1. 1. Coursework Evaluation Anthony Pitts
2. 2. Question 1: In what ways does your media product, use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
3. 3. Character In forget me knot, the only character shown to the audience is Tony, the middle class man doing some gardening. Tony is the antagonist, but we wanted him to appear as normal to the audience so they were unaware of what he was planning to do. He was shown as normal through various aspects of mise-en-scene such as costume and props. Tonys costume is conventional of a stereotypical gardener. He is wearing tracksuit bottoms, wellies, a vest and he is seen carrying gardening gloves too. Using this basic yet effective was cheap as we did not have to buy any clothes as we already had them. Tony was shown on his phone with a cup of tea next to him which helped to connote him as a normal middle class man. He has a modern phone which he is checking before doing some gardening. This suggests that he has spare time because he works hard and can afford to relax. However, props are also used to show the other side to Tony. Tony is in fact a serial killer but he is thoughtful and is a careful planner when he kills his victims, the use of props reveals this side to Tony. An axe is a common tool which would be found in ones shed, this helps create the sense of verisimilitude. Hang mans noose Conventional of many horror films, these are associated with death when seen in films.
4. 4. Sound The only non diegetic sound in our piece is the soundtrack which plays over the top, Jonny Cash, Gods Gonna Cut You Down. and the drone which is used in the tracking shots which is playing throughout this slide. Diegetic sound is not significant in this piece as the music was very effective based on our storyline. The only example of diegetic sound you can hear is from the shovel going into the dirt and the dirt onto the plastic. Extra diegetic sound is seen in the shed scenes where the protagonist is heard moaning and when the axe hits the shed. You are unable to see the source of the sound. The sound used in forget me knot is both conventional and unconventional in terms of sound. The use of the drone in the tracking shot was conventional as it created the sense of mystery and made the audience aware that something is different about the shed. The use of the drone sound can be seen in films such as Paranormal activity which is similar to our film in terms of the antagonist appearing normal at the beginning, yet there is something else to him. The drone was effective in anchoring the audiences attention to the shed. However, we were unconventional in terms of sound due to the soundtrack playing throughout the beginning and the lack of diegetic sound. But we thought this was effective due to the fact the lyrics in the song, were at points relevant to our opening scene. Gods gonna cut you down, could connote that someone is hanging and their body is going to be cut down, which matches our piece as we have the hangmans noose ready for someone to be hung.
5. 5. Location The location used in forget me knot was in a suburban area which is conventional of many horror films. Throughout the scene, you can see that Tony has a big garden which is well kept as the bushes are all tidy. This helps to connote Tony in the way we planned to, a normal man. In this shot here, rule of thirds is used to show the size of the garden and it also shows 2 of the 3 sheds from the garden. The use of the external location was effective as the natural lighting was good and was good at creating verisilimitude as the audience can see he is doing some gardening during the day time.
6. 6. Typography/title positions There was no animation with our titles except the main one which went from big to small. The titles are integrated into shots and placed where necessary. The titles are positioned in the lower third of the screen. The reason there is no mention of the tasks each person performed is because we all did the same as each other. Our main title is conventional of horror films such as Insidious and conventional of our sub-genre, psychological/ slasher horror as it is on a black screen and is placed in the centre. Another way our titles are conventional is due to the fact they are neither at the beginning or the end of the opening scene, they are in the middle, also like Insidious. This is fixed to the screen and simply fades in and out of the shot. A simple font so it does not look like it has been over done.
7. 7. Plot: 8 key frames from forget me knot Tony is drinking a tea whilst on his phone. He is wearing his gardening clothes. Establishing shot of the garden, a big, well kept garden, connotes Tony as a middle-class man. Tony has finished his tea and walks onto his garden, he is seen picking up rope and walks towards the tree, then it cuts to the tracking shot of the shed. After that, Tony leaves the tree with the noose behind him. Close up of Tonys feet, we can see that is doing some digging in his garden. The audience are unaware as to why he is doing the digging. The shot after the main titles. A hole has been dug, it looks like a grave but the audience do not know why there is a grave or who the grave is for, this creates an enigmatic sense.
8. 8. Plot continued This is the tracking shot of the shed which is shown numerous times through out the piece. This is after the grave has been dug. The non diegetic drone sound and the grave starts to make you feel something is happening. Tony then enters the shed and picks up an axe, but instead of coming back out, he shuts the door. Now the audience are left to think what has he done in there. This is followed by the long exposure of the clouds which connotes time has passed. He leaves the shed with blood on him, only a little blood is used because he has not injured himself, so using a small amount signifies it is not his blood, it has sprayed up him from the events which took place in the shed. Finally, the tracking shot away from the shed as Tony has now left it and is out of shot.
9. 9. Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
10. 10. In terms of which social groups are presented in the scene, there is only one character shown. That character is shown to be the antagonist through the way he sadistically plans and executes the killing of someone that is only shown through extra-diegetic sound. Tony, the antagonist, is white, male and of the lower middle-class, presenting them negatively as they are shown to be murderers. However, white people of this class are usually presented positively in society if at all, as there is little focus within the media on the middle-class. Tony is male, has clear prevalence within the opening, and kills someone more vulnerable than him, which depicts the man as strong and in control, which is the dominant ideology within society, and follows the idea of a patriarchal society. Representing social groups Another social group is also tackled in our opening, as Tony must have some type of mental health issues . The subject of disability is somewhat taboo within society, as most people have little knowledge of it. In Forget Me Knot we show mental illness in a positive way in one sense, as the person suffering has prevalence, but in a negative way as Tonys presented as a sadistic killer, and that lack of remorse for what hes done is a convention we took from other films, such as Saw.
11. 11. Representing social groups The location of our scene implies that Tony is of the middle class as he is in a large garden, and therefore it is assumed he has a large house, reinforced by the side of the house that is shown, as the sets of doors show its big., even though its not really seen. A large house is stereotypical of the middle-class, as is having a large garden. Also, the fact he is relaxing at home shows he has some spare time, which someone who is of the working class may not have as much of. The normality of the character and first part of the scene, in my opinion, was well thought through and adds to the storyline and line of action well. Another way in which we made the antagonist look normal in terms of the lower-middle class society, was through costume, as hes wearing a plain vest, tracksuit bottoms and wellies, implying hes just relaxing at home, in his garden, and drinking a cup of tea whilst scrolling through his phone.
12. 12. Question 4/5: Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?
13. 13. There is already an established following of slasher movies, such as Saw and Friday the 13th, so our promotion would be aimed at a similar target audience to a very similar target audience to them, again, ensuring a good amount of audience exposure. Also, obtaining a strong online audience would be good for our movie, as a large percentage of our target audience are active online daily, if we utilise web 2.0, we could easily reach this target market . As a low budget film, we would not be able to afford a global release, a platform release would be more practical for our film, and being selective about which territories to release our film in, more developed western countries with high cinema admission would be better. Aiming our film at cities and larger towns would be better for our product, to create greater audience exposure, as oppose to sparsely populated small towns and villages, which would lead to lack of hype and knowledge of the films existence. The map and key on the left shows the most densely populated areas in England (as of 2012), so releasing the film theatrically in a some independent cinemas in and around London and the South East, would appear to be the best option in terms of potential audience numbers. Target Audience As the film is of the horror genre and contains blood and violence, our film would likely be given a 15 age certificate, so our target audience would be the core horror audience of males, aged 15-24.
14. 14. We conducted a lot of research on horror films of a similar genre to our production, which gave us an vivid idea of what was needed within our production to match conventions of others, and we used similar techniques which we thought were effective in similar movies. This helped us to connect to what our target audience are proven to like, and it let us see how to meet the requirements needed so it can be as successful as possible. Our pitch involved us presenting the plot and other ideas of our horror to the class, which consisted of a group of students all of the age of 16-17, complying to our target audience. This was useful as it indicated to us what changes we needed to make to our production to make it more appealing in the eyes of our target audience. We found that we had to adapt certain features to meet audience desires, and to make the storyline really work; such as the idea of dead bodies being found around the location, which was an original idea, would have made it hard to differentiate between a flashback and what is going on in real time . Our rough cut was then put together after we finished filming, so that we could watch it and show it to a few people to see what they thought about it. The rough cut used the same sequence as our final production, however certain scenes needed work done on them such as slowing down and cutting down the length of them. This was very useful to us as it allowed us to see how the audience received our piece, as it grew closer to the final cut. This led to some very slight changes, such as the slowing down of the final tracking shot and our main title font. This resulted in us reducing the playback speed of, arguably, our most conventionally cinematic shots, which are the track back from the shed at the end of the opening, and the time-lapse of the clouds, the feedback also indicated that we needed something at the end of the opening to ensure it seemed as though the film would carry on after, and to make sure it didnt seem like a trailer, so we opted to indicate a shift in time, to one day earlier Overall the final cut was the product of several stages of audience research. Research and improvements
15. 15. Audience research feedback Our film was very well received by our audience on our showing on the 4th march, we had a screening in which we invited ten 16-17 year olds to view our piece and give us feedback on what they thought of our opening sequence. We then asked about the costume of Tony, to which 80% said they believed that it represented his character very well and that it could not be improved; we did ask for an explanation or a suggestion if they thought there was room for improvement in terms of costume, but this was not taken on board by the audience, indicating a problem with the questionnaire. The first question on our sheet asked plain and simply whether the person liked our production or not, this is simple yet important as if the audience do not like the film, then the chances are that the group they represent will not receive the film very well. We also asked if the audience would recommend the film to a friend, to which 100% answered yes, showing out film was appealing to our target audience. We also asked about what the audience thought of Tony, the antagonist, and how clear it was that he was the bad guy in the film. The audience agreed unanimously that due to the line of action, it was clear that he was the antagonist, with 100% recognising it.
16. 16. Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
17. 17. Forget me knot is an independent horror film which utilized a low budget. The distributor we thought would distribute our film is Vertigo Films which is a UK independent production studio. Vertigo films has produced low budget independent films such as Monsters (Edwards) which also utilizes a low budget. Monsters used no special effects and neither did forget me knot, all effect used were pro-filmic and consisted of prosthetics such as fake blood. Click here to view Vertigo Films website. As well as Monsters, Vertigo Films has also produced other successful independent horror films such as The Children (2008) and The Facility (2012). Each of these films are low budget, yet they have high production values. Part of the reason for this is due to prosumer technology. The reason our film is independent and not industrial was due to various reasons. We only had a skeleton crew, Anthony who was acting and editing, Josh who did sound, Christy who did filming and Del who was tied up in the shed. We also took advantage of prosumer technology. The school cameras which we used for filming, we full HD and filmed high quality videos, however, they have poor resolution in the dark which lead to us having to change from our original concept.
18. 18. Marketing forget me knot Forget me knot is a low budget independent film which would rely heavily on Web2.0 to connect to its film audience. As well as Web2.0 we would have our traditional marketing campaign such as trailers and posters. As our target audience is the core audience (aged 15-24) which means web2.0 should be successful because the majority of people that age will be online. Social networking will play a vital part in the marketing campaign as it would increase audience exposure. This has proved to be successful for films such as The Hobbit which utilised its marketing campaign creating synergy through teaser trailers and symbiosis. This marketing has proved to be successful due to the fact the hobbit franchise has made $2,931,730,197 at the box office. However this film had a blanket release as it is a tentpole independent film. Another independent film who was used this style of marketing is A Field In England (2013) which utilized web2.0 and was the number one trending topic on twitter on the opening weekend. A field in England was also low budget but its marketing campaign had an audacious approach. It had a multi platform release which generated mainstream coverage.
19. 19. Exhibition A field in England was released on multiple platforms simultaneously, including cinemas, home media and video on demand. It was also broadcast on Film4 on the day of its release. Both a field in England and forget me knot are independent films with low budgets, and it was a field in England was a success due to film4 so I thought that we could start with them. If forget me knot was successful on the opening weekend, then we could think about screening it at cinemas such as VUE in order to increase revenue streams for the film. By screening it at VUE cinemas, there could be discounted tickets to attract more customers. As VUE cinemas are not as popular as ODEON cinemas, if it is a success there, then perhaps we could screen forget me knot at a wider range of cinemas which will further increase revenue streams for the film and help to get mainstream coverage.
20. 20. Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?
21. 21. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? Web2.0. YouTube was used throughout planning, shooting and exporting the clip. All of our filming tasks were uploaded to our team YouTube channel Group 13 Foundation Production. Using YouTube allowed people to view our videos and give us their opinions on what they liked and what could have been improved. We were able to test our videos on a bigger sample as they did not have to be in school, they could go onto our YouTube channel and watch them. Also, as it was on YouTube we could share it to Facebook. Facebook allowed us to share our final piece with our friends to see what they thought of it as part of our audience research. Therefore the feedback we got was more representative as we had feedback from lots of people. Throughout planning, I used YouTube for our research tasks to watch clips of opening scenes from other horror films to help us create the concept for our piece. Click here to view our YouTube Channel
22. 22. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? Web2.0. Throughout the foundation production course, I used Blogger as part of our planning process as well as research tasks. Using blogger meant I did not have to use paper and a folder which could have been lost during the course. Using blogger meant all the planning was on the blog electronically. We were able to demonstrate our use of IT too. Blogger also meant I was able to comment on work completed by my group. This shows teamwork throughout the course. We were also able to go back to posts at a later date if there was anything which needed to be changed for any reason. I was able to embed videos into my blogger posts which helps to show my use of ICT as well as making it easier for the people who read my posts to understand what they are about. It allowed me to upload our final piece to the blog which helped when getting feedback as they could see our opening scene on here too. If we were at home, we were still able to access our work because it was not left in school in folders, it was all online on Blogger. This meant if one of the group members was not in school, we did not have to worry about work missing. Also as it was electronic, there was no worry about losing work we have done. Posts could be shared easily for feedback when it was needed. Click here to view our blog.
23. 23. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? Click here to view the Freesound website. Freesound was used in our piece for the drone sound which was added in at the beginning during the Newline cinema opening and during the intercutting of the shed, this was one use of non-diegetic sound. The drone sound used in the tracking shots of the shed came from the freesound website. We needed the drone sound to create the sense of tension because people were unaware of the protagonist in the shed. It was hard to find the correct drone sound as there were only certain files which were compatible with the project, the MP3 ones. For the soundtrack used in our piece, Jonny Cash Gods Gonna Cut You Down we used a YouTube converter rather than paying for the song on iTunes when we wouldnt be using it again. However, although we did find suitable sounds for our piece, freesound was not the best website as many sounds that we thought were very good did not work with our piece due to the format.
24. 24. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? This was the camera which was used during the production process. This is an example of prosumer technology. The camera is not very good at filming in the dark though. As we had tried multiples attempts but each time it failed. As seen in this clip, the quality of the video is poor, and we tried using torches and candles to light up the area but we were unsuccessful in doing so. So we changed our whole concept, apart from the idea of rope and the killing from nyctophobia to forget me knot. The track and dolly and tripod was used multiple times in our final piece. This create a smooth and steady tracking shot which can be used to create technical excellence in our piece. When using the track and dolly, we were careful not to break the 180 degree rule because if we did, it would have disorientated our audience. For every shot, the camera was on the tripod to stop the footage from being too shaky due to human error. However, as we always had the tripod on us, we used lots of pan shots.