For My AS Media Coursework I made a 2 minuet opening sequence to a film, working in a group of three with Jess Hill and Ellice Macro who are other students in my class. My main contribution’s where acting and editing, I played the killer in our film and edited certain parts of our sequence. We all took turns in the making of the film however and all 3 of us did our fair share of Acting/Filming/Editing.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film fits mainly into the genre of horror, we have used many different conventions to try and achieve this. Our setting, lighting, music, editing and effects all come together to make the film fit into the genre of horror. Our film was not fully typical of a horror film because we show our killer to be friends with the girl he is trying to kill in the opening sequence. We did this to try and make our film stand out from the crowd of horror films a bit more and I think that by creating this fascinating enigma we are still keeping to the basic plot of horror storyline’s but adding a small twist. I think the basic principals of the idea’s we have used here where successful however as shown in our audience feedback we could have been slightly clearer with them. To an audience the ‘3 days earlier’ part of our sequence turned out to be quite confusing due to the audience’s lack of knowledge as to what was going on. I think by using a voiceover or some dialogue we could of explained what was happening slightly better. I think our film fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence because it shows everything the audience needs to see in the first few minuets of a film. The protagonist is shown very early in the film and we meet the killer, although we do not see his face it gives us clue’s as to who he is, this creates an enigma in the film early on as well. We show connotations of the horror genre in our clip by using the Mise en Scene effectively and showing the killers weapon, also our editing particularly adding the black and white effect gives of themes of horror.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film shows a representation of teenagers as our whole cast and storyline is played and based on teenagers. We have shown the carefree attitude of teenagers as we have shown our characters walking through some woods happily before Mark became the killer. We have also shown female vulnerability and male’s physical dominance over them, we showed this when mark was following Jess through the forest obviously intent on killing her as we showed Ellice already dead on the floor.
When choosing costume’s to act in we particularly considered colour of clothing, for example I am wearing darker colours when being shown as the killer to give connotations of evil however when the friends are walking through the forest I am wearing lighter clothing to show that a change has happened to me in the three days running up to becoming the killer, this creates an enigma as to what happened in the 3 days. When Jess is running through the woods as fast as she can and is screaming it shows how scared she is of Mark, this represents the theme of physical male dominance over female’s and the fact she cannot fight back. Also the fact that Mark is walking when Jess is running shows that he knows he will catch her emphasizing his physical superiority. Our setting, which was cut wood and our lighting, which was when we filmed at between about 7-8 at night, is used to give a low-key lighting effect in woods, which is a typical horror setting. We filmed as the sun was setting to give the impression that Jess did not have long left till it was dark and she would be stuck in the woods on her own at night being chased by a killer. We aspired to create this situation because it is one that we think would appeal to our audience and make them want to continue watching.
I think we have adhered to the general stereotype’s of teenagers in horror, we have done this by showing teenagers general carefree attitude 3 days before the killings and the disaster that generally befalls them later on In the film with the death of Ellice and the immanent death of Jess. We have also kept to the stereotype by showing the vulnerability of teenage girls, who are frequently shown to be preyed upon by men in horror films. A video and evaluation is shown on our blog of the film Black Christmas, which is a film we have, took many themes of teenage horror from, particularly Teenage Female’s vulnerability in horror.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We have chosen DNA films as the media institution we would like to distribute our product. This is because they have released similar films of the same genre in the past like 28 days later and 28 weeks later. We believe they would distribute our product because our film is a fresh British teenage horror that has an interesting storyline.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
I think our target audience for our film is most likely to be male or female 16-25 year olds with interests in the horror genre. I think we have a very broad mass audience because horror is a very broad genre; horror films have always been typically quite popular in the 16-25-age range. I believe this is a good age range to target because a lot of people between 16-25 go to the cinema regularly and financially good because it is an age range of people that typically have more money than older people with Kids and a Morgage. Also for promotional purposes 16-25 is a good age range because a lot of forms of media are focused on them, for example reviews of the film in young people’s magazine’s and on Television Channels targeted at them like E4. I do not think the age range should be extended younger than 16 because horror does not typically appeal to younger Kids, also I do not think it should be extended older because im not sure older people would we interested in a ‘Teenage’ horror film. I do not think Ethnicity or Nationality play much part in the target audience for our film because there is no representation of either in the film and the viewers Ethnicity or Nationality plays little part on the appeal the film would have on someone.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Our film began with a disruption in the narrative; we started our film before introducing the characters showing the film at what would be the climax of the action in the film. We did this with the intention to show what happened in the build up the events shown at the beginning of the sequence in the rest of the film. By not giving any basic info about characters or settings immediately in the opening sequence we have started with a disrupted equilibrium, the desired effect of this is to create enigmas as to what has happened in the build up therefore persuading people to watch the film and find out. We created a sense of time by showing ‘Three days earlier’ in text after we had shown the scene of what would happen later on in the film on in the film, this tells people how many days the film will be based over showing the events building up to what is shown in the opening sequence. The enigma’s are created by the immediate disruption in the equilibrium at the beginning of the opening sequence, they are also created by the scene after the ‘three days earlier’ because our protagonist is shown with the teenager that is earlier shown to be the killer, this creates the questions of what happened, why it happened and what the eventual result will be. Binary opposition is used in our sequence in my view very effectively, this is because we have started our scene with obvious conflict between Mark and Jess when he is trying to kill her and contrasted it with Three days earlier in which there seems to be no disagreement between the characters. This points out to the audience that there must have been a conflict over views or actions during the Three days between the scene’s again creating enigmas.
We have not used many narrative devices in our sequence; all we used throughout the 2 minuets what the ‘Three days earlier’ text. Our original intention for this was to not give much away and keep suspense high as to what was happening, however we have discovered from our audience feedback that this became too confusing, particularly shown on question 4 of the audience feedback. We have built up tension in the opening sequence using a combination of different features, one of the most effective of which was our use of music which got steadily faster paced as Jess ran through the woods, this built up to the final clip in the sequence before Three days later was introduced.
Another thing was the contrast between Jesses fast paced running and Marks steady walk following her, this gave the impression that mark was confident of catching her building up tension to when it would happen. The tension is built up in our opening scene and is contrasted with the scene after the three days later because ambient natural sound is used and the characters look happy and in no hurry to go anywhere unlike Jesses running through the woods. The message that we convey foremost through our film is the carefree and naïve attitudes of teenagers, we show this through the happy way the characters are shows three days earlier contrasting to the events of later on in the film. Jesses screaming was a large part of the sound in our film; we used this to convey the very real feelings of danger she feels and to create a mood of suspense. The music we used mainly worked well with our shots, however we received minor hints about some parts of the chase sequence in which the music did not match to well with the shots with the music being fast paced for some slow shots, this is shown on question 8 of our audience feedback. The lighting of the film is meant to reflect the mood of the film at the time, we used very low key lighting for the chase scene to match the dangerous situation Jess was in and we used more high key lighting when the mood was more jovial in the scene three days before. A shot that was quite effective in my opinion and also shown in our audience feedback (Question 9) is the handheld shot of Jess running through the woods this created a very fast paced feeling to the scene and enhanced the sense of urgency that was trying to be related to the audience. The effects that were used to the best effect in our film I believe was the use of black and white, this was used effectively because it enhanced the low key lighting and added to the feeling of danger in the scene, it also contrasted to the brightness of the shots of the three days before sequence.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The use of various technologies’ in the production and research of our product has been vital and educational. The research of the genre of horror to discover the important features of what makes a horror film was done over the Internet, as was the uploading of videos onto our blog for analysis to show what things from other films we wished to incorporate into our own. The use of the cameras for filming was a new experience for me and I have learned about how important different camera angles and range of shots are. The editing of our footage was also a new experience for me because I had never done anything like it before; I learned the importance of transitions and how crucial different effects where to making our film believable. I found that even though we didn’t have a budget for our film like professionals there was still a lot of things we could do to our shots to make them look more effective. I would say one of the most important things I have learned about editing is the use of music and the timing at which you use it because I think it is a very vital factor in creating the desired mood of your film.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we did our preliminary task my entire group knew very little about working with cameras or using editing software, this meant that the quality of our Cutwood film was drastically better because we have learned more as we have gone along. In our final product our transitions where alot smoother than our preliminary because of our experience with the editing software. Also after we had done research on ways to create characters we had a much better idea of how to present individuals in our actual film. Mainly we had a much better knowledge of the importance of lighting and sound for our actual film and this really showed in the quality, as there was no sound or altered lighting in our preliminary task. I think the stark contrast between our preliminary task and our final film shows how much we have all learned about filming and editing, when doing our preliminary task we had no real idea of how to present our characters or which location to film in and the result was a very amateur looking sequence, the fact that our final product looks like a very believable opening sequence just goes to show the importance of different themes and conventions and the progress we have all made.
Conclusion?
I think our overall performance in our film was very good, I think we have used all the conventions needed to make a film fit into the horror genre and created a sense of realism in our scenes. We have created a good storyline with an interesting twist and included many enigmas in our opening 2 minuets that will persuade people to want to keep watching. I think our portrayal of the characters has been effective and the audience picks up on the way we wish to present the actors. Also I think we have created the mood we aimed for in the film and built up suspension throughout the first part of the sequence. We have used a range of camera angles and have smooth transitions between shots, also I think we have used different effects in editing to good effect. Things that I would do differently if we did the film again would probably be to make things slightly clearer in the transition between equilibriums and possibly show Jess actually getting attacked or coming into physical contact with the killer to relate more of the story to the audience. Also I think I would be more careful when matching music with the shots because some of the timings seemed out of place on our final product. Overall I think we have created an effective opening sequence with a good storyline that has been related to the audience well.
Mark O’Brien
Another thing was the contrast between Jesses fast paced running and Marks steady walk following her, this gave the impression that mark was confident of catching her building up tension to when it would happen. The tension is built up in our opening scene and is contrasted with the scene after the three days later because ambient natural sound is used and the characters look happy and in no hurry to go anywhere unlike Jesses running through the woods. The message that we convey foremost through our film is the carefree and naïve attitudes of teenagers, we show this through the happy way the characters are shows three days earlier contrasting to the events of later on in the film. Jesses screaming was a large part of the sound in our film; we used this to convey the very real feelings of danger she feels and to create a mood of suspense. The music we used mainly worked well with our shots, however we received minor hints about some parts of the chase sequence in which the music did not match to well with the shots with the music being fast paced for some slow shots, this is shown on question 8 of our audience feedback. The lighting of the film is meant to reflect the mood of the film at the time, we used very low key lighting for the chase scene to match the dangerous situation Jess was in and we used more high key lighting when the mood was more jovial in the scene three days before. A shot that was quite effective in my opinion and also shown in our audience feedback (Question 9) is the handheld shot of Jess running through the woods this created a very fast paced feeling to the scene and enhanced the sense of urgency that was trying to be related to the audience. The effects that were used to the best effect in our film I believe was the use of black and white, this was used effectively because it enhanced the low key lighting and added to the feeling of danger in the scene, it also contrasted to the brightness of the shots of the three days before sequence.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The use of various technologies’ in the production and research of our product has been vital and educational. The research of the genre of horror to discover the important features of what makes a horror film was done over the Internet, as was the uploading of videos onto our blog for analysis to show what things from other films we wished to incorporate into our own. The use of the cameras for filming was a new experience for me and I have learned about how important different camera angles and range of shots are. The editing of our footage was also a new experience for me because I had never done anything like it before; I learned the importance of transitions and how crucial different effects where to making our film believable. I found that even though we didn’t have a budget for our film like professionals there was still a lot of things we could do to our shots to make them look more effective. I would say one of the most important things I have learned about editing is the use of music and the timing at which you use it because I think it is a very vital factor in creating the desired mood of your film.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we did our preliminary task my entire group knew very little about working with cameras or using editing software, this meant that the quality of our Cutwood film was drastically better because we have learned more as we have gone along. In our final product our transitions where alot smoother than our preliminary because of our experience with the editing software. Also after we had done research on ways to create characters we had a much better idea of how to present individuals in our actual film. Mainly we had a much better knowledge of the importance of lighting and sound for our actual film and this really showed in the quality, as there was no sound or altered lighting in our preliminary task. I think the stark contrast between our preliminary task and our final film shows how much we have all learned about filming and editing, when doing our preliminary task we had no real idea of how to present our characters or which location to film in and the result was a very amateur looking sequence, the fact that our final product looks like a very believable opening sequence just goes to show the importance of different themes and conventions and the progress we have all made.
Conclusion?
I think our overall performance in our film was very good, I think we have used all the conventions needed to make a film fit into the horror genre and created a sense of realism in our scenes. We have created a good storyline with an interesting twist and included many enigmas in our opening 2 minuets that will persuade people to want to keep watching. I think our portrayal of the characters has been effective and the audience picks up on the way we wish to present the actors. Also I think we have created the mood we aimed for in the film and built up suspension throughout the first part of the sequence. We have used a range of camera angles and have smooth transitions between shots, also I think we have used different effects in editing to good effect. Things that I would do differently if we did the film again would probably be to make things slightly clearer in the transition between equilibriums and possibly show Jess actually getting attacked or coming into physical contact with the killer to relate more of the story to the audience. Also I think I would be more careful when matching music with the shots because some of the timings seemed out of place on our final product. Overall I think we have created an effective opening sequence with a good storyline that has been related to the audience well.
Mark O’Brien
