Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
Media Evaluation - By Rachael Whittaker
Our production film is based in the horror genre and more precisely psychological horror sub genre. I do think we did create our ideas round this genre and made at fits completely as you can see from the film. Instantly from the beginning you know what film you’re in for as we portray the right elements we need (clown mask image), this photo was taken whilst filming the title sequence so you know what genre it is from the start. We looked at other clown films such as Stephen King’s It but we didn’t want our character to be too clown with all the costume and make up so we just had the mask but I still think this is very affective. Majority of horror film title sequences are usually the same kind of style with starting off black and hardly anything showing to show the illusion of that there are many possibilities of what is to come.
2.2 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The gender in the film is very stereotypical as the female being the victim and the male character are all in power whilst the female is weak. The female character is shown as isolated, lonely, afraid and this is how they are usually shown as in horror films and she looks more vulnerable with being a teenage girl. Well out target audience is 15+ so I believe they would understand more about the stereotypical situation where as people of younger age may be a bit confused and frightened by this.
3. 3. 3. What kind of media institution distribute your media product and why?
I believe our production could have the potential to be distributed by a big production. I think a distributor could be the Liongate; they have done some horror films such as ‘Saw’. I do believe that our film we produced could be successful if we were to create it all. I think if the film wasn’t good enough to hit the cinema screens that it could be a TV movie as if it was an internet release it may be easier for people to find ways of illegally getting the film so it would cut down on profits of producing the film. So I think TV movie would be best if not in the cinemas as if it was to be in the cinemas it would create the write atmosphere to get the full thrill of watching the film with being in pitch black, music at you from every angle and the big screen to capture the moments. I believe there could be merchandise but like the film having a 15+ audience the merchandise would refer to the same audience. I think a good merchandise to sell could actually be a replica of the clown mask maybe for Halloween purposes or just for the fun of it. If that was to be successful may be figures could be made of the characters or more so the clown figure.
4. 4. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our audience certificate is a 15. This is due to our film being horror, it doesn’t necessarily show the violence but it shows that some could have happened in the story lines so this could be upsetting towards a younger audience. They reasons for some films to be put as a certificate as is strong threats involved minor violence without really much gore. So our film doesn’t actually show the violence or any gore it just refers about what has happened which shows the psychological side from what has happened which some people could find quite disturbing. Other horror films that have a certificate 15 are ‘The Omen’ (2006), ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ (2005), ‘The Fog’ (2005), ‘Dark Water’ (2005) and ‘The Ring Two’ (2005). Another film that is also certificated 15 is ‘The Wolfman’ which is the film I did my analysis on. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ this site is about the bbfc which stand for British Board of Film Classification. This is a company that looks at safety of viewing films and many other relevant film matters.
5. 5. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Our audience are focusing on the Rachael character as she is the victim of the events in which have happened. At the beginning she narrates a couple of sentences to say a bit to draw you into the film to see what exactly has happened when, where, what, who and why? The Him character follows the victim so it shows more focused on her as to why is she the victim, why was she chosen. There would have been point of view shots from the him character if we were to do the full film rather than just 2 minutes. The audience are following the life of Rachael, at the beginning there is an eyeline match shot from Rachael looking at a photo frame so the audience are following her lead to get more onto her frame of mind. We have feedback from our film from the audience of people in our class, I'm really pleased with the feed back as people seemed to enjoy the film with quotes of 'font really fitted at the beginning', 'quite creepy', 'music tense, builds up', 'creepy vibe' and other good comments. Here is a link to the review. welcome to the circus review
6. 6. 6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
Well for our production we used a HDV 1000 camera which does a built in microphone which made it easier as we only needed distant voices not too close as pre mic recorded as it might have looked silly and harder to sync with the film. Although one time when filming our microphone was unplugged from the camera so we had to redo some scenes which were frustrating and wasted time that we didn’t have much of. Another weakness for us that it rained very heavily every time we seemed to have planned to film, de us postpone filming a lot as the majority of our film is outside so this also wasted time for us. So although we had some complications I am very pleased with the result we ended up with our film. A strength I do know is that I created the music for the title scene with help from my brother and I do think the music really fits in with the genre we are giving off. Also the narrator from Rachael was recorded with a microphone then soothed down so that the voice didn’t sound harsh as it needed to be a voice to draw you in to what she has to say. The software we used for editing made it easier as we could change things so then the film would look very smoothly cut together and that the sound does sound correct and in sync. It gave us great effects to make our film more complete together such as our last scene, it’s actually two scenes crossed together sort of with the him character fading in and out, which I love that it does because it really could boost the film ratings from the audience.
7. 7. 7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Well our preliminary task was a lot of fun to do and we even used them skills into out full product more than we’d all actually realise. Such as the 180̊ rule and reverse shots, both in the conversations between the therapist and Rachael, also between Rachael and Laura. The preliminary task gave us an insight of working around the equipment on positioning of the camera with how you want to present your scenes and the people in them. For our preliminary we used a smaller simpler camera which means the quality wouldn’t have been as good as the HDV 1000 video camera that we used for our full product so that would be a huge difference to see if you watched one straight after the other. I believe that our shots in the full produce are so much more smoothly cut together than the preliminary just due to having more experience and knowing more about the software rather than just the basics.
Film Analysis - The Wolfman (2010) - By Rachael Whittaker
The Wolfman (2010)
The film starts off with the full moon as the full moon for what everyone knows that it supposedly brings out the worst in people and may give off a creepy vibe that sends a shiver down your spine. The scene moves down from the sky into a dark gloomy forest setting which can refer to our forest scene as there are similarities. Personally I would like our forest setting to be more similar to the Wolfman one as it gives off a nervous vibe of the forest being scary at night with fog floating along the floor which means that things could be hiding in ready to jump out to get you. There is a high angle shot looking down at a man walking into the forest which means that he means little and something could happen to him. In our film we have a similar shot of the him character looking down on Rachael as he is belittling her as he has stronger power although this could also seems very stereotypical but for the Wolfman the man is being looked down on but there is no woman in the shot to do a gender comparison. The man in the Wolfman is walking in the woods with a close up on him to show his fear expression especially when you have a sudden burst of birds flying which could make you jump, such as in our production when there is an extreme close up of Rachael when we suddenly wakens from her nightmare which could make you jump just from it being a sudden movement that the audience weren’t expecting.
Something then strikes the man (in Wolfman) but you don’t see what which makes you wonder what it is then you see the claw. We wanted to show bits of our bad character but our main focal was the mask so we showed it but that’s all you see so that will make the audience think who is this character underneath the mask. The Wolfman title comes up then, for ours we had it at the very beginning in a style of maybe olden fashion letters stuck together as if advertised, where as for Wolfman it is on a gravestone which also looks old fashioned.
Now after the name title came up on Wolfman there is a woman narrator who speaks in fear, it is a plea for help. Rachael narrates at the beginning of Welcome to the Circus in fear it is not quite a plea but a statement. They both talk in a sense of feeling isolated from what has happened in the surroundings. Although in Wolfman her narrator is a letter written to her fiancée’s brother so this is a direct plea for somebody. Rachael has no one to write to, she doesn’t know who she can trust anymore ever since the incident.
The setting house of in Wolfman is very old fashioned big mansion but it looks disserted with dust and cobwebs around, this could give off a dramatic gothic theme. For our production we have kept things modern which made it easier but didn’t really make out film at a disadvantage or anything so it still turned out okay as we planned and we stuck to our plan to get the results we wanted.
There are shot reverse shots with Laurence and his father character with still a very dime and dark setting around then with only light that seems to be coming from the windows, the atmosphere around them seems cold and dead. For our product there are reverse shots with the Therapist and Rachael which seems to have a secure atmosphere around them, a place where Rachael feels safe and comfortable to say what she is truly feeling as when she is having a conversation with her friend Laura she seems to have a front on, that she is also wearing a mask but not in the same sense as the him character.
Laurence in Wolfman goes into town to see his dead brother. Although the scene is in outside daylight it is still dime as though there a sheet of clouds covering the town, it fits in with what has just happened of Laurence’s brother being killed and just been found recently. For our film the only lighting we used was daylight and used it to our advantage, such as for the forest scene we checked to see what time the sun would be setting so we went to film whilst the sun was setting but not too dark for us. As if it was too dark the quality would be bad and look fussy which, is not an effect we wanted.
The next scene cuts that Laurence is sat in a local pub with people theorising about the possibilities with what is behind the attacks of what have been happening around the town. I would imagine that this scenario would be in the full extent of the film if it was made that this would be involved. A modern version of children talking about it in the canteen maybe when Rachael walked past and people judging and coming up with their own remarks. As people always seem to want to be involved, to be in the know of what has happened and a school would be a great one for the Welcome to the Circus as it is an everyday typical scene that children go through. Then usually there is always one person that speaks out from the crowd that people listen to then follow along with their theory as there is the Wolfman with a man talking about a similar incident that happened 25 years ago.
Laurence then returns to house where he introduces himself to his brother’s fiancé, where he gives his word to her that he will find out what happened to his brother which is where I think the main plot begins of him then on a quest to truly know what happened to his brother. For our product I think plot looks like its going to thicken when the jack in the box is placed on Laura’s doorstep because it makes you budge to the edge of your seat to know what is going to happen next, who placed it there? Why?
I analysised the first 10 minutes of Wolfman to show the comparison and how the ideas build together. The thing that got me most about Wolfman is the theme of it, the way it’s always dark from the lightness to the colour of the characters clothing as there is really no colour at all that stands out. Although with our product you can feel the darkness more than see it, our film has more colour due to it being more modern where as Wolfman is set in a older century than what we are in now so it makes it more affective.
Evaluation - Brett Cooper
Media Evaluation
1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of media products?
The film that we created is a Horror and its sub genre is a Psychological Horror we put it in this sub genre because after creating the story one of our key elements was to make it that the audience didn’t know if the ‘Stalker’ was a real person or in the characters head. This is shown in the final scene when we have a shot of the Stalker following the characters into the woods, we have a long shot showing the walk to the entrance of the woods but however by using a four way garbage matte we were able to make the stalker come in and out of shot so he looked like he was jumping time and becoming closer to his victims. This is giving him some human features and some unrealistic features. This all puts our film in the Horror genre. Before making our film we looked at many horror films to get some idea of how to film it and what styles to film it in, the film that mostly relates to ours is ‘The Strangers’ and the director of this film also gave little away to whether the characters were real in that film and he did that by having them wear mask which our character does too. This I believe is a very important element because it dehumanises a person because they lose their human features.
The films that relate to our film that we have looked at are:
· The Strangers
·
· Scream
· Copycat
· The Eye
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our film males dominate the film because we have a very masculine character which is our stalker and nobody crosses him. As appose to age there is not much difference in age between the characters in the film. However we are unable to identify how old the stalker actually is because he has a mask on and is not baring any flesh. By having a very male dominated style in our film we link it into our target audience because they even though it is aimed at both males and females when we have looked at Horror films they dominant character is usually male.
3. What kind of media Institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe that our film could be produced by a major Hollywood Studio because many Horror films that have been produced over the years are all depend on what the public fear at that time, for example back in the 80’s it was all about aliens. However now it is a lot to do with psychological thoughts, so we followed that pattern and I believe that with a good backing our film could become a major blockbuster. I believe this because even though we were unable to show it in the opening two minutes we created our stalker character to make people unsure if he is a person or not human at all, we did this to give people a false sense of security and for people watching they would find it interesting because one minute they would think they knew what was scripted to happen but then there would be another twist in the tale. Also even though we have said that The Strangers is very much like our film this is only because of their inclusion of clown masks, our film is very unique and could add something different to the film industry.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience is 15 – 40 year olds when we decided what our target audience was going to be we began to look at events in the film that we could create that would appeal to this audience so this is why the girls are heading for the woods to a party because it is something that especially our younger end of our target audience will be doing so they can relate this to their everyday life. All the films that we looked at relate to the same target audience because Horror films have a very wide age audience but it comes down to the person if they like the genre of film. The films that we look at with the same target audience were:
· The Strangers
· It
· Scream
· Copycat
· The Eye
The classification criteria that I would give our film is a 15 and that is because it does not have any sexual scenes or many gory scenes but the film been a very psychological film I wouldn’t advice people under 15 to see this film and that why I am giving it a 15 certificate.
5.
after the production of our film four people analyised this and we filmed them as they spoke about our film a few of the comments that were passed were 'I like the text that was used in the titles' 'i like the clown character' below is a link to the video on youtube and you can see the four people reviewing our film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcTtvQNDvUA
6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
After using the editing software I have learnt how to edit two shots together when we first started but however by the time we got to the last shots of the film we used a very good effect called ‘4 way garbage matte’ this enabled us to create two shots into one making our stalker look like he was following two characters in the film when actually they were filmed in different shots. To use these effects we used Final Cut Express on the Apple Macs.
7.
When we filmed our preliminary task we didn’t really plan all the shots and storyboard everything like we have for the main project and it showed because we didn’t get as good standard as we could have done but however without doing this task we wouldn’t have been as good for our main task. Having the shot lists and storyboards when we
Film Photo Sequence - By Rachael Whittaker
This is our film sequence from print screen shots from the film. Again trying to keep it very similar to our drawn draft version. As you can see there are some shots are not been put on, this is due to us having a time limit of about 2 minutes allowed for our film. So with only being limited little it wasn't possible to fit in everything that we wanted so we stuck to the main ideas.
Title Photo Sequence - By Rachael Whittaker
This sequence is a image print screen version of the film we created, I tried to get the images as close to the drawn version as much as possible.
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