Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Audio discussion link
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Final Production
Sunday, 22 April 2012
6.What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the progress of our film, I didn't encounter any real problems whilst creating the script. This was because I was using Microsoft Word to create it. The reason why I didn't encounter any problems with this software was because it is a very simple program to use, there are many different options such as text size, font etc. There is also a very simple layout, and it is easy to find different options. The other reason why I didn't encounter any problems with Microsoft Word was because I have had LOADS of experience with it. I have been using the program for at least eight years, so I know how to use the software extensively, and there was no problem that I couldn't overcome. I also learnt that Microsoft Word was quite a useful software, because I was able to quickly create a professional script for my main production with ease.
I also helped with the editing on our main production. The software we used to edit our film was Adobe Premier Elements 9. There were many useful options that helped us to create our horror film in this program. For example, we could use options to change the brightness of certain scenes in our film, to make it suitable for our product. We could also cut different segments of our clip and place them in different areas, so we could easily improve on our continuity editing. Even though there were many useful features in Premier Elements, we also faced many problems whilst editing. The main problem we faced was with the extra audio files. The main problem we faced was with the audio files not playing, they had no volume so this was a huge setback for our film. I knew that this was a problem in Premier Elements because the file worked fine when it was played on Windows Media Player. I didn't know the cause of the problem for these audio files, but luckily the sound files worked in the end, so we were able to add in these audio files in the end.
I also helped to set up the camera positions while we were filming our horror film. The main thing I learnt about the camera during this time was that it was quite confusing to operate. Even though there were the simple buttons for recording and zooming, there were still many different configurations that could adjust the focus and sound levels on the camera. It is clear that there is a fault with the focus in some shots. For instance, in one shot our cameraman tried to adjust the manual focus so that a religious figure would be in focus, while the background would be out of focus. But instead of this, the whole shot is blurry. I also learnt that with the camera we used, we could adjust the brightness the brightness for different locations, similar to the brightness option in Adobe Premier Elements 9.
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?
Here is the link to the recording : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUH9xOSlVcI&feature=youtu.be
In this question I talk about the different things I have learnt since finishing the preliminary exercise, I also talk about mistakes that I made, but learnt from in the progression on the main task.
Friday, 20 April 2012
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for our media product would be teenagers (aged 15+), and hound adults. The main reason why our film is aimed at teenagers is because it is a horror film that is set in school, so it is somewhat similar to a slasher film.
The other reason why we decided to create a film aimed at teenagers was because we have a good idea of what type of film conventions would be suitable for people our age. If we had a better understanding of what our audience wanted, then we could create a film that would also be enjoyable for our audience.
Our horror film also contains bloody scenes, so we decided to have our target audience aged 15+. If we decided to rate our film 18+ we would have lost many viewers, it was important that younger people could watch our film because this would increase the chance of our film being a success. We also decided to have our target audience be 15+ because the student in our film is around the same age. This way the audience can relate to the characters, and if they see the characters being in danger, it would emphasis on the scariness of our film, because the audience may feel threatned.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The film company that would distribute our film would most probably be Dimension Films, a company that has distributed many popular films, including horror series such as Halloween and Scream. I think that this company would be the most suitable to distribute our film because their target audience usually rangers from teenagers to adults.
Their films, like Scream and Halloween are similar to our media product, because we also have a film that is aimed at teenagers from the age of fifteen or above. I think that because they have had previous experience in distributing these types of films it would help our film to also become successful, because both film series have generated millions of pounds.
The other similarity with these types of films with our film is that they are all slasher films, and they are usually set in high schools. Of course if our film was too similar to these films then the company wouldn't want to distribute it, but because our film is unique because of it's characters and plot, it would be a new movie that would survive on the market.
This film distributing company has also gained lots of money through its release of it's films, so this would appeal to us because we would also want to have our product be successful. I also decided to choose this company because they have good experience in distributing films.
Thursday, 19 April 2012
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product represents social groups in a few different ways. For example, some of the characters are represented in quite a stereotypical way such as the teacher, while other characters have a unique representation, such as the student.
We decided to present different characters in different ways to give a varied representation, this would give a fresh view for our audience, it would make our horror film unique so our target audience wouldn't get bored of our film.
The main unique character in our film is the student, because he isn't the stereotypical bad student who always gets in trouble. He is actually a responsible smart student who be wrongly accused of being mischievous, we decided to have a character like this because the audience would see him as innocent, rather than thinking the character deserved to be killed if he was a bad student. I believe that presenting the character in this way would make the audience sympathise with him, but more importantly I think it will enuance the scary factor, because innocent characters will be the victims of the antagonist, the audience may feel that they too may be vulnerable. It would give a more realistic interpretation in my opinion.
The other unique character in our film is the teacher. He is presented as a casual laidback teacher, rather than a teacher in a suit who is dedicated to his job. This teacher also seems to be quite strict, because he makes his student stay in detention, even though the student may seem innocent. We decided to present the teacher in this way because not all teachers in real life are fair, some teachers in school wrongly accuse students of wrongdoings. We thought this was a realistic view on what happens in school classrooms, so our target audience would understand the situation, and how these characters also act in real life.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Evaluation questions - 1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The product we have created can be compared to quite a few other horror films, such as Scream (which is set in a high school), and a more recent film, The Cabin In The Woods (which is also a horror film aimed at teenage audiences). The plot of our film is more related to the Scream films, because our film is also about a serial killer who is killing school students. The setting and characters therefore are fairly similar to the Scream series.
It is quite typical for a teenage slasher film to be set in locations such as high schools, so we wanted this adapted into our own film so that our audience would obviously feel a relation to the setting, so that they could also relate to the characters in our film. The target audience for our film would be teenagers aged 15+, so we decided to set our film in a high school so the audience could relate with the characters and setting. I think this will enhance the scariness of our film, and this would be good for our horror film. It could even create a sense of paranoia in our audience, due to the realism also incorporated into our film.
The intro of our film is also similar to teen horror films in the past, we were mainly inspired by the intro of Scream, in which a school student is chased by the serial killer. However, in our opening there are many significant differences, because the teacher is also murdered and also because our main antagonist is quite mysterious.
The way our film differs from typical teenage slasher films is that our main villain isn't revealed in our film. The main villain in our film won't be revealed by the audience, so there will be this certain mysterious factor associated with this character, and this emphasises on the audience's fear of the unknown. We believed that the audience would be more scared of a villain that isn't fully revealed to the audience, rather than a serial killer who you can see in the whole camera shot. This character makes our film unique, and changes the views of the audience about serial killers. Our product can now be associated slightly with a psychological horror, because we don't really see the whole villain in camera shot.
Overall, our film tends be quite conventional of the teenage slasher genre, but there are still a few factors that can also challenge the genre. Factors such as our characters and plot will also create twists in our film, making it unique and original.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Soundtrack for our film
It is important that we import our music in our production soon, otherwise we will pass the deadline. Music is crucial in our film because it creates the tension and scare factor in our film. it is also important because it will give us the chance to gain more marks in our production. If we can't find a way to import our music into Adobe Premiere elements, then we will have to find music from a copyright free source.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Evaluation audio discussion
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Adobe Premier Elements
In my opinion, I believe that Premier Elements is a decent program. There are loads of different effects that we could use to make our product better. Effects such as lighting and video merging made our horror film more conventional, we were able to enhance the creepiness of our film with these effects.
During our editing, we didn't really encounter any problems. The only thing that frustrated me was that we couldn't adjust the brightness so that it looked the same in each individual clip. But this was because the brightness was changed during filming. The thing that also annoyed me was with the audio, we couldn't add our own recorded audio from a recording device because it didn't sound similar to the audio on the camera. We didn't find any option to make the audio levels the same. So this changed the way dialogue was used in our film.
In conclusion, I think Premier Elements was a good editing software, and we were able to use this to our advantage, by making our product better.
Editing
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Deadline on Friday
We also need to create our own music, we haven't started this yet, and the only place to do this is in our music department after school hours. If we don't finish creating our music by Friday, then we will need to find some music from a copyright free source. We want to make our own music for our horror film because we will have the opportunity to gain more marks, but if we don't then we will hyave to find a quicker alternative.
Problems with our editing
This creates a problem in our film because the film will look inconsistent, we will have to change the brightness in Adobe Premier Elements, but I still don't think we will be able to match the brightness overall. This is also a problem because the brightness was increased in other scenes, but we want our lighting to be slightly darker since it is a horror film. We are going to have to experiment with the brightness during each scene so we can make the brightness levels look the same.
Preliminary exercise full evaluation
We have the link to our video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfyRMVIzWrU
To begin with, the establishing shot isn't great, Sajjad doesn't fully fit in the shot. Half of the shot focuses on Sajjad, but it also focuses too much on the background. We could've filmed this better if Sajjad appeared bigger in our shot, this would make the audience focus more on him rather than the objects in the background.
In the next shot where we see Sajjad look up at the camera, there is a problem with the camera work because it is a tiny bit shaky. The other problem, (the major problem!) is that we can see our teacher in the background! This is a huge issue since our teacher is not meant to be in our preliminary exercise. The audience also may focus more on our teacher because he is moving in the background. This was the disadvantage of filming our preliminary exercise in an active classroom.
in the next shot when the door is being opened, there is a continuity error soon after. While the door is semi opened in the first shot, it is suddenly fully opened in the next shot. This will confuse the audience because the film is meant to be continuous, and when a shot suddenly cuts like this, it will be seen as a major mistake.
There is also a similar mistake when I sit down in the chair, the camera then cuts to a different angle, but it doesn't look continuous.
Aside from these problems, the preliminary exercise wasn't that bad. We learnt from our mistakes here, and in my opinion, we did much better with our main production.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Finished filming
Now we just need to finish our editing and then our main production will be complete, we plan to do this after school because we don't want to have to catch up if we fall behind. We will also need to adjust the lighting in some of our shouts because the brightness was too bright whilst filming.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Filming for main production begins
Friday, 20 January 2012
Story for our main task
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Media production : discussion
Monday, 16 January 2012
Audio question session
Friday, 6 January 2012
Weapons in our film
Scream costume idea
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1175821337/
The costume used in Scream is a good idea of what we want our costume to be like. It is important that the killer has a good costume otherwise our film may lose its scare factor.
The Cabin in the Woods
I have recently been browsing through upcoming horror titles on IMDb. I decided to look at a horror trailer to have an idea of what effects are used to make the trailer look appealing. In this trailer I noticed loads of slow camera movements and slow cuts during the beginning, but throughout the trailer the pace starts to speed up and there are many more fast cuts. This gave me an idea of how we can use fast cuts to increase tension with our film. This trailer also seems like a typical teen horror movie, until further on we see many twists and elements that relate to other genres such as sci-fi. This was most probrably used to make the film seem less typical and suprising for the audience. It subverts their expectations. It would be good if we could add a twist to our film, but we only have two minutes of opening, but we will still be sure to create something that our audience would enjoy.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Summary of lesson
Monday, 2 January 2012
Costume for killer
Chase scene
we can use this clip for ideas:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbvdeG49MI