Props

In order to make sure our film fit in with some of the iconography usually associated with horror films, we had to find some props to use. One of the props we used was a knife and for this we used a standard kitchen knife that we had at my home where we filmed.

We also had a note in our film that was written using blood. This meant we had to find some way of making some fake blood, so went online and found out how to do it. Below is the video that we used to create our fake blood. 

One of the scenes within our film involves the exchange of drugs and money. For the drugs we used a small bag filled with white flour that represented the drugs. For the money we used a few real £20 notes with the rest made from paper that we made to look like money.

Music research for final film

The video questionnaire and the online questionnaire both came back with similar results when it came to music. The target audience suggested that we needed to include some non diagetic music that would create tension among the audience. We agreed with this feedback and decided to do some research into the music that is used in horror/thriller films. Below is some examples of what we found.


We really liked some of the music we found and decided that it was definitely important that we included some within our final film. We did so and found that it improved our film dramatically, creating a scary, unnerving tension upon the audience and this is exactly what we wanted.

Viral Advertsing

What is viral advertising? marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses. One of the biggest and most popular examples of viral marketing is through social media websites such as facebook and twitter. Below is a video I have found that examples viral advertising.

Although we are not required to do so for our portfolio, the research I have done into this type of marketing has shown me another technique of attracting an audience to your main product. From statistics, I have also found that viral advertising is one of the most successful ways of marketing a product.

Final film.

This is our final film.

Final Poster.

Radio Trailer.

Evaluation Question 1.

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

The media product we created was a five minute film. Our film uses many different techniques and conventions generally used in movies. The genre we chose for our film was a sort of horror/thriller, this lead us into a whole different choice of typical media conventions used throughout these films. I believe that our film follows and also breaks typical conventions. An example of our film following typical horror movie conventions is the fact that our main character is a female who gets followed/hurt by a man. I believe following typical conventions is a good things as it allows the audience to anticipate what will happen next, which has been proven to give them a sense of thrill and achievement because they can predict what’s happening. As well as this, it is also a good thing to totally surprise your audience, especially in a genre such as horror. By changing typical conventions in horror films, it adds an extra sense of fear and builds the tension, giving a better overall effect to the film. In our film, the gender stereotypes are reversed, but this doesn’t happen until the very end. This is seen when the female character turns, and kills the male character. However, we don’t actually see the killing, so the audience only hear noises and are left to imagine what will have happened. The reveal is done following a point of view shot which keeps the audience thinking for much longer. I believe this is a good aspect of our film as it shows female strength and subverts the typical stereotype.

I also believe that our film follows certain aspects of a theory proposed by Richard Dyer. The theory has five different sub-genres; energy, abundance, intensity, transparency and community. The aspects of the theory our film strongly follows is intensity. This is because the film has extreme highs and lows giving the audience the chance to feel the emotion with the characters. I believe an aspect of lows in the film may be the drug scene at the beginning as it symbolises an extreme low point in the characters life. Another aspect of lows would be the realisation that someone unknown is inside her house, again building tension amongst the audience, allowing them to experience it with the characters too. I think that the highest point in our film was the ending, when the female character has killed the male one. This is because she managed to get rid of the person and thing that was causing her the most trouble and causing all the lows.

Right at the start of the horror film genre, nobody ever thought that in the future women would be seen as the main focus of the films and known as the ‘strongest’ characters on the ones that always survive. Our film plays with the genres history and codes because of the use of a female as the male character.

Many of our ideas used throughout our film were taken from real media texts. These allowed us to develop our film and ideas to produce our final outcome. A film that we looked into very closely was ‘The Strangers’. Our film has used many similar aspects from this, mainly the idea that someone managed to enter another’s household without them knowing. The ending of the film is also similar to ours in that the female character survives, although it is not exactly the same because the character in The Strangers is also injured, it has the same idea behind it.

Evaluation Question 2.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4.

Question 4 from abigailbladen

Individual Film Poster

After looking at other film posters I had a go at creating my own and above is the one I created. I am quite pleased with the outcome as I have never made one before. The final poster for our group will use some of the features from this film poster as well as some as the features from the posters of my other group members.

Evaluation - Question 1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qVsXyKTQUixy-H3Cq796iah-A4jYA4g9wgYVEKjdyd0/edit

Evaluation - Question 2

 

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Before we began filming, we produced a treatment on Blogger to identify our target audience. We researched the BBFC website as well as looking at similar film ratings and came to the conclusion that our film would be a 15 due to the violence and scenes of drugs.

 

To begin filming our film we came up with a finalised plot idea, created a questionnaire and asked people in our classes around college their opinions on our storyline. We did a video questionnaire, which got us used to using the camera again, then posted the video on our blog.  

 

The results were positive therefore we knew our audience found our plot interesting so we got set to film our rough cut. Our audience helped us when choosing our age rating as we were undecided to being with. After research into age ratings along with the help from the video questionnaire, we were confident in what age rating we were going to use. We chose a 15 as after researching the BBFC website, we found that for 15 there can be uses of strong language, portrayals of nudity/sexual activity and drug taking. Although our film doesn't involve all of these, it involves drugs and murder therefore would push it to a 15 rather than a 12.

 

Rough Cut
 

 

We released a rough cut on YouTube for our audience to suggest any last minute alterations such as
preferred camera shots and music. We also published our rough cut to see if our audience could follow the narrative easily and understand the non-linear structure.
 

Our audience suggested that we needed to add music, in particular 'spooky' and 'eerie' music which we agreed on as it would increase the tension we wanted to create in our film. Answers also included the removing of some shots as they weren't needed and just elongated the scene, slowing down the pace therefore lacking tension. We then knew for our finalised film that we needed to use more jump cuts and shorter length shots in order to appeal and create tension for our audience.
 

A third and final questionnaire was produced after we published our final film. The results were very positive and we were very pleased with our target audience responses. In our previous rough cut questionnaire, the problem was that we needed to add spooky music which we did and 10/10 responses said it fitted our genre, all answering 'Yes' to the question, 'Does the music create tension?' This is exactly how we wanted our audience to feel therefore proving our film successful.





 

Various music was used throughout the film to interest and scare the audience. We use intense music at intense moments in the film to fit with the audiences reactions. Without the music, the audience wouldn't have felt as on edge or frightened therefore our film wouldn't have fulfilled the hopes of our target audience. However, the music does have an impact on the audience which intensifies the suspense and builds up the storyline.

 

In order for the audience to understand what is happening in the film, we used various shots, angles and framing to indicate our message. In the opening, we use a drug deal to show the audience the genre and context of the film and to get them interested in who the people are and why they are buying drugs. We didn't want our audience getting confused due to the non-linear narrative therefore costumes were essential for the audience to identify the characters. Joel (our dominant male killer) wears a hooded dark jumper, hiding his face, showing his mystery from the outset for the audience to understand.

 

We wanted our audience to be frightened yet still have sympathy for the victim, so we used a shot of Loren using emotion (screaming worriedly) to help the audience sympathise and feel part of the film;  a reaction we wanted from our audience. Throughout we used fast paced jump cuts, pans and POV shots to portray what is going to happen. Fast shots and fast paced music adds to the tension, leaving the audience in suspense. We entwine these shots with a longer length shots to keep the audience on edge as they can predict after a long shot, something quick and fast is going to happen.

 

Overall I think our audience has showed us that our uses of stereotypical codes and conventions of horror films have proven successful. I am happy with the feedback from the final film as everyone asked had something very positive to say about it. I am also very happy with the way the poster and the radio trailer fit with the film and how they appeal to the audience. Various research went into what audiences look for in posters and radio trailers and I believe ours appeals greatly to our audience, and fits with the theme of our film. 

Evaluation - Question 4

Questionnaire Results and Analysis

In order to gain feedback from our final film we created a questionnaire which we shared on Facebook to reach our target audience. Our questionnaire included questions such as 'How old are you?' to 'What certificate do you think the film is?'. This gave us a range of answers on the design and narrative of our film and showed us if the film was a success for our audience.

 

 

To gather our results I created a table of a few questions asked in order to see clear results and links.

 

 

From our results we can see that our film was watched by our aimed target audience as all the people who watched and filled the survey was above our certificate age of 15. The results also shows that our film accurately represents and attracts our targeted audience of 15+ year olds. After the research conducted into certificates, we are pleased to see that we got the response and feedback from this audience, making our results significant.

 

When asked 'What genre do you think the film is?' 8 out of 10 said horror with the rest saying a thriller which is a very similar genre. This showed us that we accurately used mise-en-scene, codes and conventions and iconography in our film to get the genre across. This links with the other question, 'Did the film frighten you?' as it shows they understood they were meant to be scared due to the typical horror stereotypes used such as vulnerable and threatening characters.

 

 





Editing Techniques

For our film to be successful and look professional, I researched some editing techniques which we could use throughout our film. As we were producing a horror film, I looked into how we could get these editing techniques to portray horror.

Fade to Black 
Fade transitions are ubiquitous in films and TV, therefore will be used when editing together our film. A fade is when a shot gradually fades into a single colour, usually black or white. In our film, we chose to use black as it fits more with our horror genre. A fade is different however to a crossfade, which is a transition between two shots rather than one shot to a colour. Fades can signify the end or opening to a scene, a passage of time or a change of location. Longer fades = longer/bigger change in the film, shorter fades = time lapse of minutes or hours.

Continuity Editing
Continuity editing consists of match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree line rule. A sense of continuity is shown through match on action as it involves a shot cutting to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot. This is not graphic match; it portrays a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two separate things. Shot reverse shot is used when characters are engaging in conversation/looking at one another or between objects. This shot is shown through a point of view or over the shoulder shot, showing what they're looking at, then a reversed angle shot of the object/character looking back at them, for example. This editing technique is done to not distort the viewers view of the location. The 180 degree rule is a technique that creates a continuous sense of direction. This rule is a filming guideline that characters in a scene should have the same left-right relationship to each other.














Jump Cuts
A jump cut is an abrupt transition, typically in a sequential clip that makes the subject appear to jump from one spot to another, without continuity. This can happen when two sequential shots of the same subject in the same scene are cut together from camera positions that vary only slightly. Jump cuts also occur when cutting between two sections of footage shot from the same exact camera angle, for example in an interview.



Elliptical Editing
Elliptical editing is a technique used in film editing that allows an events duration on-screen to be shorter than is duration in the story. The simplest type of elliptical edit is a cut between two shots, both of which show part of the same event. The cut between the two shots allows film makers to omit part of that event, thus reducing the time that the event is shown on-screen. A long, tedious event that might take hours in reality, may be elided so that film viewers only sit though a few minutes.