RC - Script for our evaluation presentation.

Ro Rosie:

Q1. Does our media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product?

Plot:

Generally uses/develops

Unknown assailant chasing female victim, who is a stock character.

Group of female teenagers acting quite maliciously and making callous comments towards the victim. This plot is conventional as you do expect one person from the social group in focus to get killed and then a series of killings within that group to be carried out through the rest of the film. Similar to films we researched – ‘Scream’, ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘I know what you did last summer’.

Unconventional in the way that that the group of girls are presented as antagonists, although in a subtle way, where we already have the unknown assailant acting as the antagonist. This is an unlikely combination.

Characters:

Generally quite conventional.

Female victim – stock character. Very archetypal…acts vulnerable.

Unknown assailant – presumed a male (this presumption is supported by the audience research) this is because it is assumed that it would be a male chasing a female victim.

Group of girls – there is always a social group shown within a teen/horror film, however, would be more conventional if males were present. Very female orientated.

Mise-en-scene:

Generally uses/develops

Dark lighting contrasting with bright lighting…highlighting the differences between the ‘danger’ scene and the ‘safe scene(s)’

This relates to the locations in our film opening. The dark alley contrasts with the school corridor and the bedroom/bathroom. However, although it is generally the alleyway that is meant to be the place of danger, the bedroom/bathroom is made out to be quite conspicuous, where the sinister phone call makes this safe, familiar place to be of slight danger. Just like in the film ‘Scream’ – this type of horror is quite conventional.

Characters wearing school uniform…typical of teen horror genre, as it identifies the age of the characters.

The girl character in the morning sequence wearing vest top with shorts as pajamas… gives the film more of a ‘sexually promiscuous’ feel, which is dominant in a lot of teen films.

The body language of the group of girls shows them to be acting superior – taking up all of the corridor space, laughing loudly so to be heard. Adds to the horror of the film, as their actions are sinister.

Girl getting ready acting calmly – walking slowly.

The NVC of the victim common of a horror film. She is running, constantly looking behind her – paranoid, she is screaming and breathing heavily.

No prominent props in the film that suggests it is a horror film, this can be seen as unconventional, as in the films we have researched there is a strong element of iconography within the use of props, i.e. Scream – knife, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – chainsaw.

Camera:

Again, our uses of camera techniques are generally recognizable in most films of this genre.

Use of close ups to show character exposition. Can be used to make a familiar object/person be seen in a different light/look distorted. Creates an eerie atmosphere – close up of the eye. At first glance not sure whom the eye belongs to….questions are raised; is the person dead/alive? Is the person male/female? Etc. This element of suspense and suspicion very typical for a horror style of film.

Use of the hand held camera also conventional of this type of film. This technique exudes an element of paranoia and confusion – a feeling that is felt by most victims in a horror film.

Low angle shots to make the group of girls look superior and to show the subtle element of antagonism being portrayed through their characters.

High angle shots used primarily for the victim to underline her sense of vulnerability.

However, unconventional camera techniques that we used include: the vertical pan that we used in the chase sequence is one that Casey and I were not familiar with in any other teen/horror films that we had seen. This shot was done by a stroke of genius on Casey’s part and fitted in well with our montage sequence, as the shot goes from darkness to light and then back to darkness again.

The other technique we used that we felt was unconventional for this genre of film was the diagonal pan of the girls walking down the stairs, as again it was one that Casey and I had not seen before.

Editing:

Casey and I felt that the fast pace montage editing, where we cut across two lines of action was not that conventional of the teen/horror genre. It is the sort of editing that you would expect to see in an action film. On the other hand, you do expect a sense of build up in a horror film, which is exactly what this montage sequence achieves.

However, there were more conventional elements to our use of editing. In particular our use of credits and titles, which appears in all types of films including teen/horror. Although, the way that we presented our film titles could be seen as slightly different, as you would normally expect them to commence at the beginning of the film, in particular, when stating what companies that are in association/presenting this film, whereas we do this towards the end of our opening.

This fits in with the ‘trailer’ feel to our film.

Font is eerie, colour = red – capturing horror feel through text.

The use of continuity editing in the morning sequence where we watch the teenage girl awaken and get ready is a very common sequence for many teen/horror films and can be seen as overused.

Sound:

Develops the forms and conventions by being layered, and not fitting to the characters being presented at the time

Generic sort of music, similar kind to what other people use. Discordant and creepy – a familiar tune for a horror.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product is a mainstream British film, which could be distributed by numerous companies such as, Optimum Releasing and Verve Pictures, which focus on these types of films that are not tentpoles and are not fully funded by huge conglomerates.

Verve Pictures known for releasing films such as, 'Bullet Boy'.

Would be an autumn release, so to miss the summer rush but to also match the genre of our film, as you generally expect a horror to be released in the darker months.

Our film does not require a high budget, as the general equipment that we need to produce this film is not that expensive and is mainly ready available stuff.

Platform release.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Discovered Adobe Premiere - learnt how to edit a film in a cohesive and effective way. This was done by finding out how to use filters, also how to create montage and continuity editing.

Presented our pitch using Microsoft PowerPoint, and explored the many ways to make a PowerPoint more visually creative.

Introduced to blogger.com, never experienced blogging before. Within this website, I learnt how to create a webpage that presented mine and Casey's work visually as well as just using text. Blogging also enabled Casey and I to work collaboratively, by communicating via the the blog.

Unlike Casey, I had hardly any experience with working a camcorder, so the process of making my film opening allowed me to be able to use a camcorder and a tripod with few complications. Through using a camera, I was also allowed to put the camera techniques that we discussed earlier on in the year into practice.

I learnt why you needed the rule of thirds, why you should not hold the camera sideways but also how to position a shot in the most effective way, using different camera angles and movements.

Using sound was a key technological thing I learnt, as this process included using a Dictaphone, which I had never done before but also using the timeline on Adobe Premiere, where I could change the sound by either amplifying or abbreviating the volume, or increase/decrease the pace, or even layer sounds to create a different one. Looking for sound for our opening familiarized us with several free sound websites, including freesound.org. This is where we researched pre-recorded sound to see if they would fit in with our opening, however, in the end one of friends who was a music student, came up with a couple of soundtracks that he had created himself, which came as a great help to us.

There were a few problems that Casey and I faced, that required us to 'creatively' overcome them, one being that at one point during our filming process I accidently filmed sideways, which meant that we had to reshoot that part of the film.

Survey monkey – how to construct a questionnaire, YouTube, Slideboom – learnt how to upload PowerPoint presentations onto this site so that we could embed them to other areas, this helped with putting presentations onto our blog.

RC - Our Evaluation.

This Thursday just gone Casey and I presented our evaluation by using PowerPoint.

In order to do this we had to do a lot of preparation, which included making our PowerPoint visually appealing and writing a script for our presentation that answered the evaluation questions to the best of our ability. We then proceeded onto video recording ourselves presenting our evaluation.

On the whole I am pleased with how it all went, Casey and I managed to answer the questions to a reasonable standard, which we hope will achieve us quite a high mark. As expected some of our words did come so easy to us, so there a couple of incidents where we stall or stutter for a brief moment, but obviously this is no surprise as we did not imagine that we would be able to speak a 20 minute presentation without a few blips.

For our evaluation we were expected to make good use of most media materials, which I feel we did so quite well, as we created a PowerPoint as well as recording ourselves and after the recording we used Adobe Premiere to edit our recording. From doing this we were able to alter any mishaps but also add in extra clips/soundtracks/trailers to show our use of different media.

So now that we have completed our evaluation there is nothing left for us to do but polish our blog up.

CH - Audience Interviews

CH - Embedding videos

For our evaluation, Rosie and I are creating a presentation in PowerPoint that will be shown to the class; many of the slides will include video clips/stills to emphasize our points or show evidence.
I recently learned how to embed videos into a powerpoint;

(In Adobe Premiere, with the movie you wish to embed OPEN)
- File, Export, Windows Media, Ok

(in PowerPoint, on the correct slide)
- Insert, Movies and Sounds, Movie from file, Ok

It is also possible to fix properties such as whether the film clip plays on command, automatically, full screen etc. These can easily be set by following the instructions on the properties menu.

CH - Evaluation

For our evaluation, Rosie and I were able to choose how we presented our evaluation; initially, we investigated Prezi, an online presentation software website, but that proved to be too difficult and time consuming for what was available to us. Next we explored creating a DVD extra, but finally decided to play to our strengths; a presentation will be created on Power Point, to which Rosie and I will narrate on film, answering questions by the audience. The presentation will include film clips, stills and screen shots.
My rough answers to the evaluation questions;

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?- Camera; shots develop and challenge. Conventional: mid shots, POV shots. Unconventional; vertical pan,
- Mise en scene; develops conventions by conforming completely to white Hollywood stereotypes; high school, group of (presumably straight) girls
- Editing; challenges by montage, transitions (sweeping pan).
- Sound; develops by being layered, not fitting to characters, not recognisable music (eg pop track) discordant and creepy

How does our media product represent particular social groups?1) Presents females through characters. Presents males through the lack of them? Eg. The use of them in society as they are not needed. Could easily be misconstrued as sexism however.
2) Presents males through the atmosphere and environment; the school has signs up (NO BOYS IN CORRIDOR) suggesting a male school, as well as a boy in the background of many shots and a very masculine school bag in a prominent position. This could suggest that we are presenting females in a predominantly male society
3) Presents young people as all characters are as such. Presents older characters/younger characters through the lack of them? (same as male)
4) Presents western culture through mise en scene, sound and characters; mise en scene shows a typical western school, with a display of a good education system (clean, bright, well kept school). Sound shows western culture through not only the use of western instruments and composition (in contrast to that of say, oriental music) as well as the well spoken british voice-over

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Optimum Releasing; supports small british based companies who are not funded by huge conglomerations like most American/british films. Released Son of Rambow, an unconventional indie movie, as well as Shaun of the Dead, quite a conventional movie. Our film includes both aspects; the plot and stock characters are fairly conventional (save for the lack of males, which is extremely unconventional) whereas the editing/sound aspects are very unconventional. Our composition is quite unusual, and therefore may not appeal to the large companies. It would best be released in the autumn, as we have too small a production to compete against the summer blockbusters. Also, as our movie was filmed in the autumn/winter, it would best relate to the audience at that specific time; as it is a teen horror, we would be appealing to the students who recently returned to school and would be looking for entertainment. Would also possibly span a soundtrack, to encourage young independent artists such as Ben and make more revenue.

Who would be the audience for our media product?
Our audience would reflect the social groups reflected in the movie; mostly teenagers, fans of horror movies, middle class to working class (middle class because they are best represented in the film, working class because they have proved in research to enjoy movies similar to ours). Would hopefully attract teenagers 14-19 as well as possibly early to mid twenty year olds, as the themes involved are quite adult.

How did we attract/address our audience?
We attracted our audience by including many of the conventional aspects of movies that have proved to be popular in the past with our target audience; a secondary school, relatable characters (including aspects that wouldn’t be particularly pleasant to relate to, such as maliciousness and dishonesty, that would increase our sense of verisimilitude), and a plot that is very similar to many teen horrors already on the market (Scream, Eden Lake, etc. as shown in our preliminary market research). We addressed our audience also by using only teenagers on the production team; a teenager produced the music, a group of teenagers edited and filmed and created the storyline; as teenagers are our target audience, we have been able to directly address them as we are our own target audience, we know what is necessary to create a film that we ourselves would watch. We have also done extensive research (initial research, rough cut research, final cut research with interviews, questionnaires etc).

What have we learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Learnt to use Blogger, Youtube, Survey Monkey, Premiere Elements; to work DV cameras, digital editing software, dictophones, technology such as how to embed a video to a website. We learnt continuity and montage editing, how to edit the music (eg. lower sounds at specific times, layering sound), how to edit the basic elements of a film (the lighting, the contrast, the zoom/framing).

Looking back at our preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
- organization is key
- timing is important
- working through issues rather than around them
- working together as a team can make or break a movie
- keeping the artistic inspiration throughout is important
- having to keep working throughout whatever the consequences; eg. Staying after school

Here are my (Rosie) rough answers to the questions:

Q1. Our media product both use, develop and challenge the conventions and forms of a real media product. We can identify this throughout our use of mise-en-scene, our plot, our camera work, our editing and our use of sound.


Plot: Our story board shows how a female teenager is being chased by an unknown assailant, juxtaposing a bigger group of females walking through the corridors of a school corridor, laughing and acting quite maliciously towards the girl being chased. The girl who is being chased and is acting as a victim is typical of a teen-horror film and can be seen as a stock character. However, the unknown assailant and the other group of girls are characters that are also conventional of this type of film. This sort of storyline is a common one within this sort of genre. It is one where you would expect one person from the social group in focus to get killed and then a series of killings within that group to be carried out through the rest of the film. This is exactly what our plot involves and is similar to a couple of the films we researched such as, ‘Scream’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.

Mise-en-scene: Our use of mise-en-scene fits in nicely with the type of genre our film is.

- Dark lighting - alleyway, contrasting with bright lighting at school and in bathroom. These types of locations are also very typical of a teen horror film.

- The girls wearing school uniform. Girl getting ready in morning wearing shorts and vest top - stereotypical of teenage girl.

Sound: Built up sound at the beginning in conjunction to the pace of the girl running - conventional. The layering of sound is unconventional, as this type of layering is not evident in any of the films we researched to support our film. The Western themed music contrasts with the voice-overs, which are said in a well spoken British voice.

Camera work: Use of close-ups similar to the ones used in films we researched. These use of shots show character exposition. Jerky shots done by using handheld camera to underline pace of running - conventional. Diagonal pan of following girls walking down stairs - unconventional. The vertical pan used in the chase sequence is unconventional. Both these shots not evident in any of the films we researched but also any films that we had seen of this genre at all.

Editing: The cutting between two lines of action - unconventional. Building up pace - conventional. Waking up sequence very conventional - an over used sequence. Adding in titles - conventional.

Q2. We presented social groups in different ways, showing character exposition. Group of white/tanned, British girls. No males present in film - unconventional, almost sexist. You assume that the assailant is a male, as it is a teenage girl being chased - generic convention of a teen/horror film. Girls are from a grammar school...middle class. Speak in a well-spoken British accent. Clothing shows them in school uniform, smartly dresssed. However, the girls do look quite casual in respect to the way you would expect a grammar school student to dress. The characters in this film are also young, which is very conventional of a teen/horror film. The film shows feminity and the steroptyppes of females, as it shows how girls act in everyday life but also when in danger. Girl character being chased typically screaming, playing a vulnerable character and the group of girls talking nasty about girl being chased - conventional of females, acting sinister. The girl character getting ready in the morning seems approachable; concerned voice on the phone. Through the giggling and laughter of the group of girls it can be assumed that they are heterosexual females, which is underlined further because of our genre of film, as it is implied that these characters would be heterosexual.

Q3. Our media product is a mainstream British film, which could be distributed by numerous companies such as, Optimum Releasing and Verve Pictures, which focus on these types of films that are not tentpoles and are not fully funded by huge conglomerates. Verve Pictures known for releasing films such as, 'Bullet Boy'. Would be an Autumn release, so to miss the Summer rush but to also match the genre of our film, as you generally expect a horror to be released in the more darker months.

Q4 and Q5. Our audience for our film would be a young one, preferably teenagers but could range from the ages of 16-25. Our film would attract more of a middle class audience, as they are the ones that would relate most to our characters.

We attracted/addressed our audience by firstly, presenting our pitch of our film where we discussed our aim for our film to our class, in order to get the green light from our teacher. For this pitch we had to talk about audience research, so we asked about 20 people to answer questions in a survey we created, where we gathered results, which showed us what people would expect in a teen/horror film. Once our opening has been screened we will be allowed to ask the audience how they felt about our product, so to answer further how we attracted our audience.

Q6.
-Discovered Adobe Premiere - learnt how to edit a film in a cohesive and effective way. This was done by finding out how to use filters, also how to create montage and continuity editing.
-Presented our pitch using Microsoft PowerPoint, and explored the many ways to make a PowerPoint more visually creative.
-Introduced to blogger.com, never experienced blogging before. Within this website, I learnt how to create a webpage that presented mine and Casey's work visually as well as just using text. Blogging also enabled Casey and I to work collaboratively, by communicating via the the blog.
-Unlike Casey, I had hardly any experience with working a camcorder, so the process of making my film opening allowed me to be able to use a camcorder and a tripod with few complications. Through using a camera, I was also allowed to put the camera techniques that we discussed earlier on in the year into practice.
-I learnt why you needed the rule of thirds, why you should not hold the camera sideways but also how to position a shot in the most effective way, using different camera angles and movements.
-Using sound was a key technological thing I learnt, as this process included using a dictaphone, which I had never done before but also using the timeline on Adobe Premiere, where I could change the sound by either amplifying or abbreviating the volume, or increase/decrease the pace, or even layer sounds to create a different one. Looking for sound for our opening familiarised us with several free sound websites, including freesound.org. This is where we researced pre-recorded sound to see if they would fit in with our opening, however, in the end one of friends who was a music student, came up with a couple of soundtracks that he had created himself, which came as a great help to us.
-There were a few problems that Casey and I faced, that required us to 'creatively' overcome them, one being that at one point during our filming process I accidently filmed sideways, which meant that we had to reshoot that part of the film.

Q7. Looking at both our preliminary task and our final product it is recognisable that there are many differences between the two. Since filming our preliminary task I have learnt a lot, which include a number of things. The main one being that organisation is very important if you are to create a product that is worthy of a high grade. Using your time wisely is also key, as it would be no use if you spent most of your time filming and not editing, as editing is the most time consuming.
Other than these general points, there are more technical things I learned from filming my preliminary task. This process allowed Casey and me to experiment with different camera techniques and work out which ones are the most effective/creative. Whilst we were filming our preliminary task Casey and I discovered shots that we could possibly use in our final product, this allowed us to be prepared, as we had a few shots in mind.

CH - Evaluation interviews

As we continue through our evaluation tasks, we have decided to create a short film (embedded in a power point presentation, alongside market research results and the analysis thus).
During this short film, we shall personally interview a selection of the audience of our movie screening; after watching our film opening, they will be asked a series of questions, the answers to which we can use in our evaluation as further audience research.
Rosie and I shall complete both the filming, editing and interviewing on a rota to allow both of us to experience and explore the techniques involved.
These are a couple of rough ideas for our interview script;

Did this film appeal to you?
What was it about the film that appealed to you?
Did you enjoy the film? If so, why?
Did you relate to the characters or settings in this film?
Did you think the plot was interesting?
Would you want to continue watching this film?
Do you have any ideas for improvement?

We may return at a later date and make changes to these.

RC - Evaluating our media product

Beginning to evaluate our product:
After exporting and handing in our final product of our opening sequence, Casey and I had the opportunity of using the Easter holidays to prepare our responses to the evaluation questions we were asked to do. Once we returned back to school we spent time deliberating the way in which we were actually going to present these questions, as it is required of us to explore and develop are use of I.C.T and to show off these skills in our presentation.

It has been decided that I will answer the questions 1, 3, and 6 and Casey 2, 4, 5, and 7. Originally I was suppose to answer question 4 but we felt that question 4 and 5 were closely linked so could be answered almost as one.

Although Casey and I have decided which questions we are going to answer and present individually it was still asked of us to answer each question by ourselves over the easter.