Evaluation Tasks

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

The title of our film is 'Escape', we found this very effective as it foreshadows what the whole film is going to be about, we wanted to create an engaging film opening which would make people intrigued to watch the rest of the film. Our chosen title  'Escape' also matches our genre- horror as it has a sinister ring to it also foreshadowing danger and terror throughout the film, it makes the viewer question our film and gets them more engaged as they are curious as to what happens to Cath.

For our film opening, we wanted a normal unsuspecting location, for this reason, we decided to film it in the alley way by our school. This helped us to make it more relatable to the target market, showing a young girl leave school and walk through an alley on her way home. This shows regular things that the characters and the audience would do on an everyday basis making it easier to relate to these characters.

Furthermore, the audience can see Cath leaving school, this emphasises her young age and makes the audience feel more empathy for her when she is abducted. The alleyway we used was very convenient as it was easy for all of us to meet up but it also reflected the codes and conventions of a horror genre as it had many bushes and dark corners. This could remind the audience of a path way in a forest which often feature in horror films such as The Forest and Shrooms.

For the phone call with Cath's mum, we decided to use a classroom as Cath's mum works as a teacher, this also emphasises that Cath should listen and look up to her as she is an adult an authority figure, not only to Cath but her students aswell. The fact that Cath's mum works in a school matches our codes and conventions of a horror film as they often include schools and teachers.

We also decided to include the element of a train station and the sound of trains going past, this would create an impression that Cath and the abductor are alone and that no one can hear them due to the noise made by trains going past to create more tension. Near the end of our film opening there is a thin bit of the alley way with no forestry or bushes, just a wall on one side and a fence on the other next to train tracks, this emphasises that they are alone even more. This often happens in horror films.

For Cath, we decided that she should be wearing school uniform in order to make her look young and vulnerable, like a victim in a horror film. She also had a school bag on her to make the film opening more close to real life as most students would carry a school bag with them to school. It was also something which could be left behind for her mum or friends to find, this is typical in horror films as they often leave clues to where the missing person might be.

The old man(abductor), is wearing old dirty ripped jeans, black jacket and black hat, this makes him look old and creepy as it's not something a normal teenager would wear. This therefore suggests that there is something wrong with him, which often is the case in most horror films. We also didn't want him to stand out as much to make him look more unknown and mysterious. We also didn't give him a name to scare the audience and make them feel detached from him, but let them know Cath's name so they feel more on her side as they know her more than the abductor.

As one of our props we decided to use a dolls hand which we found in the alley, we didn't plan to use this but when we came across it, we thought that it would be a great idea to include it in our film. Dolls are big parts of horror genres and they feature in many horror films such as The Woman In Black. Through the use of the dolls arm, we wanted to create a creepy atmosphere which foreshadowed that something bad was going to happen, it also showed that Cath is being followed.

In our film opening, we used various different shots and editing techniques. However, one particular shot which develops the codes and conventions of a horror genre is the point of view shot. The point of view shot added realism to our film and it gave us an insight to what the character may be feeling at the time which created more tension. Shots like this are often used in horror films such as the Paranormal Activity.  Some of our scenes were filmed in the dark therefore we had to make them look lighter, we filmed them in the dark as this is what's found in the codes and conventions of a horror genre. Whilst editing, we also wanted to create some fast cuts to build up action and suspense.

We didn't use any special effects in our film opening which challenges the codes and conventions of a typical horror movie as horror films often include special effects which make them look more sinister and spooky. We wanted to challenge these codes and conventions because we wanted our film opening to be different than others, and we wanted it to be relatable to real life, therefore we wanted to make it look as believable as we could, and if we used any special effects, it would have been less true to real life.

The characters are introduced right at the beginning of our film opening. This is usually what happens in most horror movies. It was important for us that the audience build a rapport with Cath so they feel very empathic for her when she gets abducted, we also wanted the audience to see the old man quite early on before Cath saw him, this created more tension as the audience had an idea of what was going to happen before Cath did.

Like in many horror films, our film opening is based on a true story. This develops forms and conventions of horror films. Our chosen story was about a young school girl getting abducted, our opening sets this story as it shows a young girl called Cath getting followed through an alley and then abducted. This suggests that the chosen genre of our film is horror. Our film opening only shows the abduction which ends with a clue right at the end for Cath's mum, if we had to create the rest of the film, it would be about finding Cath and trying to save her, even though neither the audience or the characters know if she's still alive. In our survey we found that movies about a group of teenagers are most scary and preferred by our target audience, therefore we wanted to make this film about a group of teenagers.

Evaluation 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

One of our main characters played by Ciara Alford, is the typical victim. Her character conforms to the typical stereotypes of a horror genre. This is due to her being a young girl and therefore being vulnerable. She is oblivious to her surroundings and isn’t aware about the strange man following her. She is shown in uniform which would make it more realistic to the audience due to it being what a typical teenage girl would be wearing.

Ciara’s character Cath, as well as her friends represent a teenage social group, similarly to that of our target audience. Teenagers are often reasonably obvious due to them normally always being distracted by social media and technology this is represented when she puts in her earphones and therefore isn’t fully aware what is going on due to not being able to hear. The setting is realistic due to it being a school alley way and school gates which our target audience of teenagers would typically experience this would make it relatable due to them using them every day. Furthermore this everyday setting is typical to the codes and conventions of the horror genre where in order to create enigma codes and tension audiences relate more to a recognisable setting.

Evaluation activity 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product& why?

If a company has major funding through either earnings, private investors or studio investors, and has been involved with big budget production in the past, it is considered to be a major production company. These companies often work with expensive and well-known talents. However, there are also small production companies which produce film with less known actors and they might have a smaller budget for their film.

Film distribution is a process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience, for commercial projects, film distribution is usually accompanied by film promotion. When a film is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in movie theatres. A film distributor is responsible for marketing of a film. Distribution companies are often different from the production company, the distribution deals are an important part of financing a film.

The funding for our film has come from small distribution companies such as the national lottery who also funded King's Speech. Small distribution companies don’t like the industry to be dominated by major American film companies, they want to give British films with a small budget a chance.

In our film titles, we are going to include our film production company “Owl Glass Production”, we are also going to include names of main actors and who produced, distributed and edited the film.      

Our film is inspired by paranormal activity which also had a very small budget however it turned out to be a huge success. Paranormal Activity is a 2007 American horror film written, co-produced, photographed, edited, and directed by Oren Peli. It is the first (chronologically, the third) entry into the Paranormal Activity film series. The film centres on a young couple, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah Sloat, who plays a fictional character of himself, they are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. It is presented in the style of "found footage", from cameras set up by the couple in an attempt to document what is haunting them. Originally developed as an independent feature and given film festival screenings in 2007, the film was acquired by Paramount Pictures and modified, particularly with a new ending. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film studio based in Hollywood, California, that has been a subsidiary of the American media conglomerate Viacom since 1994.

Evaluation 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

The teenage male and female audience who enjoy watching films. This is because this age group tends to enjoy films that are fun and fast-paced with lots of action sequences. Despite this, they also tend to enjoy films with a relative amount of sophistication and watch films that are well reviewed and the quality of the film judged on the amount of action sequences without much plot of talking.

The teenage male and female audience also tend to have the most amount of disposable money, so this is a benefit for targeting this age group. It also helps the film to have a higher budget, as the institutions would know that they are likely to get their money back from this audience. However it must not be forgotten that this age group has other commitments such as university and school, so the film would probably be more successful if it were released on a Friday or Saturday - when they are not doing so much work. Our film helps to counter this work as it provides escapism from everyday life, which is certainly a selling point in our film. This age group may be more reluctant to go and see a film based on a classic novel or a period drama, as it would seem like work, so our film would appeal to this age group more.

The problem with our film is that there are a lot of films that are aimed at this age group, and there is a danger that our film will be lost amongst the tidal wave of other action films aimed at this demographic. Therefore, an essential part of the marketing should be ensuring positive reviews and a good reception. To target this age group successfully we would have to build up a hype for the film, which would involve making sure that the trailers and posters are shared on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In this age group many are influenced by their friend's recommendations, so it is vital that we employ a viral marketing campaign.

Overall I think that our film would be of great appeal to the teenage male and female audience as it has fast paced action sequences and a mature plot. This audience tends to use social networking sites a great deal, and this would be a brilliant opportunity to advertise our film. I think that we very successfully appealed to this audience in the opening two minutes, as we established our film as fast paced and full of twists.

Evaluation 5 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of 

constructing this product?

IPhone 7 - we did majority of our filming with an iphone, the reason for this was because it has a very basic set up and everybody knew how to work it. Also as a group we had a group messenger and with this we could send all the different pictures and photos to add to our blog, sometimes our group couldn't all film together so sending videos and pictures together on the group chat was useful. Finally, all that is needed to get the films and pictures on our desk top one simple cable that transports everything.




Sony camcorder - This was useful because it fitted on to our tripod, this allowed us to have a very still image, this still image made our opening look more professional in parts because it was still. however due to timing and meeting up issues we chose to use our own iphones as we found we had high quality footage until it got dark which we have learnt for next time to plan better time to film and to use the proper equipment to film.


Youtube - This was vital for our filming progress, we used youtube to store all of our videos which was so helpful as we could then all access the videos when necessary so we can complete tasks individually, from there we inserted them into adobe premier pro to edit the video also we could insert videos from youtube onto our blogger page. We also used youtube to find sound effects to insert into our film such as breathlessness and train sounds. we also added annotations for our videos via youtube, and our actual film escape.

Blogger - We used blogger to upload all of our research and used to it to follow what we have. Everything to do with our media project is all on blogger so it was very useful. although we'd never actually used blogger before it was really easy to get the hang of as we all have other forms of blog pages such as instagram and pinterest. things as a group we struggled on was being able to move pictures next to each other without ruining our posts.

   

Adobe premier pro - this was the program we used to edit all of our opening and preliminary task and also to add our titles into our film, this was a difficult program to get used to however Natalia spent time with our teacher to understand the concept of using it . she helped our group learn how to edit our film. she also managed to shorten the clips and add effects to our piece such as a dip to black transition which made our film look professional.

Evaluation 6 - How did you attract/address your audience?

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

Looking back at our preliminary task we can see how much of an improvement we have made and how far we have come with filming and editing our clips. It is clear to the audience that we have become more confident with using different styles and techniques. This is due to practise. When we look back at our preliminary task we can see the faults in which we had made and if we had to redo the task we would be able to make it a lot better and improve on the editing skills and the shot types, if we compare this with our final opening scene it is quite clear that we have improved and we have learnt from our mistakes. Overall we think that our preliminary task is quite good considering we had done this nearer to the start of the year and we had little knowledge on how to change up the shot types. The differences between the two are things such as location, types of shots and different scenes, although we could have made it better if we had more time to plan it and decide what type of shot types we had but considering we only had a little amount of time we don’t think it worked out that badly.

We were quite restricted when it came to where we were going to film our preliminary task as we were in the school building so therefore we didn’t have that many places to go. This is also why our shots were quite limited because we couldn't use the environment to our ability, which also suggests it makes our clip quite unrealistic. I our preliminary task we had to focus on one genre whereas for our actual opening we could choose which genre we wanted to do so therefore it was easier to plan. It made it very difficult to come up with a script with such a limited amount of time which suggests why we messed up on some occasions. 

We ended up using trial error which showed us really how inexperienced we really were. Although this was due to the little time we had to learn what to do and how to edit. We had only been doing the course for a few weeks which suggested why we were so weak and not as confident as we are now. One of the main things we had to learn whilst doing this task was shot reverse shot rather than film directly in front of the actors face, this made the preliminary task effective because it shows the audience the perspective of what they are seeing. When editing we realised there was a little pause between the characters speech which made the task look staged rather than smooth.

We used the conventional camera techniques in our preliminary task, such match on match action and shot reverse shot to make our preliminary task as realistic as possible and practise our skills for the first time. I think that match on match action is the most effective shot we used as it showed our camera and editing skills throughout the shot. In the two different clips we saw that we used the 180 degree rule more in our preliminary task rather than in our opening two minutes. This may have happened because we have improved our skills and instead of doing things in which we were advised to do. I believe the preliminary task boosted our confidence and made us closer as a group. Without the preliminary task I don't think that our opening two minutes would have gone as well as it did because we would not have had the time to learn or create a piece before hand.


Evaluation 8 - •What targets will you set yourself for G324 next year – when you will make a trailer?

As a group we discussed what went well and what we would want to do differently/better than this year. We would definitely want to do be more organised on who does what because in some tasks group members would do more than others. So next year, if we are still a group or we arent we would want to spread out the tasks between the group.

We also discussed that we would want to have more trial runs and more experiments, For example getting the perfect shot, As a group we did some trial runs  however we feel we could have done more to show our different ideas and what was successful and unsuccessful which led us to choose what to include in our opening.although as a group we found it difficult  because as our group we all took part and wanted to be involved we all took turns at filming because we all felt it was a team effort however only some of our filming was actually useful to us as a group so therefore we learnt that by taking turns filming was actually quite time consuming and if we ever had to do this again we would just nominate fewer filmers.

Sound Evaluation

There are four main aspects of sound that I will be discussing in the post, and I will evaluate how successful we were at making each part as effective and professional-sounding as possible.

Soundtrack:
We chose against using music at the beginning of our film because we found it less effective as we would then be unable to hear our dialogue at the beginning as we wanted to show our protagonist in her natural school environment which is the same everyday therefore we could show the break out of her routine as she is captured by her stalker.

Ambience:

We created ambience through sound in our film as we used non diegetic sounds such as a piercing noise ands really tense dramatic music that increased in tempo and pitch which foreshadows to the audience that something dark and sinister is about to occur.

Dialogue:

We had one main conversation in our film opening which was successful and we were able to hear everything the actresses were saying even though we shot one half of the conversation in our outside setting as our protagonist was walking home from school. However a few of our mini clips of the conversation the sound was hard to hear so we decided to replace the dialogue through the process of Additional Dialogue Replacement (ADR) which involved re-recording all of the actors' lines and putting them into the film instead. We recorded all the lines outside, as it was closer to the conditions on the day and we systematically went through each line and said it a few times, trying to perfectly replicate the way the lines were said onscreen. I think we was very successful and unnoticeable as we made sure all our timing was correct – we also took a few goes of re filming sound to get it right. And I think that it even made it better, as we were able to slightly lower the pitch of the actors' voices, so that they sounded older.

Sound effects:

There weren't a great deal of additional sound effects used in our opening but we decided to add 4 main sound effects using a royalty free package of sound effects from the internet which we had to download, it had a variety  of different affects for example we found creepy sound music which we put over our 'chase' scene to create suspense and tension as  It made the action much more thrilling about what will happen next to our protagonist 'Cath' also in our 'chase' scene we wanted to create the idea in the audience's head that our protagonist 'Cath' was out of breath and scared from running therefore we found a breathless sound clip online and inserted it over the sounds and noises 'Cath' was making as we could adjust and intensify the sound on the computer.. We also replaced the real train sound with one from the internet as someone was speaking over the footage we also thought by changing the train sound to one from the internet we could chose the intensity of the sound and make it fade out as if the train is going off into the distance. Also we inserted pop music which because of copy right we had to use a cover of Justin Bieber so the audience can hear what she's listening to aswell, which is match-on-action.