Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation Question 6

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

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Evaluation Questions 4 and 5

Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

HOST: Hello and welcome back to the ASM show. Today I'm here with Thabo, Joe, Dom, and Nimat to talk about their main brief; Blackout (echo).

(APPLAUSE)

ALL: Thanks for having us.

HOST: So, who would be the audience for your media product?

DOM: Well, the certification of our product is a 15, so our main target audience is aged 15 and over. This allows a larger proportion of teenagers to watch the film. We didn't make it a 12 as our media product doesn't fit with the guidelines of the BBFC requirements, and we didn't want to make adjustments to our product as it would have lost its scare factor. Also, we didn't certify the product as an 18 as we would lose half of our target audience.

HOST: How did you come to that conclusion?

NIMAT: Well, our product is filmed and edited to suit a demographic of C1-E, which includes skilled manual workers and the unemployed. As our target audience lies within these demographics, if its certification was any higher, not many people would like to view our product, which will narrow our viewing audience and reduce our profit.

HOST: And how about your psychographic?

JOE: We looked at the psychographic of our desired target audience to see if their traits were compatible with the generic codes and conventions of the paranormal subgenre of horror. Sticking to these codes conforms to the audience's expectations. The younger demographic are stereotypically more likely to take risks and go to see an explicit media product, in comparison to the older demographic who are seen to watch more conservative products. The younger demographics’ interpretation of what our media product presents is creative.

HOST: What makes your audience want to watch horror films?

DOM: Well, according to the uses and gratifications theory by Katz, the audience want to watch horror films as this is their option of relaxing in their free time. This is how they use the media. They then gratify the media in ways such as escapism. They seek to escape from their reality, so they watch these films in order to feel better about life and think 'at least I'm not being possessed or someone's trying to kill me', or just to take their mind off reality completely. For instance, our demographic target audience of teenagers would most likely want to escape from exam stress.

HOST: Did you research into other similar products?

NIMAT: Yes. We started by researching into similar products of the same paranormal subgenre that were proven quite successful in the box office. Films you may know like The Babadook, The Conjuring, The Blair Witch Project, The Grudge, The Ring, Insidious, Psycho, The Omen, the list goes on! They all have the certification of 15. And from this, we decided to investigate and create a questionnaire for ages of 15 and over (because the typical certification for a horror is either a 15 or an 18).

HOST: Now why don't you tell our viewers about that?

JOE: Well, the results from the questionnaire showed the majority of participants to be 16, proving that they are constantly on social media (as we broadcasted our questionnaire via social media sites and apps), so this age group would always be fed our advertisement for our main brief online. They'd eventually share the advertisement and pass it onto their friends, giving our product a larger audience.

DOM: Although comedy was voted the most favourite horror subgenre, we decided not to produce a mock horror as we would like to stick to the generic conventions of horror. It was interesting to see that the paranormal and psychological subgenres were the second and third most favourite ones to watch. That gave us hope for the main brief. The questionnaire also revealed to us that not many people of the younger generation favoured the slasher subgenre as they are immune to the fear it presents, so completely scrapped our first idea of a slasher in the shadows.

NIMAT: Most of the people who participated in the questionnaire are 15-17, which explains why the dominant price was £5-£10 - people of this age don't have extravagant amounts of money to spend so they look for cheap pleasure and entertainment. But appealing and earning a profit from thousands of teens is better than a few extravagant profits from a small selection of adults.

HOST: So, how did you attract and address your audience?

JOE: We worked with companies such as Lionsgate Entertainment and Ghost House Pictures who already have a large following of viewers interested in the horror genre. They have an establishment with our target audience as they have had previous success within the horror industry. We went out and showed members of our audience clips of our main brief and our narrative structure to see if they were interested and what they had to say. From there, they passed it on to their friends and so, getting across to more people, increasing the awareness of Blackout.

HOST: Now I heard you presented some sort of pitch..?

NIMAT: Yes, we had to present it to some of our investors. Our pitch was based on our questionnaire actually. It played a really big role in our target audience research as we gained some feedback from our investors. Someone asked, "Do you think you'll be cutting out the female audience?” To this, we answered that the male is our main audience, so there will be events within our product that will not appeal to the female audience and they will be excluded from the storyline. Males are more likely to be fans of horror than females are. This is due to the stereotypical thrill seeker, portrayed by the male. Violence is a convention of the horror genre and is loved by males as they use violence to be dominant and prove their status. Although this is the case, our secondary audience is female so we will make sure that the footage we shoot keeps them involved for the majority of the opening.

HOST: After all the research you've clearly put in, how have you then applied this to your media product to produce this scare factor?

DOM: The way we've used this research effectively is by presenting the microelements in our media product. The microelements are sound, mise en scene, editing, and camera angles, we have used a dynamic non-diegetic soundtrack, as well as costume such as the tracksuit that the male wears, to depict the stereotypical traits of a teenager. The editing techniques we used were match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot, and we conformed to these by using the 180-degree rule. We used a range of camera angles such as high and low angles to display the status of each character within our media product.

HOST: How did you check throughout the production and post-production stages that you were satisfying your audience?

JOE: We showed rough cuts of our product to members of our target audience and gained feedback from them on ways to improve. They gave us the strengths and weaknesses, to which we acted upon.

HOST: Where did you gain inspiration from?

NIMAT: We received much inspiration from all sorts of films, for example, The Woman in Black, and the Exorcist. We were mostly inspired by the 2010 film Devil as it is based in an elevator, presenting the scare factor of everyday activities, and made reference to this in our product by having a demonic presence in the elevator.

HOST: Thanks for your insight today

NIMAT: Our pleasure.

HOST: I'm afraid that's all we have time for today. This has been the ASM show, I'm your host Charles Gibson. Catch you later!

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

As we were asked to create an opening to a horror film for our main brief I dedicated many hours to watching the openings of various films from each subgenre of horror, to gather what the typical codes and conventions of this genre are. I then looked into the micro elements of the horror genre to really examine the different aspects of detail within a horror opening.

For instance, in the opening of the film Scream, objects such as the knife depicted the iconography of a horror film. In this frame, the camera tracks the protagonist. Notice that this has a long shot duration, highlighting the knives on the counter for an excessive amount of time. For the majority of this duration, the knives are positioned in the right third of the frame in focus. The knives are a dominant object; its focus illustrates its important role throughout the film. This iconography is classified as mise en scene. Richard Dyer's 'star theory' is put across in this opening as the protagonist is Drew Barrymore. The star theory is the idea that icons/celebrities are included in media texts by institutions for financial gain. These stars are added to represent the experience of real emotions by 'real people'. However, this isn't the overall trend in a horror film as institutions typically involve actual 'real people' - non-celebrities. The 'star theory' does not apply to the horror genre as the audience are unable to detach what they already know about the actor and see them in danger. The audience is unable to connect with them and relate to their experiences within a horror. The use of an unknown actor really improves a horror film's success. Now, Barrymore was the first celebrity to feature in a horror film and is mostly known for her role in 'Charlie's Angels' - a strong, independent woman who isn't afraid to defeat evil with her peers. We associate this superior character with her role in Scream as we have familiarised ourselves with her previous main role. However, in Scream she possesses the stereotypical traits of a female - these traits being vulnerability, oblivion, being naive, home-orientation, talkativeness, emotion, and a gentle persona, whereas the film 'Charlie's Angels' doesn't conform to this idea. The character has blonde hair, connoting a bemused personality, while her blue eyes connote innocence. Her makeup is made to look quite natural; however, her lips still seem to stand out as if she's wearing lipstick. This, therefore, sexualises the character. Her clothing is modest as she wears a cream coloured, non-low-cut sweater, and walks in her feet comfortable in her house, as she should be. Her suburban home is in the form of detached-housing, allowing itself to be isolated. This is typical of a horror as victims are often placed in a setting where help and the assistance of others are not available to them. I used this idea in my main brief and constructed a tight-spaced setting; an elevator. The elevator represents a metal cage, a cage that the victim is trapped in when the elevator malfunctions. During this malfunction there is darkness, presenting the emotion of fear as people are afraid of the unknown and what lurks. Although the Scream opening lasted around five minutes, I decided to make my main brief less than two minutes long as this is the general length of an opening to a film.

In the opening of Blade, camera movement is unsteady and jagged, depicting the unstable life of a vampire, or someone who is surrounded by their presence. A tracking shot is used here, allowing the audience to examine the vampires' pale faces and come up with an idea as to why these people are the central protagonists of the opening. In this shot, we see a slight conflict between the male and the female. The shot is taken at a low angle, allowing the female to dominate and overpower the American. This is atypical of a female. Within a horror, close-ups are used to signify the importance of an occurrence within a storyline. The close-up of blood dripping onto his hand is telling us the extent of brutality throughout the film and its relationship with this iconography. This evidently establishes the media text as a horror. A variety of camera movement is used repeatedly in horror films to really set and illustrate an atmosphere. In this example, zooming and arc shots are used to add to the hallucinogenic atmosphere. POV shots are also a key element in a horror. Here we see a male vampire punching the camera head on. Because this is shot from a point of view, the audience is included in the action - feeling as if the vampire has punched them. POV shots are used to represent the reality of the mise en scene and allow the audience to emotionally connect with a character as they are made to feel like they are in the same position. High angle shots are used to exhibit who is inferior in a situation - in this case, the American male. I tried to use this shot in my main brief by shooting the antagonist's hands from a high angle. This way she is made to look inferior as her stance is quite innocent. Later on, the audience is given a shock as the stereotypical female traits are subverted and their initial judgement of the character appears to be incorrect. She, in fact, has the dominant role and is in control of the situation/disturbance in the elevator.

Saw VI is the perfect example of sound in a horror text. Notice how the sound is very adamant. It is constant throughout the opening, remaining at low levels in the background. Without the accompaniment of a non-diegetic track, the footage would sound empty. Sound effects emphasise a change in atmosphere and also highlight important sections of dialogue. Distinct sound effects of the horror genre include; a sharpened blade, the cutting of flesh, and blood spatters. I edited a dynamic soundtrack into my main brief to create tension and anticipate the audience before a sudden, climactic sound is heard when the antagonist opens her eyes. This notifies the audience of a disruption within the storyline and helps to depict Todorov's narrative theory. The concept of the Saw series also refers to Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition (the good vs the bad). In the series, the theory is slightly challenged as members of the public seem to be kind hearted, when in reality their reasons for their actions are actually pretty heinous. For example in Saw 7, a man has written a book about his experience escaping a jigsaw trap. Everyone believes he has done this to support the victims of Jigsaw and to get across that being tortured by jigsaw is not something to be ashamed of. They believe he is a good man for doing this and being brave enough to share his story, later on in the film we gain knowledge of him actually being a fraud, as has never experienced what he has been claiming. he wrote this book for a profit and to earn more money for him and his family. Although providing for your family is an understandable thing to do, he did this in such a spiteful way and therefore had to be punished for his actions with real torture to prove his survival to the villain. The profound villain is in fact supposed to be seen as a good person, ridding the world of these types of people - as he says 'Those who don't appreciate life do not deserve life'. This character is highly intelligent as he is able to torture people without actually committing any crimes. He forces his victims to make the decision between life and death themselves. So, by law, he is not a villainous character.

The film Insidious displays remarkable credits. Credits here are of a bold red colour, symbolic of the blood that associates with a horror. The credits resolve into mist after being displayed, representing the movement of a ghostly figure. The director's name is placed onto a circular light bulb.This has been done on purpose to highlight its significance in the storyline. Light has connotations of purity, and plays a key role in this film - in relation to 'The Further' - this location is pitch black, and later on in the film, you see that characters are only powerful in The Further once they have gained some light. A montage of photos are shown, they are in black white, giving them a vintage feel and allowing the red credits to emerge in the foreground. The vintage effect encourages the audience to believe the family has lived there for a very long time, so their life should be settled and commence freely. This is not the case, as we learn that there is an attachment to a stronger being within the house. The audience is made to believe that no matter who you are, or what life you live with your family, there is still a possibility of terrible events like these happening. The montage of shots also exhibit areas of the house that play a main role in the film, such as the son's bedroom. Here is where the boy's energy is fed on by the mysterious being. In this clip the bodily figure is shown, emphasising the paranormal subgenre as silhouettes of creatures are often displayed in this area of horror. The family portrait in the opening montage introduces the main characters of the film, as they should be in a film opening. Match-on-action is used here to frighten the audience, as we see a horrified scream in response to a demonic appearance. I used the idea of this sudden disturbance in my main brief where the antagonist opens her eyes to reveal a pitch black sclera. This notifies the audience of a tragic event occurring, as the colour black symbolises death - a prominent and dominant theme within the film that would follow after my main brief. This symbolism also refers to the paranormal subgenre of horror.

Q1 Video Plan

- Scream (play opening)
- Blade (play opening)
- Saw VI (play opening)
- Sound effects (show an example of each of them).
- 'Those who don't appreciate life do not deserve life' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ONb8flonYQ.
- Insidious (play opening)
- (play montage in opening)
- Terrible occurrence (show medium in room having a seizure)
- (show montage image, then image of son in bed)
- Match-on-action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabzeW-EBrE

End of Week 9

This last week has mainly been about editing and finalising my main brief. I have not been able to document the process as rough cuts were not exported, however, the end product is just what I wanted it to be! I am so pleased with the result, I thought that my group being behind would turn our main brief into a disaster, but it actually came out better than we planned.

End of Week 8

I was able to get some feedback on my second edit and have taken note of this. I shall be finalising my main brief really soon. Some of the feedback I received included thoughts about my credits, which I hadn't produced. So, I was able to research different fonts to use for these and was able to determine the appearance of my credits. I noticed I hadn't stuck to a frame on my storyboard where the antagonist has pitch black eyes, so I played around on Photoshop and was able to create the effect that I wanted.

Week 8: Credits

We've decided to colour our credit text with a white palette and display the majority of them on a black background to emphasise the contrast between death and life, and evil and purity. Some credits will be placed on top of the action in the opening sequence so that the credits are not classified as a title sequence and so that the thought of innocence remains in our audience's thoughts throughout.

At this stage, we were also able to decide on a name for our institution and have concluded it to be Modulus Entertainment.

This name for our company was chosen as the word 'modulus' refers to Young's modulus of physics. This is the ratio of stress (units of pressure) and strain. We made this reference as the conflict between science and religion is mainly represented in the paranormal subgenre of horror. Moreover, as Young's modulus units are of pressure, we feel that this could relate to the pressure being put on the audience to watch the rest of the film after our opening sequence as they are under the stress of not knowing the true story and meaning of what happened in the opening.

Week 8: Fonts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 - Wednesday 23rd November 2016: Find/create and position title and credits onto footage.
I chose these fonts as they are typical of the horror genre. Some are quite bold and sharp, depicting the feel of terror. The loose edges of these fonts illustrate irrational thoughts and behaviour, traits that are used by our antagonist.

These texts were taken from the following website;
http://www.fontspace.com/category/horror?p=16







I chose this font as it holds a sense of irony. It's ironic how the word 'blackout' resembles darkness, yet the font displays it with a glow. However, the font as a whole resembles too much of the sci-fi subgenre.


The movement of the text is jagged, demonstrating the central antagonist's fragmented mindset. This font supplies rough edges on each letter, emphasising the lifestyle that the antagonist involves herself in.


These texts were taken from the following website;

http://www.flamingtext.co.uk/Free-Logo-Designs

Photoshop/Paint

I tried to edit my female character's eyes today. I started off with Microsoft Paint as I was familiar with this platform and found it easy to equip the right tools. I then moved onto Adobe Photoshop CS6 as it is a more professional platform and offers a larger variety of effects that I could add to make my character's eyes more realistic.

Week 8: Second Edit Feedback

Week 8: Main Brief Second Edit

Thursday 17th November 2016 - Monday 21st November 2016: Edit soundtrack and sound effects on top of the footage.

In response to the feedback received from our first cut, I decided to alter the edit and improve our media text by adding in sound and letting our footage remain in its natural colour. I also discovered that in most horror film openings the antagonist is unknown. I depicted this by not revealing my antagonist's face so that later on in the film the audience will be surprised as to who the main source of destruction was within the film.

Editing Choices

I decided to produce a dynamic soundtrack by grouping various pieces of sound together - to resemble the atmospheric feel of a horror.

End of Week 7

There goes week 7. We were able to share the editing between me and Dominic and produced two separate edits. I decided to use his edit as a guideline for what my edit can improve on. I have also been using our rough cut feedback to develop my edit. The second edit should be finished by the end of week 8.

Week 7: Main Brief Rough Cut Feedback

Week 7: Main Brief Rough Cut

Monday 14th November 2016 - Wednesday 16th November 2016: Edit footage.

End of Week 6

Week 6 was a handful! We had so much to get done but thankfully completed each task and was able to make a new schedule that each group member could abide by. We also managed to secure the use of the school elevator for our main brief, get the equipment needed, and finally film! Unfortunately we had to change cast members, but hopefully, the end result of our main brief will turn out better than we think it will because of this change.

Week 6: Sound

Friday 11th November 2016: Make a soundbank of possible soundtracks and sound effects to use when editing. 

As I play a string instrument, I thought it was a clever idea to produce some of the sound effects for our opening sequence myself. I did this by plucking my strings, as bowing on the strings in different areas to create soft and harsh sounds (i.e. creaking).

Here is a sample of the sounds I have produced;



I have also put together a sound bank full of copyright-free sound effects that we could include in our main brief; https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3R8lsiNpVNlN3pNSmExaGd6M2M
I gathered these sounds from https://www.freesound.org.

I also retrieved a music soundtrack from http://freemusicarchive.org/.

Week 6: Filming day!

Thursday 10th November 2016: Go to school elevator and film.

Update on Casting

We updated our cast with this new actress as she goes to our school and her availability is quite flexible. This is really great for us we will be able to contact her very easily regarding re-filming.

We figured her height, shorter than the previous actress, will create an element of innocence as she seems childlike. This will surprise the audience as they underestimate her timid stance. We will use her scars as recounts of how many souls the antagonist has taken and devoured. This actress is also affordable. Her difficulty to focus may be a letdown as were are on a tight schedule and cannot afford to go over filming time in order to get the perfect shots or re-film.

Her costume is similar to the previous actress', with smaller inched heels.

Week 6: Update on Location Recce

Wednesday 9th November 2016: Take recce pictures of school elevator.

We have decided to use the elevator in our school instead of the elevator at the Westfield Stratford City car park as it is available to us on a regular basis, allowing us to film each day of the week. As our media text will take place in school, we will have to change our casting and cast a new female to be the antagonist.

We attempted to act out the scenes in order to figure out the positioning within the elevator.

Equipment Borrowing

As no member of my group had a camera and tripod handy, I had to fill out this form to borrow equipment from school. I decided to return it the following Monday and keep the equipment over the weekend just in case we had to re-film after reviewing the footage we had taken and not being pleased.

Week 6: Update on Location

As a group, we have decided not to film at Westfield Stratford City as my group and I are unfamiliar with the setting and unaware of its availability. Additionally, as the location isn't within a 5-mile radius of some group members' homes, it would be difficult to arrange another time to re-film if shots did not turn out as planned. We couldn't take the risk of just showing up to the location unprepared without any permission rights and seeing what happens as this is poor management which would result in a low-quality main brief.

Week 6: Schedules of the Group

In order for us to stick to our production schedule, we have frequently been messaging on WhatsApp Messenger. Here we discussed casting and spoke to each other about times that members will be free to film after school hours. This was tricky as everyone has their private lives and extra-curricular activities they partake in, so members were always busy.

Fortunately, we were able to work around this problem, set a date to film, and finalise our actors.