Evaluation (Draft)

Media Evaluation


1: In what way does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of media products? Our 2 minute film used several conventions which are commonly used in psychological horrors. For example, in the murder scene, not much detail is given about the murder. Their identity is not given and only their feet are visible. This is common in films of this genre as the identity of the villain is often shown at the end. Another convention which we adopted is the use of music at key points in the film. In the rehearsal scene where the lights cut out, we played dramatic music quietly as indicator that something is about to happen. The use of music in psychological horrors foreshadows and adds to the mood.


We didn’t want to create a hybrid genre as we felt strongly about keeping in tradition with psychological horrors so we tried to follow the format of specific types of films whilst adding our own story. In terms of influence we had, we looked at different films of a similar genre such as Ghost Ship (2002), Psycho and The Shining.
In comparison to our film, these films involve quite simplistic shot types in order to capture the story. They also offer a franchise in terms of the dialogue and 
mise-en-scene, for example, with Psycho, the shower scene where a female is murdered, has become a famous scene. Also, in The Shining, the scene where the male character chops down a door has become so famous, the phrase, “Here’s Johnny!” is recognised by most people. We found it would be difficult to adopt a similar trait, though we tried with, “William!” in the murder scene.


>Image of The Shining release poster<


2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? With The Shining, we admired the simplistic titles as well as the way they stuck to the generic conventions in terms of the social groups that are represented. The main protagonist is male and he chases after his wife and son. In psychological horrors, children and women are often seen as weak and defenceless. We wanted to adopt this view so we did so by having teenage actors and by having a woman killed. Also, in films of this genre, men are often the villain so we wanted to give an indication that a man might be the villain in our own film. We had the character, Emily, who would be murdered, repeat the name, “William” to indicate that the murderer is male.


>Images of female character's close-up facial expressions<


3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We considered using a large-scale company to distribute our film such as Warner Brothers to distribute and/or produce our film as this company has been associated with big films such as the Batman films, Harry Potter and Slumdog Millionaire as well as distributing The Shining and Ghost Ship (2002), which was our main influence. The newer Batman films by Christopher Nolan have generated a gross revenue of over $1,350,000,000 with an upcoming third film to be released.


>Images of Warner Brothers logo and the release posters of two films talked about<




We eventually came to the decision that we would have a smaller-scale company such as Film 4 Productions to distribute our film. Film 4 Productions is owned by Channel 4 and is associated with independent and low-budget films. The company holds a film festival each year for small-time directors and film makers to sell their film to a specific audience. This is a distribution technique we would consider. The company is associated with films which we admired in terms of their connection with our region, the North of England, such as ‘Brassed Off’, ‘East is East’, ‘24 Hour Party People’, ‘This Is England’  and ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’. In terms of genre, audience, shot types, title sequences and the type of characters portrayed, these films are quite varied and are very successful. 


>Film 4 logo and images of release posters for the films talked about<


With merchandising, we found it would be quite small-scale and would depend on the popularity of the film. Mainly posters would be made but clothing such as  
T-shirts could be created which would relate to the dialogue and/or mise-en-scene. For example, a T-shirt could be made with the words, ‘WILLIAM!’, and an image of Emily being strangled on it as it relates to the murder scene.


>Images of T-shirts<


4: Who would be the audience for your media product? Our target audience are people aged 15+ as that is our classification for it’s suitability. Looking at our audience research, most people enjoyed horrors and would consider watching our film. After filming people who had watched our 2 minute film, we found that some had seen the films, i.e. The Shining, which influenced us. In terms of classifying our film with a suitable certificate, we researched the criteria for 15 as we wanted to make sure people of that age would be able to see the film, due to them being our target audience. We made sure we didn’t have too much taboo language so we only used mild forms. In terms of violence, we not only used the switching out of lights to add to the horror effect but, we also used it to disguise any gore. We looked at the bbfc website to determine the certificate of our film: 


http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2 


>bbfc logo and certificate 15 image<




The Shining is a certificate 15 though it appeals to a slightly different audience than our film. It is targeted at mainly adults due to it’s disturbing psychological content but the classification means that anyone aged 15 and above are able to watch it legally. Due to the violence and some of the strong language used, I expected the classification to be an 18.




5: How did you attract/ address your audience? As our film is a certificate 15, the audience research was aimed at people aged 16-18 as that is the age group of the characters in our film. We found that the audience could relate to the characters as they in the same age group. Having mixed genders, we found that both male and females could relate to the group of teenagers. With the murder scene, we didn’t want to focus on Emily’s age as we wanted to focus more on her gender due to the convention of females being the victim in psychological horrors.


>screenshot of students stood together<


In terms of the shot types we used, we wanted to make sure each character out of the students who were rehearsing had a shared amount of on-screen time so that the audience would be able to put themselves in the position either of them. With Emily, we wanted more women to relate to her, which is why she was the only character on-screen. Also, we found in The Shining that the scene where the female is trapped in a room and is about to be attacked, that she was on-screen for a longer amount of time than her attacker. Her reactions were filmed i.e. her facial expressions, so we adopted this technique in our own film and had a close-up shot of Emily’s facial reaction. 


>screenshot of a close-up of Emily and images of the female character from The Shining<


6: What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product? In terms of the equipment used, I found the cameras were quite difficult to use at first. We struggle to get the camera to focus in some locations and when we filmed in darkness, we needed to use night vision as it was too dark to see anything. After getting to grips with the camera and setting up the tripod, I found it quite easy to get the camera in focus. I acted in most of the scenes but I had chance to film the phone call scene for Carla’s part. As the scenes were filmed at different times, we had to make sure the conversation matched up. In order to make sure the scenes fitted, I directed the actor who played Carla when to say her lines by signalling her with a hand action which she was able to see from where she was sat.


>screenshot of Carla in phone call scene<




One difficulty we faced was when we filmed a scene in which the lights went out. After putting it on the Mac for editing, we discovered it was slightly out of focus so we needed to film it again, however the room which we needed to film in, as it was the rehearsal scene, was occupied so we had to wait until the next lesson. However, we overcame this difficulty by filming the phone call scene. In terms of editing, we didn’t had several difficulties which were easily solved. As the murder scene is a flashback scene which occurred in 1933, we wanted to have a black and white effect, which we believed would add to the horror genre, at first we didn’t know how to add the effect but soon discovered it and had it in place. We also had the same opinion with the night vision effect for the rehearsal scene as we found it incorporated the fear of darkness. Including fear is a common convention of psychological horrors. For example, in Ghost Ship (2002) gore is used throughout to add to the ‘fear factor’. Also, water and travelling on a boat gives the impression of isolation and vulnerability.




>screenshot of Emily in the dark and the night vision scene<


When editing with sound, we found in the park scene was the most difficult as there were passing vehicles but their sound wasn’t picked up on camera. We had to put the sound of passing cars and birdsong which would be heard in the background of the dialogue between actors. Eventually after altering the volume of the background sound clips, we fitted it to match the cars which drove past on-screen.