Foundation Portfolio Evaluation
My media production meets the forms and convention of real media productions as in a film horror opening, it is likely you hear theme music telling you the genre of the film- words can also relate to the genre, for example the use of violent words would insinuate that the film is going to contain violence. We used Kanye West- Love Lockdown because of the deep, dark beat through out the song. I feel that it is a good choice because it is like a heartbeat. This helps to tell the audience that it is horror because of the drum beat. The words also relate to the scenes for example the end shot, the words say "You Lose" therefore meaning that Paige has been killed.
Although for the first shot you see is not an establishing shot, the shot zooms out to see the location of an old bedroom- helping to add to the film genre and let the audience know where the characters are. The characters do not start off saying anything but the close up camera shots like mirror shots show that the girls are normal, teenage, middle class girls getting ready to go out because of the application of make up etc. We first hear the characters speak when they are talking about drinking wine, there are also references to the male stalker ex boyfriend and a party they are attending.
The relationship between the characters show that they are close friends because of they are very comfortable with each other. The hints about the storyline are suggested right from the beginning because of the close up of the picture, and the use of the colour red- symbolising blood.
Also the flashes of Paige’s body as detectives camera shots. Also the way that we pour red wine over the picture of the boys face shows that he is a bad character. References to the boyfriend being a bad person is suggested through dialogue like “I hope he’s not there”. This does not give too much away, for example his name or what he has done wrong, adding to the sense of enigma as we do not give away the killer. We hinted the storyline without giving too much away by using colour and dialect as well as images. We chose not to make it really obvious that he was a bad character because this would be un natural and give too much away. We used titles at the start of our production to introduce the characters names but we decided not to use any other details because the visual work was clear enough and the shots of the flash forwards of Paige’s death were not long enough to add titles- plus this would give away the storyline too soon. Credits were used to represent the film company, directors and stars. We decided to add “based on a true story” to make the film more realistic and scary because this is what they use in real media productions. We only use one type of sounds effect on our production which was made through filming. We wanted to get the effect of a detectives/police radio reporting on the incident of a missing girl (relation to the black and white pictures of Paige) so we used walkie-talkies and recorded the noise and dialogue on the walkie-talkies to make it more realistic.
We used special effects whilst editing such as black and white, light balancing, sharpening and transitions to make the changing over of scenes flow better. The use of black fades and flashing helped to create the horror mood. We also sped up and used slow motion/ghosting on important scenes to make the audience pay more attention. Our production used a narrative structure in the sence that the shots flowed using match on action whilst sitting down and talking. The production starts with us getting ready, then being ready and talking about going out- this flows. We do not use flashbacks but have used flash forwards in camera shots- like police pictures to show the audience what is going to happen on this night out. It does not show too much about the storyline but we have placed these shots in randomly after shots of Paige because it shows that something is going to happen to her. It also surprises the audience. Genre characteristics used in our production in relation to real media productions are that we use the element of surprise and heart beat in the music. We also use close ups at the beginning because this interests the audience in to what we are getting ready for. The camera angles are also interesting because we use the camera lens as a mirror- drawing in the audience because we are looking at directly at them. We used typical mise-en-scene like an old fashioned house with wooden beams which helped the audience with the recognition of a horror film. This contributed to helping the film look scary. Rea l media productions such as Prom Night and Dont Look Now helped me to produce my production because of the use of angles and editing techniques whiched made the genre horror. I looked at these openings before planning the storyboard because I wanted our production to be as realistic as possible and follow the normal forms and ocnventions of real media products; we therefore used the colour red, to symbolise blood and danger like in Dont Look Now- the little girl with the red raincoat. We also used editing techniques to add effects and scary type transitions just like in Prom Nigh with special effects.
My media product represents certain social groups through body language and dialogue between characters. Paige is the main character in the opening; this is shown through the use of editing techniques such as slow motion and blurring the images. Also, it is shown by starting of the production with Paige, and the black and white still images show that she is the main focus. She is also the only character to be wearing red items such as red lipstick, red nail varnish and drinking the red wine. Red representing blood/ danger; all of this signals to the audience who they should sympathise with. Other characters are Me and Sophie, Paige’s friends that she is getting ready with. The representation of gender is expressed through our production; Paige is seen as an attractive, strong female when getting ready as well as her friends being confident characters yet the still images of Paige’s death and the recognition of the ex boyfriend in the picture show the weakness and insecurity of females against males. Dialogue such as “I hope he’s not there” shows the negativity and vulnerability of her. The class of the three girls is middle class as they talk normally (no slang or posh accents) and the appearance of the girls expresses class because of their clothes are normal, average teenagers. The age of us three girls shows that we are teenagers, but represented older than we are as we are drinking wine and going out to a party which suggests we are about 18. Also, the recognition of the ex boyfriend shows maturity of Paige. The ethnicity of the girls are white and English. We used a female to be the victim as females are the innocent stereotype to use, and this conforms with real media productions such as the opening to Scream, where a young female is the victim. The strong stereotype for the male police officer talking first shows that males are seen as the dominant, and heroic figures. We also added a female voice in as another police officer to show a sence of realism like a conversation between two officers on walkie-talkies.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media production would be a Hollywood film company for example 20th Century Fox or Paramount. It would most likely be this because the storyline is quite a mainstream one which would attract a lot of people. It is also a like to other horror films in the industry for example Prom Night because of the sense of surprise and horror in the opening scene. In contrast to this, our production could also be shown in a British film company such as Working Title depending on the stars; for example the better known characters playing your stars, the more likely it is to be distributed by a larger Hollywood company. Our production would be screened at a Multiplex cinema because of the easy to follow, mainstream storyline which would attract a lot of people whereas being screened in a Art House cinema is more for small indie films with a small budget. Because of the storyline involvement, our film would cost a lot to produce because of the different locations. A lot to do with the distribution involved the intended audience because it matters where they would most likely go to see the movie.
The intended target audience for our production would be teenagers, younger adults who are looking for the thrill seeking factor in a film. Our production is not suitable to under 12’s for example because of the horror involvements; violence and murder. I think it is aimed towards both genders because it involves relationship problems between a teenage boy and girl therefore attracting this age of audience. The social group it would attract is average, middle class teenagers because of this is what is portrayed in the characters in the opening. The relationship between the audience and the characters is important as the audience must be able to relate to the characters feelings and state, making the audience empathise with the characters. My intended audience would also have seen movies such as Prom Night and don’t look now which focus on the stalker-killer situation. I think that also, other social interests that my audience would have is the interest in TV dramas and detective/police crime shows because this is similar to the movie. The occasion for the outing to see this movie would be a fun night out; mostly intended for groups of friends or even couples because it is a scary, jumpy film, young people find this almost humorous to go to the cinema and be scared! I also think that people would go out to the cinema to watch this film in order to be scared- some people like to be scared, as others like to figure out storylines.
We aimed to attract and address our audience by using characters of the age of who we are trying to attract; we used teenagers because young adults are the tpe of people we are trying to attract. Music also helped us to achieve this aim because we used a modern song- Kanye West that would address the audience because they would know the song therefore be attracted to watch the film. I think using modern music helps us to relate to a wide range of people in our target audience. Using the location of a teenage girls bedroom helped use to attract our audience because young adults can relate to getting ready to go out, drinking wine, putting on makeup etc. The storyline of an ex boyfriend helps to address the audience, because both genders will be interested in the relationship between the boy and girl. They can also relate to relationships like this, but obvisouly on a lower scale! We have used mainly the forms of teenagers getting ready and going out with the use of make up and doing their hair to attract the intended audience.
Considering the technical skills that I have learnt through producing this production in planning is that whilst planning the storyboard- take into account the timings. We learnt that we had to cut the outside scene out that was in our original storyboard because it would have exceeded the 2 minute time limit. Only using one location was not ideal, but still got the storyline across with the use of the still images of Paige dead and the voice over. Learning about camerawork has shown me that adjusting and playing about with the angles is important in order to get the best result. Also it helped to record some shots a number of time so we had the choice of the best one. We had a few problems with some angles but overcome them when playing around with zooming and adjusting the stand of the tripod, for example in the two over the shoulder shot. We managed to record the walkie-talkie sound by Tom speaking down one end of the walkie talkie and recording the sound from the recieving end. We had to cut and delete some video and just add the audio on top of scenes to make it fit in. I have learnt through editing that it is important to cut the scenes tightly to make sure we had not gone over the two minute limit. The hardest thing about editing that I found was that in some shots, they did not flow because of match on action when the three girls sit down is tightly edited and in my opinion not long enough. I also think that in editing, it was very difficult to edit the music because of the download had cuts in it to begin with, therefore I had to cut these out. I do like the way that the music is underneath the audio and dialogue and also, the way it fades out at the end. I changed the colour of contrast and brightness on all scenes because I wanted the colour to be more vibrant and also, we edited the still images because these were like photographs. My understanding of film production developed through this process of contrusting this product as I have learnt how much planning goes into every shot in a film. Also, I also now understand editing techniques and interesting transitions that real media products use. I understand how tight and close the editing has to be in order to produce continuity. I understand the stages of processes in the film industry; planning, filming and editing.
Looking back at the preliminary task production, I feel that I have learnt alot new shots and editing techniques. Match on action and shot reverse shot are both examples of what my group and I have used in our main production which we learnt from the preliminary task. I feel that also, we have produced a successful product from experiencing the preliminary task because it helped us as a group to communicate with each other and get our views across. We had many discussions during the whole production for example different ideas of angles and shots but we all decided through talking as a group. I feel that the end product is a sucess and we have fufilled our aim in producing the opening to a horror film. When we showed our production to our class and teacher for the first time, there was alot of improvements through editing and more filming that had to be done. These were: titles missing, add music, would be more effective if walkie-talkie voiceover was throughout the whole production, tightening the editing and finally cutting out certain unecessary parts suchas the wine appearing twice. We took this into consideration and managed to edit our production with the feedback. If I was to carry out this task again, I would probably work in a much smaller group of just me, or with one other person because I feel that there was too many opinions and discussions in on group. I would also have put alot more thought into the storyline and how we could of represented the horror genre.
My media production meets the forms and convention of real media productions as in a film horror opening, it is likely you hear theme music telling you the genre of the film- words can also relate to the genre, for example the use of violent words would insinuate that the film is going to contain violence. We used Kanye West- Love Lockdown because of the deep, dark beat through out the song. I feel that it is a good choice because it is like a heartbeat. This helps to tell the audience that it is horror because of the drum beat. The words also relate to the scenes for example the end shot, the words say "You Lose" therefore meaning that Paige has been killed.
Although for the first shot you see is not an establishing shot, the shot zooms out to see the location of an old bedroom- helping to add to the film genre and let the audience know where the characters are. The characters do not start off saying anything but the close up camera shots like mirror shots show that the girls are normal, teenage, middle class girls getting ready to go out because of the application of make up etc. We first hear the characters speak when they are talking about drinking wine, there are also references to the male stalker ex boyfriend and a party they are attending.
The relationship between the characters show that they are close friends because of they are very comfortable with each other. The hints about the storyline are suggested right from the beginning because of the close up of the picture, and the use of the colour red- symbolising blood.
Also the flashes of Paige’s body as detectives camera shots. Also the way that we pour red wine over the picture of the boys face shows that he is a bad character. References to the boyfriend being a bad person is suggested through dialogue like “I hope he’s not there”. This does not give too much away, for example his name or what he has done wrong, adding to the sense of enigma as we do not give away the killer. We hinted the storyline without giving too much away by using colour and dialect as well as images. We chose not to make it really obvious that he was a bad character because this would be un natural and give too much away. We used titles at the start of our production to introduce the characters names but we decided not to use any other details because the visual work was clear enough and the shots of the flash forwards of Paige’s death were not long enough to add titles- plus this would give away the storyline too soon. Credits were used to represent the film company, directors and stars. We decided to add “based on a true story” to make the film more realistic and scary because this is what they use in real media productions. We only use one type of sounds effect on our production which was made through filming. We wanted to get the effect of a detectives/police radio reporting on the incident of a missing girl (relation to the black and white pictures of Paige) so we used walkie-talkies and recorded the noise and dialogue on the walkie-talkies to make it more realistic.We used special effects whilst editing such as black and white, light balancing, sharpening and transitions to make the changing over of scenes flow better. The use of black fades and flashing helped to create the horror mood. We also sped up and used slow motion/ghosting on important scenes to make the audience pay more attention. Our production used a narrative structure in the sence that the shots flowed using match on action whilst sitting down and talking. The production starts with us getting ready, then being ready and talking about going out- this flows. We do not use flashbacks but have used flash forwards in camera shots- like police pictures to show the audience what is going to happen on this night out. It does not show too much about the storyline but we have placed these shots in randomly after shots of Paige because it shows that something is going to happen to her. It also surprises the audience. Genre characteristics used in our production in relation to real media productions are that we use the element of surprise and heart beat in the music. We also use close ups at the beginning because this interests the audience in to what we are getting ready for. The camera angles are also interesting because we use the camera lens as a mirror- drawing in the audience because we are looking at directly at them. We used typical mise-en-scene like an old fashioned house with wooden beams which helped the audience with the recognition of a horror film. This contributed to helping the film look scary. Rea l media productions such as Prom Night and Dont Look Now helped me to produce my production because of the use of angles and editing techniques whiched made the genre horror. I looked at these openings before planning the storyboard because I wanted our production to be as realistic as possible and follow the normal forms and ocnventions of real media products; we therefore used the colour red, to symbolise blood and danger like in Dont Look Now- the little girl with the red raincoat. We also used editing techniques to add effects and scary type transitions just like in Prom Nigh with special effects.
My media product represents certain social groups through body language and dialogue between characters. Paige is the main character in the opening; this is shown through the use of editing techniques such as slow motion and blurring the images. Also, it is shown by starting of the production with Paige, and the black and white still images show that she is the main focus. She is also the only character to be wearing red items such as red lipstick, red nail varnish and drinking the red wine. Red representing blood/ danger; all of this signals to the audience who they should sympathise with. Other characters are Me and Sophie, Paige’s friends that she is getting ready with. The representation of gender is expressed through our production; Paige is seen as an attractive, strong female when getting ready as well as her friends being confident characters yet the still images of Paige’s death and the recognition of the ex boyfriend in the picture show the weakness and insecurity of females against males. Dialogue such as “I hope he’s not there” shows the negativity and vulnerability of her. The class of the three girls is middle class as they talk normally (no slang or posh accents) and the appearance of the girls expresses class because of their clothes are normal, average teenagers. The age of us three girls shows that we are teenagers, but represented older than we are as we are drinking wine and going out to a party which suggests we are about 18. Also, the recognition of the ex boyfriend shows maturity of Paige. The ethnicity of the girls are white and English. We used a female to be the victim as females are the innocent stereotype to use, and this conforms with real media productions such as the opening to Scream, where a young female is the victim. The strong stereotype for the male police officer talking first shows that males are seen as the dominant, and heroic figures. We also added a female voice in as another police officer to show a sence of realism like a conversation between two officers on walkie-talkies.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media production would be a Hollywood film company for example 20th Century Fox or Paramount. It would most likely be this because the storyline is quite a mainstream one which would attract a lot of people. It is also a like to other horror films in the industry for example Prom Night because of the sense of surprise and horror in the opening scene. In contrast to this, our production could also be shown in a British film company such as Working Title depending on the stars; for example the better known characters playing your stars, the more likely it is to be distributed by a larger Hollywood company. Our production would be screened at a Multiplex cinema because of the easy to follow, mainstream storyline which would attract a lot of people whereas being screened in a Art House cinema is more for small indie films with a small budget. Because of the storyline involvement, our film would cost a lot to produce because of the different locations. A lot to do with the distribution involved the intended audience because it matters where they would most likely go to see the movie.
The intended target audience for our production would be teenagers, younger adults who are looking for the thrill seeking factor in a film. Our production is not suitable to under 12’s for example because of the horror involvements; violence and murder. I think it is aimed towards both genders because it involves relationship problems between a teenage boy and girl therefore attracting this age of audience. The social group it would attract is average, middle class teenagers because of this is what is portrayed in the characters in the opening. The relationship between the audience and the characters is important as the audience must be able to relate to the characters feelings and state, making the audience empathise with the characters. My intended audience would also have seen movies such as Prom Night and don’t look now which focus on the stalker-killer situation. I think that also, other social interests that my audience would have is the interest in TV dramas and detective/police crime shows because this is similar to the movie. The occasion for the outing to see this movie would be a fun night out; mostly intended for groups of friends or even couples because it is a scary, jumpy film, young people find this almost humorous to go to the cinema and be scared! I also think that people would go out to the cinema to watch this film in order to be scared- some people like to be scared, as others like to figure out storylines.
We aimed to attract and address our audience by using characters of the age of who we are trying to attract; we used teenagers because young adults are the tpe of people we are trying to attract. Music also helped us to achieve this aim because we used a modern song- Kanye West that would address the audience because they would know the song therefore be attracted to watch the film. I think using modern music helps us to relate to a wide range of people in our target audience. Using the location of a teenage girls bedroom helped use to attract our audience because young adults can relate to getting ready to go out, drinking wine, putting on makeup etc. The storyline of an ex boyfriend helps to address the audience, because both genders will be interested in the relationship between the boy and girl. They can also relate to relationships like this, but obvisouly on a lower scale! We have used mainly the forms of teenagers getting ready and going out with the use of make up and doing their hair to attract the intended audience.
Considering the technical skills that I have learnt through producing this production in planning is that whilst planning the storyboard- take into account the timings. We learnt that we had to cut the outside scene out that was in our original storyboard because it would have exceeded the 2 minute time limit. Only using one location was not ideal, but still got the storyline across with the use of the still images of Paige dead and the voice over. Learning about camerawork has shown me that adjusting and playing about with the angles is important in order to get the best result. Also it helped to record some shots a number of time so we had the choice of the best one. We had a few problems with some angles but overcome them when playing around with zooming and adjusting the stand of the tripod, for example in the two over the shoulder shot. We managed to record the walkie-talkie sound by Tom speaking down one end of the walkie talkie and recording the sound from the recieving end. We had to cut and delete some video and just add the audio on top of scenes to make it fit in. I have learnt through editing that it is important to cut the scenes tightly to make sure we had not gone over the two minute limit. The hardest thing about editing that I found was that in some shots, they did not flow because of match on action when the three girls sit down is tightly edited and in my opinion not long enough. I also think that in editing, it was very difficult to edit the music because of the download had cuts in it to begin with, therefore I had to cut these out. I do like the way that the music is underneath the audio and dialogue and also, the way it fades out at the end. I changed the colour of contrast and brightness on all scenes because I wanted the colour to be more vibrant and also, we edited the still images because these were like photographs. My understanding of film production developed through this process of contrusting this product as I have learnt how much planning goes into every shot in a film. Also, I also now understand editing techniques and interesting transitions that real media products use. I understand how tight and close the editing has to be in order to produce continuity. I understand the stages of processes in the film industry; planning, filming and editing.
Looking back at the preliminary task production, I feel that I have learnt alot new shots and editing techniques. Match on action and shot reverse shot are both examples of what my group and I have used in our main production which we learnt from the preliminary task. I feel that also, we have produced a successful product from experiencing the preliminary task because it helped us as a group to communicate with each other and get our views across. We had many discussions during the whole production for example different ideas of angles and shots but we all decided through talking as a group. I feel that the end product is a sucess and we have fufilled our aim in producing the opening to a horror film. When we showed our production to our class and teacher for the first time, there was alot of improvements through editing and more filming that had to be done. These were: titles missing, add music, would be more effective if walkie-talkie voiceover was throughout the whole production, tightening the editing and finally cutting out certain unecessary parts suchas the wine appearing twice. We took this into consideration and managed to edit our production with the feedback. If I was to carry out this task again, I would probably work in a much smaller group of just me, or with one other person because I feel that there was too many opinions and discussions in on group. I would also have put alot more thought into the storyline and how we could of represented the horror genre.
