Evaluation-Media
Q1: In what way does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In my technical
analysis is analysed the film Inception, I did this because I felt it
mirrored the psychological genre were
trying to go for, as it adds both mystery and enigma
to the story. I felt our product has similar ideas for example, as a group we
tried to create an opening which would leave a lot to the imagination. This is
often the case in most horrors/thrillers such as ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’;
this is because it gives the audience curiosity towards the background story. I
also feel the high cutting rate mirrors
that of an actual tentpole horror, we
chose to do this as it means a lot of action and establishment can fill a 2
minute period, setting up the story ahead. One of the main factors that I feel
our title sequence is similar to that of
a real title sequence, is the use of non-diegetic
sound which anchors the visuals (an example being the radio broadcast). I
think the use of sound mixing makes it
look professional and almost industrial.
Finally I think the titles and font develop the opening and polish it off
effectively.
One of the main conventions of horror, in
our opening is the location.
As it creates apprehension leading to the main story, for example our establishing shots I feel
effectively set up the opening.
· Characters:
Nightmare
on Elm Street (Craven,
1984).
I think
our characters are represented in a way
that mirrors most characters in the genre,
for example many psychopathic killers such as Freddy Krueger from ‘Nightmare on
Elm Street’ are shown to be both mysterious and ‘crazy’. I think the despite
our antagonist being 16, there are clear connotations of him appearing older
and powerful. For example mise
en scene, costume is dark and colourless, as well as this he shown to be
carry heavy objects presenting him as strong and solid. This is often the case
in the majority of male antagonist
killers, and they are conventions
which are used in a large proportion of horror films.
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
Our victim resembled that of the 1960 classic ‘Psycho’,
in the way that she’s shown to be weak in a somewhat patriarchal situation. In
1960’s the patriarchal society may have been a contempory or dominant ideology, whereas in the current
society it would appear to be residual as equality seems to be principal. This particular screenshot is symbolic of the victims weakness and vulnerable, shown by her being surprised by the killer.
· Plot:
The plot for our title sequence is a mysterious one, as it sets up the
story effectively and creates enigma and
tension. We wanted to do this, as then we could use titles, effects and continuity editing to create a visual interesting opening, however without using
too much acting which may look amateur compared to an actual horror such as
‘The Shining’ (Kubrick, 1980). We felt in
order to keep the antagonist mysterious
and allow the opening to create enigma
we felt that our killer should be shot only from the shoulders down, or from
the other side.
To conclude I feel there are many aspects of
our title sequence which mirror that real horror films, such as the shots, sounds and the characters.
Q2: How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
· In our
production we are not presented with a protagonist, however the antagonist in our film is supposedly middle
aged (20-40), suggested from the mise en scene;
such as costume and actions. For example his big coat and slouched posture
could be seen a stereotype of middle aged.
In the sequence we attempt to represent the killer as psychopathic and
dominant, which is somewhat a common representation
of men as a residual ideology in film, and this is conventional of most horror
films. However as the villains face is not shown as we felt it may be more
mysterious, I could make it harder to establish the age group or social group.
We did this in order to create tension and enigma leading
on to the story that would evolve if there were a film.
· It is
apparent when watching the title sequence,
that the victims are female, ONLY female; we are told this through a radio broadcast. This could be an ideology, that females are inferior to males,
this would be a residual ideology as in current society equality is everywhere.
However all these females are said to be under the age of 20, we did this to
implement another ideology, as often
people of a younger age (especially females) are seen as weak or conflicting
with older generations, therefore it could be age
discrimination saying that the current generation of youths are
substandard to the working generation. This could also be represented through visual techniques, for example the camera is
often positioned at a tilt up to show
the antagonist as powerful character
against the villains. Whereas the victim being a female is shown at a high angle so the audience is looking down on her, to look vulnerable and weak.
· Because
we have few characters in our opening it is less obvious to the viewer of our
ideologies, however the ‘Male vs. Female’ ideology
and the ‘Young vs. Old’ ideology are
still strong.
Q3: What kind of media institution might
distributor your product and why?
· Vertigo
Films is a British independent distributor
of culturally British films, such as
‘Football Factory’ (Love, 2004), ‘StreetDance 3D’ (Giwa/Pasquini,
2010) and ‘Bronson’ (Winding Refn, 2008). Vertigo Films distribute to cinemas, DVD and download,
personally I think our film would have been distributed on a platform release, to the whole of the British
population. Bronson was on a micro budget
of $230,000, however was successful in exhibition
gaining roughly 9 times the budget, with
a box office of $2,260,712. We feel our
film could mirror the success of a feature such as this, because it would be
low budget but would have a high production
value. I feel our film would have a large
target audience being a hybrid of ‘Horror’ and ‘Psychological Thriller’;
therefore it should be released to amass
audience meaning it should be given to the majority of exhibitors (an example being multiplexes). We hoped it would be a tentpole or a mainstream
film, despite coming from a low budget independent institution because
of the established genre and the large target audience. I feel this institution would
suit our production as it is a UK based project. Therefore it would be fairly
practical when collaborating, than it would be if it was if it where overseas.
Also they specialise in independent films,
with low budgets and this is
specifically what our production would need.
·
Furthermore in order to promote our production we would screen our film at as
many film festivals as possible. If we couldn’t attract the attention of
Vertigo Films, at the film festival there would be a range of distributors that could potentially approach
us. Additionally at film festivals there is a chance of winning an award, this
will create buzz around the film because
of a critical acclaim. An example Sundance Film Festival is well-known film
festival which has awarded many films and given them success through this.
Q6: What have you heard about the technologies from
the processes of making your film opening?
Throughout our production we used a variety of media platforms. We did this to utilise a
variety of technologies through convergence,
and to give the target audience an array of ways to view our creation. For
example we made use of web 2.0 a range
of ways:
Online:
Blogger: At the beginning of the project we set up a Blogger account, to
document our progress. We uploaded a mixture of posts,
clips, photos and links in order to show our concept development. We were able to give
feedback on each other’s posts, and develop our ideas.
Survey
Monkey: During the production we used Survey Monkey to create a questionnaire;
we did this to get feedback from our target
audience. This particular website allowed us to create questions and
present them differently, meaning we could gain bothquantitative and qualitative data, and then represent this
graphically in graphs.
YouTube: Firstly we used YouTube to find clips and then embed them on the blog, if we enjoyed some of the conventions within that clip. After filming
and editing preliminary, wildernesse
woods footage and our final piece we used the YouTube to upload our videos.
Also we used the it to find our soundtrack;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnxar6WH3sk Time
Splitters Hotel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBq5faeoKY Radio
Tuning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7U7dA2rQ78 Radio
Static
Slide
Rocket: We used this for our pitch, and
the questionnaire results.
Camera:
Panasonic 5D60: For our preliminary task and wilderness woods we used a
Panasonic 5D60, we used it for several shots and thought it was an effective camera. We got some good quality
footage in HD, as well effective audio.
Canon
Powershot SX130 IS: However in our final piece we chose to use a different
camera, as we thought it would better suit our shots. For example some establishing shots we thought would look
better with a DSLR camera.
Editing:
When editing we used the software Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0 to edit our final
piece. The process of editing ‘Neurosis’involved:
For
the footage we wanted we moved it to the Data Disk of our editing computer.
From there we imported the footage into Premiere
Elements. We then ordered the footage on the timeline. For many clips we
had multiple takes in case there was a mistake.
Next,
we cut our clips to shorten them down to create continuity,
a clear narrative and we wanted a high cutting rate.
After
this, we added colouring effects, in
particular cases zoom and
transitions to add clips in post-production
where we saw appropriate.
We
then added soundtrack layered over the
top of the ambient sound. Our soundtrack was found on YouTube which we cut into three different. We
also added the sound effect of the radio
to make it sound as if it’s being turned on we did this to create an audio
bridge between shots.
When
adding non-diegetic sound, we also had
to edit the ambient sound, for example lowering the volume so it doesn’t crowd out the soundtrack.
For example in some places, we effectively anchored the sound with the visuals for example when the radio is turned
off at the end.
Finally we added titles; a
specific font that we chose as we felt
it suited the mood. We did this in a fade to
black, as we felt it would look more professional
than having the titles on-screen.
