Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

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:

We researched into bbfc user ratings and the target audiences between different films of our sub genre Psychological. We decided to look at the film The Ring to see was attracted to this particular film. We chose The Ring to analyze because we have a similar plot and use modern technology within our film just like The Ring does, for example, a mobile phone to introduce the threat. We have also used a house for our setting and a teenage girl for our threat, just like The Ring. We looked at the user rating of The Ring and found that their target audience is of both genders between the ages of 15-44 (the same as ours) but could also be attracted to the more older ages from 45+.


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.

I did not carry out a survey on survey monkey, however, i did send out a questionnaire. I have copied the results on a table on Microsoft word. I asked 10 people between the ages of 15-54 to see what sub genre they prefer to watch. 

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.