Thursday 15 March 2012

Evaluation.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?











In our opening of a fiction film , we used atmospheric music that brings tension and fear towards the viewer so that they would know that the film is a horror.  The type of music sounds like there are a use of different instruments. At the very beginning it sounds like a  keyboard or something that plays special effects is making the tunes, so that it makes it sound scary and creepy. At the bit where the girl walks up to the window, it sounds like there are violins playing at a very high pitch, so that the viewer will feel scared as they know something scary is about to happen as the music gets higher and higher.  Near the end where all the action takes place, sounds like drums are playing, so it really brings the tension to the film. We used this type of music as it is conventional in horror movies such as 28 days later, which is a zombie movie like ours. We both looked at this zombie movie, and picked out some ideas. For example, we have human survivors that are trying to get away from the zombies, and so does 28 days later.
Our titles at the beginning of our opening, are bold and red, that have a glowing effect. We chose this as the colour red, resembles red blood, danger, fear, and also gives the viewer the impression it's a horror. When the subtitles changed we added a 'dip to black' between them whilst in the background, there are shots of the zombies outside, and when the title comes up it does a 'dip to white' because it brings a flash to the title which is in capital letters that is very eye catching. The zombie shots were taken when the sky was dull and slightly turning into a full night sky to give that horror atmosphere to the filming, it makes it more of a negative image and more spooky.
Our horror film 'THEM' followed conventions by using young victims as the survivors as other most other zombie movies do, as they have more energy and are more younger to get away quick from the zombies. In 28 days later, their zombies are attracted to any sign of light at the night time and so are ours.








Our title 'THEM' has already been made into a film, which was made many years ago in 1954. However, this movie is about gigantic ants that is an American black and white science fiction film created by Warner Bros. Picture Inc. Ours is in colour and has a lot more newer effects in it and is also in colour as we have newer technology. Ours is also about zombies, and is an English film that is created by VC Tamworth Media Productions. However, without realising, we have done a similar title to theirs, except ours glows and had a 'dip to white' when it appears on the screen.


Another point about our opening of a fiction film, is that we didn't use one character which was Charlie. This is because the character wasn't able to make it to our filming as they were on holiday. So what we did was changed the characters slightly, by having Shelly (played by Beckie Utting) play the grumpy one, and do act Charlie's roles. However, we kept Ray (played by Nathan Edwards) and Anna (played by Katie Utting) the same, so that it would make the film fit perfectly.


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?


The social groups that we used in our opening of a fiction film were teenagers aged 14-16 years of age, 2 who are boys, and 4 who are girls. There ethnicity are white British and they are all in the middle class (social) as this is the main ethnicity and class within Tamworth, as it is very hard to collect different classes and different ethnicity's. However, this is mainly conventional in some zombie movies, for example, in Shaun of the dead, and Dog house, they are mainly British characters as it is a British film, and they also play characters from a middle/ working class, but they are not teenagers, they are mainly adults, so our zombie movie would be unconventional to most zombie films.


When we continue with our film, we plan to add more characters of different ethnicity's such as black British people. We also plan to use people from different areas. This is so that our film seems more realistic and that a zombie invasion has hit all across the country. It would also make our film look good as we are using a different range of people, and not just people from the same area. We are also going to add people of an older age, as adults are mainly conventional in zombie films such as 28 weeks later, dawn of the dead and many other zombie movies.


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


The film studio that i think will distribute my film, is Fox Searchlight Pictures, as they distributed the film, 28 days later, which is of course, a zombie movie which is kind of conventional towards our media product which is based on a zombie attack. This is because Fox Searchlight are really professional with horror genres, such as making the antagonist's look scary by doing professional make up for example they would make zombies look terrifying and realistic to scare people, and they also find the right suitable settings for horror movies too. They are also good at doing special effects in horror movies, for example, in 28 days later they make the effects look realistic such as the zombies eating other human beings, it looks real! My my media project is a medium to a big budget film as it would cost at least £10 million to make. This is because it would need to have great spooky effects which cost a lot to make, plus all the make-up and costumes, and all of the settings that would need to be used. It would also cost to  advertise my film by doing some traditional and technological marketing, with merchandises, the usage of the Internet and TV adverts, and games for xbox etc...  


4.Who would be the audience for your media product?






BBFC website, which tells you about the different ages for specific movies and games, and it included 'blood' in the  '15' section.The gender that would be best for my movie would be both genders as it contains slight romance, and a lot of horror that would be interesting towards both. This is so that we get a wider audience to watch our film. 
I also did a questionnaire to students of the ages 16+, and i found that they like to watch horrors more than thrillers and ROM-COM'S. I also found that they prefer blood in horrors and that if horrors were to be realistic as shown in my pie charts. This is why I added blood to my film and made my opening realistic, as it would attract the audience that it is aimed for, which is 15+ as they prefer this in horrors.




5.How did you attract/address your audience?


To inform my audience about my film, i will advertise it on TV by doing a TV Spot which will last 20 seconds. The advert will include the main characters and will also include a really interesting part of the film that describes the main storyline and then leave a cliff hanger on the end so that it will make audiences wanting to see it because they would want to know what happens. In this clip i will also use spooky music from the film that will grab peoples attention, and titles of the main characters names and what film studio it is by. I will also include a title of when our film is released in cinemas. Another way to attract my audiences even more widely, I will do some traditional and technological marketing.




For example, for technological marketing, I will produce a game for Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo, as I have heard that most people play on a game called Call Of Duty, and some of their games contain zombies in them (such as Black Ops), and they sold loads of their games, so I thought that it would be a good idea to produce games that are based on my film. When my film is released and presented in cinema's, then I will make them into DVDs and Blu-Rays, so that people can watch my film. For traditional marketing i will make my film into things such as mugs, tops, key-rings, and maybe posters, just so that my film can make much more money back, than how much it actually cost to make. I could also add QR code's in most magazines so that people can scan it and look at the advertisement of my film.  I could also do some viral marketing, so that when people go on Youtube or Yahoo for example, I could make splashes that appear on peoples computers/ laptops, so that they notice it and will be informed about my new film. This is so that I can get a more bigger range of audiences to watch my film as many people today use the Internet, as shown on statistics .




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


There are many different types of technologies that I have learnt. The camera's I used for my media product were called SONY HD 10'80 Touch Screen. I learnt how to do different movement's with the camera and different angles such as using a horizontal tracking and filming low angles by using a tripod altering it by it's height, and using the handle to pivot the camera  . I also learnt how to zoom in carefully by using the zoom in button on the camera, and also how to zoom out. What i also know when filming is the 180 degree rule, so that my filming looks understandable to the viewer. Another shot that was successful in our opening, was a reverse tracking which rolled out to be a left pan. This is where the camera pulls backwards as the characters was walking towards the camera and then it swept to the left into an area of interest where Ray was holding the door so that the zombies couldn't get in.
I have learnt how to use iMacs to produce and edit my media product. The programme i used was 'Adobe Premiere Pro'. I learnt how to cut parts out of my film, and made it all fit on the time line. I also learnt how to edit my film on this programme, such as using 'dip to black' effects when it changes titles at the beginning, and when it came to the main title 'THEM', I used dip to white to give it a shocking kind of spark to it, to make it look spooky. on some clips I found that it was too light in my film, so I used the lighting effects and made my clips a bit darker so it looks more spooky and brings more tension to my film.
I have also learnt how to create a blog, by adding video clips and adding pictures when I make a new post by clicking on the icons on the top where it says 'insert a video' and 'insert image' to make it look more interesting. I have learnt how to spell check my blog so that there are no spelling errors. I also have kept my writing in the same font, but i have changed the colours so that it looks eye catching and interesting.


7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


What i have learnt from the preliminary task to produce my full media product, is how to communicate with other people whilst filming such as telling them how to act, using scripts, and of course their make-up and what they have to wear in the opening of my fiction film.
I have also learnt the 180° rule, where characters in the film must always be on the same side otherwise it would be very confusing, for example, if a character was looking out of the window on the right hand side, and then it cuts to the same character on left hand side, it would bring confusion to the viewer.
I have learnt how to do specific angles such as low angles, tilts, high angles and also movements such as horizontal tracking (left to right, right to left), vertical tracking (up and down), pans, zoom in, zoom out, forward tracking, reverse tracking where the camera pulls backwards for example, if a character runs towards the screen the camera will track backwards, and subjective point of view shots where the camera is the characters eyes.
Another camera shot i have learnt is the shot-reverse-shot, where the camera focuses on two people having a conversation. For example, the camera will focus on one characters face then will switch to the other characters face when they having a conversation, and will also make sure that their eyes are on the same level.

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