Evaluation

'THE SCARECROW'

For our media project we were set the task of creating the opening scenes of a film, this needed to include titles and last between 1 and half and 3 minutes. We were given the choice to produce a horror, thriller or romantic-comedy. Before we decided which genre would be most effective to produce we set about researching existing films and analysing the opening sequences to get an idea of typical conventions. We decided to make the opening of a horror film influenced by the film ‘Halloween’.

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

Our film would fall under the typical ‘horror genre’ with elements of thriller conventions included as well as many of the typical horror conventions. With our choices in selecting the right shots, camera angles, movements, editing and sounds we used a mixture of inspirations to model our piece on to get the most effective overall production.

For the music we used the thriller element from the film jaws as our plot shared similarities with the antagonist moving closer, so the effectiveness of the dramatic jumpy music inspired us to use a similar style to create the tension and build a sense of anticipation as the scarecrow moved closer, this helps to make the whole feel of the film more scary therefore making it more conventional as a horror film. We also used eerie music in the background building up to the approach of the scarecrow this was inspired by the music played over the opening credits of ‘Halloween’ this was because we felt it was effective as horror music and created the type of feel we were looking for in the opening of our film. We looked for similar music that would help us get a similar effect and not to challenge the conventions but to stick to them. On the other hand including two different styles of sound in a short period could be looking towards developing the convention to create a more effective outcome. The use of sound is also effective where we used the conventional ‘knock’ or ‘tap’ on the window and there is nothing there this adds to the dramatic rise in tension and gives it a scary element.

When planning we looked closely at writing a plot with the bigger picture in mind we wanted to create the start of a film that had as much horror conventions in as possible but would be realistic in the possibilities of it being a full film. For the plot of the opening sequence we thought that ours was most similar to ‘Halloween’, this is because we wanted to use the convention of the typical ‘childhood experience’ that would later lead onto a gory horror that Halloween had used. We used the film 'insidious' as inspiration for the final scaring scene as we felt it was a good scary shot.

Throughout the majority of the opening scenes the screen has a blue tint to it this along with the overall darkness of the screen is a convention we chose to follow as it is very effective in creating a mood and atmosphere that fits the genre and plot.

Our film challenged the conventions of a typical horror by having a young girl as the protagonist as females in horrors are normally much older, however, in ‘Paranormal Activity 2’ the girls are also of similar ages too our protagonist and also challenges the conventions. We challenged the conventions of a horror with the title style and colour; normally in a horror the titles use colours like black and red, for our titles we thought it would be more effective to use a yellow/orange as it represents the scarecrow more than red writing would.

2.      How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The protagonist in our piece is a young girl who becomes scared when she wakes to a knock on her bedroom window to find that the scarecrow in the field behind her house had become substantially closer to her house. When she suspects it’s strange she does a grown up thing to spot it and tell her father, however her father thinks he knows best and tells her to go away. When it is repeated she once again goes into her father’s room where she is once again told she’s being stupid. This could be due to the girls age and gender, the girl is at the age where her mind is easily influenced and so the father merely thinks the girl has created this in a dream after watching a scary film, however he is wrong and ironically pays the price for his laziness as he didn't want to get out of bed to check for himself. The protagonist being a young girl makes her seem vulnerable and an easy target for the antagonist.

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

The most likely film studio to distribute our film would be ‘Hammer’ studios. Hammer studios is known for producing the classic horrors ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ but also more recently ‘The Woman in Black’. Hammer films are respectable but not always massive budget films, I think that our film could be done on a medium to low budget and still be effective. Therefore there is no need to take it to a studio such as ‘Warner Brothers’ as they don’t particularly specialize in horror’s and there money isn't vital to making it successful. Following the success of the woman in black it shows that big film studios aren't always needed, especially for low budget films.

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

The audience we would be looking at targeting is both male and female teenagers ages 15-19 and the early twenties, this is because these are the people who typically watch and enjoy horror films more and like the buzz of being scared and boys like acting as if they’re not scared to impress girls, also the films popularity would grow as hype and word of mouth in schools and colleges will boost the cinema and box office sales. Also working/middle class people would be the most realistic target audience if it was going to be a low budget film as DVD’s etc. would be cheaper and more affordable for the wider audience.

5.      How did you attract/address your audience?

To get the film advertised I would use viral marketing as in the modern day sites like YouTube and Facebook will attract the most views on a trailer. Also id put the trailer on before another Hammer horror film at the cinema, that way horror fans will see the trailer and become interested. By saving money on the production I would try and get a famous actor or actress in the film to attract a bigger audience, this will then open the opportunity to have a movie premier and raise awareness of the film and therefore increase the profit margin.

As a traditional marketing technique I would use billboards to put images of a lone scarecrow with no film name, this is a technique used to advertise many films such as ‘the dark knight rises’ people will know just by seeing the image that it relate to the film and also ads an element of mystique and excitement as the might be intrigued to find out what it’s all about.

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

The main thing I have learnt about the technology in this process is that it is very easy to manipulate the shot and change it to fit what you want it to fit but only if you shoot enough good footage.

Using the Sony HD camera I learnt that it is important to shoot more than enough of one shot as it makes life easier when editing later on in the process. I also learnt that it can look unprofessional if you haven’t mastered certain movements such as zooming and panning but I think after the filming process I am a lot more comfortable around the camera and using the camera.

Using the Adobe Premier program for editing made making the opening sequence a considerable amount easier, in or film we had a few problems when reviewing the footage but by experimenting with the different tools Premier offers the majority were fixable and improved from using it. For example, when filming a shot through a door the shot didn’t look straight and was too light, using the program we were able to rotate the shot to a straight position and using the ‘fast colour decrease the light intensity to a more suitable shot.

 To make the piece more fluent we added active dissolves and cross dissolves this showed that something so simple can make all the difference in what the end picture would be like. For future it will help me because my knowledge of the different effects and capabilities of the software means that when filming I know what will look good and what won’t work when transferred on to the mac.

During the period that I have been blogging I have learnt many things about the site we use (Blog Spot), learning how to set up the page, import videos, write in a way that’s easy on the eye and move around posts in the blog by changing dates. This has showed me that making a blog is easy when you know how to use the site effectively.

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

After doing the preliminary task it gave me a sense of understanding about how to go about filming. I knew that we needed to over film the footage as it was easier to edit it and cut out the pre-shot footage and get more than enough than to not have enough and have to re-shoot the footage. I think that I have learnt the importance of mise en scene to making the end product look professional and realistic, it is important to get them right as there is no way of changing it with technology, you can’t edit acting ability or the place your filming on a computer so you need to ensure it is the right place before setting about filming. I also learnt that it was important to keep the cast small; this helped to make the filming process easier as organizing everyone was a lot less of a task. As a team we worked well sharing the roles, I found that working in a group of three was good as we all contributed ideas and this made the overall process less straining.

From the preliminary task I took away filming techniques which I learnt how to master and improved to add into our main product, in our product we used a match on action, we learnt how to do them in the prelim task and this helped us to develop the skill further. We also learnt how to avoid breaking the one hundred and eighty degree rule and this helped us in filming as we stuck to the rule meaning the piece was more professional and no errors were made. I feel like since the prelim my ability on the mac has improved dramatically and this helped my group as I understood the capabilities of what the mac could do and how to do things such as use fast colour corrector. Iv also learnt the importance of finding the right music for the piece, this is a mistake I think we made in the prelim task due to rushing, instead we took our time to ensure it was defiantly the fitting music for our piece.