What have you learnt from your preliminary?

What have we learnt from our preliminary task ? on Prezi

Who would be our audience for our product?

This video tells us what type of students would like our film and it would also enable us to determine whether our film was suitable for the audience we were going to target.

How did you attract your audience?

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

Media Institutions Distribution Companies on Prezi

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

It is clear to see that the main social group of our film is teenagers. In order to interest this age group we decided the main character of our film should be of a similar age, which we believed was a good way to enable viewers to relate with the actions of 'Hope'.

The character 'Hope' fits the natural teenage stereotype of a young female in many ways, for example the use of a dressing table is seen as a natural furniture piece owned by all women as a place to resume their beauty regime. Here on the right is an example of a woman advertising perfume seated at her dressing table.

The use of beauty products is also typically linked to females. The lipstick shot we created gives a strong feminine feel to the film. Red lipstick is often associated with promiscuous women and the close up of the placement of lipstick on Hope's lips presents a sense of mystery similarly to the image of this woman.

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The title of our film
The title of our film is displayed in the final frame of our opening piece, this allows a build up to be made in order to reveal the identity of who one would assume to be the unidentified mysterious character.  We used a large sized font to create the title, which allows the audience to see behind the titles which gives a sense that something is to be unveiled.

Setting/location

The setting we decided to choose to shoot our opening sequence was in a simple bedroom area, this was set at my house. We used a traditional style white dressing table in order to give an angelic feel to the environment, this contrasted with the dimmed candle lit light. Furthermore an example of a movie set in a homely area is the introduction of "American Psycho", the lighting in this film contrasts to the actions that are to take place in the film similarly to ours. The difference is that our movie begun with a chilling atmosphere due to the light we used within a safe and comfortable setting.

Props
Props we decided to use in our film are seen to be conventional female beauty products which are used on a daily basis whilst getting ready. These props would not be found in a typical horror movie. One item we used to create a typical horror atmosphere was a standard large kitchen knife. This knife is similar to those used in horror movies such as the shower scene in 'Psycho'.

Camerawork and editing

The shot in our opening sequence which is influenced strongly by the film 'Se7en' is the one where Hope is filing her nails which is taken up close, similarly to that of the hand in Se7en where a hand is shown to be sewing.

This shot creates the mysterious atmosphere we were aiming to create. It also keeps the identity of Hope hidden from the audience watching.

Title, font and style

The style of credits we used in our film were influenced by the style of those used in the movie 'Se7en'.

Using the same style of writing for each of our credits creates mystery due to the writing being see-through, using this creates suspense as to what is happening behind the text.

The style of font we used is simple yet effective and has not been used in any other movies we researched, which suggests out credits were an original idea. A comparison could be made between our credits and those which are presented in the movie "Se7en".

Story and how the opening sets it up 

The opening sequence we have put together sets up the rest of the film by introducing a character who's identity is hidden from the audience. This enables the set up of the following scenes to slowly reveal the identity of the character Hope. This is similar to the use of hidden character in the film 'Texas chainsaw massacre' which creates suspense and suggests something is to take place.

Genre and how the opening the suggests it
It is made clear from the opening sequence that the genre of our movie is horror. This is shown through the eerie music which creates an unsettling feeling, whilst the abstract camera shots create an unsafe environment. The opening sequence we created gives off the same vibes felt through watching 'Se7en', it creates suspense and unsettles the watcher in to wondering what will take place as little is given away whilst watching the opening and only a build up of tension is made.

How characters are introduced
There is only one character introduced in our opening sequence. The character of Hope which we introduce from the very beginning of the film has her identity hidden from the audience, all the audience can see from the start is the character from behind revealing long feminine blonde hair. We then reveal parts of Hope through various camera shots such as the lips and hands. Revealing the hands of the character before letting the audience see the face allows them to focus on the actions of the character, this is similar to in 'Se7en when we can see the actions of the actor but not the identity.

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

In the creation of the opening sequence product we have learnt a wide range of technological skills.  In which we have practiced and developed during the making of this media project.  We used experience from the preliminary project and developed our understanding of how different camera shots, and edits helped to create the feel of a mysterious horror.
For example:

Shots
We really got a handle and understanding of what shots worked well in certain places of production.  A slow reverse zoom from an extreme close up of a hair brush gave suspense and a mysterious effect.  A circular pan of the character sitting down works as an establishing shot of the short scene.  In story boarding/filming we made sure we focused on the object shots as this would help represent the process of a female daily routine.

 

Lighting
With our film we wanted to accomplish an effective horror.  So during filming we tried to use less light.  However, when we uploaded the video's on to the Macs, we realised that the lighting was too dark and quite grainy.  In the end we decided to re-record with the main lights of the room on a higher setting.  This managed to work out well.  As the room still looked quite dim, the effect we were going for.

 

Editing

When editing the opening sequence we used the apple macs to upload the recordings we had taken.  On these there are different software's that were very helpful in production.  Such as imovie and garage band.  These were very successful in helping us to produce our short films.    

 

Sound
As we were not permitted to use copyright protected music, our group decided to search myspace for a soundtrack that would fit well with our theme.  It needed to have beats but at the same time have a slow and muffled sound.  we managed to fulfill this by using garage band (a software on Macs).  We added affects until we were happy.

 

Equipment and technologies used in production:

• Video camera - We used the video camera to capture all of our shots for the opening sequence.
• Tripod - The tripod was used when when filming a steady shot, Like an extreme close-up.
• Apple Mac  - These were used the whole way through the production process.
• Camera - A camera was used to keep track of all the work we were doing production.
• i-movie - Used to edit the opening sequence, by putting in different cuts, fades and graphics.
• My Space - This was used to find a sound track which is not protected by copyright.
• Garage Band - This software was used to edit the soundtrack found to make it more original to fit the genre of film.
• YouTube - Our group used YouTube to watch examples of similar opening sequences.  To get an idea of what worked well without using too many cliches.
• Google - This search engine was used to look for examples of company logos.
• Candles - These were used as an eerie looking light source.  Whilst sampling, we found that the candles really worked in collaboration with the video camera and gave off a significantly effective light.
• Facebook - We used facebook to keep in contact with each other, sending links and photos to one another.  We also printed some pictures of typical looking social groups to stick up on the wall in order to be filmed as we had designed.

Editing

The editing process took us two weeks to complete. During this time we gathered ideas on placement of shots as a group and each gave input in order to personalise the film exactly how we wanted to make it. We decided that our film should consist of abstract shots to create an eerie feel, this would also enable us to hide the identity of our killer.

The credits we decided to use are 'clip video' titles. These titles allowed us to experiment by using a range of techniques to get the titles exactly how we desired. Our aim was to create titles which fitted with our horror genre, yet did not copy other films we has researched upon.