final film

Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Before even starting the task, i knew it was going to be hard for me as i had no filming or acting experience. I learnt about camera techniques, shots and angles. This was key for me as i was the camera man. I learnt about rules of filming such as the 180 degree rule which is generally never broken unless you want to confuse and deceive your audience. I have learnt how to appeal to the specific audience by carrying out surveys i would have never done.

Looking back on our preliminary task, me and our group as a whole have learnt a great deal in terms of editing, rules and filming. I feel that the knowledge and know how i have gained has helped me in the horror opening sequence task and helped us as a group to create a more complex product.

For the filming of the horror movie, we used a program called adobe premiere, we all had used this before as this is the schools staple editing software. So we generally knew what transitions were on offer to use, so not much was learnt. But as our film was so dark, it was hard to see so, our teacher taught us how to use colour contrast, this is where you can control the brightness or darkness of the film without tampering or affecting the overall quality of the film. We wanted to create a natural had held look to our film and Adobe did that for us.

To add to the media task, we had to file our progress and independent research on a website called blogger, this was knew to me because the only social network i bother with is Twitter, so i needed to get used to working it and blogging regularly. This once you got the hang of it, was an easy site to understand and use affectively.

Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In filming i learnt a lot about cameras and the use of cameras. As the camera it was a great learning curve, so i had to adapt and i felt i learned a great deal on camera work and shots. The software we used was Adobe Premiere Pro and as i used this in GCSE ICT for two years i was very comfortable with this product.

The software Adobe Premiere Pro was so useful and easy to use. We used it for altering the colour contrast. We did this because we filmed in the night so obviously it was dark so that was an issue at first, but due to the easy use of the affect, we got the video looking how we wanted to. Next we used Adobe for affects like fade and various other effects. We used effects to increase the visual appeal of the film. Without this product, i believe our film would not had been as good. 

To be honest i had never really used a camera before nor had i wanted to, but i had to considering i was the cameraman. At first it was confusing and difficult to get the hang of, but the more i used it the more confident i became. It was a very useful piece of equipment and it was helpful.

Google was the main search engine we used to find information about are plot, similar films, genre and character stereotypes. Obviously Google was very helpful.

I used youtube firstly to look at horror trailers and reviews for some insight into how to produce, portray and present our opening sequence. Then i used it to upload the finished sequence. I learnt how to add annotations to the film for the viewers. This was very helpful as it links in with our evaluation tasks. 

We used this recorder to tell our audience how the film was going to be produced. It helped that the recorder had great quality and that it was easy to use as i`ve never used it before.

Generally i`ve never bothered with sites like this before, so i wasn`t used to it, but eventually i got the hang of it. I learnt how to change the layout of my blog and the colour scheme of it. Just generally transferring different file types to blogger so its compatible. Log and edit all of my blogs in case of doing something wrong. 

Evaluation 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmpjdE3iUyQ

Evaluation Activity 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our target audience we are using the letter code to define and locate our target audience.

• A: Top management, Bankers, Lawyers, Doctors and other highly paid salaried jobs.
• B: Middle management, teachers, many creative jobs e.g graphic designers.
• C1: Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist staff.
• C2: Skilled workers and tradespersons.
• D: Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.
• E: Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers.

We decided to agree that the letter group E was an appropriate target audience for our movie. The age group will 16-24 years of age. Also letter group D and C2 would be another target audience. Generally to the students or the unemployed would watch movies or go to the cinema in their free time, especially for horrors. The age group 16-24 years of age is very specific to, young people are more attracted to horror as they are thrill seekers.

The photo we chose were of some steriotypical horror fans. They are pretty normal people who come from a working/middle class family. The clothes they were are normal and they are in our target age group. The music they would most likely listen to is rock, r&b or chart toppers. The people in the picture might be into soaps, dramas or TV shows.

They might watch our film because of the people in the film and the plot itself. The plot is about 3 teenagers going to a suspicious building and one goes missing, so the audience can empathise because they are of a similar age and might find it exciting and thrilling.

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

Evaluation activity 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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There are certain similarities to the characters in question, the actor from our film i will be examining is Richard, and the boy from The Final Destination. Both are obviously males and are of similar ages to eachother so we can expect similar reaction and temperament. Both are quite confident males so you would`nt expect anything to happen to them. But you know as the audience, something will ultimately happen to them. Both character have fashionable clothing so this connotes when the film was made and set (20th century).

The differences you can expect is because we didnt have a budget, the actor in  The Final Destination will be a much better actor. So therefore he can portray and express his feeling more appropriately.  Another difference is in our film they are no females, whereas in Final Destination there are multiple females so this could bring out other feeling for the boy in Final Destination

Evaluation Activity 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and coventions of real media products?

1) The title of the film is Experimentation, this gives the audience a clue of what the film/opening sequence is about, it connote a scary experimentation by the font we chose.
2) In screenshot 2, we displayed the location, it shows a dark location at night and it sets the atmosphere. this gives the audience another clue into which its a horror/thriller in quite a remote setting.
3) We displayed a prop in screenshot 3 in which one of the characters are using a torch. this again conveys the location as being dark and in the middle of nowhere.
4) In screenshot 4, we display a camera shot of the bag of a abducted character and shows his abandoned bag, we used a close up to show his abandoned bag to connote something sinister may have happened.
5) In screenshot 5 we show the title and font used in the film/opening sequence. The font chosen was quite a old/ normal font, this helped the pictures we used in the opening sequence to acompany the graphic images. It was in white because our film starts with explaing the Nazi experiments of the 1940`s, and we thought the black and white helped connote the 10940`s.
6) In screenshot 6 we show a picture of some experiments taking place on twins in the Nazi era. We used these pictures because it gives the audience a hint of the story and whats to come, it acts as a teaser.
7) The things we used to hint the genre are things such as dark colours and a gloomy exteria. In screenshot 7 we show a door on its own, it looks suspicious and creepy which connotes a horror.
8) In screenshot 8 we introduce the character in the openiong sequnece when were showing the actors names. The character are walking to the creepy destination. It shows them casually walking, this is steriotypical in a horror because they`re oblivious to the danger ahead.
9) In screenshot 9 we show a transition used in the opening sequence called random blocks invert, this went well with the hand held feel of the opening sequence.

Film Plot

Our horror film is based upon a ride at a theme park called experimentation 10. We chose this Title and plot because its about humans fighting for a cure for a disease. The experiment went wrong resulting in the affected fighting for survival. We took several ideas from this including the title.

The outline and favoured plot was the following:

• some friends go camping
• a secretative goverment agency abducts them as part of an experiment
• experimenting begins
• one of the victims escape
• experiment  goes wrong causing an epidemic #

A twist to our plot was that the government agency is portrayed as the antagonists and the rebellious teenagers as the protagonists.

 

Title of film

We was going for a fitting title for our film because of convieience.

Here were some ideas:

• Experiment 1
• Experiment 10
• The Experiments
• Nazi Experiments
• Experimentation

We decided to go with Experimentation because it relates to the film plot.Its also very original in that no other film has been called this before.

Location Visit

We as a group we to a place called Staughton Moor. We used this place because of the eary setting and its quite secluded. Especially at night the ambiance is very fitting because the genre is horror. We chose this place also because of the attributes of the place like the barracks and the abandoned house.

We felt these photos taken were fitting to our opening sequence,these photos set the scene as they show what sort of setting we want to convey. The pictures are quite suspicious and make the ambiance that more creepy,this was what we were aiming for as it is a horror.

Famous horror directors: Eli Roth

Eli Roth was born in 1972 on the 18th April and is responsible for some of the most gory and terrifying horrors to date. Titles such as Hostel 1,2 and 3, Piranha 3D and The Last Excorsism. The first Hostel was only his second feature film, with only a $4 million budget, the movie made $20 million in the first weekend and went on to gross a massive $80 million world wide.

typical/steriotypical horror occurences

For one typical horror occurences happen with typical weapons. Typically the type of weapon used in horror is sharp leathal weapons such as axes and knives.

These weapons are used in most horror and are added because alot of tension is created by the use of weapons. Weapins are genrally vital to horror but the are great horrors without weapons such as The Blair Whitch Project and Insidious.

Also the clothing in horror films like masks and outfits:

These unique costumes are used to create tension and give the reader a sense of fear. The costumes are generally in dark and have blood smeared over them.

Certificate of the Film

We chose a 15 certificate on our film basically because of little gore, but the context maybe disturbing following including documents and pictures of Nazi experiments. So we took into consideration to disturbence that may be caused. Also while scenes maybe scary, they don`t an 18 certificate.

Horror film directors: Wes Craven

Wes Craven is one of the most thought after directors in the horror movie genre, he bought us the Scream series and the well known " Nightmare on Elm Street". This film was made in 1984 with a then big budget of $1.8 million, its success was shown as in box office it took $26,319,961 is gross profit. One of his latest series and projects are the "Hills Have Eyes" saga.

Horror film settings

The general horror setting normally takes place somewhere deserted and cut off from emergency services like woods or deserts. An example of one is the woods is the Blair Witch Project. An example of one is the desert is the Hills Have Eyes.

Settings make films, like if you saw the movie hostel, the action takes place in labs and chambers. So we decided all of the action was going to take place is the abandoned building we filmed in.

Horror film actors

Horror film actors have to have a certain edge to themselves, they have to be unpredictable and gritty, also they have to understand the character they're are playing. One of the greats in horror is Robert Englund, most famous for the role in Nightmare on Elm Street". The role in that movie put him on the map, the evilness and vile nature was really well portrayed by Robert.
 Another great horror actor was Anthony Hopkins in Hannibal Lecter. His monstrous role of the Hannibal was brilliant because he played a psycho and portrayed it well, you could believe this was happening.