Evaluation Question 7

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

From looking back at my preliminary task I can see that I have learnt a number of different skills, however not all of them were applied to our final product, this was because I was in a different group, so I was working with other people who wanted to interoperate their ideas into our final product. The preliminary task was the second time that I had worked in a group for a production. By being in a group for the preliminary task it allowed me to become more organised and allowed me to rely on others and allowed me to work out how to put all of our ideas together and make them work. Moreover when I created the preliminary it also allowed me to get a good understanding of what soundtrack would work well with our footage. I feel my editing techniques in our final product have improved massively due to our experience with Adobe Premiere in the time from the preliminary task and our final product. I have also learnt that continuity is very important when you are trying to present your genre, when we were editing our preliminary task we only used fast cuts we did not put any transitions in, we used this idea in our final product and instead decided that we were going to put fades in instead of fast cuts, and as a result of this I feel like it has worked well.

Overall I think that the most important thing that my group and I have learnt in the period between the preliminary task and the final product was how to work as a group. This was because we all worked in different groups for our preliminary task, this was defiantly a very positive aspect since this allowed us all to gain different experiences as we did not all have the same storyline to our preliminary task. This also helped us a lot when it came to planning  our final product we all had very good ideas because working with other people for the preliminary task allowed us all to gain different skills and learn new techniques that we could include in our final product. 

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technology during the process of constructing you product?

During the process of making our film opening I have learn about a lot of different electronic devices, programmes and also improving my editing skills. Throughout the production I used a number of different software and different electronic devices.

Planning and Research 
During the stage of planning and research I have been using Blogger, this was to keep all the information that I had gathered and the notes that I made. I also used Blogger to show the stages of my production and any work that I had completed. I had also used an App called Whats-App on my phone, this was to communicate with Aaron, Lydia and Lucia so that we could arrange days when we were all able to film. We also took pictures of our chosen locations use a Coolpix L810 camera and then we uploaded them onto our blogs. During our research and planning stages I looked at different films as inspiration for our production, to do this I used the website Art of the Title, I also used Youtube to watch opening sequences to some films. 

Production 
During the production process we used a Coolpix L810 camera, this camera type of camera was used by most of the rest of our class, we would of used a different camera so that it would be better quality, however the cameras that were available to us in school where better than our own cameras, to support the camera and to ensure that we got nice and steady shots we used a Velbron DF-41 tripod. Although we did not include it we did try to use a strobe light on one of our previous ideas, however we were unable to get the full effect that we wanted so we decided to leave it out of production.  

Post - Production
After we had finished filming all the footage that we needed we then started to edit our footage and music. To do our editing we used Adobe Premiere. We used number of different editing functions, this was so that we give the horror effect. We found our soundtrack that we used in our film opening from Youtube, after we had found the track that we wanted we had to convert it into an MP3 file, to do this we used a website called "Youtube to MP3 converter", after we converted the file into an MP3 we then had to import it into Premiere. Most of the software that we used during the post-production I was still very new to and some I had never used before. 

Evaluation
Overall I believe that the most important piece of software that we throughout the entire process was Adobe Premiere. I believe that Premiere was extremely important during this process because it was what we used to edit all our footage together and our music and gave us our final product, if we did not use Premiere then I might not of been able to shape and manipulate our footage in the way that I visualised it would end up, moreover if I did not use Premiere I would of had to use other software that I would of had no experience with and the final product would not be as good as it could of been if I had used Premiere. Another important piece of software which I think was extremely significant was Google search engine. Google was the search engine that we used for all our research and without we would not of been able to get any research which means that we would not of been able to find any inspiration for our film opening and we would not of been able to establish our target audience and how to address them in our production. 

Evaluation Question 5

How did you Attract/Address your target audience?

In our film opening we addressed our target audience through the use of mise-en-scene, sound and locations. 

For our use of costume we chose a white dress, this was because this choice of costume is a convention which the audience would expect to see in a film.  The choice of the soundtrack that we put over the top of our filming opening could also influence the audience of the film, this is because we did not decide to put music over the top of our footage, instead we found a voice over of a little girl, this is because it would attract an audience that enjoys horror but more specifically a demonic possession. However we did originally deicide that we wanted to have the soundtrack from the TV series American Horror Story, this was because we thought that it would attract the same specific audience as American Horror Story, however due to copy write issues and  that we did not think that the soundtrack worked well with the footage we had we decided to change it to something that would attract our specific audience better.  

The location of our production also influences the audience, we decided to use a forest as one of our locations, this influences the audience as the large open creates the sense of isolation which would attract the audience as it makes the audience guess that there may be some sort of chase scene and a lot violence will take place. 

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the target audience for your product?

Our media product would be aimed at a niche audience, possibly teenagers and young adults. The rural location of our production gives a sense or horror and isolation which would draw in this particular audience. The ethnicity of our audience would be white/black British citizens. Our primary audience is would be teenagers and young adults, who are of the lower class and low social class, this is because they are most likely to enjoy this kind of film. The educational background of our primary audience would be students (final years of 6th form/or college or at University). Our secondary audience would be adults (most likely the parents of the teenagers who go along with them) this is because when/if the primary audience watches the film at home, their parent/guardian is most likely to be sitting with them watching the film. Our target audience is very similar to the films that we used as an influence for our production, such as: Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Annabelle and Se7en. The age limit to our product would be either 15 or 18, this is because of some of the more violent and gory actions that take place.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your Media Product present particular social groups?

 Our film primarily focuses one characters. The social class that this character falls into is social class E (1), this is because she is only a young child and would have no employment history, the little possessed girl suffering from depression, due to a loss of loved ones in her life (2). Similarly in the real film Paranormal Activity 4, which was one of our influences, the social class of the little boy  who is suppose to be possessed also falls under the same social category as the little girl in our production (3). The social class of our character matches the conventions of the stereotype, as can been seen through the use of costume, location and other uses of mise-en-scene. There are many representation of children in films, happy, sad, naughty, playful etc. We used a soundtrack over the top of our footage to give our character another representation, the soundtrack gives the girl a playful representation (4)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of Media Institute would distribute your product and why?

One of the production companies we picked for our product was universal, this is because Universal is a very big conglomerate, and is very popular, this means that it would give our product a professional touch to it, moreover Universal has has many ways of promoting our product and would give our production a lot of publicity very quick. We picked Universal as our primary production company. 







We also chose to have a secondary production because Universal is such a big production company we decided that we wanted a smaller production company as-well that makes films that are specific to one genre. So we picked Twisted Pictures as our secondary production company, this is because Twisted Pictures is well know for their Saw films, and for this reason we decided that we wanted them because saw is a horror/thriller film. 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Camerawork

Opening Sequence from Se7en

Throughout our prduction we followed the conventions and only use the same shots several times, the main shots that we used were lose ups and longs shots. We used the close ups to create a sense of mystery to keep the audience guessing whats going on. We did challenge the conventions slightly because the main part of our opening sequence (when the pentagon was being made) we only used close ups on the characters hands instead of having close ups of the characters face, which would normally be heavily made up to scare the audience. We did this because instead of starting off the film with scaring the audience, we wanted to create the mystery which creates a sense of horror as it makes the audience think that what they are doing is going to cause something bad to happen in the rest of the film. We used this idea of the close up of the hands from an actual film called Se7en, and in the opening sequence of that film there is only close ups of someone's hands creating something.

Editing

In terms of editing we heavily challenged the convention, instead using fast cuts which is used in most horror films, this was because the slow cuts and fades do not immediately create a sense of horror but they do slowly build up the tension. We also use a lot of high key lighting, we used the high key lighting on the little girl in the woods because we wanted to create the representation that she was a spirit. However we did use some low key lighting, this was represent that something dark and satanic was going on. 

Costume

Clip from Insidious

The  costume that is used are very significant to our opening sequence as it gives the girl her representation. The choice of the white dress and the white socks gives the representation of purity or that she is a spirit, moreover we also decided to have her hair put up like a little girl, so that the representation of a the spirit of a little girl was created. The film Insidious helped us when it came to costume as at the beginning of the film we see a woman in a dress in the closet, we used this idea and adapted it so that it would fit our film. We have no challenged any conventions in our opening sequence as we have decided to use similar costumes to what would normally be a real film.

Titles

The titles that we used follow the conventions of a film opening. We did try to use a very strange font which we hoped would try to keep the horror genre going. We challenged the conventions slightly with the titles as we did not have any specific order in which we put our titles, however we did put title of the film at the end of the opening sequence, this was because this tells the audience that the opening sequence is over and the main storyline is about to start.

Props

We have included a good amount of props which give hints to what the films is about. We decided that we were going to use a pentagram as one of the things that we were going to include, so we decided that we wanted to use red tape to make the shape of the pentagon, this was because the colour red connotates blood, and evil. We also used candles to put on each corner of the pentagon because it gives the full effect of a ritual. We also used fake blood, this was because we wanted to make the little girl in the woods look evil as if she has killed someone, and the blood makes it look like she is hunting for someone/or killed them. 

Final Cut

Here is our final cut of our production

Production Update 11/02/15

Today in Media we filmed a new scene for our opening sequence, this included Lucia running around as a little girl. We decided to film, again as our first scene wasn't as good as we thought it was. we decided to use a white dress, this is used to symbolize spiritual presence.

Lucia's hands with blood on them

We also edited our final cut and used a new soundtrack called the demon horror child. the soundtrack has dialogue of a little demonic child which was what we were aiming to convey through our production.

This Is Us Editing Our Production

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS-LSmW_Fww

Production Update 4/02/15

Today we decided to make a plan of what exactly what we will be changing and how will we make our opening sequence. Firstly we decided to get rid of part of our sequence and replace it with a new scene that we will be filming on Monday. We will then finish our filming and editing on Wednesday, then export and put the completely finished version onto our blogs.

Production Diary 28/01/15

Today Aaron made a list of ways in which we can improve our opening sequence. Some of these were:

-Adding different shots
-Different music and sound effects
- Using different props such as fake blood, a doll and different types of make up

Production Schedule

This i our updated production schedule, continuing on from our previous production schedule, this is our plan of what we are going to do this term, we also aim to finish our production in about just over a week.

Task	To be completed by	Notes
Editing	21st January	We will start to use the feedback that was given to us by our teacher and use some of the idea that were given to us as feedback.
Editing	23rd January	We will continue to use the feedback given to us.
Editing	27th January	We will continue to work with the feedback that we have been given.
Editing	30th January	We will hopefully finish our editing and start exporting our production and start to put it onto our blogs.

Production Update

Today Lydia and I edited our opening sequence by changing some of the sound effects and cutting parts of the filming out. This was to make sure the sequence flowed better and was more engaging for the audience. We also found that someone had changed our opening sequence production company. Therefore we had to cut this out and put back our original production companies which are: Universal and Twisted Pictures. 

First Cut Feedback

 This is the feedback we were given by our teacher, as to what we can improve in our video, and what was achieved. We will use this feedback to make sure we can secure the best grades possible.

First Cut

This our final cut for our A Level Media Studies opening sequence,

Our First Cut

Soundtrack for our production

Soundtrack
For our opening sequence we used a track that has been taken from the TV show American Horror Story. Our opening sequence is of the horror genre so this track would compliment it entirely as American Horror Story is also a horror series. The track is quite eerie and mysterious which is what we want our opening sequence to be presented as being, which is why we feel the track is most suited to this type of opening sequence also this soundtrack with the footage that we shot creates a sense of mystery, which is something that we planned on doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqJGHL3lnSM