Question 7: Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression of it to your final product

Our preliminary task was poorly prepared. We did next to no research on it and the preparation was poor. The piece had no proper storyline and there was no consideration to mise en scene through the piece. There was little consideration to the actors and the actors had little direction to their acting. This meant that the piece was poor and very dull. The lighting in our piece was not very good and there was no non-digetic sound.

The very poor piece of film made me realise that I had to research and watch other pieces of film in order to create an enjoyable thought provoking piece of film.

I feel like I have learnt how to use editing software such as iMovie to efficiently and skilfully produce an aesthetically pleasing piece of film. I have learnt about the different genres and the way you can portray these genres through generic conventions such as introducing supernatural creatures in the opening sequence as our opening sequence showed.

I have learnt about the organisational side to creating a piece of film and how to efficiently time manage our production company. This is shown through the progression of our rough cuts. I have also learnt how to work more efficiently in a group to produce a better piece of film because we are working well as a group together.

The preliminary task had no thought in regards to stereotypical representations which didn't allow the audience to engage with the piece of film. I feel like after analysing opening sequences in regards to representation I have learnt how to represent certain stereotypical groups which I have shown in my opening sequence.

I have learnt so much about different technologies that are used in the media institute and the different types of distribution companies that can distribute my media product, something that when producing my preliminary task I never considered.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction your product?

During the course of constructing our product we have learnt a lot about technologies and how they work. We have used a variaty of different technologies such as goggle blogger, editing software and cameras.

Blogger

At first I found blogger very hard to use. I didn't know how to embed videos at first and I didn't know how to import pictures. Quickly I adapted to the new technology and overall I am very pleased with how my blog has turned out to be. With blogger I can create pages of research very easily and import pictures and videos with ease now making me spend my time very efficiently.

Editing software

We used an apple mac to edit our footage. The software on the apple mac we used was imovie which at first was very hard to use. Our remake of the opening sequence really pushed us to the limit of our beginner abilities and helped us understand how to use it. When creating our actual media project we used imovie as well because we felt like we knew how to use it so we could be efficient when using it to edit our opening sequence. We had a couple of issue with corrupt data on the first mac we started to use. This set us back quite a bit but actually allowed us to edit somethings better than we previously hadn't edited very well. To overcome this problem we moved to another newer mac to allow us to carry on editing our opening sequence. During our filming we had a major issue with our lighting in which all of the shots had different volumes of light and looked discontinuous. To overcome this project we had to edit the light levels on our opening sequence and it ended up giving a very grainy look to our opening sequence because of the lighting levels. However this was not a necessarily bad thing as when I had researched independent opening sequences I had noticed that a lot of them had a grainy texture and as an independent production company this didn't have a negative impact on our opening sequence.

Camera

We used a Sony HD camera to record our footage for our opening sequence. Having had past experience with lower quality cameras I thought that I might not be amazing but I know what I'm doing. However this was not the case and the camera was a lot harder to use than I expected. The zoom abilities of the camera was amazing and so was the fact we could auto focus. However the camera did have some drawbacks; because the camera was so good it picked up on every single light difference and made our filming look discontinuous. The sound was also a problem as it picked up on every little sound as well making it sound very unprofessional. To prevent these problems we edited the light levels on the editing software and removed all sound and added sound to the opening sequence.

Question 5: How did you address/attract your audience

We attracted our audience in a variety of ways as you can see in the video above. We used audience feedback as well to improve our piece. To do this we uploaded our rough cuts to social media sites such as twitter and facebook and collected audience feedback via that medium.
Some of the comments included: "too much on the naked actor" from the majority of men that watched our video. Because our video is aimed at a male audience we felt we had to cut down the amount of male flesh on view.
Another comment suggested our film opening sequence was too long and there was too much fire so we cut down the amount of fire within our piece which in return shortened our opening sequence.

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

We have targeted a mainstream audience. The genre, being a supernatural thriller, is rapidly growing in popularety in regards to programs such as True Blood, the Paranormal Activity films and the twilight saga (more of a supernatural romance) and therfore it is likely that we can target our media product at a large mainstream audience even though we are an independent film production company.

 

The type of people within a mainstream audience would be men around the age of 15-45 because of the thriller aspect of our film, and men sterotypically enjoy this genre more than females do. However after researching into the twilight saga marketing schemes for the first half of the last book and watching a presentation on this, I saw that they maketed the film in a very unusual way because they had already attracted an audience of females; they made the film (in the trailers) look a lot more action filled and thriller based. This was to create a bigger audience by showing aspects of a seterotypical male film in a film followed by hordes of screaming females that were already hooked on the film series.

 

I learnt from this that by using an attractive male as a lead role in a sterotypical male film it might be possible to gain a wider audience through creating a following of females "in love" with the male actor and therefore would be more likely to watch our film creating a bigger audience. Therefore our audience would have a small section of females.

 

 

Within the male population obviously there are sterotypical groups that have sterotypical intrests and differences. Our film would have an audience that wasn't too old because of the young actors used within the film. And the audience would not be young because of the 15 age rating certificate. This means our male audience would be individuals around the age of 15-40. These men would typically be the sterotypical male that is a strong thriller lover.

 





Question 3: What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?

Our film would be probably be distributed by an independent distribution company because we're a low budget independent production company.

Lionsgate would be an independent media institute that would distribute our product because it is an independent distribution company that has distributed several films, like ours, such as you're next which is a horror/thriller film similar to ours as well as the Saw franchise. Lionsgate has distributed several films with the same sort of genre as our film is. Lionsgate shows evidence of being integrated horizontally in Lionsgate’s alliance with the independent production and distribution company Roadside Attractions and therefore the money is spread evenly around the different departments.

 

Lionsgate is a company that seeks critical success, which is an aim for our film as well as commercial success making it ideal to distribute our film. As we can see with the success of the Saw franchise lionsgate obviously does a good job with distribution.

 

A distribution company like Warner bros would not distribute our film unless they saw large commercial success potential. They tend to distribute mainstream genres which doesn't fit our film. However a large distribution company like paramount studios has been known to distribute low budget independent films such the paranormal activity series of films.

 

 

Although our company is an independent production company we are aiming our product at a mainstream audience. This is because we want critical and commercial success which would be easier to achieve by being distributed by a company with larger funds and influence.

 

However to get noticed by these type of institutes such as paramount we need to distribute out film to film festivals in order to get noticed by distributors and film producers that would take an interest in distributing our film.

 





Question 2: How does your media product represent particualr social groups.

In our opening sequence we have merged the geeky and Gothic stereotypical representations into one character. We showed these stereotypical representations through several vectors. The first of these was the clothing our main character Alex was wearing.

 

The clothes Alex is wearing our black skinny genes with a red top. This colours represent the stereotypical idea of a goth

 

Obviously our character isn't as extreme as this image of a goth because we felt that our character would be more Gothic in the way he thought and acted instead of the things he wore.

 

Alex also expressed the vulnerability of the stereotypical goth through how obsessed they can become with things and how they have a direct interest in the supernatural. This was done through the map prop showing just how obsessed Alex was with the supernatural and showed the audience even though Alex was presented stereotypically normal in the first scene (the bath) how underneath he could be so fixated with the map. This fixation was shown through the camera movements at the end on the map and the cross blur transitions used which made it seem like Alex was blinking while staring at the map; showing his Gothic obsession.

 

 

 

The geek stereotype was shown through the equipment Alex was using; a computer. obviously all teenagers use and manage technology but the old age style of the computer and the wide screen presented Alex in a geeky light.

 

 

The fire however was unsterotypical teenager behaviour. We wanted to create a unique character in Alex, one that people could empathise with but also could view from a distance with a sense of awe at how independent and grown up a teenager could be.

 



Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real life media products?

Our opening sequence shows supernatural thriller generic conventions such as tension building during the opening sequence which is stereotypically shown in supernatural thrillers such as the insidious and true blood opening sequence. Tension building in our opening sequence is created by fast paced editing and the red bold titles used. As you can see below. We also use dark lighting to create tension. We also introduce supernatural creatures which is also a generic convention of supernatural themed films. We do this through a map prop which shows the different supernatural creatures spotted in the area. This is a slightly unusual way of introducing supernatural creatures but puts an independent creative streak in our opening sequence and links into the thriller theme with a strong detective type of link. This is a slightly unusual generic convention and therefore challenges forms of real life media products. Having a church in the opening sequence was also a generic convection which has been shown in supernatural thrillers such as true blood

 

True blood has used the generic conventions of a supernatural thriller in terms of camera angles like the close up shot of the man in the rocking chair which is a scary, creepy shot that is seen throughout a lot of supernatural opening sequences. We have used a shot like that in regards to the close up of the eagle.



These close ups are generic conventions of the supernatural themed films. Supernatural thriller themed films also tend to focus on one main character to really make the audience engaged in the characters journey.
Insidious does this by introducing a little boy as the main character and the opening sequence focuses on him. Our opening sequence focuses on the character alex.



although these shots are very different; ones an extreme close up and the others a long shot but apart from that they both contain the main character in a one shot. This is a generic convention of supernatural thrillers.