audience will be anyone that can afford to buy a ticket to the cinemas or buy a DVD. Our target audience can be anyone from the self-actualization pyramid as anyone in this pyramid can watch our film.
Emma Jopson

Scripts For The Main Task

There will be no diologue playing when the news reporter is on television so we did not have to write a script for Aamir to say. We did decide that when the girl and her friend meet in the street there would be minimum diologue between them both. The only convesation they will have is:
  • Seonade Cudden-(Screams)
  • Joeseph Cudden- "What are you doing out here, so late"
  • Seonade Cudden- "I'm going to a party"
  • Joeseph Cudden- "Right, Well just be careful yeah?" (Joeseph gets stabbed)
  • Seonade Cudden- (Screams)

Emma Jopson

Props List and Costume Plans

We have decided to keep the props and costume as simple as possible so that it does not make the clip look complicated.

Props will include a music player, and basic household items to be in the background of the shot at the begining of the clip.

Costume-
  • Seonade Cudden-a black 'going out' dress/top to make her look like she is going to a party, with a coat as it is cold outside
  • Joeseph Cudden-a casual jacket to make him look like he is an ordinary person
  • Alix Sampford- a black hoodie so that he looks mysterious and unknown
  • Aamir Shah- suit and tie to make him look like a reporter
Emma Jopson

Music For Our Main Task

It took us a long time to get the final music for our main task. We listened to many CDs to see if there were any that we could use. We found two songs from the corpright free CDs for the opening sequence. The creepy music and an up-beat song. However we later found out that the up-beat song was not copyright free, so we had to change the song as soon as possible. We had a look on copyright free internet websites. We came along www.jamendo.com where we found two possible choices for our clip. 'Satellite by Major Major' and 'Dropping Out Of School by Bad Sucks'. We asked people what they thought of the two songs and the majority of people said that 'Dropping Out Of School' was a more up-beat song. We found that it is quite hard to find copyright free music.
Emma Jopson

Thursday 28 January 2010

Saw 3 Opening Sequence

A film directed by Darren Lynn unlike many other horror films this has a creative story in which a jigsaw killer plays a game with the victims the reason being is that they dont appreciate their lifestyle. It is no doubt a strange reason but one that may leave enigmas and engages the audiences attention. The target audience for this film would be adults over the age og eighteen as blood, pain and enigmas appeals highly to them .
The film uses the general conventions you would expect in a horror film the intense sounds and the creepy music that develop suspense engaging the audiences interest as they wonder what is going to happen next. The music in the film is non- diagetic at the beginning it is very quiet then the pitch gets higher. It is mainly people screaming and intense sounds however this works well with the visual image with what is happening in the film.
The editing techniques are used very effectively they do two things they have an impact on the audience as well as creating suspense. The lighting used in the film follows the usual genre conventions of a thriller. In one point of the film the character is holding a torch which makes it look like he is lighting the room himself .This has an impact on the audience as they believe they are in the room with him.
A lot of the usual conventions are used throughout the movie blood,chains ,saws and dead bodies.It may be the standard conventions but when they are added to lighting and are edited they create a huge impact as they are much more terrifying and scary.
Published by Aamir Shah

Wednesday 27 January 2010

Questionnaire Analysis

After completing a questionnaire to find out what people liked about horror films and finding out the results we have decided to analyse our results. The first question we asked was do people like horror films the majority of the results stated yes so this proves that horror films are a popular choice in todays modern society. This also proves that our target audience preferred horrot films. As a follow up question we asked did the last horror film you watched scare you we asked this question to find out whether horror films really do scare people. Following our results the majority of the people said yes so this proves that horror films do set out what they are supposed to do scare people, but this can also depend on factors like age group and gender for instance younger children will be scared if they watch horror films the same can be said about females if they witness a gruesome they will likely to be terrified that will cause them a reaction to scream.
The next question was another follow up question depending if the answer ws yes. What was the name of your favourite horror film we asked this question just to find out the range of different titles people preferred.
We wanted to find out whether people thought darkness was the correct stereotype ,so we asked the question do you think that the darkness within horror films is effective. Our results clearly show the evidence that people do believe that darkness in a horror film does create an impact.
We wanted to find out what were the favourite scenes in a horror film and which scenes people found interesting in a horror film so we asked the question do you prefer horror films with action or excitement or scenes which scare you. Based on our results we found out that people like a mixture of both . We wanted to find out how much interest people take in horror films so we asked the question do you often watch horror films , our feedback clearly shows that people do enjoy horror films and that they are certainly a popular choice.
From our next question we wanted to find out what impact the opening sequence had for the audience so we asked the question what should the opening sequence of a horror film do for you. This was a direct straightforward yes and no answer question we wanted to find out peoples opinions and we definitely indeed got a range of them .
The next question we asked was do you find horror films funny. From our results we found out that our audience does find horror films hillarious this proves that horror films do not create the purpose they are supposed to and that is to scare people.
We wanted to find out if certain scenes in a horror films gave them a frightening experience so we asked the question do certain scenes in horror films make you want to look away. Once again our results show that the people do find certain scenes in a horror film scary.
Our final question was does the music in a horror film scare you. Our results from the questionnaire show that people do find the music scary and that the intense music in a film does hook the audience into the films so they will continue to watch it.
We have found a range of different answers and opinions from our questionnaire , but as a group we are happy with them. We have got exactly what we wanted.

Aamir Shah

Sunday 24 January 2010

Filming Summary

When i was filming the material i needed to get for the film i was able to get just enough to edit. Some shots werent neccisary in the final edit of the film so i was able to get around to editing them out in order to stay within the time frame for my opening sequence. I was able to gather the actors for the film and we managed pull through, even though it was extremely cold. Unexpected was the snow which turned up. At first i didnt want to film with the snow because at that time i didnt think that my film would have suited to have snow in the background, but unfortunantly i didnt have time to waste waiting for the snow to clear up, so i made the best of what i had. I was able to use the snow to help me in filming because at night time the snow was able to make the surroundings brighter. So i wasnt limited to using just filming when it was dark and still a bit light. However i still faced the problem that if didnt get sufficient material then for the film i would have had to record all over again because the snow had gone by the time i was able to being editting. Fortunantly i was able to gain sufficient material.
When it came to editting it was hard to pick out scenes i didnt need, even though there was so many scences i was able to get rid of i couldnt grasp the concept that the film made sense without those scenes. I had filmed it but in some parts of the film they didnt look right but to other people they didnt think it looked wrong. However after the final draft i dont think i was able to get everything i wanted to get into the film because i wanted to more scence in the film but i was unable due to the needed lengh of the film. A problem i faced with editting was that it was extremely hard to choose the music used for the film because we needed to edit around the music to make the film clearer. Also it was hard to get a hold of decent copy-right free music. Overall it was hard for me to do the filming and the editting because alot of thought and preparation was needed. I faced multiple problems with actors unable to show up due to weather and with the weather being extremely cold at the time it was hard to hold the camera but i got through and im happy with myself for that but it was a stressful experience i never will forget.

Alix Sampford

Progress Report

In the weeks that I have been filming i found it very demanding. With locations probs and actors its all a big deal. Oranising our film wasnt the best however i was able to go through with filming and get the job done.
Alix Sampford









These are the location shots for our film. We were able to a near by house for the film. Also we used the near by out side area for the scenes done out side.
Alix Sampford

Monday 11 January 2010

News Report

We filmed a news report so that we could play it on a television in the background of the girl getting ready, we will have her ignore this so that the audience are more aware of a killer on the loose than she is. Aamir was the news reporter, he wore a suit to make him look like a professional reporter. when editing the clips we decided not to have any dialogue as the girl will be listening to music. We still needed to make the audience know that there is a killer on the loose so we decided to use headlines that would scroll across the bottom of the screen to inform the audience of the news. We filmed this in Corporation Park using yellow and black tape attached to trees to make the scene look like it was a crime scene.
Emma Jopson

Storyboard





This is a basic storyboard of what is going to happen in our opening sequence to the horror film.

We decided to show shots of her ignoring the news report as she gets changed, so that the audience are more aware of what is going on than she is, this will make her vulnerable as she will not know that there is a killer on the loose. When she is walkin down the street we will have the camera behind her, it will look good as the light from the street will give her an outline. It will make it look like someone is following her when we have the camera as her friends point of view, i think this will create tension as the audience will not know who is following her. The last five camera shots will be fast pace to make the opening sequence more dramatic and add more tension to the situation that the girl is in.
Emma Jopson

Monday 4 January 2010

Analysis for the Opening Sequence of 'SAW'

I have decided to analyse ‘SAW’ as it is a well known horror film.

The titles on the film show the production companies; ‘Loins Gate Films’ and ‘Twisted Pictures’. It then tells the audience who made the film in a wavy font, this moves up and down as it fades out onto the black background. A blue light appears from the top of the screen, when it moves down it reveals a closed eye. The blue light moves off the screen making it black again. The title fades up onto the dark background in the same wavy font as before. A piercing metal type sound joins the title as bigger ‘SAW’ letters move around it. The blue light comes back onto the screen, a straight cut shows a man open his eyes and open his mouth under water, this creates bubbles as he panics for breath. The sound of water and him coughing makes the audience want to know what has happened to him. The blue light goes down the plug whole; this tells the audience that he is in a bath tub. We see him stumble out of the bath in low key lighting whist hearing him coughing.

As he moves about we hear a chain being dragged, he starts to ask for help and panics as he hears someone talking to him. This makes the audience wonder who the other person is. Suddenly the lights are turned on and we see the man who was in the bath tub react to the bright lights. We see the lights turn on one by one as the room gets brighter. A point of view shot shows the audience his blurred vision from the lights. The camera cuts to a man holding onto a bar above his head with a cut on his face in an untidy shirt. The camera shows an establishing shot from the man’s point of view of the room they are in. It appears to be a very unclean small public toilets, this tells the audience where the characters are, however this is still an unclear idea to where they are, when it is and who they are. As the music becomes dramatic, the camera tilts down to a dead man on the floor covered in blood, it zooms out in a spiral motion to add affect to the dead body face down on the floor. The sound is almost like a person screaming. The audience are then shown a close up of the bloody dysfunctional head, a handheld cassette player in one hand, and a pistol gun in the other. This makes the audience members want to know who the dead man on the floor is and why he is holding a cassette player and a pistol.

This opening sequence makes many enigmas for the audience to think about, it gives the titles of a film, in a genre related font, and it also gets the audience interested. This opening sequence tells the audience its genre as it had low key lighting, however it also has high key lighting to make the characters feel intimidated, it has dramatic and creepy music. It includes the typical things included in a horror film; guns, blood and gore, unknown places and confused characters. I used this opening sequence example as it has many of the things for a good opening sequence.

Emma Jopson

Organised Actors

The actors that will appearing in the film are;

  • Seonade Cudden- the girl in the sequence.
  • Joeseph Cudden- The friend who scares the girl in the back ally.
  • Aamir Shah- the reporter on the television when Seonade is getting ready to go out.
  • Alix Sampford- the killer.

Emma Jopson

Group Member Roles

Director- Alix, Emma, Aamir
Sound (music)- One upbeat song for when Seonade is getting ready and one melodramatic song for when she walks down the back ally as we want the music to create a tense atmosphere. Chosen by all three group members
Casting-
  • Seonade Cudden- Girl
  • Joeseph Cudden- Girl's friend
  • Alix Sampford - Killer
  • Aamir Shah- Reporter

Emma Jopson