Film Opening Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product was intended to develop forms and conventions of real media products by taking into account all of the research we did on the suspense/horror genre and take into account all of the different aspects of how they make their film the best and what things we can be inspired by.In one bit of research I did that was based on a horror and suspense movie, the song 'Santa Baby' is playing whilst slow and mysterious shots guide us around an underground car park, the fact that the filming is very mysterious instantly makes you realise that something bad is going to happen. Not only this, but the song they use is very happy and jolly and is the complete opposite to the expression the different shots are giving you, it makes the film opening seem twisted and abnormal. When we added our soundtrack, we did try and use part of a very happy and upbeat song called '5 years time' by Noah and the Whale at the beginning of our film opening, however, after adding this song to the beginning we found that it didn't fit as well as we would of hoped.
Another piece of research I did called was on a film called 'Choose (2011)' and was based on something very similar to our final film opening - The film opening portrays a typical teenage girl on the computer talking to her friends, at this point everything comes across as being completely normal. Our film opening links to this, this is because it starts with a girl at the park that is on her mobile talking to her other friend and they are planning on meeting each other but the other friend is running late, it only has the diegetic sound of birds in the background. In order to generate a message across and make it clear towards the audience, after seeing the girl sitting on the bench we then add a small snippet of a hooded person walking around a tree with a tense music sound– From this point on, it is then clear that their every move is being watched. Especially as we did not show the friend on the other end of the phone, the point where we see a hooded person walking towards the teenage girl sitting on the bench immediately makes the audience wonder if the hooded person really is her friend or if it is someone else. By adding this scene, it lets the audience know that this could be a sense of de ja vu. The film ‘Choose’ then introduces more characters and shows a boy lying on the bed, still
making the film show innocence as the boy is reading something but does not seem to have a of what is happening outside his room. The girl at the beginning of the film is then seen walking out of her bedroom towards the stairs with very little light; the shot makes her seem very small compared to the large hall landing. In our film, as the girls begin to get up from the park bench and start walking home, the shots we have then added make it clear that someone is watched them and something isn't quite right. The film I researched then moves onto the girl walking down a dark stairway, we continue to hear her voice on the phone whilst the shot moves to the outside of the house with the light switching on. We have included a similar shot to this in our movie - When the two girls enter the house, it then leads to the outside of the house with the light upstairs being switched on, this shots gives the impression that someone is watching them. At the end of the film opening called ‘Choose’, the girl then walks into the room of her family being tied up and a silhouette of the back of someone. In our film opening, we have taken the idea of the main characters finally finding the thing that is watching them and instead of one being captured; they both end up being tied up and put into the boot.
We also use certain aspects of a film we researched called ‘The Ring’, this film starts with two teenage girls watching the television and talking whilst playing practical jokes. Our film opening interprets this in our own way – At the beginning of our film opening, one girl plays a practical joke on the other and later on the girls are watching television in the dark making everything seem perfectly normal.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents social groups such as teenagers as being particularly naive and almost oblivious to the world around them. The fact that there are two girls in the park and there are snippets of someone watching them and they don’t notice makes them seem like they don’t have a care in the world and that teenagers can be seen as being completely involved in themselves and their friends. At the beginning of our film opening, it shows the two teenage girls as having a very good sense of humour as it starts with a practical joke of trying to make the other girl jump and as being very chatty and friendly. At the end it shows just how devoted they are to each other and how much friendship really means as one girl puts her own life in danger in order to save the other. Not only this, but our media product represents gender very closely – The fact that the two teenage girls and the ones being kidnapped relates girls as being vulnerable. The person that plays the stalker in the film is in fact a male, this portrays males as playing the more violent role.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would hope that a media institution like ‘Hammer’ might distribute our media product, Hammer are a well known film company based in the UK and have created films such as the Woman in Black and Let me In. Both of these films are very mysterious and mainly in Woman in Black slowly introduces the audience into the scene. Although the media institution is well known, I would hope that our film opening would be just as good as their films and would succeed in sending shivers up the audiences arm.Who would be the audience for your media product?
In our original film opening, we had our target audience mainly towards teenagers. However, when we first started filming and slowly had more ideas, we soon realised that having ourselves as teenagers in a film about children and a haunted doll would not of worked the way we wanted too and may not have come across very well towards out target audience – It was because of this, that we changed our original idea. We knew that one thing that us ourselves are scared about is being watched by a stranger and having someone in yourown personal space – therefore we knew that basing our film opening on this would help us achieve the suspense and interest of our target audience.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We tried to attract and address our audience from the very beginning – The fact that our film opening starts with an innocent girl sitting on the bench in the park on her phone, but then we see snippets of someone creeping towards her adds tension and immediately gets the audience hooked into the story line. Not only this, but that scene could be seen as de ja vu later on in the film as the same teenage girl sitting on the bench is later on looking in the fridge when someone jumps up on her and is kidnapped. We knew that the soundtrack is very important in creating the atmosphere and therefore, whenever a silhouette of the person ‘watching’ them would appear, we then adding a tension building tune – This not only adds to the atmosphere, but it addresses to the audience that something bad is to come.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout making our film opening, we have definitely learnt a lot more about different technology than we did before. We have not only learnt how to film professionally, but how to cooperate and angle a lot of different shots through making our film opening. One important thing we learnt more about was the 180 degree rule, through making our film opening we didn’t realise that we broke this rule, but after re-filming we soon overcame this problem. We have learnt an exceptional amount about the software called 'iMovie' as none of us had ever used it before, in this we learnt:• How to import movies and video clips from the SD card on the camera onto iMovie
• How to convert certain Youtube videos into an MP4
• How to detach audio from a movie clip
• How to mute clips
• How to add text, imovie sounds and different slide settings
• How to change the volume and reduce background noise
• How to split movie clips
When we first started creating our original film opening idea, we wanted to create our own twisted lullaby and we knew that if we tried to do this on garageband we could easily change and twist the lullaby in order to make it creepy and fit for our first film opening idea. A few things we learnt on garageband are the following:
• Changing the different instruments
• Saving new instruments
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt
in the progression from it to the full product?
In the preliminary task, no one in our group knew very much about filming and had never tried to create our own movie. Therefore, we learnt a lot of things from our preliminary task including using certain elements on the camera and everything involved in making a film to its full potential. Some of the things we learnt a lot about because of our preliminary task are the following:• All of the planning involved
• How easily you can change your planning
• The quantity of shots that are needed and the amount they need to be re-taken
• The amount of editing and dedication
• The time it takes in order to put everything together
• The large quantity of time we spent out of school filming
• How important it is to make back ups
The preliminary task took a lot of hard work and dedication in order to get it to the vision we had inside our heads. From all the variety of ideas and changes made in the planning, we learn through our preliminary task that you can never really know how the film and shots you planned will turn out until you actually film it and put it together yourself. In our preliminary task, we left the soundtrack until last minute. However, one thing we realised with the preliminary task is how important the soundtrack is and how much of a difference it can make to your overall film. Secondly, in our preliminary task we took and retook far more shots than we actually needed. By taking more footage than we actually used, we realised how much having more footage is beneficial and is better than having less – Taking more footage means you can film a certain shot using different angles and when it comes to the editing stage, you can easily take and add in certain angled shots in order to see which ones fit better.
