Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Video- Film Opening: Evaluation Q5 - "Pulse" FeedBack

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

We decided to record a small group of people to watch our video then asked them questions to do with it to see what there response was to our video "Pulse". (See embedded screening below)



From getting real responses from audiences, to a mixed gender audience of 17 year olds we were then able to see how we achieved the genre of the film we made. From our audiences response we found out that they got a preferred reading from our film so there for we met our target in getting it to match the genre we wanted. We know this from looking back on our response from our audience, I believe we attracted our audience by encluding conventions which are from the genre we chose do do which is stalker/slasher movie, we have included a murder scene which is part of the ending, which we chose to put as the main first scene, this draws the audience in to carry on watching to find out why this happened. Our audience's feedback reflects what we wanted our audience to feel, they recognised the genre and wanted to carry on watching to find out what happens. This is the feedback we wanted from our audience, as this is how we wanted them to feel. Our audience particularly enjoyed the first scene because of the way in which we see the girl about to be murdered in the aviator sunglasses, this made one of my audience members gasp.

The fact that all of my audience took the preferred reading of my text was very gratifying because they recieved certain pleasures from watching our two minute opening of our film 'Pulse' and also they were able to recognise the storyline and what they would expect to happen, this is pretty close to what we decided would happen in the film. Also because they took the preferred reading it makes us feel that we have achieved ourjob in satisfying our audience.

Our audience who watched and gave feedback about our film answered the following questions:-

Questions We Asked Our Audience:

1) What genre do you think this film was?

Audience comments: Horror/Thriller
This was in fact the genre we chose to do so therefore the audience recognised the fact it was supposed to be a Horror movie.



2) Which convention within our production helped you to recognise the genre?



Audience comments: Dark beginning, Vibrant red title, Music, Editing, Glasses in the beginning section.



These were the things we wanted our audience to pick up on.

3)What do you think the story line would be from watching the first two minutes?

Audience comments: Stalker murders woman, Man in second section is possibly the murder, he connotes bad signs.
This was the story line we wanted to make the audience think would happen, it was roughly the same idea which we had for the film.

4) Did the first two minutes make you want to watch more?

Audience comments: yes, wants to know how/why she dies
This helped us to know that we achieved what we wanted to achieve which was to draw the audience in to make then want to watch the rest of the movie.

5) What scenes did you feel had the best editing?

Audience comments: The first scene
We tried to make that our best scene as it would draw the audience in quicker, so we therefore edited this section more by adding in jump cuts etc .

6) Which scenes did you feel not relate to the genre?

Audience comments: The pigeons in the credits
We tried to show the pigeons following eachother to show the idea of stalking and that it can happen on any ordinary day, but because of the comments we did not quite achieve what we wanted to.

7) What atmosphere did the non diegetic sound create?

Audience comments: Eire beginning music, seagulls sounds like a sea side
We wanted an eire feel to the first scene as it was the most imposrtants scene within our first two minutes, we placed non diegetic seagul sounds in to make the scene more real.

Monday, 30 March 2009

Video - Film Opening: Evaluation Q4

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for our media product would be teenagers male and female aged 15+, who enjoy horror films, we chose to make our film a rating of 15 this was influenced by our research into the fact that 'When A Stanger Calls' and 'One Missed Call' are both rated 15. I believe this age group as it would attract younger teenagers as most teenagers enjoy being scared. Their Lifestage would be Decision Pending, I believe this because it will be the ages of teenagers who are at College/University.

My audiences psychographics would be a aspirer and a radical, also the social value would be a hedonist and on the jicnar scale they would come under C2/D, this would be appropriate for this target audience as they would be in full time education who have aims and goals.

They would not read new papers as it would not interest them, they would prefer to read magazines such as Karrang and Metal Hammer. They prefer to be seen as individualists and would not like to be considered as the same.

They would like to watch our two minute opening to a film because of the reason of being scared, the way in which it goes straight into action in the beginning draws the audience in to watch more, they would enjoy to see how it ends and how she came to being murdered. They would relate to our film because the characters are young adults so they would be able to relate to the characters and enjoy watching the film unfold.

In conclusion i believe that our target audience would be that of mixed gender who are middle class and who enjoy watching horror movies.

Sunday, 29 March 2009

Video - Film Opening: Evaluation Q1, 2 + 3



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

Our media product uses similar conventions of real media products within the same genre and sub-genre of a stalker/slasher horror movie, such as eerie music to create the right sort of atmosphere and mood. From researching films of the same genre we chose to do we then were able to see what type of mood and atmosphere we needed and how it would create fear in the audience. We have also used similar conventions such as jump cuts, when editing and close ups on important things which the producer wants the audience to notice, these jump cuts we discovered from watching "When A Stranger Calls" for or research. The mise-en-scene which we have used within our film such as blood and ripped clothing which helps connote the mood and also give hints on to what the story line could be, cinematography we used was close ups and different camera angles which gave different views and perspectives of the characters. According to Levi-strauss the binary opposites are similar in both our film and that in real media productions, as in the villains always seem to be male characters who dress in dark clothing also he is wearing a white and red shirt which connotes purity for the white and blood for the red, and the victims are mostly female and are seen in a lighter way, the males are considered as powerful and the females are made to seem powerless. Our media product is also similar to others when it comes to the Propp theory, our villain is a male and our victim is the female character this seems to be a common factor in this genre. From looking back on the research into other films for example our title for our media product is similar to that in 'When A Stranger Calls' with a centered white with a red haze around the words, this is the the same as ours, this was intentional, as we carefully chose the font types and colours to those in other media products like ours.






We came across a movie which we had not researched called 'Scary Movie' which we then noticed used the effect of changing the title from white to red, as we liked this we then included it in our title section which we used on the stalker characters real name 'Kris Roberts', this connotes his dark character and that he was the cause of the woman's death. Also it connotes evil and follows the conventions of our chosen genre. The white into red also signifies that



I believe that we have developed on the genre slightly through the music, for example the credit music is not that of a typical movie of our genre, we have chosen to do a more lighter softer sounding melody which in my opinion gives a sense of irony to the movie we have created. This could also be a way in which we have challenged this genre/sub-genre as we have not used the typical music which most of these films have, instead we have changed the mood of the music completely to give a different feel to the movie to show that we have gone back in the past to the normal day in which the woman's trouble started. Also because we had chosen to show the murder in a pair of aviator sun glasses which connote light, sunshine and happiness which is a contrast to the scene, this is also an unusual way in which to show a murder scene, this could be a development of the genre in which we were working with. Our film is not similar to other films according to Todorov's idea as it we have chosen to start off with a disruption and the go into a equilibrium when it jumps to the past. This is different to how films of this genre normally happen in the beginning as most start off with a slight equilibrium and then a disruption starts.

In conclusion I believe that we have created our own version of this genre and the sub-genre within it of a Stalker/Slasher movie. We have kept the same conventions in which this genre has to allow the audience to recognise the genre. But we have also challenged what this sub-genre normally follows such as changing the order of Todorov's idea and by starting our two minute
opening with the end scene.

2) How does you media product represent particular social groups?

Our audience is C2/D for social economic group, they are teenagers to late teenagers, the gender would be of mixed sex, they are hedonists/rebels, they are more of a mainstream audience, we have chosen to make our rating as a 15 after researching further into other films like 'One Missed Call' and 'When A Stranger Calls' which are both rated as a 15.

We have used dominant ideology in the sense that we have used a male character as the powerful villain and the female as a powerless victim this is normally what other media products like ours does, as males are considered as powerful and females are not. We made the male character as a typical stereotype of a stalker wearing dark clothing such as a dark leather jacket with dark trousers which is a stereotypical view and also a residual ideology, his personality would be a person who works on their own as a photographer and would play video games as a hobby which is also on his own his social class would be middle/lower class. The female character is also a stereotype as she seems to be unaware of the danger she is in also her clothing is stereotypical of a female character, she would be a hedonist, she keeps her appearance presentable and seem to care about what males think of her which is considered as residual ideology, her personality would be fashionable therefore she would work in a retail store like River Island and would read magazines in her spare time, her social class would be middle/upper class. Our male character is similar to that in 'When A Stranger Calls' with dark clothing but also dresses quite normally, considering both characters play a similar role in both films we see that we have based our character on the male character in this film.


Our media product uses some emergent ideology in the sense that we have used different techniques in our film such as the murder scene in the aviator glasses, also because of the music choice for the credits it does not follow the same style as other media products like ours, in some sense it reflects the female characters personality. Other features in our media film uses elements of emergent ideology.

We have chosen a certain way to represent our characters within our media product this is to show the way in which they have a distinctive way in which they react. The male character is shown as a obsessive character we see this when he smells her hair as he was past, we also see that he doesn't stay far away from her and that he always seems to be close to her. The female character is presented as the unaware victim, we see this as she does not realise someone is following her and walks past her, this makes the audience feel sympathy for the female character, these representations are dominant.




Props we used throughout our media production were, a ripped t-shirt, ripped tights, white cloth, blood, aviator sunglasses, a large object for the murder weapon, leather jacket, dark trousers, red and white shirt. All these things were used in both scene, the murder scene and the day scene, all these things connotes violence and danger. We made sure our actors wore the same thing on both days to show that this happened all in one day. Because we filmed the night scene first the actress wore a cardigan to cover up the Rip's in the t-shirt. I believe these things did help to show the messages and values within our film.



3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product might be distributed by companies such as Dimension Films this is because our media film seems to be an independent film, this is similar to the film 'Scream' we also researched because of the fact that they are also distributed by Dimension Films. It would not be distributed by a conglomerates such as Universal Pictures because of the fact it was not a large film, as it would have been made on quite a small budget, when we produced our opening credits we made up our own distributer called Media Life Pictures, because it is independent it would maybe come out in small festivals such as the Sundance festival it would not go to a festival as small as Raindance but it would still be a small festival.



It would not go to a large cinema such as Vue or Odeon because of the fact it is a independent movie, it would not be able to be in larger cinemas until it got larger. It would play in small cinema's such as The Electric House and Light House which are both in Birmingham which specialise in playing independent films. Our film would feature on internet site specialised for independant films and would feature in the cinemas which are for independant films. Such as The Electric House's website and others which advertise independant films.



We could also feature it on youtube and attract audiences, or make a trailer to allow audiences to know that their is a new film out, this would be good as it would allow audiences to get a preview of the film they are going to watch or whether they would enjoy it or not. Because our target audience would use Youtube alot they would be likely to see the film we have created. Most of the advertising would be done by viral marketing as being an independent movie it will not be advertised much.



The price of this as a DVD would be approximatly £8.00, the product would be a one disc edition of the film 'Pulse', it would be promoted through the internet as trailers and posters, also through magazines and independent film cinemas, the place in which it would be sold is online, on websites such as amazon and ebay. Also it could be sold in smaller shops.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Video: Film Opening- Finished Production- "Pulse"

Candidate Names: Sophie Price and Lauren Mullen
Candidate Numbers: 8309 and 8374

Sunday, 15 March 2009

Video- film Opening: Music

Because we had a specific idea for our music we wanted to create it ourselves, this involved going to Liverpool to ask a professional, Mike Dargan, to borrow his equipment to then put onto our film opening. We then went through our film and discussed what we wanted for each section in our opening and then composed the music using an editing suite called Acid Music to layer different sounds on top of eachother which helped to create the effect we wanted. For the credit section we used a piece of music Mike had composed for another film he made but didnt end up using, we chose to have this music because it creates a sense of irony, and also it makes you feel like it all happened on a normal day. The other sounds we used for when the stalker is following her is all non diegetic sounds, we decided to do this because we had dialogue in our film which we did not want there. For the female victim in our film, Lauren dubbed over her voice. After we had finished creating the music we then rendered it and put it onto a DVD disc.

Video- Film Opening: Editing

After we got our raw footage of everything that we needed in our two minute film opening, we then used an editing suite called Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, we saved different sections of our footage separately so it would be easier to put in the correct places. We then put the section in a rough order and then cut them down to make all of it flow better, whilst doing this we kept watching it back to make sure it was how we wanted it, if not we would go back and alter it. In the beginning we decided to do jump cuts to emphasises that there has been some kind of murder also this creates a sense of fear into the audience.

Problems we faced during editing was that there was one section in our film that we needed to make it flow and to complete a match on action shot, but the shot we needed had the other character in the wrong position and he was there fore in the frame, we then had to crop the shot and put a zoom on it to take out the actor in the shot, this then helped to make the match on action flow better.