AS MEDIA STUDIES

THE EVALUATION

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

of real conventions of real media products?

Throughout the whole 2 minutes and 30 seconds there is no narrative structure

during the footage. But at the time of the phone call it hints that someone down the

end of the line is speaking, despite the audience not being able to hear them.

Despite being no narrative structure, our production uses the technique of several flashbacks to hint towards the audience that the man they are watching isn't who he appears. The flashbacks flash up instantly, revealing death scenes

linking towards movements made by the man walking around.

As you can see both images aresimilar, even though one is

showing death. The dark imagess the flashback.

Our film opening gets the audience involved with the film by getting themselves

Asking questions about the film and what's going on (enigma codes). Throughout

the whole sequence enigma codes can appear;

Who or what is the puppeteer? Why is he dressed smartly?

Who is killing? Why would they be killing?

Who is being killed and why? Why does he sit in such a dark room?

Who is on the phone? Why does he run?

From the beginning of the titles the film hints at its genre characteristics. The slow

movement of blood and music show that its going to be a horror or thriller, alongwith the use of the death scenes during the clip. But the use of showing fear

fromthe main character, despite knowing he’s a killer allows you to play with the

audiencesMind making it physiological thriller.

The use of our mise en scene added to the effect of our opening as it suited the film

line well, it wasn’t in an unsuitable location. The costume used was a fairly smart look

to present a more older character than the actor was, and to show that the character

seen is smart. The lighting changes throughout the clip. It starts off light in the bathroom, but then turn s the light off and a death scene appears, as he makes his

waythrough the house it gets darker until he

end up in the darkest room and the phone rings, resulting in him running back towards

the light. Only a few props were used inthe making of the opening; the weapon, glass from the cupboard and the phone. Only one setting is clear to the audience which is the home of the man walking around, the location of the deaths is

unclear.

How does your media product represent certain social groups?The only character in our film opening is male. Throughout the clip he seems to

bepowerful as he is seen to be killing many people, bringing fear against him. But

at the end he seems to be showing the fear, completely flipping things, making him

appearingTo be weak.

Despite the actor being only a 17 year old, where are planned character was a little older,

We managed to boost the aged look by using much more formal clothing to show the

audience he’s not as young as he appears.

Distribution Company• We decided to use Twisted Pictures as a suitable distribution

company as we thought it would fit our type of film well. As we were planning on making this film quite a disturbing and vivid, in terms of imagery, we wanted a company that people will recognise it and know what to expect in the film they have come to see or may want to go and see. We also thought that as it is still quite a high budgeted company we can still get more funding and able to use the effects we wanted to use.

• This film is more likely to be screened on a smaller screen at a Multiplex as it is using a well known distributor and as our target groups are the age of people that go to multiplex cinemas rather than small art house cinemas, it is likely to get interest from people that have been to see previous films by the distributor such as the ‘Saw’ franchise.

Target Auidence• Age Group: Mainly adults from 18 to 30 as our production is very

much based on the disturbing side of a persons life and so we wanted to be able to show something that isn’t usually seen in most horror film. Also we wanted to make this film engaging and require the audience to think and stay focused, this could also be another factor for the age group we have used.

• Gender: We have aimed this at the adult market and so would probably be a film that couples would either go out and see or stay in to watch together so both men and women are likely to see the film, but based on the content we mainly targeted male interest in the film.

• Social Group: A group that enjoys films, as it isn’t a film that a group would go out to see for a night out. This means its going to be small groups of people going to see this film.

• Other films that people would have seen to be interested in our production would be firstly the ‘Saw’ franchise as we are using the same distribution company, it gives a hint as to what to expect to see. Also maybe such films as ‘Donnie Darko’ due to the psychological nature of our film.

As this film opening has been made for an audience who enjoy thrillers, crime and drama, we have used several different techniques to attract the audience. Firstly, the music we have chosen to play throughout this piece is an instrumental song by the band Nine Inch Nails called “Corona Radiata”. This was off the bands free album so therefore is free of

copyright. We chose this song as it adds a lot of tension to the opening and creates a lot of eerie feelings for the audience watching. This is because the song is very atmospheric

and adds to the whole mystery and suspense feeling we wanted to create.

The camera style we used was very unique and not the standard way of filming a movie. We used shots such as a sort of “camera on the wall” type of shot where the camera

pans around to follow the main character. This pan carries on as he walks out of the room giving the effect that the camera has actually gone through the wall.

The editing style we used was fairly slow transitions between shots until the main character does something to make him flash back to the murders he has committed in the past. When this happens, we have made it so the murders flash up very quickly and in an unsettling way. We also used white fades on this to give it the flashback look. Also when these flashbacks occur, we have edited in a loud bang noise (made by recording

one of us banging on a file cabinet) to have an even more unsettling effect on the audience. This sort of editing would again appeal to fans of thrillers.

Addressing the Audience

During this project, we have learnt many technical skills from creating our film opening. The first of which is how to plan. For this we made a schedule to manage how much time we spent on each task carried out during the creation of our opening. We also used story

boards to plan out our actual footage.

Other skills we have learnt are how to perform professional camera work and editing. The sort of camera techniques we have learnt are what sort of shots to use to create different feelings for the audience and how to make sure not to confuse the audience using the wrong type of positioning or angles. The sort of editing techniques we have

learnt are how to add extra sound effects after finishing filming and how to make them fit in smoothly without it being obvious that they were filmed separately. Also we have developed skill in how to make transitions between shots smooth and un noticeable.

In terms of mise en scene, we have learnt how to create dark and mysterious settings purposefully and made sure that the character can still be seen on the footage. Not a lot had to be done on mise en scene other than the lighting as the setting just needed to be

an ordinary house.

I think through this project we have all gained a great understanding as to how films are made professionally.

Technical Skills

James Jonathan AshleyLooking back at our

preliminary task, i feel we have come a long way in terms of our editing and filming

techniques. As we tried filming all footage and

sound at the same time during our

preliminary task there was no real dynamics in the way we could

edit it, but using foley sounds and finding our own sounds in our film opening it meant we could get a different

and more vibrant feel. When it came to

editing, I felt more comfortable in my

ability to effectively

edit the footage.

Since the preliminary task, I have learnt many techniques in filming and

editing. In the preliminary task, we did not record or add in any

extra sound, this was mainly because we did

not have time to try this out and add it in. In this project we had enough

time to record extra sounds, try them out and add them in. the use of

sound effect really worked well and added to the eerie tension of

the film opening. I think because of the time we

had, I learnt many different ways of editing footage and generally using Premiere Pro.

I feel looking back at my preliminary tasks that the whole are of

my practical skillshave increased.

Since then I have been able to learn more about editing

on thecomputer, making the production flow

much more, giving it that smoother look.

Comparedto my preliminary

task my film opening uses a much more

range of varied shots, also

including sounds which weren't even

recorded in the task.