Evaluation

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

   
 In experience from my preliminary task i have learnt techniques and shots such as:

180 degree rule:

During my preliminary task, I learnt how to effectively use the 180 degree rule when filming. This helped me when filming our movie opening as we filmed the doctor's scene/conversation using the 180 degree rule. Before filming my preliminary I wasn't really sure how to use the 180 degree rule efficiently  so including it in my preliminary assisted my understanding, which made it easier to use in the movie opening. Also, the 180 degree rule made our movie opening look continuous and made it flow as there were no faults that could confuse the viewer.

Camera shots:

In my preliminary task i experimented with different types of camera shots, for example using close up shots to show facial expressions or to create a dramatic effect, or using low angle shots to show dominance over somebody. Also I learnt how to use tripods to make it look neat and effective as in the preliminary task we didn't use the tripod to full effect, so it looked shaky.

Lighting

In my preliminary the lighting didn't look as good as it could have as i didn't think about how to use shadows to create effect or show the time of day. In the movie opening I learnt from this and made sure I used lighting to make it look like scary as using lighting is often a convention of vampire horror, and we used it to create a spooky effect for the audience. 

Sound

In my preliminary the sound was mostly diegetic with a few non-diegetic sounds to enhance emotions such as fear of being late to school, however in the movie opening, we used non-diegetic sound to connect with the audience and build an eerie atmosphere.   

SIMRANJEET: EVALUATION 7

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Evaluation 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 ZOHAL: EVALUATION 6 

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How did you attract/address your Audience? 

KIRAN: EVALUATION 5 

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Evaluation 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

  PALWASHA: EVALUATION 4

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Evaluation 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

It was difficult to choose a distributor that was suitable for our media product as there are many popular media institutions. Such as Summit Entertainment, DreamWorks, Universal, 20th Century Fox etc. These are the industries main distributors that have helped to issue some of the most successful and high grossing films, but also ones that focus on particular genres. 

Looking at Summit Entertainment, I have seen that they have  released a wide variety of films from diverse genres. Such as, a thriller like 'Man on a Ledge', a comedy-action such as 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' and similarly horror and vampire films such as the series of 'Twilight' & 'Wrong Turn'. Summit Entertainment are not dedicated to a certain genre, which gives our film a high chance of being released by Summit. But, as they have distributed a series of the films 'Twilight' & 'Wrong Turn', this indicates that they are successful at this specific genre and our audience may be intrigued by our film as it combines both genres from a media institution that specialize in these categories. This makes our film more appealing and also suitable for Summit Entertainment. 

Using this to our advantage, our film has an alike target audience to Summit Entertainment; as most of their distributed films are targeted at teenagers and young adults and a great example of this would be 'Step Up'. This is a film in which the younger generation would be pleasurably entertained by as its something they can relate themselves to as a student and/or as a young individual thriving for their dream career whether it be dancing or not. Another useful example is 'Next Day Air' a comedy, as this is a genre that is also picked by a majority of young people because they also like to be amused other than being put at the edge of their seats by a horror film.

By contrast, having researched the type of films that DreamWorks distribute are opposingly different by genre. DreamWorks generally pursue animated films for the younger generation. For example, the sequence of 'Shrek', 'Madagascar', 'Shark Tale' etc. These are appropriate for children and younger teenagers; however, they do have films that are reasonable for elder people such as 'Catch Me If You Can', 'The Ring' and more. On the other hand, studying their list of films, I haven't come across many horror films other than 'The Ring' and no vampire films. Its safe to say that DreamWorks is not a belonging distributor for Incurable as they deprive in issuing our genre type.

Finally, from a personal perspective I think our film can be manufactured by a Hollywood or British film studio as our film devours the key conventions of a real film opening. By our attempt to make it look as professional as possible with all we had. We made an effort to use various methods like Mise en scene, editing, sound etc. Now to compare our work to another product I would suggest 'Session 9'. This film starts of by setting the scene in a abandoned mental asylum, of a chair used to strap a mental patient; this is similar to our film opening, as it starts off by setting the scene of the mental asylum inside and out. And instead of the chair we have a extreme close-up of some syringes to build up tension and fear. They use sudden jump cuts, and we have fused this into ours too; therefore, our film is applicable to for the high film industries to share.

PALWASHA & ZOHAL: EVALUATION 3

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Evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

PALWASHA: EVALUATION 2


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

Our film consisted of many ways in which we were able to portray, develop and challenge the conventions of horror.

Camera work

The first picture in the frame is a clear example of a how we used camera to reflect and portray conventions of horror. The ‘extreme close up’ of the characters eyes, arise emotions within the audience as they become aware of the sudden color change from brown eyes blood shot red. By doing this, the audience can straight away identify the vampire convention. Throughout we used numerous camera angles to give the audience an insight into the narrative, for example in the beginning we see an establishing shot of what appears to be a mental asylum, where we used a side pan to show different camera shots of the objects such as the syringe/needle, which was intended to link in to film tittle ‘Incurable’.

Lighting

The second image in the frame reflects the use of low key lighting. By using the IPhone torch we was able to get the lighting we desired as we originally filmed in a dark room, however we needed a hint of lighting so that we could see the character’s visibility. This was also a very effective way in creating tension as it intrigued the audience into wanting to find out who the character was and why they were sitting in the dark. Moreover we also took into consideration of how we could use lighting to reflect narrative and portray the characters feelings. For example by filming in low key lighting within a pitch black room this emphasised a sense of loneliness and isolation which we intended to show to the audience, giving an insight into the characters lifestyle.. The dark room creates a dark atmosphere, where the use of limited lighting enabled us to pick up on another common convention of horror as ‘black’ can be seen as an iconography for signifying danger or evil. Therefore we successfully were able to use this to our advantage in order to symbolise and portray this within our film.

Title of the Film and credits

The third picture in the frame is of the film title ‘Incurable’ which appears right towards the end of our opening film. The emergence of this title sequence is quick and snappy, where the audience are left hanging on the edge of their seats as it builds up tension and reveals narrative, simply through the emphasis of the effect we chose to use. Not only this but the font itself was important in signifying the horror convention as it was Bold and eye catching for the audience . The text ‘incurable’ was written with a horror font which also made it look even more scarier.

How the characters are introduced
Moving on to picture ‘4’ in the key frame, another way our film follows the conventions of horror is through the way the main character has been introduced. When we first see Zohals Character in the dark, already this causes suspense to rise within the audience. Majority of the time this indicates that the character may be the antagonist of the film, as the low key light lighting suggests a character of evil or dangerous nature. Moreover as the audience continues to watch, they finally get a proper glimpse of the character, realising that she could possibly be the leading character of the film. When the mental asylum doctors are introduced there is completely different approach into the way they are portrayed, for example the fact that they are filmed in bright lighting suggest their good protagonist role. The High angle shot used to create a camera effect, builds more tension and suspense as the antagonists actions are being observed and watched. From here on the audience can straight away realise that ther must be a reason as to why she the character  has been locked away . One way in which we challenged the forms of convention is by introducing the antagonist first instead of the protagonist, as the purpose of this was to make the audience aware of the main character and reveal narrative.

The genre of the film

The genre for our film was vampire horror, in which picture ‘5’ illustrates how we was successfully able to demonstrate this. The opening establishing shot is of a building that is supposed to represent a mental asylum. This shot already grabs the audience’s attention to be drawn into suspense as it creates a sense of eeriness within them which is common in terms of a horror convention. Throughout the film the audience are curious of what’s going to happen next, especially when Zohal’s character becomes restless and begins to go crazy in the room. The extreme close up of her eyes right towards the end signifies both a vampire convention as well as horror. Overall the genre helps to define the conventions of horror and bringing out the key elements of narrative, keeping the audience suspended throughout.

Editing

The process of editing played a huge part in showing horror conventions as we use different editing techniques to our advantage in order to further create tension build up as well as suspense. In picture '6' the antagonist is carefully being watched on screen.The high angle shot of the antagonist looking up at the camera is shown in picture '7', where numerous editing was done in order to create the illusion of her being watched by on camera. By using jump cuts and turning the shot into ‘black and white’ gave a CCTV camera footage effect. The cross cut where the camera begins to go all fuzzy and them back to normal adds to building up suspense, and the use of editing helped us successfully create this effect. As the antagonist starts to become outrageous we used different camera angles to make the shots more realistic and add to tension building up. This can be seen from when the doctors are running down the stairs to see what is happening to their patient, where we used camera angles such as low angle and point of view to show a fast pace scene where the audience are able to get a feel of the characters reaction. We further edited this shot by speeding it up slightly just so that it could further create tension as they ran down the stairs. Overall editing was important in revealing narrative and helping to bring out horror conventions.

Costume

Picture 8 in the key frame, shows the character's costume. Seeing as our main character had to play the role of a mental patient we wanted to to ensure that some of the narrative could be revealed as well as bringing out the conventions of horror. For example part of the antagonist's costume involved red contacts and fangs which is known to be a common vampire convention. Hair and make-up further illustrates this convention as we used white face powder/paint to make her look pale. Overall the costume is effective in revealing both conventions of a horror film and also narrative,

Setting & location

The final picture shows the setting and location of the film, where we see the antagonist locked up in an isolated room. The room is pitch black, using lighting from our mobile phones so that only the character was visible. When editing we changed the effect of the shot so that it was a bit brighter and could reveal the room she was in. Judging by the room, we get a better insight into the characters feelings and emotions. The fact that she is locked up in a room by herself show the stereotypical role of a mental patient and how they tend to be treated, however this also reflect the inner loneliness of the character herself. Moreover as the audience we know that she is being watched by a camera, and this can be seen to more intriguing as it keeps them wondering why the character behaves the way she does. The dark room was also intended to bring another horror vampire convention as they tend to always remain in the dark, therefore we wanted the character to be a room with no lighting to reflect both her mental patient role as well as key narrative that will bring out her vampire side.

KIRAN: EVALUATION 1