Below I have embedded the final film product, my role in creating this production was acting and editing. Leah Gathergood's role was filming and directing and acting.
Evaluation
Question 1
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
(Answered by Mary Thompson)
At the beginning of the film the audience is greeted with an establishing shot of the setting in our film.
As the actress runs towards the centre of the shot to create a mid-shot there is a loud non-diegetic sound of a horror scream. From this shot and use of sound it is clear to the audience that something bad is happening and the setting is an abandoned and quiet forest. The use of the abandoned forest is conventional of horror films and reinforces the horror genres cinematography connotations.This strange and enigma filled film opening creates a feeling of suspense and tension among the audience and also helps set the scene of the rest of the film to unfold. The dark ambient shadow effect used on the frame of the shots exposes the audience to a dark and sinister feeling. this feeling matches the narrative of the genre and is what we want to portray to the audience.A title font is also shown in this shot in bold white writing it fades in and fades out of the actresses name (Mary Thompson) this follows codes and conventions of films and exposes a real and professional element to the production.
As the character continues to fumble around and the suspense and mystery of what is going on deepens like most conventional horror films the clip appears to flash to another of the character in a different position in a sped up motion. This is used to give the audience a twisted and weird feeling. The shot quickly switches back to the daemon in this film played by Leah Gathergood she appears to appear then disappear as if she is an hallucination this effect develops forms and conventions of real media products as it is a good use of creating a suspense filled film effect that conforms to horror conventions, the effect on the audience is to scare them so the question what is going on exposing the feeling that they are on the edge of their seats.
Another convention of the horror genre we have developed is the hallucination of the evil girl she is denoted as dark and sinister looking and appears at different parts of the opening sequence this creates a tense mood among the viewers and follows conventions of horror films as it is dark and scary looking, some of the sped up angles and close up also suggest that this is a hallucination watching Mary in the forest and messing with her head sending her crazy an eerie and dark atmosphere is created.
Some uses of the costume in this film follows the structure of our narrative Mary is wearing legging a white flowing shirt and wellington boots, this out fit follows stereotypical representations of the 'Average woman' in today society. Leah's clothing as the daemon connotes stereotypical dress of ' the average woman' as that is what she is she just turned evil and so effects are added to make that relevant.
Many uses of different types of camera work are denoted in this production such as shot reverse shot and quick fast paced edits and cuts. This contributes to the stereotypical horror representation as created a feeling of suspense among the audience and attempts to push the audience to the edge of their seats.
As the opening sequence progresses the story begins to become more confusing and more creepy. The character is seen thrashing around and going 'mad' , leaving there viewers questioning what is going to happen next, the enigma code is represented throughout the whole opening sequence. This use of a technical code sets the story and suggests that there is some psychological trauma that has happened for this to become apparent. To keep the sequence conventional we decide to keep the fast paced edits and dark ambient music for the non-diegetic sounds. Similar to films such as 'Unborn' (David S Goyer) the character story is creating the main body of the film, we have reference in our film some hallucination scenes featured in the film 'The eye' (David Moreau) This helps us keep to conventions and relate to films of the same style.
Lastly we have added the titles of the sequence at the end of the opening sequence. we decided that the main titles would look more conventional to the horror genre if they appeared after a short opening sequence we used this effect as it has a dramatic and cliff hanger feel for the audience. We chose the title 'Sick Mind' because it relates to the synopsis of the film, the title also reflects the horror genre and follow codes and conventions in the way it appears and disappears.
In conclusion the groups opening sequence production appear conventional and stereotypical of the horror genre.
Reference films
Here is a film we are relating to and referencing in our film called ' The eye' this is a hallucination scene.
This is a trailer for the film 'The Unborn' we are referencing this film as it holds connotations we will use.
Question 2
(Answered by Leah Gathergood)
http://leahmayg.blogspot.co.uk
Evaluation
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
For this question, I have explored how we have represented women in our media product.
I have compared our protagonist to the woman in the horror film 'unborn'
As shown in the images below, the women have similar costumes. They are dressed casually, however their make up and hair has been done in a way which denotes them as if they are 'crazy'.
Their hair is scruffy, the have make up smudged on their faces and the character from unborn even has blood on her shirt.
In many horror movies, including our media product, women are often represented as a weak character.
In the screen shots below both the woman seem to be breaking down suggesting they are weak and need help. They're screaming and crying which is conventional of women in horror films.
The third image is another screen shot from our media product. This woman is a hallucination of the main character. She is dressed casually as she is meant to be a normal woman in the main characters mind, however, the protagonist imagines her as evil, which is why we changed the effects when this woman appeared on screen.
This is challenging the stereotypes of women in horror films as she is not seen as a weak woman, she is represented as someone who seems to have power and who may be evil, although it is all in the protagonists mind.
A screenshot from our media product.
A screenshot from the horror film Unborn.
For this question, I have explored how we have represented women in our media product.
I have compared our protagonist to the woman in the horror film 'unborn'
As shown in the images below, the women have similar costumes. They are dressed casually, however their make up and hair has been done in a way which denotes them as if they are 'crazy'.
Their hair is scruffy, the have make up smudged on their faces and the character from unborn even has blood on her shirt.
In many horror movies, including our media product, women are often represented as a weak character.
In the screen shots below both the woman seem to be breaking down suggesting they are weak and need help. They're screaming and crying which is conventional of women in horror films.
The third image is another screen shot from our media product. This woman is a hallucination of the main character. She is dressed casually as she is meant to be a normal woman in the main characters mind, however, the protagonist imagines her as evil, which is why we changed the effects when this woman appeared on screen.
This is challenging the stereotypes of women in horror films as she is not seen as a weak woman, she is represented as someone who seems to have power and who may be evil, although it is all in the protagonists mind.
A screenshot from the horror film Unborn.
Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
(Answered by Mary Thompson)
below I have used the website www.bubbl.us to create a mini mind map of the type of companies that would distribute our production.
Here is a website containing a collage of images which relate to our products distribution. The images are a mixture of our media production 'Sick mind' and the film 'The Eye' which has influenced our choices and work in producing this opening.
http://marythompson007.imgur.com/all/
Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
(Answered by Mary Thompson)
The target audience we have pitched our horror production at young people aged between 15 and 19 years old (older audience's are welcome to view).
We came to this decision about our target audience from external research into out horror films and who there target distribution audience are. Our research found that the mass market was young people age between 15 and 20 along with older adults who were a niche market, after evaluating our results we found that the younger audience was more appropriate to base our production on so we adapted our production to suit the codes and expectations of a younger mass audience.
We did this by using young actresses in a common and relatable setting. We did this because the audience would feel a sense of familiarity to the actors and begin to retrieve doe audience pleasures from the production such as familiarity and conformity.
We conformed with stereotypical codes and conventions that would be found in a teenage base horror films such as trendy clothing, and clean appearance. We also related to teenagers are they would appear scared and frightened if they were alone in a big scary Forrest so we captured that with the acting skills used. From researching our target audience we found that we have created a film opening that our target audience can relate to and enjoy watching.
Below i have embedded a series of photos of who our target audience would be using www.photosnack.com.
http://www.photosnack.com/marythompson007/pdn34njj
Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
(Answered by Mary Thompson)
After researching our target audience and find typical codes and conventions they would follow we looked into finding different conventions audiences would like and feel that they can relate to.
we used short interviews to find out what audience of our age would like, this has helped us to see what are audience would like and things they could relate to in order for them to enjoy the film, This gave us a good idea of what to add into our production.
Here is a YouTube video showing people our age being interviewed typical conventions of horror movies.
Here is a slide show of some conventions I created using www.phototsnack.com
http://www.photosnack.com/my-slideshows/details/ptu92kpp?jsalbum=1
Question 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project? (Answered by Mary Thompson)
During the creation and editing process of our horror production our skill and knowledge has improved profoundly. Our newly heightened intellect on various technologies and media platforms has led us to create a final production.
We used many different media technologies such as IMovie and ITunes we have broadened our knowledge of the use of there media platforms and used them proficiently and properly. Furthermore we used IMovie to create the indent this was a fairly straight forward task.
Whilst researching for our production we found many different media media platforms available to present our ideas and work some websites we found were survey monkey, prezzie, photo snack, imgur,bubbl, youtube, slid share we used theses platforms to express our findings and knowledge on different aspects of our research. Theses platforms were straightforward to access and use they were easy to embed and flowed well on the blog.
Below is a PowerPoint presentation of the technologies we used in our production i used slid share to upload this to my blog.
http://www.slideshare.net/marydude/technologies-of-media-platforms
Question 7
looking back at your preliminary task , what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
(Answered by Mary Thompson)
After looking back at the preliminary task, there has been a lot learnt from that starting process to the final product. In terms of camera movement, cinematography and editing we developed our editing skill on IMovie to an extensive knowledge on how to use the programme proficiently this gave us much more technicality to add to the final production as we experiment more with IMovie we found it easier to use for example using transitions, titles and speed editing.
Our camera angles have become more complex swell as more of a variety of shots such as long shots, mid shots and close ups.
Cinematography has been improved by having a more relative location , costume and make up.
our preliminary task and final production are shown below the differences in improvement are profound.
Here is our preliminary task production This was uploaded using Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOM-L0zIspI
Here is our final production this was uploaded using Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqN2PQ7tJBE
Below is a slide show I have created using animoto it contains a list of the shots we have used in our final production.
http://animoto.com/play/xuuPhjw1QRV0mv1pxtGkBQ
Camera shots
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