Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My film opening is a mixture of genres, and its meant to develop them, particularly the horror genre, as a lot of horror films nowadays are very similar or are bad sequels. The title of my film opening is 'Disturbia', based on the song by Rihanna that I chose for the Zombies to dance to. This is a typical horror or thriller title, because it is creepy and comes from the word disturbing, which is what some horror films are described as being. The location is in a bedroom, which can sometimes be a usual place for horror films to be set in, but usually in films with serial killers or vicious monsters attacking people. The costumes and props used are dark clothing and white masks for the Zombies and pyjamas for The sleeping person. These costumes aren't very typical of horror films because they aren't bold or ripped in the way a monster would usually wear clothes and the masks are simple animal masks turned inside out. The camerawork and editing is very straightforward and plain, to keep attention on the storyline and the characters. Usually the camera would be moved around or placed at a certain angle, to make it look like the audience was actually a character in the film, to give them more fear and thrills from the film, but I decided to keep everything plain to make sure it wasn't confusing or annoying to watch. I didn't add any special effects for the same reason and the characters are introduced quickly when they go straight into their dance. The title has also been kept simple, white writing with a red glowing outline against a black background. The title appears before the end of the film opening, which isn't usually seen in horror films. I decided not to put any credits or themes with the title because the results of my questionnaire showed that most people don't like sitting through lots of credits or watching a lot of music images or colours at the beginning of a film. The storyline of the film would be a lot of strange events happening to different characters, that audiences can't work out whether they are real or just dreams and imagination of the characters. The opening sets audiences up for this because it appears to be a dream at first, but then turns out to be real. The title also helps because the characters are disturbed by these events. The genre is horror and the opening helps suggest this because the dancers are Zombies and the surprise of the dance not being a dream, is typical of a horror film.



2. How does your media project represent particular social groups?
I chose two other characters to analyse against my key character, The sleeping person. The characters I chose were Aurora from 'Sleeping Beauty' and Laura Baxter from 'Parasomnia'. These two characters have many similarities to my character, for example, Laura Baxter suffers from Parasomnia, where she sleeps constantly and only wakes up for short periods of time and Aurora was put under a curse to make her sleep for one hundred years. Laura also has a strange dream about a land full of mirrors and a monster chasing her towards a huge castle surrounded by trees and the sleeping person dreams about Zombies doing a strange dance in front of her bed. There are several differences between the characters, such as Aurora wakes up with a kiss from Prince Charming, The sleeping person wakes up naturally from the dream and finds out its real, but Laura has a sad ending because she never wakes up, but stays asleep in a coma like state, next to her boyfriend.
The costumes and appearances also differ. Laura and the sleeping person wear pyjamas, but Aurora is wearing a long princess dress. The characters have different roles in their films too. In 'Parasomnia' Laura is not the only main character and in 'Sleeping Beauty' Prince Charming is also a main character. The sleeping person in my film opening, 'Disturbia', is the main character; the dancers are background characters.

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
According to my Audience Feedback questionnaire, my film would be quite popular to watch. To create the most profit, it would be important to release it into a cinema or small theatre where people would pay to see it before it was released onto DVD. Three films that were released in a similar way were 'FAME 2009', 'Love Actually' and 'Jeepers Creepers 2'. These films were released into cinemas to gain the most profit from audiences as they were popular ideas. From the results of my first questionnaire, most people interested in my film opening didn't like to see lots of titles at the beginning of a film. They preferred to see the titles at the end, and head straight into the action at the beginning of a film, which is why I only included the title in my film opening. A film like mine would probably have been funded by independent companies and would make the most money from being released into smaller cinemas, then introduced into larger ones like 'Showcase' and 'Cineworld' if it became more popular.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience member would be a typical teenager, who was into horror films that were different. They would probably be quite Gothic or Emo, not following usual fashion trends and being a bit different from everyone. They might shop online on websites such as 'darksideclothing.com' or 'deadgoodltd.co.uk' and would wear skinny jeans, converse and t-shirts with different designs on them or with band names on them. My target audience member would typically watch shows with a horror or thriller theme to them, like 'CSI:Miami', 'Goosebumps' and 'Special Unit 2' and listen to different bands like 'Fallout Boy', 'Lost Prophets', 'Cinema Bizarre' and 'Avenged Sevenfold'. I think this kind of person would be someone who was most likely to see my film and enjoy watching it.



5. How did you attract/address your audience?
My film opening is designed to attract my target audience member, by being interesting and different from other horror films out today. The genres used are horror and dance. I feel I have used the typical conventions from these genres in a different way, by using the characters, dance and music to portray that the main genre is horror, while at the same time, including the dance genre. My film opening is quite similar to some other films, such as 'House on haunted hill (1999)', 'Stephen King's IT' and 'Cujo'. All three of these films are horror films and they all use most horror genre conventions, such as surprises, confusing openings where you don't fully understand what's happening and monsters. In 'House on haunted hill (1999)', it is difficult to tell what is happening in the building and what it has to do with the characters that appear later on in the film. It is only when you watch the rest of the film that you understand how the events in the film are connected. In 'Stephen King's IT' the same thing happens. You see the main character, Pennywise, but you don't know why he's there or what he is going to do. There are also differences between these films and my horror opening, for example, the opening of 'Cujo' is quite simple and relaxed, showing a dog chasing a rabbit through a field, then getting bitten by a bat. All three of these films also have opening credits, instead of leading straight into the film. I think that these similarities and differences would be important to attract my target audience member and other people too. My unique selling point would be that my horror film opening is quite different from other horror films, as I tried to think of a unique idea, to make it as different and interesting as possible without straying too far from the horror genre. I have a video below of the opening of 'House on haunted hill (1999)' showing the confusing opening sequence that audiences wouldn't understand until later in the film (2.49-5.24 on the video):

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I used two pieces of equipment to make this film; the video camera and a computer. However, I used a lot of websites and computer programs to help make it too: Facebook, Blogger, Email, Myspace, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google, Adobe premier elements, Microsoft Word, Paint, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel. I learnt a lot using the camera, such as the different ways it can be held and the best places to stand in a room, to get the right shot and angle with it. Using a computer and Adobe premier elements to edit the film also taught me a lot, because I learnt the best way to cut out smaller parts of the film I don't want and that changes can always be made before, during and after filming and editing. I learnt how to use premier elements better as well, to put in a good title and to arrange and edit the clips the right way. The different websites were helpful too, as Wikipedia gave me different information about the film openings I deconstructed and YouTube helped me find clips of the openings for these films.


7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?
When I worked on my preliminary task, I learnt a lot about different camera angles and shots that could be used effectively to create different scenes when filming. I used a lot of close-ups in my film to show the different emotions on the face of the Sleeping person. I also used the different ways of editing and changing the timing of the clips in my main project, which is something I learnt from editing the footage from my preliminary task. From the preliminary task I learnt how to use the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot techniques. I liked the idea of using shot/reverse shot in my film, but unfortunately it wouldn't have fit in with my idea. I feel that from the work I did on planning and editing my preliminary task, I knew a lot more about how I wanted to film and edit my main task and how I wanted it to look when it was finished.