Evaluation

EVALUATION:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media products?
Within our film we used some of the main conventions of a horror film. We used things such as; Non diegetic music over the dialogue to give an atmosphere to the film at that certain point. We also used simple things such as screams, sharp cuts to make the pace of the film quicken and also quite a few blackouts. ‘The Decent’ which was a film we watched in our research process, used sharp quick cuts throughout the whole first section, and as a group we all liked this so decided to use it in our film opening to create a faster pace to the film and to also build up the tension. We also use the iconography of blood on our film titles, we see the title appear normally and the slide across to one with blood on. I feel that as a group we didn’t really challenge the normal everyday conventions of a horror movie, we just stuck to a strict normal horror film with the typical conventions.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film represents 2 types of social groups, teenage school children and also teachers. The predominant social group that is represented in our film is teenagers. The two groups of different teenagers are from a different time period, the caption stating ’10 years later’ helps to show the difference in time between the two groups. The location and mise en scene also tell us as an audience that we are in a school. The teenagers unlike normally aren’t portrayed as sexual, drunken and immature but are portrayed the completely opposite. They are portrayed as theatrical, career minded but also at the same time a little bit bitchy. The teenage girl from the past is portrayed in a completely different way to the ones of today; she is very nervous, quiet and shy and doesn’t really present herself as a very outgoing person. This is shown by the use of the high angle shot of the girl when she looks up, it makes her look small and weak and is then followed by her being squished. When the girl from the past is performing her ‘solo bit’ as she calls it, it is very minimalist and simple there isn’t any music or dancing involved in it this helps portray the difference in time and shows how times have changed and that there is a lot more dancing and dramatic skills used in theatre today . In comparison to this the performance by the girls of today is very modern, original and lively, it involves music and everyday modern moves. The teenage social group is portrayed as very artistic and dramatic; on the other hand, the teenage girls of today are portrayed as bitchy and gang up on the new girl just because she looks or acts different to them. The over the shoulder shot used from the perspective of the new girl, shows that there is a clear division between the 3 girls and also enigma is triggered that something is going to happen to the new girl. The dialogue between the two girls makes them seem very nasty and joker like as though they are going to start to play tricks on this new girl, the diegetic music that joins in also adds to this effect and starts to build up tension of what’s going to happen and also between the 2 groups of people.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After doing some research into horror distributions I found out the following things. Similarly themed school horror films were very popular with audiences. BoxOfficeMojo.com (a website that deals with how much money movies make) was a useful to show the popularity of the genre.

Signs: $227,966,634 Buena Vista
The village: $114,197,520 Buena Vista
The Grudge: $110,359,362 Sony
Scream: $103,046,663 Dimension Films
Prom Night: $43,869,360 Sony
I still know what you did last summer: $40,112,002 Sony

If we were to choose media institution to distribute our film we would want Sony to distribute our film as they seem the company who are mostly producing films based on the idea of a school horror. We would also choose Sony as they are one of the biggest companies to distribute films and also have a lot of money to be able to advertise and push our film to the maximum.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our media product would be aimed at teenagers and students between the ages of 15 to 19. I think this is a suitable age range to produce our film for as they are going to either be students or have recently just left education and will be bale to relate to the film and say well if that happened in our school I would act like that or would do that. The certificate rating for the film would be a 15 but it would hopefully attract the attention of older ages as well.

• How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract the attention of our target audience we involved teenagers in our film and had those playing main characters, we also had a young teacher playing the male teacher lead to also attract the attention of our audience. We also used enigma codes at the beginning as the audience do not know what the noises are that are being made. We also had a big dramatic piece of drama at the beginning with the young girl dying, this will attract the attention of the audience and hopefully make hem want to watch more of it and engage them to watch the rest. Enigma also played a huge part in helping us attract and hopefully keep our audience. By using non diegetic music that is weird and also tension building, this helped us to create enigma that something was going to happen, or leading up to something that is going to happen this would hopefully make our audience engaged and make them want to keep watching to find out what is going to happen.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From this task I have learnt the basics on premier and how to edit things, as I didn’t really do a lot of pure editing to our film and only mostly gave my view on the editing I haven’t really had chance to put this to the test and see whether I am actually any good at it or not. I have also learnt a bit about filming and how to use the camera and tripod and also how to do the shot reverse shot correctly so that the continuity is good. On premier I again have learnt how to change and adapt the sound levels, and also how to add effects like fades in and out to our film.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt many things from producing this film opening form what I already knew when we did our preliminary task. Firstly one of the main this being how to use Premier to edit all of our work to a good standard including things such as; how to change sound levels, how to insert fade ins and outs and also just simple editing techniques like deleting and closing gaps. I have also learnt a lot about time keeping, as we are a group of 4 A level students we obviously have a lot of other things to be doing as well as this so I had to make sure I stretched my time evenly over all of my subjects so that all of my coursework was done. All of our group managed to keep to rehearsal dates and filming dates which was good, we did have a problem of some people turning up to lessons though, but in the end we have a finished product hat we are all happy with.