This is my filmed evaluation. I am extremely camera shy so sorry for the long hesitations and pauses as stumbling on my words. This is my first time being in front of the camera instead of behind of it, so please excuse my mistakes and lack of explanation on some clips.
Friday 4 May 2012
Thursday 3 May 2012
Question 4 + 5: Who would be the audience for your media product? and How did you attract/address your audience?
To decide our target audience for our film, we needed to research in to other films to see qhat target audience they provide for the appropriate audience. We looked at a range of horror film to see who they aimed their film at depending on what gender, age and race they were. This research helped us decide who to aim our film at.
Films that we have watched:
Insidious Saw
I looked at both Insidious and Saw user rating to see who the main audience were for both films. When researching this, I found out that Insidious appealed to both males and females however, it mainly appealed to males under the age of 18. Insidious equally attracts males and females between the ages of 18-29. However, this role reversal changes as females over the age of 30 are interested in the film. This is because the bbfc have given this film a certificate 15 as the fear is more psychological rather than physical which makes the film less tense than an 18 certificate. The reason for the bbfc giving Insidious a low rating is because the horror isn't as gory, but yet more jumpy and leaves a taunting effect on your mind. Although Saw is within the same sub genre, the bbfc have given it a certificate 18 due to the heavy violence and language used. The reason why our film has a certificate 15 is because of the same effects used for Insidious as it controls how the mind reacts in a certain way, however, our film doesn't have as much violence as Saw, so it doesn't need to be rated certificate 15. Saw has harsh torturing towards the victims as the threat is much more clearer. Saw interests males within the age range of 18-44, so therefore they have successfully targeted their film at a suitable audience.
Jaws The Nightmare Before Christmas
Above are the user ratings of two films with the certificate rating of PG. I am going to compare and contrast to how they differ from other films of the same sub genre but different bbfc rating. Jaws is a certificate PG, however, it used to be a 12a. The reason why the age certificate has gone down is because of the high rate of violence used within modern horror films, the technology and special effects have better quality, so therefore, production companies are able to make more disturbing films. Although Jaws has some violence within it, it is no way near as harsh compared with slasher films of a 12a certificate rating in today's world. In comparison to this I am also researching the film The Nightmare before Christmas. The age certificate of this film is also a PG, however, I feel as though it doesn't have as much threat as Jaws does. Even though The Nightmare before Christmas is a more recent film than Jaws, I believe that Jaws has more violence and gore than The Nightmare before Christmas. In my opinion, I think that Jaws should still have the age certificate of 12a. I found that Jaws appealed to an audience of males between the ages of 12-45+ whereas The Nightmare before Christmas attracted more females between the ages of 12-44.
The Ring:
The Ring:
The BBFC:
I did some research on the bbfc of the age certificate of 15 and 18, as that is our main target audience who our film is aimed at. Age certificate 15 is usually the bbfc rating of psychological horrors, which is the same genre as our film.
No-one younger than 15 should go and watch an 15 certificate at the cinema or attempt to buy a 15 certificate DVD. On a 15 certificate film, strong language is allowed but only if it kept at a minimum, same with behavior. Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. Strong threat is permitted but must not be sadistic or sexualised. Dangerous behavior such as suicide or self harming should not show detail and weapons such as knifes shouldn't be glamorized. Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail along with sexual activity, violence is allowed to be strong but is not allowed to swell on pain and injury.
No-one younger than 18 should go and watch an 18 certificate film at the cinema or buy/rent an 18 DVD. Strong language and violence is allowed to be shown in a 8 certificate film but kept to a minimum so it doesn't influence the audience to do illegal drugs/behavior such as rape. safer sex and health, explicit images of sexual activity may be permitted.
According to my pie chart, I have found out that half of the people said they would prefer to watch a psychological, with zombie being the second most popular and with vampire, slasher and ghost following close behind. I found that psychological was a popular sub genre and that more women preferred to watch them than men as they prefer the horror to be psychological rather than visual. This has proved to me that over time, women are not as scared as society stereotypes them. From my pie chart I have found that making a psychological horror is the better choice as more people of both genre's between the ages of 15-54 are more reliable to watch it. I think having an older teenager/young adult as our main character is very suitable as it fits in well with our target audience. After watching many horror films, I feel as though our film will suit a certificate 15 due to the low level of strong language and violence used but more mind threatening.
Attracting our target audience:
1) When we planned our film, each of us watched a range of horror films within the same sub-genre such as The Sixth Sense, Insidious and The Shining etc. We researched each of the films we watched to give us an idea of what their target audiences were and who we was going to aim ours at. After researching this, we decided that our target audience for our film was going to be aimed at teenage audience (15+) of both genders and any ethnicity. Our target audience would enjoy the psychological horror as they will not know what to expect as it is all in the mind. This would excite the audience because it wouldn't be so predictable whereas in slashers, the threat is more visible.
2) We targeted our audience by researching further more in to our films that we watched. We decided we wanted a mixed race, female young adult so that it will fit in with a range of ethnicity and all ages within our target audience. We wanted a female to keep the trend going that females are more vulnerable to the threat.
3) We wanted our film to be quite similar to The Ring, so we decided that we was going to shoot our footage in a house where the victim is more vulnerable to the threat because they are not expecting to be tortured at home. We chose to film at Josh's Grand mothers house as the mise-en-scene mostly consists of reds and warm colours that indicate warning and danger. The lighting is natural which creates quite an airy affect, especially seeing as our actor is supposed to be home alone. The props we used are a cup, type writer and mobile phone. We wanted to use a type writer as our actor is a student writer and usually psychological thrillers are mainly based on history and type writers are quite traditional. The cup is used as the first sign of the threat as the character goes to make a cup of tea. We used a mobile phone as the threat to show that the film is modern and so can come in between of modern technology. This will engage the audience as our film is targeted at young adults and they are more than likely up to date with recent technology (a smart phone)
4) Our victim is a young teenage girl. We have chosen a female to be the victim in our film as females are usually vulnerable to the threat. Females are usually easily scared so this would give our female viewers the chance to relate to the character.
5) Our title sequence is inspired from the film Se7en. This is because the title sequence has many CU so you are not able to see the full setting. This makes the audience inquisitive as they are unsure what is going to happen, the CU lack information so the audience will want to watch the whole film to know what is going to happen. We wanted our titles to be unique and original and to stand out from crowd-I believe we have achieved this very well as the audience have no idea what the type writer is all about until they watch the rest of the sequence.
6) We didn't want to give away our film idea with the music so we chose quite a subtle yet daunting affect to create a eery, mysterious affect. We didn't want to use obvious sounds such as minor chords on a piano, so instead we chose to create a piece of music using a bass drum. By choosing a subtle, simple sound, the audience feels quite on edge and scared of what may be revealed for example (we are scared for the character but even more scared of what may jump out at us)
Key Themes and audience feedback:
When we received our feedback, we found that our audiences related to our main character. Due to the fact that they are within the same age range etc so therefore feel comfortable watching a character that is similar to the audience. Our audience enjoyed although they did say that they didnt understand the titles until they watched the whole film, which is what we expected as we took that idea from the film se7en.
Above is a video of our final film. We took the CU of the type writer for our title sequence to link in what will happen later on in our film. The audience is very inquisitive as to why we have chose to use a type writer, but they will find out later on. We have taken this idea from the film Se7evn because we found it very original and interesting, we wanted our audience to be interested in the titles for them to want to watch the rest of the film. The rest of our film idea has come from The Ring. We have chosen to film our footage in a low middle class/high working class home as that is where our main audience is from. We have chosen to use modern props to show that we are filming in today's world, with modern technology such as a mobile phone. We have chosen to use a young woman as our character that is home alone to make the audience on edge on what could happen to her. We instantly worry and care about her because she is on her own in a big empty house-she is vulnerable of what may come in her way.
Monday 30 April 2012
Question 3:What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Emily Pyrek
Distribution means getting your film seen and noticed by the public e.g. promoting your film through posters, trailers, games etc...
I began by researching independent production companies to see how they distributed their films compared to how mainstream production companies distributed their films. We took some ideas from both to see how we could of distributed our film, bearing in mind that we are media students and don't have the money to properly get our film across.
independent production companies:
Fantastic Film:
Fantastic Films is an OSCAR™ winning film production company. Fantastic films is based in Dublin and Ireland. They are involved in the financing, production and worldwide sales of theatrically positioned feature films. Their goal is to make fantastic films LTD a brand that ensures independent excellence and maximum return to there international buyers. They achieve this by producing a few films a year that are 'worthy' of the fantastic label. This is able to give fantastic films LTD the attention it needs and wants. Fantastic Films attend major film and television markets and also make regular trips overseas to meet their buyers on their own production to discuss current projects and to keep on top of territory-specific tastes and trends. They will consult and assist producers with the creation or improvement of artwork and trailers to minimize costs.
Fantastic Films have recently made a remake of the 1966 film Eldorado, apart from it is a parody of a number of films such as The Blues Brothers, Sweeney Todd and A little shop of horrors.
Eldorado poster: Eldorado Trailer:
I watched the trailer of the Eldorado trailer and I recognized that Fantastic Films LTD is mentioned straight away as soon as the trailer begins. I then saw that they have mentioned that it will be in 3D, showing that they have pushed the budget up a little bit in order to make the film modern. I identified that at the end of the trailer it mentions another production company called A house of fear film production showing that they have teamed up with another production company in order to make the film. This means that the budget to make the film was higher, so to collaborate with another company has gave them the chance to create a much better distribution line to get a higher success rate.
Black and Blue Films:
Black and Blue Films is one of Britain's leading independent production companies. It was launched by Martin Kemp and Jonathon Sothcott in January 2007 to make quality films and TV. Although they haven't been around for that long, they aimed to make 6 films a year by 2011. They decided to remake the film Expose as their first feature film as Jonathon owns a stake in the original film, however Black and Blue Films is very different to the original, it was used as a 'jumping off point' rather than a 'model'. They believe that Vertigo-another independent production company is their role model and aim to be as successful as them. Expose is an independent horror remake of the 1976 film directed by James Kenelm Clarke, set around the life of a writer who’s life becomes a nightmare when her new assistant comes into her life.
Expose Poster: Expose Screen Grab:
I have done my research and I have found that Fantastic Films is more successful than Black and Blue films as they have produced and released more films however, they both make a broad range of films instead of sticking to a certain genre.
Major Media Institution:
Lions Gate:
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. As of 2012, it is the most commercially successful independent film and
television distribution company in North America and second most
profitable movie studio. The company bought a number of small production facilities and distributors. Lions Gate is a production company of films and Television .
Lions Gate first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and distributing films too controversial for the major American studios.
American Psycho Poster: American Psycho Trailer:
After watching the trailer of American Psycho, I noticed that Lions Gate isn't mentioned at all which possibly means that Lion Gates mustn't of been a very popular production company at that time as nobody had ever heard them before their first proper success of American Psycho. In fact, the trailer doesn't mention the film title until just after half way and doesn't mention who produced the film until near the end.
Twisted Pictures:
Twisted Pictures is an American independent production company, mainly creating films of the horror genre. The company was founded in 2004 by Evolution Entertainment's. They are known for producing the Saw film series.Twisted Pictures was formed after the box office success of Saw in 2004, which lead to a nine-picture distribution deal with Lionsgate.The company went on to produce six sequels in the Saw film series.
Saw Poster: Saw Trailer:
I watched the trailer of Saw and I identified that Twisted Pictures wasn't mentioned. This is probably because Saw 2004 was one of the first films that Twisted Pictures produced, so therefore, wasn't that popular and well known to be on the trailer. The trailer started off as telling you what the cause of Saw is, by adding text that linked in with footage of what happened in the film to give you an idea what the film may look like.
Our Poster:
Above is an image of our Film Poster. In order to design this we have researched a range of other horror film posters to generate our ideas. Other posters within our sub genre haven't used a specific image to show what genre it is e.g a zombie movie would have a picture of a zombie on the poster, whereas with psychological it is pretty tricky to establish what kind of genre it is as the horror is all controlled by the mind. Instead of putting our main character on the front of the poster we decided to keep it quite simple by adding related things to our character such as ink spillages related to the type writer she is using in our title sequence. We created our poster on Photoshop where we decided to use a tea stained background to link in with the cup of tea she goes to make in our sequence, the tea stains show that she has been working for a long amount of time, showing history beyond that when thinking outside of the box. We downloaded a type writer kind of font to write the text with and added an ink spillage to link in with the main character job (student writer/novelist). We then added blood stains to get the point across to our audience that it is a horror film and that it implies warning and danger within our film sequence. After we got the main images and text written, we then added the production company name, age certificate and the release date of our film. We decided to release our film on the 14th July as that will be when many school/college students will be finished for the summer and will be more likely to visit the cinema in their time off. We chose to give our film certificate 15, as its not too gory to be an 18 but to frightening for a PG/12 certificate. So we settled for an age when appropriate. Seeing as we are a media students we are on a low budget so our audience will be very niche. Our marketing and distribution would probably we seen through flyers/leaflets and be placed around near by places and in school and colleges as well as Facebook and other social networking sites and our blog. If we were to be a multinational production company, our film would be noticed towards a mass audience and would be seen on billboards/buses/magazines/newspapers/YouTube etc.
Also above are some posters from the films i have researched and I have noticed that they are all very similar. Each one of them, symbolize what the film may be about, almost giving telling what the film is about from the image, spoiling it for the audience. For example, Eldorado show images of the main characters and the car in the middle represent that it is quite a action/crime film. Expose shows the image of the main character holding a knife which automatically gives away that it is a slasher/horror film and that somebody is going to get badly hurt. American Psycho also clones this idea by having the main character holding up a knife, this shows it is also a slasher. Saw is quite different by still uses the dark colours representing its daunting effect on the audience. The image in the middle shows that a character/s is going to be tortured in a uncomfortable way (the head brace gives this away). By using the head brace 'jigsaw' it shows that it will have some effect on your mind and is almost like a psychological but a lot more taunting.
Other Distribution:
I researched into other distribution options and I came across some local film festivals where we could show our film. Film festivals are very helpful for people who want to get their short film noticed to a broader audience. A local film festival that is useful to us is Mayhem Festival which is based at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. The distributors I have already mentioned are all on a much higher budget than us so therefore have a better chance of getting their film recognized. There ways of distributing is not really an option for us as we are low budget media students. Instead, we could distribute our film through social networking sites by uploading it on to YouTube/FaceBook/MySpace and our blog in order to get our film seen and noticed by other audiences.
Another way in which we could distribute our film is through Bang Film Festival. It is a film festival for much smaller films such as films made by students in helping them to get a wider range of audience. This is a good way to distribute our film as it especially made for students wanting to get their film recognized. We could also put our film online so our friends and other people around our age can see and know about it.
Release Diary:
The release date is very important when making a film as you need to to release a film when you know that you will earn your gross back on what you paid when making the film. You need to be able to earn your money back in order to make another film and to cover the cost of production. Term time and Halloween would be a fantastic time for our film to be released but not so much as that will be when other production companies from a more mainstream audience will be releasing their films. So I think it should be released in the cinema the weekend before Halloween (27/10/12). DVD releases are usually a few months after the cinema release date, so I think our film DVD should be released around February half term (for students) on the 09/02/12.
Advertisement Campaign:
Our trailer would be shown before a horror film of any sub genre but more towards the psychological genre. Our trailer would be shown before films of the same age certificate as that would be more appropriate for the audience watching as it would appeal more towards them.
Above is the trailer to The Devil Inside. Our film would be very appropriate to be shown before this film as The Devil Inside is also of a psychological sub genre back ground as the main character gets possessed by a 'Devil', which is very similar to our plot line of our film as our film is a psychological, so the horror is all in the mind and body.
Production Company Logo:
Above is a picture of our production company logo A JEC production. We made this logo in the same way as our poster. We decided to use the tea stained background as most horror films are usually down to the history beyond that, so we figured that it worked very well within the horror genre as it is old and vintage and that is the new style nowadays. We decided not to keep the ink and blood spillages as that was only relevant to our film that we made and it wouldn't link in with any future films we may make. When i researched other company logo's, I noticed that they kept theirs plain and simple as they are the ones that you can easily recognize. We put our logo at the start of our film as when we researched other films, they did the same; that way the audience are able to identify who produced the movie.
Also above are some posters from the films i have researched and I have noticed that they are all very similar. Each one of them, symbolize what the film may be about, almost giving telling what the film is about from the image, spoiling it for the audience. For example, Eldorado show images of the main characters and the car in the middle represent that it is quite a action/crime film. Expose shows the image of the main character holding a knife which automatically gives away that it is a slasher/horror film and that somebody is going to get badly hurt. American Psycho also clones this idea by having the main character holding up a knife, this shows it is also a slasher. Saw is quite different by still uses the dark colours representing its daunting effect on the audience. The image in the middle shows that a character/s is going to be tortured in a uncomfortable way (the head brace gives this away). By using the head brace 'jigsaw' it shows that it will have some effect on your mind and is almost like a psychological but a lot more taunting.
Other Distribution:
I researched into other distribution options and I came across some local film festivals where we could show our film. Film festivals are very helpful for people who want to get their short film noticed to a broader audience. A local film festival that is useful to us is Mayhem Festival which is based at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. The distributors I have already mentioned are all on a much higher budget than us so therefore have a better chance of getting their film recognized. There ways of distributing is not really an option for us as we are low budget media students. Instead, we could distribute our film through social networking sites by uploading it on to YouTube/FaceBook/MySpace and our blog in order to get our film seen and noticed by other audiences.
Another way in which we could distribute our film is through Bang Film Festival. It is a film festival for much smaller films such as films made by students in helping them to get a wider range of audience. This is a good way to distribute our film as it especially made for students wanting to get their film recognized. We could also put our film online so our friends and other people around our age can see and know about it.
Release Diary:
The release date is very important when making a film as you need to to release a film when you know that you will earn your gross back on what you paid when making the film. You need to be able to earn your money back in order to make another film and to cover the cost of production. Term time and Halloween would be a fantastic time for our film to be released but not so much as that will be when other production companies from a more mainstream audience will be releasing their films. So I think it should be released in the cinema the weekend before Halloween (27/10/12). DVD releases are usually a few months after the cinema release date, so I think our film DVD should be released around February half term (for students) on the 09/02/12.
Advertisement Campaign:
Our trailer would be shown before a horror film of any sub genre but more towards the psychological genre. Our trailer would be shown before films of the same age certificate as that would be more appropriate for the audience watching as it would appeal more towards them.
Above is the trailer to The Devil Inside. Our film would be very appropriate to be shown before this film as The Devil Inside is also of a psychological sub genre back ground as the main character gets possessed by a 'Devil', which is very similar to our plot line of our film as our film is a psychological, so the horror is all in the mind and body.
Production Company Logo:
Above is a picture of our production company logo A JEC production. We made this logo in the same way as our poster. We decided to use the tea stained background as most horror films are usually down to the history beyond that, so we figured that it worked very well within the horror genre as it is old and vintage and that is the new style nowadays. We decided not to keep the ink and blood spillages as that was only relevant to our film that we made and it wouldn't link in with any future films we may make. When i researched other company logo's, I noticed that they kept theirs plain and simple as they are the ones that you can easily recognize. We put our logo at the start of our film as when we researched other films, they did the same; that way the audience are able to identify who produced the movie.
Thursday 26 April 2012
Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
1) Research: Upload 2 videos from your sub-genre which you can analyse in relation to Age/Gender and Race.
Above are the trailors of Final Destination and the opening scene of Scream. Both are quite recent films although Scream is a little older so it may have a different perspective on the stereotypes used within the film. Both of the films are based on the minds of teenagers and how they react to the consequences. Scream has a girl for the victim and a male for the threat. The victim is a teenage girl much younger than the threat, who acts and sounds like a fully grown male due to the deep, husky voice. This makes the girl seem weak and vulnerable to what the threat is ordering and telling her what to do-this makes him strong and powerful and has control over her actions. This order of having the girl as the victim and the male as the threat is very popular in a range of horror films but has got to common and has a less exciting impact on the audience as they are able to guess what will happen next in the plot line. Whereas in Final Destination there are a range of victims of both genders, male and female, however most of the serious disasterous situations happen to the males, making them look like the stronger gender by having to deal with a more severe catastrophe.Although equality has become quite an important matter over the years Final Destination have proved that there are some inequalities in society and women are still seen as the weaker gender and are damsels in distress and that the males are still saving women from their problems even though the government are supposed to be stopping inequality and that men and women should be treated the same no matter what the situation may be.
2) Planning: How has your planning evidenced your understanding of social groups representation?
Above is the image of our test shot of the before and after shot. We wanted a teenage girl to be the victim as that would fit in with our films we looked at for our sub genre.The reason we wanted a teenage girl to be the victim rather than the threat is because they usually look like the vulnerable, weak gender as they are the ones that get scared more easily than males. We wanted a mixed race character in hoping to achieve that our film is for all ethnicities and not to make the genre towards a specific race, we wanted it to be a diverse kind of film. We chose a teenage girl to be our character in the horror film because we wanted the audience to see that teenagers arent how the society see's us, we wanted to use a different approach to teenagers to prove that all teenagers aren't how people stereotype them. By doing this, we wanted our character to be quite intelligent with a successful job of being a student writer/journalists which is why we have a type writer in our opening sequence and ink spillages on the logo and poster. To get this image across we have chose quite subtle make-up, so it doesn't stand out that she is out to impress people (like most teenagers), along with dark, natural hair that is styled down as most of the sub-genre films we looked at, the girls within those films had hair just like this. We chose dark smart/casual costume as we wanted her to look intelligent as well as dark and mysterious. The reason for our mise-en-scene location is because we wanted her to be working in a quiet atmosphere to make her feel closed in and lonely. By doing this, it shows that she is insecure and vulnerable to her surroundings, making her the subject to the threat.
When we wrote and drew our storyboard and script, we thought about conventions related to our sub genre 'physchological'. We looked at the expectations audiences looked for in the plot of the film and we discovered what type of character they preferred and how they create certain characters to suit the stereotype and the social group they belong in. By watching numerous horror genre's we decided we liked the pschological sub genre. After doing our research, we found that pyschological films didnt introduce their threat straight away, instead they recognised their threat through the use paranormal effects such as things moving on their own, strange noises etc...unlike other sub genres their threat is seen immediately which could make the rest of the film seem boring and predictable, because of this, we wanted our threat to be hidden to make the sequence more enjoyable to watch as the threats would be unexpected because the horror is all in your mind so it isnt visually there. The reason for our character is because after we researched other horror films they chose the middle class social group character to be the victim, so then we decided to follow that trend to try and make it fit in but by being different at the same time.
3) Construction and Feedback:
Above is our final finished film, I am going to compare our opening sequence of our film with the opening scene from Scream shown above at the top of the page. Both of the films are very similar when comparing to social groups and stereotypes. Our film and Scream both use girls in their late teens as the main subject to be the victim. This is where the audience will judge the character due to the media putting stereotypes on people e.g. girls are stereotyped to be weak and vulnerable and a damsel in distress by being insecure and afraid of practically everything, therefore this is a good example of why we have chosen our particular character as it fits the sub genre perfectly according to our research. The mise-en-scene is especially similar as Scream uses a decent sized house, well planned out house as the kitchen is very near the sitting area, just like our film. The size of the house and the rooms indicate that the house is quite modern and probably belongs to middle class citizens; this represents that no matter where you live and how secure you feel in your own home, there is always something that may happen to make you feel unsafe when you are left home alone as your mind runs wild towards the supernatural. The camera work is a major part of the films as they help you relate to the character, in this case it is all down to the camera angles and shots as they help you interract with the character although they are behind the screen. In our film we use alot of CU, MS and LS, this is so the character is able to see how they react to certain things and the emotion they are feeling e.g. CU help you see facial expression on the character, MS is so you are able to see body language and how she is reacting and LS to be able to see what she is wearing and the surrounding she is in so you are able to judge what kind of girl the character is. Scream has chosen to use a typical white, blonde american teenage girl actress as she is the stereotype of how you would usually judge a girl to be in a situation of what she is put in, the audience already know how she is going to react due to the social group she is in although she seems quite strong and tough when she first begins to speak to the stranger on the other end of the phone. That changes as she becomes more insecure about the situation, this is nearly the same with the actress in our film. The character in our film is a mixed race english teenage girl, this fits very well with our sub genre as we have carried out the teenage girl theme in our film, apart from our character isnt the 'stereotype' of english teenagers. Our character is a smart, pleasant, mixed race girl which isnt how people usually stereotype teenagers, she brings the positive, best side of the stereotype which contrasts against the negative judgement of them. The reason for having a mixed race character is to give our film a much more broader audience to make the film more equal towards the wide range of ethnicities in the country.
After showing our target audience our finished film we recieved some feedback. We found that we were able to achieve making a film that attracted both males and females of different enthicities. Our film created a relationship to audiences in the teens and young adults age range. Below shows a wordle of all the key points made in our finished film.
Below is 2 clips of what I have looked at of our sub genre in comparrison of representation and how they influenced us on making our own film. I chose the films that best represent our film by using age and gender as the main subject e.g. using young teenage characters to focus on the stereotypes to make the film feel more realistic.
Above are the trailors of Final Destination and the opening scene of Scream. Both are quite recent films although Scream is a little older so it may have a different perspective on the stereotypes used within the film. Both of the films are based on the minds of teenagers and how they react to the consequences. Scream has a girl for the victim and a male for the threat. The victim is a teenage girl much younger than the threat, who acts and sounds like a fully grown male due to the deep, husky voice. This makes the girl seem weak and vulnerable to what the threat is ordering and telling her what to do-this makes him strong and powerful and has control over her actions. This order of having the girl as the victim and the male as the threat is very popular in a range of horror films but has got to common and has a less exciting impact on the audience as they are able to guess what will happen next in the plot line. Whereas in Final Destination there are a range of victims of both genders, male and female, however most of the serious disasterous situations happen to the males, making them look like the stronger gender by having to deal with a more severe catastrophe.Although equality has become quite an important matter over the years Final Destination have proved that there are some inequalities in society and women are still seen as the weaker gender and are damsels in distress and that the males are still saving women from their problems even though the government are supposed to be stopping inequality and that men and women should be treated the same no matter what the situation may be.
2) Planning: How has your planning evidenced your understanding of social groups representation?
Above is the image of our test shot of the before and after shot. We wanted a teenage girl to be the victim as that would fit in with our films we looked at for our sub genre.The reason we wanted a teenage girl to be the victim rather than the threat is because they usually look like the vulnerable, weak gender as they are the ones that get scared more easily than males. We wanted a mixed race character in hoping to achieve that our film is for all ethnicities and not to make the genre towards a specific race, we wanted it to be a diverse kind of film. We chose a teenage girl to be our character in the horror film because we wanted the audience to see that teenagers arent how the society see's us, we wanted to use a different approach to teenagers to prove that all teenagers aren't how people stereotype them. By doing this, we wanted our character to be quite intelligent with a successful job of being a student writer/journalists which is why we have a type writer in our opening sequence and ink spillages on the logo and poster. To get this image across we have chose quite subtle make-up, so it doesn't stand out that she is out to impress people (like most teenagers), along with dark, natural hair that is styled down as most of the sub-genre films we looked at, the girls within those films had hair just like this. We chose dark smart/casual costume as we wanted her to look intelligent as well as dark and mysterious. The reason for our mise-en-scene location is because we wanted her to be working in a quiet atmosphere to make her feel closed in and lonely. By doing this, it shows that she is insecure and vulnerable to her surroundings, making her the subject to the threat.
When we wrote and drew our storyboard and script, we thought about conventions related to our sub genre 'physchological'. We looked at the expectations audiences looked for in the plot of the film and we discovered what type of character they preferred and how they create certain characters to suit the stereotype and the social group they belong in. By watching numerous horror genre's we decided we liked the pschological sub genre. After doing our research, we found that pyschological films didnt introduce their threat straight away, instead they recognised their threat through the use paranormal effects such as things moving on their own, strange noises etc...unlike other sub genres their threat is seen immediately which could make the rest of the film seem boring and predictable, because of this, we wanted our threat to be hidden to make the sequence more enjoyable to watch as the threats would be unexpected because the horror is all in your mind so it isnt visually there. The reason for our character is because after we researched other horror films they chose the middle class social group character to be the victim, so then we decided to follow that trend to try and make it fit in but by being different at the same time.
3) Construction and Feedback:
Above is our final finished film, I am going to compare our opening sequence of our film with the opening scene from Scream shown above at the top of the page. Both of the films are very similar when comparing to social groups and stereotypes. Our film and Scream both use girls in their late teens as the main subject to be the victim. This is where the audience will judge the character due to the media putting stereotypes on people e.g. girls are stereotyped to be weak and vulnerable and a damsel in distress by being insecure and afraid of practically everything, therefore this is a good example of why we have chosen our particular character as it fits the sub genre perfectly according to our research. The mise-en-scene is especially similar as Scream uses a decent sized house, well planned out house as the kitchen is very near the sitting area, just like our film. The size of the house and the rooms indicate that the house is quite modern and probably belongs to middle class citizens; this represents that no matter where you live and how secure you feel in your own home, there is always something that may happen to make you feel unsafe when you are left home alone as your mind runs wild towards the supernatural. The camera work is a major part of the films as they help you relate to the character, in this case it is all down to the camera angles and shots as they help you interract with the character although they are behind the screen. In our film we use alot of CU, MS and LS, this is so the character is able to see how they react to certain things and the emotion they are feeling e.g. CU help you see facial expression on the character, MS is so you are able to see body language and how she is reacting and LS to be able to see what she is wearing and the surrounding she is in so you are able to judge what kind of girl the character is. Scream has chosen to use a typical white, blonde american teenage girl actress as she is the stereotype of how you would usually judge a girl to be in a situation of what she is put in, the audience already know how she is going to react due to the social group she is in although she seems quite strong and tough when she first begins to speak to the stranger on the other end of the phone. That changes as she becomes more insecure about the situation, this is nearly the same with the actress in our film. The character in our film is a mixed race english teenage girl, this fits very well with our sub genre as we have carried out the teenage girl theme in our film, apart from our character isnt the 'stereotype' of english teenagers. Our character is a smart, pleasant, mixed race girl which isnt how people usually stereotype teenagers, she brings the positive, best side of the stereotype which contrasts against the negative judgement of them. The reason for having a mixed race character is to give our film a much more broader audience to make the film more equal towards the wide range of ethnicities in the country.
After showing our target audience our finished film we recieved some feedback. We found that we were able to achieve making a film that attracted both males and females of different enthicities. Our film created a relationship to audiences in the teens and young adults age range. Below shows a wordle of all the key points made in our finished film.
Wednesday 25 April 2012
Reflective Evaluation - Question 4/5
1. When planning our film, as a group we watched a number of films, including Insidious (which I couldn't finish :$) and researched them also, to give us an idea of what target audience we should be working towards. This also included assessing our script and theme, in order to appeal to this target audience. We concluded that the target audience of ages 18-29 would be more suitable to our film, especially Males, particularly because of our choice of victim, and the themes we intend to use. In doing this however, we have to be careful not to exclude our female audience also.
2. We wanted our film to be accessible to any gender, ethnicity etc; we wanted it to be universal. With this in mind, for our target audience was only restricted by age (18-29). We felt the best way to engage this audience would be to use a teenage actress. This would present a degree of familiarity and increase the chance of the audience empathising with the character, which in theory should increase the effect on them
3. For our location, we used my grandmothers house, accompanied with a cup and a typewriter as our props. The location was perfect for our piece, as the lighting is naturally quite dark, and (with all due respect Grandma; much love), it is somewhat creepy to be in when the lights are out. The house is decorated with quite dreary combinations of reds and yellows, and the living room has only the one light source (conservatory door). This kind of setting is quite common among psychological horrors. An example of this could be "The Ring" or "Insidious", where the threat is usually presented in very dark a dingy conditions
4. Our victim is a teenage girl, which is very appropriate for our target audience; an age group under which our victim falls. This makes it easier for our audience to relate to the character
5. Our title sequence was inspired by the title sequence of Se7en. It was a very abstract design, and was very original, which was the kind of look we wanted to go for.
6. For our music, I wanted to deviate from the obvious. Everyone else in the class was using strings, and minor chords on a piano to create an effect. Whilst this is an effective way of creating a soundtrack, I personally felt that I had enough experience in creating soundtracks or tracks in general, to think a bit further out of the box. What I opted to do, is use a program called Reason, and use a subtle bass drum to create an eerie effect. It was a strange task to do; it did not require the musical prowess that I am used to being a prerequisite, but instead involved being surreal, and abstract. I used an eerie screeching sound, one of the Malstrom patches called Comblead. This sound was very erratic, and creating a subtle startle/
2. We wanted our film to be accessible to any gender, ethnicity etc; we wanted it to be universal. With this in mind, for our target audience was only restricted by age (18-29). We felt the best way to engage this audience would be to use a teenage actress. This would present a degree of familiarity and increase the chance of the audience empathising with the character, which in theory should increase the effect on them
3. For our location, we used my grandmothers house, accompanied with a cup and a typewriter as our props. The location was perfect for our piece, as the lighting is naturally quite dark, and (with all due respect Grandma; much love), it is somewhat creepy to be in when the lights are out. The house is decorated with quite dreary combinations of reds and yellows, and the living room has only the one light source (conservatory door). This kind of setting is quite common among psychological horrors. An example of this could be "The Ring" or "Insidious", where the threat is usually presented in very dark a dingy conditions
4. Our victim is a teenage girl, which is very appropriate for our target audience; an age group under which our victim falls. This makes it easier for our audience to relate to the character
5. Our title sequence was inspired by the title sequence of Se7en. It was a very abstract design, and was very original, which was the kind of look we wanted to go for.
6. For our music, I wanted to deviate from the obvious. Everyone else in the class was using strings, and minor chords on a piano to create an effect. Whilst this is an effective way of creating a soundtrack, I personally felt that I had enough experience in creating soundtracks or tracks in general, to think a bit further out of the box. What I opted to do, is use a program called Reason, and use a subtle bass drum to create an eerie effect. It was a strange task to do; it did not require the musical prowess that I am used to being a prerequisite, but instead involved being surreal, and abstract. I used an eerie screeching sound, one of the Malstrom patches called Comblead. This sound was very erratic, and creating a subtle startle/
I have selected the following films to research regarding their target audiences
- - The Shining
- - Black Swan
- - The Ring
- - The Sixth Sense
- - The Grudge
“The Shining” is certificated ‘15’. Because of this more mature certification, we can gather that it rules out a younger audience from being the movies target audiences. As further evidence of this, the content gives a very clear image of what to expect in the movie, and has shown that a number of the scenes in the movie are not suitable to younger and immature audiences
| Votes | Average | |
| Males | 177,989 |  8.5 |
| Females | 32,493 |  8.4 |
| Aged under 18 | 3,444 |  8.7 |
| Males under 18 | 2,667 | 8.8 |
| Females under 18 | 747 | 8.4 |
| Aged 18-29 | 121,979 | 8.6 |
| Males Aged 18-29 | 101,158 | 8.6 |
| Females Aged 18-29 | 20,123 | 8.5 |
| Aged 30-44 | 70,653 | 8.5 |
| Males Aged 30-44 | 60,925 | 8.5 |
| Females Aged 30-44 | 9,004 | 8.4 |
| Aged 45+ | 14,502 | 8.1 |
| Males Aged 45+ | 11,986 | 8.2 |
| Females Aged 45+ | 2,324 | 8.0 |
| IMDb staff | 42 | 8.8 |
| Top 1000 voters | 882 | 8.4 |
| US users | 64,123 | 8.5 |
| Non-US users | 136,691 | 8.5 |
| IMDb users | 251,251 | 8.5 |
"Black Swan" is also certificated "15". This is primarily because of the sexual content and disturbing nature of some scenes. Like the shining, this rules out a less mature audience, as they would most likely lack understanding of the movies concept, and also be adversely affected by the movie.
VotesAverageMales 154,066
8.2Females 50,891 8.3Aged under 18 6,019 8.6Males under 18 3,354 8.7Females under 18 2,576 8.4Aged 18-29 139,677 8.4Males Aged 18-29 101,429 8.4Females Aged 18-29 36,892 8.4Aged 30-44 51,061 8.0Males Aged 30-44 41,294 8.0Females Aged 30-44 9,039 8.0Aged 45+ 9,255 7.5Males Aged 45+ 7,080 7.5Females Aged 45+ 2,035 7.4IMDb staff 48 8.2Top 1000 voters 549 7.7US users 42,907 8.2Non-US users 139,650 8.2 IMDb users 217,673 8.2From the data above, we see that the audience for "Black Swan", like "The Shining", was predominantly male, the majority of which were aged 18-29. Again, this indicates the that the target audience for this movie was or should have been Males between these ages. However, it is notable that the highest rating (average) was given by Males under 18. The movie probably was not aimed at this age group, bearing in mind the certification puts a restriction on under 15's viewing the movie without supervision, leaving only 16-18 years olds as their age range
"The Ring" is certificated 15, however, IMDB has given the movie a recommended viewing age of 13. In the US, the movie was rated PG-13 for frightening and intense scenes. Despite the '15' rating, the recommended viewing age may give the movie a wider audience, and could affect their target audience consequently
VotesAverageMales 78,195
7.1Females 17,592 7.2Aged under 18 1,494 7.3Males under 18 963 7.1Females under 18 522 7.5Aged 18-29 56,821 7.1Males Aged 18-29 44,899 7.1Females Aged 18-29 11,619 7.1Aged 30-44 32,277 7.2Males Aged 30-44 27,431 7.2Females Aged 30-44 4,506 7.2Aged 45+ 5,135 6.9Males Aged 45+ 4,295 7.0Females Aged 45+ 768 6.7IMDb staff 16 7.2Top 1000 voters 758 6.9US users 28,637 7.1Non-US users 63,349 7.1 IMDb users 117,445 7.1Similar to the other movies, this movie has been rated more by Males aged 18-29, however, it should be noted that "Females under 18" gave the movie its highest rating, whilst "Females Ages 45+" gave it its lowest. This may indicate that whilst most of the viewers appeared to be male, the movie was enjoyed more by females, meaning the target audience may have reflected this. With this in mind, the target audience for this movie would be plausible as "Females under 18"
"The Sixth Sense" is similarly certificated as a 15. This rating is somewhat a trend among the movies from this sub-genre that I have come across. This certification is due to what IMDB calls "Frightening and Intense Scenes"
VotesAverageMales 225,993
8.2Females 54,208 8.3Aged under 18 3,397 8.4Males under 18 2,371 8.5Females under 18 998 8.4Aged 18-29 152,795 8.2Males Aged 18-29 120,537 8.2Females Aged 18-29 31,283 8.2Aged 30-44 102,639 8.2Males Aged 30-44 84,699 8.1Females Aged 30-44 16,814 8.3Aged 45+ 21,207 8.2Males Aged 45+ 16,438 8.2Females Aged 45+ 4,462 8.3IMDb staff 51 8.0Top 1000 voters 869 7.9US users 89,134 8.2Non-US users 175,842 8.2 IMDb users 342,089 8.2The majority of votes came from two groups; Males, and Aged 18-29. This indicates a trend among these target audiences, as the other three films I have looked at so far have shown the same. Different to "The Ring", Males Under 18 gave this movie its highest rating. This indicates that our target audience should be targeted at Under 18 Males, however, as noted previously, due to the dense age range available (15 Certification), it would not be plausible to aim our movie at this age group
There are no prizes for guessing the certification for "The Grudge". Identical to the other movies noted, The Grudge is also a 15. This is primarily for the nature of its scenes, and like the other movies, "Frightening and Intense Scenes" is the primary reason for its rating. It contains no sexual contact, very little gore and violence
VotesAverageMales 40,218
5.8Females 9,763 5.7Aged under 18 843 6.0Males under 18 530 5.9Females under 18 307 6.0Aged 18-29 29,553 5.7Males Aged 18-29 23,024 5.7Females Aged 18-29 6,398 5.6Aged 30-44 16,856 5.8Males Aged 30-44 14,188 5.8Females Aged 30-44 2,536 5.8Aged 45+ 2,686 5.9Males Aged 45+ 2,203 5.9Females Aged 45+ 456 5.6IMDb staff 7 6.2Top 1000 voters 583 5.6US users 14,843 5.5Non-US users 33,134 5.8 IMDb users 60,044 5.7The majority of the votes for this movie came from the Males 18-29 category, however, it is noted the movie received its highest rating from the Female Under 18's group. This indicates a trend in the Males 19-29 category, but a slight lean of favouritism from the Female Under 18's
A brief overlook of these movies indicates a trend in terms of audience. Males 18-29 would be a wise choice of audience to target, primarily because my research indicates a trend among this group
There is a vast range of factors that can lead to a certification. I have focussed particularly on the certificate '15', as it is the most applicable to my target audience. Information regarding this certification can be retrieved from www.bbfc.co.uk
’15′
Suitable only for 15 years and over
No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.
Discrimination
The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.
Drugs
Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.
Horror
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.
Imitable behaviour
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.
Language
There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.
Nudity
Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.
Sex
Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.
Theme
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.
Violence
Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.
With regards to my media project, I believe we can aim for a certificate 15, if even that. The majority of our studied films are certificated 15, however, I do not believe our film will be as extreme as those. Nudity and Sex will not be a great premise and will not be an integral part of our content. Violence also will not be a concern, as we intend to focus on the psychological aspects of horror. With this in mind however, what may raise the certification is the use of Horror and Language. We intend on developing a strong threat, maybe not so much in the opening 2 minutes, but as the work develops, the threat will in turn develop
With certification in mind and our research in mind, I think it would be wise to target a Male audience, particularly aged 19-29, with content accessible to our Under 18 audience also
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