Thursday 14 April 2011

Evaluation

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

When we were planning our film we decided that our film should challenge the conventions of horror films. After analysing horror films such as: Halloween, we saw that the female in the film is always seen as the victim and there is never really a female playing the role of the ‘monster’. Therefore in our film we challenged this convention by making the zombie (the main antagonist) be played by a female. Also, stereotypical in horror films the male in a couple is the one to lead the way into such places as forest’s, abandoned houses etc, yet again we decided to challenge this convention by making the female protagonist leave her boyfriend and lead the way into the forest. For the titles we used the colour red to symbolise blood and danger, the audience therefore knows its a horror film due to the use of this colour for the titles, this is conventional to be seen in horror films. We used eerie background music for the opening which gradually built up to build up tension for the viewer, then the music climax’s with thuds when the name of the film appears. The use of eerie music is conventional for a typical horror film. A lot of gore was used for our opening sequence when the zombie is seen to be eating the dead person; gore and blood is a very common site to see in a horror film as it’s a convention of the genre. 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The characters which are used in our product are all white working class, teenagers. Most horror films have characters who are working/middle class teenagers such as in: Friday the 13th, Nightmare of Elm Street etc, we follow this convention is ours. Although in horror films the zombies or monsters are usually adult, in our product the zombie is a teenager which is rare to see and therefore unconventional. Also, we made the female character be the stronger character and not the ‘damsel in distress’, as the lead protagonist is female and she manages to escape from the zombie, whereas the boyfriend was the first one to get caught and seen as the weaker character, making the female be seen as the more dominant gender, which is unconventional for horrors although in such films as: Scream the leading female is the one who manages to survive just like in our film. 

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

Our production ‘The Infestation’ would most likely be produced by companies that mainly produce horror films such as: Hammer. Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Another Studio which might distribute our film is: New Line Cinema. A Nightmare on Elm Street was produced and released by New Line in 1984 and has became one of the best known horror films. The company got its nickname from the success of the film "The House that Freddy Built". This shows that New Line Cinema produce horror films, meaning they would take an interest in our product as it’s a horror film.



4. Who would be the audience for your media product? 

The target audience for our media product would be young adults between the ages 18 -24. We did this due to content in our film, as it is very gory the certification for it would have to 18, meaning our audience would have to be 18 or older to see the film legally. Its targeted at any gender as we saw that from the survey results both males and females enjoyed watching horror films, although it could be seen to have a slight female targeted audience as the main antagonist and protagonist are both females, meaning woman are more likely to be interested in watching the film as they can ‘relate’ to them even though stereotypically horror films are watched predominately by a male audience. This is not targeted at any certain ethnicity. The main audience watching this would be of working class, as the characters in the film are working class, yet again making the audience be able to relate to the characters, also because mainly working class people go to the cinema on weekends etc.  









5. How did you attract/address your audience? 

We tried to attract our audience by having a tension filled/gripping storyline. Within the first the first few minutes the zombie was there and then it had suddenly disappeared! Also, we used music which would build up tension to attract the audience as we want them to stay gripped throughout it. As well, we used relatable characters: your ‘average’ teenagers, this attracts our target audience because some of the issues the characters have the audience might have themselves. In terms of marketing and advertising we would use pop-ups, as many teenagers and young adults use to internet regularly, therefore they would see these pop-ups and be attracted to the film. We would also release a set of teaser trailers to get potential audience members watching snippets of the film, so they could get a taste for what the actual film is going to be like. We wouldn’t just use viral marketing thought we would also use traditional marketing such as: billboards, posters in magazines and newspapers etc. TV adverts would be a definite for the marketing as basically every home has a TV, this would bring about a potential wider audience as people would be able to see the trailers and so on. 








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

I have learnt how to carry out basic shot and camera movements using a mini DV camera and tripod, which I used these new skills when filming our product. Also when shooting we used a touch screen version of this camera, so I learnt how to use the touch screen technology on it. For using the camera I also learnt panning, tilting, match on action and how to frame a shot correctly through completing the preliminary task.

Went it came to editing I learnt how to use FinalCut Pro; this was the first time I had used this computer program. From using FinalCut Pro I have learnt how to: drag/drop, put transitions between shots, render, how to put the text on, overlap different shots, speed shots up, slow shots down and to insert sound clips/music.

Finally I learnt how to create blogs on the website: www.blogger.com. Learning how to work this website allowed me to easily plan my ideas and put all my research into one document which all my team members could access through the internet. I learnt how to set up blogs, add posts, and embed images and videos.






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

From the preliminary task to the full product I feel I have learnt quite a bit. The preliminary task allowed me to learn how to use the video camera e.g: how to put the tape in correctly, how to zoom in and out etc. I learnt how to frame different shots and angles. The task we had to do for the preliminary task was to film a scene where we include match on action, from this I learnt about match on action and how the 180 degree rules works and how not to break it. Also it taught me how to film shot reverse shot and to get the eye line in the correct position.

When it came to the final piece I was able to use these skills learnt from the preliminary task and use them when filming. As I had now learnt how to use a camera at a basic level, I was now able to explore with it more when filming the final product by using hand held camera work, horizontal tracking and different panning styles. As we could now experiment with different camera angles, I learnt how to carry out a POV shot effectively among other different camera movements.  

My skills of working in a group improved from the preliminary task to the full product, as I learnt how to cooperate more with the individuals working on set and in my group by learning to listen to their ideas and expand upon them, as well as discussing things which we thought would not work without offending anyone’s opinions.

Overall I learnt a lot from mistakes I made during the preliminary experiment and when filming the actual product to improve on these mistakes to get the best possible results. I applied all knowledge learnt from the preliminary experiment and developed this knowledge when filming the final piece. 

Company Logos

As a college all the film productions had the main company name this was: 'BMF Studios' (Birmingham Metropolitan Film Studios). This name came for the colleges actual name: Birmingham Metropolitan College. The image we decided to use for the 'BMF Studios' logo was one of the 'bull' which is an ionic image of birmingham (the bull ring), the city in which we all live.  To begin with the image we used was just of a normal picture of the bull. However, we decided this was to plain and also the image contained shoppers walking in it. Therefore we edited the image so the 'bull' was the main focus, and got rid of anything else e.g: people who were originally in the image. 




This was the original image. 



This is the edited and final completed logo for 'BMF Studios'.  The same image of the bull has been used, but the colour has been changed to have a slight red tint to it. However the general colour of the 'bull' has been kept the same for the logo, as people will be able to recognize it. The writing for the logo was done in red - to stand out and make it easy to read, also because our colleges name for its logo is also red. Then the rest is done in a light grey, yet again so that the viewer will be able to read it. 


The Groups Logo

For our own groups logo we decided to create a different logo ( as most films have more than one studio working on it). We decided to stick with the image of the 'bull' being in it as it is a symbol of our hometown. For our own studio name we decided to create the name: S.O.S Productions. This stands for the initials of all our last names: Sheasby, Owen and Slater. The image of the bull has now been changed to red, this was because red is used as a symbol for horror movies and our studio create horror movies. The image in the center of the 'O' is one of an eyeball, this gives the logo a slight eerie feeling to it, in the same way our film gives off a eerie feeling. 



Due to the logo's for both companies being rather similar, we decided that there should be a image inserted into the transition of these to images. We yet again used the image of the bull, but instead changed the colour of it to black and white. Here is that image:



Order of Titles

During in the editing process, we needed to decide on the order in which our titles would appear. After looking at the openings of a selection different films including The Silence of the Lambs, (to see in what order titles appeared) we decided to go with order that these films mostly followed.  

The beginning of our films start's off with the appearance of our company logos and our studios.

This is the order we had our titles in:

BMF Films
SOS Productions
Starring Faye Slater
Shaun Thompson
Written By Sarah Winnit
Camera Person Laura Sheasby
Music By Oscar Worthington
Produced By Jack Wright
Directed By Liam Owen

Production Schedule

To begin with we decided we would shoot the whole film in one day. This would be shot on the 1st March at 4pm. We thought we could get it all done in the space of a few hours as it was a small production which was set in one location - Sutton Park. We thought that is we shot it all at once they wouldn't be continuity errors such as: different lighting etc. But this did change.


Once we got back to the editing suite and watched all the footage, we decided that it wasn't of the high level we wanted it to be and we all knew we could do much better. Therefore we all thought it would be best if we reshoot everything, as there was enough time to allow us to do so.

The first time we filmed gave us the experience we needed as we now knew what to do and what didn't work. It gave us a better idea of how long it would take to shoot each shot etc. Therefore making us a produce a  much better piece of footage. 

After watching the new footage back we decided to reshoot a few sections due to bad camera work and dialogue issues. 
Liam Owen made an extremely detailed production schedule for the second time we was filming. Here are images of that production schedule: 










Target Audience

We targeted our audience to be in the age range of 16-24 because of the results we received from the survey.  However once we had completed making our film we released that the content could be seen as very graphic due to the 'gore' shown and decided to give it a 18 certification.  Due to this we changed our target audience to 18-24.


Our film wasn't aimed at a certain gender, as due to the survey results we could see that both males and females liked to watch horror films. Although stereotypically horror films are watched predominately by a male audience. 



Props, Make-up & Costume

For our production we didn't use too many props, as it would take time to find and costs money!!! Instead we decided to use only what was necessary to save all the hassle, as there was no need for many props in our storyline. 


The main prop used for our production was fake blood. We took it upon ourselves to make it, instead of buying it as we wanted to get the right colour, thickness etc and to make it as real looking as possible, whereas fake blood which you can buy from shops tends to look unrealistic as we did go out to shops researching this. 


For the fake blood we googled many different recipes, but decided to go with this one, as it was the simplest and we were able to buy the ingredients required easily. 


http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/thingstodo/makeit/fakeblood 


To create the fake blood we needed:

  • Red Food Colouring
  • Blue Food Colouring
  • Golden Syrup
  • Water
  • Flour


Here is a video of me and faye making some of the blood: 

Also here are some images we took on the day of making the blood. We were extremely happy with the end product as we believed it looked very realistic and wasn't hard to make at all. 




As an essential part to the storyline we needed to make guts which would be seen in the film when the zombie is eating the dead person. To do this all we did was get pieces of tissue and kitchen roll, roll them up into long, slender sizes and then place them in the fake blood and let the tissue get absolutely soaked in it. Here is the result of out guts on Jack who played the dead boy: 

Zombie Make-up:
When we did our first attempt at the zombie make up for our first time of shooting the film, we used tissue, glue and paint to create the 'zombie look'. However this make-up took a long time to do as it entitled individually sticking on tiny pieces of tissue to the face ... waiting for it to dry ... and painting each section ... before using black eye shadow to darken the mouth and eyes. Another problem that came from this make-up was that due to pva glue being used on the face with tissue on top, the actresses (me and hannah) were unable to hardly move our faces, meaning it was difficult for us to make facial expressions. Also, the colour of the make-up (green/grey-ish) was too dark and made us look too unrealistic as we always wanted the zombies to still have human factors about them. As a group once watching the footage back, we saw that the make-up made the zombies not show up on camera very well. Once we took into to consideration the problems we had faced using this make-up we decided it was best to use a different style of make-up when we re-shot it. Here are some images of the original make up: 


When we did the reshoot we decided to go for a much more realistic look. The zombie could now been seen to still have a human side to them as their facial colour had not changed to a whole new colour of greens etc but to just a much paler version. This make-up gave the much better feeling of them being 'dead'. Another advantage to this new make-up was that it too less time to do, as it only consisted off applying mineral powder to the face using a make brush and then one certain areas using a dark eye shadow colour to give a more deathly/bruised look. Also there was the use of fake blood on the face to show the zombie had been eating flesh etc. Using this make-up allowed me to make facial expressions with ease. 

For Jack the actor playing the dead person the makeup was lighter so that there was a link between the dead person and him becoming a zombie.

Costumes:
  • For the character of Kate, was seen to have a simple look as after all in the storyline she is to be seen walking through the park with her boyfriend, just being out on a average day. She wore: a white shirt, red top to be worn over the white shirt, plain blue jeans and converse shoes. The choice of clothes do have meanings to them though. The white shirt symbolizes her purity, compared to the red shirt which symbolizes the danger she is about to walk into. 


  • Leo's costume was used in the same way, he was also given a simple look. He wore a white shirt, black hoodie (which he puts on later in the film) and black jeans. Yet again the white shirt was used to show purity and goodness, however once he puts on the black hoodie it is shown to show danger as he puts it on just before he enters the dark forest bit where evil is happening (zombie eating dead person). 



  • For the character of the zombie, we gave the zombie a teenage image (as she is a teenager). The costume consisted of: plain light blue shirt, black hoodie with the word: 'DEAD' written on it, plain blue jeans and grey pumps. The light blue shirt represents the innocence the girl had before she was turned into a zombie and then the hoodie can be seen as ironic as the character is dead and she was almost predicting her fatal end on that day.


  • The dead person wore a: whit shirt which was torn. This represented that his purity had been ripped away from him as he had been turned into a zombie. The fake blood and guts on the shirt show the deathly goings on and the danger he faced and the danger he imposes on people now. 


Character Profiles

Name: Kate
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Appearance: Caucasian, long blonde hair, 5'6
Role: Protagonist  

Name: Leo
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Appearance: Caucasian, short dark brown hair, 5'9
Role: Protagonist 
Name: Unknown
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Appearance: Caucasian, short light brown hair, 6'3, pale, covered in blood
Role: Antagonist
Name: Unknown
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Appearance: Caucasian, mid length light brown hair, 5'8, pale, covered in blood, bruised.
Role: Main Antagonist
















Role Allocation/Casting

As a group we many discussions on who would do what in the production of the film. We wanted to keep it to a small group of people as we knew the bigger the group the more hassle and the higher the chance of people letting us down or messing something up. We included people who would be reliable. 

Me, faye and liam came up with a number of pitches and decided that we would all take it in turns to film. Jack Wright was also greatly involved throughout the production, he helped with most of the filming.

For our first attempt at making the film, Molly Glave and Sam Houseago helped us out with the make up for the zombies. However after looking back we decided that due to us not wanting to use the same style of make up (as it looked too unrealistic and would prefer the zombie to still maintain a human look), that on the reshoot we would only need to have Faye and Jack do makeup, as this makeup would not take as long as to and therefore there was not the need to have many hands on the job.

When editing the final piece it was team work between the 3 of us, as we needed to discuss what looks best etc.

Once we filmed for the second time (and minor reshoot of certain sections) it was decided that Liam and Jack would be the ones who would film and work the camera, as me and faye had fake blood and other makeup on our hands which could of damaged the camera equipment. 

The roles were as follows:

Liam Owen                 Actor, Camera Person, Writer, Editor, Composer
Faye Slater                Actress, Rehearsal Camera Person, Writer, Editor, Make Up
Laura Sheasby           Actress, Writer, Editor, Make Up
Jack Wright                Actor, Camera Person, Make Up
Hannah Shepherd       Rehearsal actress
Sam Houseago           Rehearsal Make Up Designer
Molly Glave                Rehearsal Make Up Designer 

Scouting A Location

Our film was set in a forest/woodlands (depicted in the storyboard). For this we needed to decide on a location to film which would be easily accessible to us and not too far to travel to. We needed to find somewhere which was dark enough to give of f the eerie atmosphere to our film. 


Together we all looked at a selection of local parks where we would be able to film. We would visit each of these before deciding where to definitely film. One of the parks we looked at was: Red House Park (situated in great barr), this was a good location to film in, however it was very open spaced, meaning not enough darkness/forest looking areas to film in. The other location we looked at was: Sutton Park, this was a more suitable location to film as it had darken areas and light spaced areas which were both needed in our film. After talking about it we decided to go with Sutton Park for the reasons mentioned but also because it was close to our college and all members of the group would be able to get there without any problems. 

During one of  the trips we made to visit the location (Sutton Park)  we recorded a video mapping out our ideas of what to do when it comes to filming it. Here is that video: 

Storyboard

As a group we all sat down and created a storyboard. We needed to create this as it allows you to plan out each shot you are going to do and to just generally arrange our ideas onto paper. It is used to show each shot of the film with a list of key information e.g what is going on at that particular point. Storyboards allow the directors to visualise the film and shows the camera person what sort of shots shall be used, so that they are able to film it.

For our storyboard we outlined our basic ideas of the order everything will be seen in. However, we did not go into great detail as we all decided we would rather get straight into the physical part and start shooting as we guessed things would change once we start filming due to different ideas; what looks good on paper might not actual suite the film once it has been shot etc. As we guessed, our ideas did development once on set, therefore things did change. 



The Horror Genre

Once we had researched all 3 genres by looking at existing products and came up with our pitches. We decided to do a horror opening for our project. To expand my knowledge of this genre I decided to do further research into its conventions etc.

Horror Genre:
Horror often focuses upon the opposed extreme possibilities of human nature with women as the embodiment of trusting innocence and vulnerability and a male figure as the personification of violent predatory desire; in short we inhabit a world that contains both good and, most frighteningly evil. 

Horror genre can be categorized in a variety of different ways: 
  • Hybrids: horror thriller/sci-fi/fantasy/comedy/adventure
  • Sub-genres: gothic/slasher/zombie
  • Franchises: sequels, remakes
  • Cycles: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy.
Conventions: 
  • Horror films are set in an irrational, supernatural world. This setting distinguishes the films from other genres which exist in a believable realistic world.
  • This setting also differentiates the horror film from the thriller which has a rational explanation of events e.g: if people die in a thriller they stay dead; in a horror film they may come back to life. 
  • Despite taking place in an irrational world the horror film is governed by rigid rules - vampires can only be killed by a stake through the heart etc
  • There is little moral certainty in the horror films; the audience may be encouraged to identify with or feel sympathy for the 'monsters' and enjoy the deaths of the innocent victims. 
  • There are certain conventions which the sub-genres share - the isolated setting, the indestructible monster, the themes of forbidden pleasures - but it is also the case that sub-genre has its own definable conventions. 

The aim of the horror film is to frighten the spectator, to make them feel fearful and anxious. 




    Pitches

    In our group we had to come up with a pitches for a horror, thriller and romantic comedy for film ideas. The task was to encourage and help us decide what type of film will were going to make. We had to decide on a basic storyline and come up with established actors to play the major and main characters. 

    For our rom com idea we broke the stereotypical conventions by coming up with the idea of a gay couple to be the central characters rather that an heterosexual couple.  We the main role we cast Colin Firth (a well known romantic comedy actor) and Robert Pattinson as the major character (an up and coming star who draws in the attention of many young female fans).  The storyline would be Roberts character is a high end business man who is a self made millionaire, who hires a middle aged men who is struggling in life, with a marriage that is going no where. They fall in love, with Colins character being 'in the closet' but openly comes out gay to world with the help of Robert. 


    Our horror idea revolved around a zombie theme. An virus was leaked from a laboratory experiment which infected many from around the world. However, in a small community up in wales they didn't expect it to hit there and for the whole village to turn into flesh eating zombies! The main role went to tom hardy, who;s character is trying to kill all these zombies and to escape from the small community in one piece. 


    And for the thriller pitch we decided on the idea of angelina jolie becoming a psychopath killer who's sister played by anne hathaway is the detective in this case and is trying to solve who this murderer is but little does she know its her very own sister. 

    Box Office Success

    UK cinema admissions for the first six months of 2010 were 80.1m, down 4% on the first half of 2009 (Table 1). This represents the second highest first half admissions of the last five years.


    Average weekly admissions were 3.3 million in March, up from 2.7 million in March 2009. By contrast, average weekly admissions in June fell to 2 million.



    Table 1: Monthly admissions, January – June 2009-2010
    Month           2009 (million)     2010 (million)         % +/- on 2009
    January           14.5                 14.6                      +0.5
    February          15.0                 14.9                      - 0.5
    March              11.9                 14.5                      +21.7
    April               13.8                  14.7                      +6.0
    May                15.8                  12.8                      - 18.8
    June               12.5                  8.7                        -30.1
    Total              83.5                  80.1                      - 4.0
    Source: CAA, Rentrak EDI
    Figures may not add to totals due to rounding




    Box office results for the top 20 films released in the UK, January-June 2010
    Rank, Title, Country of Origin, Gross box office (£m), Opening cinemas,  Opening weekend (£m), Distributor

    1 Alice in Wonderland USA, 42.54, 533, 10.56,  Disney
    2 Sex and the City 2* USA, 21.61, 530, 6.14, Warner Bros
    3 Iron Man 2* USA, 21.17, 521, 7.66, Paramount
    4 Clash of the Titans UK/USA 20.20, 446, 5.68, Warner Bros
    5 How to Train your Dragon* USA, 17.17, 471, 4.85, Paramount
    6 Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang* UK/USA, 16.43, 512, 2.59, Universal
    7 Robin Hood* UK/USA, 15.43, 537, 5.75, Universal
    8 Streetdance 3D* UK, 11.60, 412, 2.49, Vertigo
    9 Kick-Ass UK/USA, 11.60, 402, 3.88, Universal
    10 The Princess and the Frog USA, 11.14, 1, 0.02, Disney
    11 Shutter Island USA, 10.75, 416, 2.25, Paramount
    12 Valentine's Day USA, 10.21, 432, 3.73, Warner Bros
    13 It's Complicated USA, 9.31, 434, 1.10, Universal
    14 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time* UK/USA, 8.84, 468, 1.37, Disney
    15 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief USA, 7.45, 454, 1.50, 20th Century Fox
    16 Get him to the Greek* USA, 6.81, 389, 1.57, Universal
    17 Up in the Air USA, 6.51, 325, 1.30, Paramount
    18 The Lovely Bones USA, 6.37, 420, 1.64, Paramount
    19 The Blind Side USA, 6.22, 371, 1.31, Warner Bros
    20 Bounty Hunter USA 6.20, 394, 2.06, Sony Pictures
    Source: Rentrak EDI, RSU analysis
    Gross box office gross = cumulative total up to 25 July 2010
    Films with an asterisk (*) were still being exhibited on 25 July 2010



    http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/media/pdf/0/a/2010_H1_Box_Office_Report-05Aug10.pdf





    Analyzing the opening sequence of a romantic comedy: Love Actually

    The film I looked at for the Romantic Comedy genre was:  Love Actually (2003) Directed by Richard Curtis.

    Love Actually grossed a worldwide total of $247,472,278. There were several studios involved in this film these were: Studio Canal, Working Title Films and DNA Films. The production budgeted at £30,000,000 and was distributed by Universal Pictures. 

    Love Actually is a British romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress. The ensemble cast is composed predominantly of British actors such as: Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Bill Nighy.





    The title sequence for Love Actually is set in Heathrow airport (London). This is shot in high key lighting (as the rest of the film is as RomComs are always well lit due to the lovey doveyness nature of the storyline and it’s supposed to make people feel happy). This sequence is shot in a documentary style, this is used to show that its capturing reality. Most of the camera shots are medium shots which mostly zoom in on people greeting each other by hugging etc showing ‘love’ towards one and another. The medium close ups and close ups used are to show the happiness and loving expressions on the peoples faces.


    During the pre-title sequence the score used its upbeat and happy, the sounds are of piano’s and its very light/dreamy. Also, there is a voice over used (hugh grants voice) speaking about how love is all around, which is the theme of the film.
    The titles are red and white, which are used to symbolise love and purity and they fade out until only ‘love’ is there. Jump cuts are mainly used from one shot to another but slow motion is used during these shots to empathise the embracing and love. This sequence mainly has white middle class people in it and London is used to promote England by showing it to seem expensive by shooting it in high key lighting. 

    Here is the title sequence to Love Actually: