Q7 looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

From my preliminary task I feel that the clip looked good and entertaining. When reading my feedback from my preliminary task I saw that I had said the camera was shaky as we had to do the over the shoulder shots with a freehand because of the height. I improved this on my main horror film as it wasn’t shaky unintentionally and the reason it was shaky was to add the tension and scary effect.  In both pieces of work I used transitions and titles so they are similar in this aspect and both had the same effect. However I feel that it worked better in the horror film because of the transitions e.g. over laying the words on the clips. This shows the film to be more professional as most films over lay the writing and titles on the clips. This had to be done as there was more things to be said during the opening of the horror film. So I have learnt that when you have a lot more to say that you should overlay it on top of the clips or create an opening sequence as the wait can be boring making the audience uninterested.

Also I have learnt how to improve the sound effects and dialogue. “I think further challenging myself would be to have more lines to make it more understandable what is the theme of the film.”  I said this from the feedback of my preliminary task; I think we were able to do this as there was much more dialogue involved which made the theme more understandable. From my previous feedback I can see that I had trouble making the clips understandable which was a big problem with my first horror film as the lighting was to dark and was messy and difficult to understand. However the second horror film clip improved as we had better lighting and more scenes to make it clearer. So from my preliminary task to my recent horror film the lighting in both had been the same.  In the preliminary task we had no soundtrack and only one sound effect which was a bleep. In my horror film however we used more sound to create tension which I think worked well and improved it massively. So I have learnt that sound makes the work more interesting and adds good effects.

The amount of camera angles and transitions we used are about the same. We used a range of shot types which I think made the clip a strong piece of work and we did the same In the preliminary task and horror film. As we were in a park it was more difficult to get certain angles because of how open planned it was unlike in school as there were doors, buildings etc. which transitions we only used one in the prelim task and more in the horror film. In both clips we used effects to smooth the cut from clip to clip. However in the horror film we used effects like ‘ghosting’ in order to get the creepy effect which wasn’t needed in the preliminary task.

Overall I think I have learnt a lot between the preliminary task and the horror film, and my experience from the prelim made my horror film better.  As my horror films had things added which my preliminary didn’t.

Q6 what have you learnt about techonologies from the process of constructing this product?

Q5 How did you attract/ address your audience?

The reason why we believe people should see our film if we were to distribute is because it has a some similar things compared with film such as ‘sinister’ and ‘paranormal activity 4’ . however our film has more because it is set outside as these two film are mostly set inside. However in sinister when a scene was film outside is gave the audience a lot of tension because it was very dark and the music gave a sense that something was going to happen.  Our film is set outside so will have tension though out which is a unique selling point because its unusual for a whole film to be set outside.

Also I researched some information about how much money both films made relating to how many people saw it. Making it a success.

Sinister profits

£6,346,639 (UK) (4 November 2012)
£5,858,139 (UK) (28 October 2012)
£5,089,968 (UK) (21 October 2012)
£3,698,363 (UK) (14 October 2012)
£1,435,722 (UK) (7 October 2012))

 This is the amount of money  the film made from the opening ( 7th October- 4^th November)  The results show that profit increased as time went on. Which could be because of ‘word and mouth’ or because of advertising. I believe it was because of word and mouth because nobody really said anything bad.

A review on IMDB

DON'T WATCH THE TRAILER! or at least try not to. I went into this film only knowing the title and the fact I was waiting for a scary movie to actually be... yep scary. Well I was in luck, as Sinister is exactly that...quite Sinister! I say try to avoid the trailers if u can because quite a lot is shown.

I agree with this which is why our film has element of surprise as it can't be as easily read.

Paranormal activity –

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$29,003,866 (USA)

$53,884,821 (USA)

 This film had more profit compared to sinister. However I think is because it is a sequel. So people are more interested to see what else they have done. Also a sequel makes people think it’s a success.

A Review from IMDB

I am never giving this franchise another dime, nor another minute of my life; mark my words, so long as I live. That's four movies, at approximately two hours per film, twelve opening-weekend cinema passes at three tickets per release… all for what?? There's no bigger-picture, here! There's no larger story being told… there *IS* no story to this story!

Even though our film is the same genre as both of these films. Our film as different types of editing. Sinister has a lot of good camera angles but there is no distortion only in the recording that are found to make it seem like old films. This is a good editing technique but doesn’t relate to our film because it is all set out side.



Commentary

Q4 Who would be your audience for your media product?

This is Jane Smith.
She is 17 years old and she lives in South London . Her style is very casual but stylish. She enjoys going out with her friends and having fun and going to parks but also relaxing at home.

She shops in places like New Look and H&M.

She enjoys film such as the possession , sinister,
paranormal activity etc. She normally watches after they come out on DVD but occasionally will see in Cinema if it grabs her attention enough.

They watch TV programmes like friends, most haunted, family guy. Favourite channels would be ‘living’ ‘comedy central’ and ‘BBC three’.

The music she would listen to is anything that is in the charts but also old songs. She listens to varieties  of pop, RnB, indie and some rock. Mostly listens to music shows and kiss.

I think our film would appeal to this girl as she is interested in the outdoors and watching films and programmes about scary possessed ghosts and houses. If this film was to be shown in her local cinema she would probably go because she is interested  in films like this such as ‘sinister’.

Q3 What kind of media insititution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that a media insitition like Momentum pictures or paramount pictures. As these are some of the main distributors who distrubute feels of this genre. They are also well known distrubtors aswell, which would be good for publicity for our film.

Paramount pictures distributed films like paranormal activity which is similar to my film.

Q2 How does your media product represent particular social groups

How does your media product represent  particular social groups?

This character is represented to be in a working class social group, as the story of our film is that she is baby-sitting. The traits that this character has in order to be apart of this social group is that she is very casual and wearing normal comfortable clothes. Whereas people who have a higher social class are seen to be very formal and dressy up.

One character from another film which links with our character is the girl from paranormal activity 4, because she is the main character who is being focused on as her little brother is friends with a weird possessed child. Which is the same as our story, she is also working class aswell and is  very normal comfortable looking in what she wears and behaves like. The only difference is that she is in her house when everything happens whereas our character is out in the open where she can be seen to be more vulnerable because she is not in the comfort of her own home.

Q1 in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The title of the film-
We decided that we should use ‘Perdant’ as the title for our film. This is because we wanted it in a different language but without it being too weird and out there. So we decided to make it into French as it can be quite similar to English. Also to add mystery to what it means. We wanted it to be in quite similar to English because when you first see this word it doesn’t come across that it is a different language because we didn’t want it looking like one of the dodgy foreign films.

Setting/ location-
We choose to have a park/ forest area to shot is film in. This is because it links to the conventions of horror films. Normally in horror film there is a person who runs out into a forest in the dark and tries to escape going through a dark forest. A forest is very dark and is mysterious because of the all the wilderness. Also because you never know what’s behind what? The fear of someone being able to jump out at any moment is scary and adds more tension to the film. Also it is outside; automatically you feel more fear when you are outside and not near your house, as your house is seen to be a comfort zone.

Costume and props-
We decided to keep the clothes casual and not dressy. This is because when looking into the conventions of horror film most victims are dressed casual as it gives the sense of not much effort and could seem that they are weak. The two older victims wore jeans and hoodies this is show that they feel comfortable also that they might not be in the mood as they aren’t looking as well as they could making them become more vulnerable. The younger child wore a coat and jeans, in the beginning her hood was down show that she’s being open and free however as it goes on and is in the forest her hood goes up shows she is trying to hide and being anti-social which automatically makes you think something has happened to her, creates tension because you don’t know what will happen next.
We didn’t have any props as it in our genre of film it doesn’t really fit. If they are in a park they aren’t going to have any props for them as a park is a relaxing place. Also in horror films when you normally see the victim they don’t have anything on them as they aren’t meant to be prepared. Also when not having a prop they seem more vulnerable because nothing is close to them and they are left alone to them self. Make the audience worry about that victim.

Camera work and editing-
In our film we try to use as much camera work as possible. We used camera work such as

·         Close up

·         Medium close up

·         Long shot

·         Extreme long shot

·         High camera angle

·         Arcing shot

·         Panning shots (POV)

We used all of these types of camera work because it is seen to be conventions of horror, in most horror films we seen close ups to be able to show the emotion on the characters face also gives the audience a sense of tension because they don’t know what is happening that makes the character to act like that. Also High camera angles are used because it shows the character to be vulnerable which works well as both victims were shown in a high angle helps the audience to understand who is who. We also used camera work which doesn’t fit in with the conventions of horror film as we used an arcing shot however we sped it up so it looks distorted and unclear, this normally isn’t seen in a horror film even though arcing shots are but it being sped up adds more confusion and gets you interested in the plot.
We used some editing in our film such as ghosting and fading in and out. We did this because we wanted the shots to flow more clearly and not to be so rough.

Title and font –
The title of the film is done in big block letters, and colours of red and black. When doing my research I saw that the conventions of titles etc. were black and red as it is the most common and is automatically seen as danger and horror. Most titles have a black background but most fonts have a weird ghoulish font yet our title is very bold and block shows it is secure.

Story and how opening sets it up-
The story is about two teenagers baby-sitting a younger girl who is a bit odd. They are walking through a park when all of a sudden the girl disappears; the one in charge is distressed whereas the other character doesn’t care as much. This relates to conventions of a horror film because there is always one who is more aware of the situation and less cocky then the other.  They decide to walk into the forest area right next to the park, when both teenagers are in the forest area, the little girl is found behind a tree, this is where we hear a scream, which is supposed to be a false scare as it cuts off to the cocky character that has just tripped. The main character then continues to talk to the girl who is very quiet and not like how she was in the beginning. The younger child then stares past the teenager to a strange man behind her. When the teenager looks back she sees the man where she screams, the other teenager comes to help, where she doesn’t pay attention to what has happened. The younger child then disappears again. We then see both teenagers looking to the side where they start to scream and run away. Then cuts off to a shot of the forest and all you can hear is screaming. Gives us the sense of wonderment and wanting to know what happened like a cliff hanger. The opening sets up this story because it shows the main scene and main characters that will become influenced.

Genre and how the opening suggests it-
The genre is ghost/ possessed related. The opening sets this up because it is in a natural setting, it is also very gloomy and lonely, makes us think that there is a reason why nobody is there.

How characters are introduced-
Characters are introduced by walking in, in the first shot also characters names are put on the screen around actual characters. Showing who is who.

Special effects-
The special effects I used  were 'ghosting' effect and this helped get the spooky effect for the ghostly man. as it blurred the scene giving a hazy effect.