1: In what way does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of media products?
Our 2 minute title sequence uses several conventions that are commonly used in psychological horrors. For example, in the murder scene, there are no clues to who the murder could be, as only the feet are shown. This is typical of psychological horrors; the object of horror does not look monstrous, but is rather a normal human being, whose horrific identity is often not revealed until well into the work, or even at the very end.
Another convention which we incorporated into our title sequence was music during the build up of dramatic moments. When the lights are cut in the rehearsal scene, there is dramatic music playing quietly, this indicates to the audience that something is about to happen and creates suspense. In psychological horrors, music is often used to build tension and create suspense. For example, in the opening sequence to ‘The Shining’, the music is quite eerie and has an edgy feeling to it, indicating to the audience that the film isn’t going to be a pleasant one.
Link to the opening sequence of ‘The Shining’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw23KM3-Ry8&feature=fvst
2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our group, we looked at the shining and liked the way they stuck to the generic conventions with the social groups that are represented. In psychological horrors, usually women and children are seen as being weak, this is proved true in ‘The shining’, as the protagonist is a male character, who tries to murder his wide and child. In order to incorporate this idea into our own film, we had teenage actors and had a women murdered by a man, during the flashback scene. We also did this because in this type of genre, men are more often the villains. The murderer is shown to be a male, because of the deep, harsh voice heard at the beginning of the flashback.
3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
As a group, we decided that we would have small-scale film company Film 4 Productions to distribute our film. Owned by channel 4, it is associated with independent and low budget films. One of the reasons for choosing this company is the method of distribution. Film Four holds a Film festival each year, this is where film makers will try and sell their film to a specific audience. This sort of technique is how we would like our own film to be distributed.
As a group, we decided that film merchandising would be based on the popularity of the film. With it being distributed by a small scale company, we decided that T-shirts would be appropriate, with slogans interpreted from our film. Lines such as ‘You’re not supposed to say the name’, could be printed across these T-shirts.
4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience are people aged 15+ as that is our films certification, in terms of its contents. When we did our audience research, we found that the people who had watched our title sequence would watch the whole of the film, and recommend it to a friend. They also enjoyed the films that had influenced us. Before classifying our film as a 15, we did a lot of research, to see how far we could go in terms of taboo language and violence. As our film only uses mild forms of language, and the murder scene is obscured in darkness, we decided that certifying it a 15 was appropriate.
Here is a link to the following website we used in order to certify our film:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2
5: How did you attract/ address your audience?
By having the characters the same age as the age group our film is aimed at, I think it would attract the audience because they are able to relate to characters, because of the similarity. We wanted to also have a variety of male and female characters, so male and females could enjoy our film. Although, we do see the female character ‘Emily’, being portrayed as a weak character, as this is one of the convections of psychological horrors that we wanted to interpret within our film.
We wanted to make sure that each character got an equal share of amount of time on the screen, in order to help the audience relate to each individual character. We also used a lot of medium and close-up shots. We did this because we wanted to convey to the audience exactly what the characters were thinking or feeling, so that the audience could share some form of emotion or even feel sympathy towards the characters. For example, when the character Carla storms off to the park, we have a medium shot of her shouting, this is done so that the audience can clearly see her anger. Also, there is a close up of Emily as the murderer is creeping up on her, this is to not only inform the audience that she is scared, but to also help in creating sympathy towards the character.
6: What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
I was faced with a lot of equipment I hadn’t used before, so the one of the first things I learned in terms of the available equipment was how to use them. This included setting the camera to white balance, using night vision and also setting the camera stably on the tripod.
When editing, we had a few difficulties, one being that the computer with all our work on it wouldn’t work. However, this problem was soon fixed and we were able to get back on track. When editing the sound, we found that when filming the park, we found that the sound of vehicles weren’t heard. In order to make our film seem more realistic, we put in the sound of traffic and birds singing, to emphasise the location to the audience.
7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel that in terms of filming, I have become a lot more confident with a camera. I also feel that I have come to grips with the different types of shots used, and I’m now able to identify how and why to use certain shots. For example, using a long shot to establish a conversation. I have also improved on editing, in terms of continuity. In my preliminary task, I know now that there were a few continuity errors, and recognising this saw it that in our title sequence, the editing followed the convections of continuity.
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