Evaluation Question 4 - Jade

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Horror genre tends to generalise women as a stereotypically ‘weak’ gender. In most horror films both old and contemporary, the victims tend to be women, reflecting them as the weaker, less dominant gender. However in our film we decided to challenge this, making the protagonist (eventually also the victim of his own crimes) male. Like in most films of the same genre (such as The Ring), we have portrayed the age of the protagonist as between 18 and 25, which was also our target audience, meaning that they could possibly relate and therefore find the narrative more chilling.

As our main character was a convict, we thought it important to support the stereotypical attire of a realistic world. Mise en scene/costume included a plain tracksuit, and shaved hair – much as you would expect a young convict to appear. This again as a hope of boosting the realism of our film. We didn’t want to exaggerate costume/make up and as a result detach ourselves from our attempt to create a believeable atmosphere.

Having had our audience feedback returned, it was stated that we did well in representing the included social groups within our film. It was noticed that we used our mise en scene positively to achieve this, and people commented upon our good use of camerawork such as framing and composition which allowed this clear presentation of social groups - such as high camera angles making the protagonist appear isolated thus reflecting his current social group and position in society as a convict.

Evaluation Question 3- Helen

Who would be the audience of your media product?


We used IMDb to figure out what the best target audience would be for our film.

	Votes	Average
Males	186,251	8.7
Females	34,241	8.7
Aged under 18	2,790	9.0
Males under 18	2,239	9.0
Females under 18	537	9.0
Aged 18-29	122,154	8.8
Males Aged 18-29	102,504	8.8
Females Aged 18-29	18,987	8.7
Aged 30-44	77,590	8.6
Males Aged 30-44	65,540	8.6
Females Aged 30-44	11,202	8.6
Aged 45+	17,859	8.6
Males Aged 45+	14,497	8.6
Females Aged 45+	3,111	8.5
IMDb staff	67	8.7
Top 1000 voters	875	8.6
US users	71,383	8.8
Non-US users	120,286	8.6
IMDb users	274,031	8.7

	Votes	Average
Males	60,408	7.2
Females	12,275	7.3
Aged under 18	950	7.4
Males under 18	661	7.4
Females under 18	282	7.4
Aged 18-29	43,871	7.2
Males Aged 18-29	35,555	7.2
Females Aged 18-29	8,080	7.3
Aged 30-44	23,714	7.2
Males Aged 30-44	20,287	7.2
Females Aged 30-44	3,158	7.3
Aged 45+	4,044	7.0
Males Aged 45+	3,377	7.0
Females Aged 45+	608	6.8
IMDb staff	18	7.2
Top 1000 voters	746	6.9
US users	22,266	7.2
Non-US users	42,789	7.2
IMDb users	91,574	7.2

We looked at the user ratings of films such as:

- Silence of the Lambs

- The Ring

After looking at ratings such as these, we decided that the most suitable target audience for our film would be 18+ and people of either sex that are interested in psychological horrors.

This group is assocaiated with psychological horrors as they enjoy watching films that make them think and get the involved. Also many people at this age generally enjoy horror films no matter what the sub-genre is.

After deciding what our target audience was going to be, we chose to start watching the opening of films (like the two mentioned above) to see what conventions of psychological horrors we could make use of that would fit in to our target audience. Whilst we were watching these films we payed close attention to Mise-en-scene and lighting so that we had a good idea of what to make use of in our final piece. For Example, after watching these films we chose to make use of the stereotypical convention of dark lighting to create suspense and fear.

Evaluation Question 2 - Bronwyn

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

In a horror film you will generally see elements of blood, death, murder, darkness, victims and other gory elements, we explored these conventions that are needed in a horror by studying the films 'Saw', 'Halloween' and 'Nightmare on elm street'. The research was important as we discovered what we could challenge and it helped us to distinguish and to include in our horror film to make it scary. We have demonstrated these conventions well through out our production, you mostly notice this by having the focus on the Voodoo doll which included us having a weapon for the villain to stab the voodoo, victims getting murdered and showing a lot blood especially with our title sequence. Because of the conventions we used, you can distinctly recognize that it's a horror. We have challenged the conventions of a horror by the realism of the narrative. We decided that the idea of a prisoner realistically escaping from prison is going to be more believable and therefore hopefully more shocking- as the majority of horror films are instantly recognized as unrealistic. We developed stereotypical convention such as the colour schemes, music and stereotyped our villain who's a young male prisoner with the use of clothing being in a tracksuit.A film that inspired us was 'Dark Water' which use's a rare convention of a horror, is a little child's voice singing a children's rhyme for  horrific effect, with the use of voice being creepy. We thought this was effect as an innocent child voice can be haunting so we took that idea and made it fit with the other conventions in the story to make it more scary.


This is the child's rhyme that inspired our film - 'Dark Water'.

Evaluation Question 1 - Jade

Introduction: what did you make, who did you work with and where did the original idea come from?


For our media assignment, we were to create the beginning of a horror film; of two minute duration. Having selected the psychological sub-genre, it was essential that research was carried out into previous similar films.
Watching the beginning of films such as...


- The Others

- Sixth Sense

- The Ring


...inspired our thoughts and began to build the foundation of our film. We were able to research in to title sequences, and the way cinematography/mise en scene/sound and editing reflect the genre chosen. Our final idea was mainly inspired by the infamous Voodoo Doll.


Whilst looking at other students previous work (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYZooMY5tS0) we came across one that involved torture and we became great fans of the narrative. Having adapted it in our own ways (such as involving crime and separate narratives for character development) our idea was firm, and we were to begin looking at the technical aspects of our own creation.


Our production process went really well and amazingly we managed to shoot all the necessary footage in one single day. There were no problems with the crew, as we only had two actors, and one was a member of the team - also the weather was exactly as we had hoped. One slight problem we had with filming was how quickly it became dark and consequently we often struggled to set up the lighting correctly in order to accommodate this. However, once we watched the footage back on the computer and made some slight contrast adjustments we were pleased with the outcome.


The relationship between our group of three was outstanding, already being friends helped to work as a team in order to create the best possible result. Everyone had a fair share of work to do, and whenever there was a problem (such as the natural lighting) all members of the group would forward their suggestions of how to tackle the issue(s) and eventually come to a resolution.

Update

Today, myself and Jade came in during enrichment to see what other things could be done before our deadline. In the end we wrote a script for what will be said on a newscast during our film. We are going to record this on Friday and then put it onto our film.
Helen

New ideas 2

Regarding our last post, and the changes we realised were needed, the above video shows the change we have made in order to correctly structure the narrative. Some music and radio reports still need to be added, however the video footage we believe is now in the correct order and we are extremely pleased with the way it has turned out so far.
Jade and Helen spent some extra time in the media room today re-filming the title sequence in order to improve the quality and realism of the clip.

New ideas for film

Having had some audience feedback on the first draft of our film editing, it became evident that the narrative wasn't too clear and therefore uneasy to understand. Having the original idea of a convict escaping prison, using a voodoo doll to murder his victims and then passing his work on to another person appeared to hard to construct successfully so we shall alter it slightly order wise. Using the same shots we will reconstruct the film so that the running order is:
The use of the voodoo doll,
The protagonist being captured (radio announcement and title sequence)
And then his work being continued by someone else.
The reason for doing this is to make it easier to understand, and overall more successful. We hope doing so will increase the effect our film has on its audience.