Media Evaluation - part 1

Part 1 - The brief.

What brief were you are working to…

The brief in which we were working to was to produce title sequence and opening of a new film. Our film is also in line with Todorov's theory as the order of the film is beginning, middle and end.

Explain the title and what happens in your opening sequence making reference to the treatment…

Our film in which we created is called, 'Walking with the Dead’; we decided to use this name so that the audience would be able to see that the film could be a horror/thriller, just by the connotation of the title. The title also connotes the idea of the film being something to do with a dead person. This links to the main storyline of a small boy who is being followed by a spirit of his own unborn brother. The dead brother then controls the young boy and takes over child, making him change personality and become a different child, causing pain to others. His young brother died in a car crash when his mother was pregnant, all of the family members died however, Harry survived. Harry always blamed his sister as they were in the car driving to pick her up that day from a party. Grace (the sister) was left to look after Harry; the unborn brother begins to hurt Grace in both mental and physical ways through Harry.

Explain the sub genre…

The sub-genre of our film is paranormal, making it more of a paranormal thriller. The film also contains psychological aspects, which are shown in the form of a documentary allowing the audience to follow the child and his changes throughout the film.

Media Evaluation - Part 2

Part 2 - Who would be the audience for your product?

Who are the target audience - habits/lifestyle/media consumption (not just/age/gender/skin colour)…

For our film, we decided to aim our thriller based film towards young adults ages 16-24. We felt that as the girl who was being hurt; physically and mentally by her younger brother, Harry in the film, it had to be the certain age of the people we are aiming for in our target audience. We decided to make the sister, Grace around 18 years old so that the target audience could relate, which could make them more scared of the actions in which are happening in the film, meaning this could create more suspense for the audience. The target audience lifestyle would be based for a typical young adult living in Britain, as it is a British based thriller film. The environment in which we have targeted is mainly people living in an urban area, based around the middle class society. There isn’t a gender target to this film as we feel that the gender difference as we feel it would interest both men and women.

What pre- production research did you conduct with them…

For our pre-production research to the target audience in which we chose, the group decided to create some questionnaires that we could give to this age group. From the results, we were able to see what interests and fears that the audience ranges seemed to have, which then gave ideas with what fears we could add to our storyline for the film. We also had a class crit that helped our research as all the people in the class had the age range of the target audience. From this we then thought of the idea of something being psychology and unable to see as this seemed to alarm a lot of the people included in the target audience.

Media Evaluation - Part 3

Part 3 - What kind of media institution might disribute your media product and why?

Use real examples of companies…

The media institution that we thought would be best suited for our film would be ‘Universal’, as when we had researched many possible distributers, we felt that Universal had distributed many films that had a genre of thriller or horror. Examples of these were: The Strangers, Slither and Children of men, which had a main genre of thriller, that we wanted to base our film on. However, we also researched '20th Century Fox' as a distributer but we felt our genre and target audience linked in with 'Universal'.

Use examples of films with the same genre/ same audience and films they have distributed…

This then related to the target audience being very similar for Universal as the films in which they distributed were young adult based such as: White Noise and The Mummy.

Media Evaluation - Part 4

Part 4 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Doing our media production we looked at different media texts and researched a variety of codes and conventions to see what we felt would work best in ours. We decided to create a thriller/horror film, to show and play with people’s fears within our title sequence.

The narrative:

Our plot was established by thinking of creating the story based around the young boy, which would make it easier for the audience to understand the change in the child, due to the action in which his unborn brother is doing to him and others close to him. In the footage in which we have made for our title sequence we decided to follow the child, Harry with the camera so that people felt that they were always watching him from what he would see. This relates to the chosen genre as while the child is being followed and taken over, he harms others, making it a quite disturbing feeling, which could play with people’s fears. Due to this storyline we reasoned films that we felt could be linked to ours, such as 'The Omen' and 'Orphan'.

The genre:

With our title sequence we used dark colours within the footage to connote something being hard to see, as it was quite dark. The colours were also used to match the genre as in horror/thriller films the dark colours create more suspense and an eerie feeling. The genre is also shown by the props in which we used, this was for the child to use and destroy in the title sequence. An example could be when the boy rips the heads off the teddies, showing he isn’t an average young child who plays with his toys, instead he is destroying them. The drawings in which have also been drawn show that the child is quite distressed, as they include drawings of people being killed and things being set alight, which links to horror films due to the typical horror film of destruction.

Camera, angle, shot movement and position:

We used many camera angles within our title sequence, these consisted of:

· Wide shot

· Hand held

· Close up shot

· Tracking shot

· Match on action

We decided to use a tracking shot with our title sequence using a the hand held camera, as we felt that in some parts of the title sequence, for example when the young boy Harry is walking up the stairs, if we used a hand held camera it would make it make it easy to understand Harry by following him. Also, we felt the connotation to this could be that the camera shot could be representing the boy’s unborn brother following him everywhere. We decided to use a close up shot of the young boy’s drawings so that the audience were able to see the different details of the drawings, allowing the audience to see the disturbing images in which the young boy was drawing. We decided to make sure the camera didn't view above the childs head as we wanted to create the sense of mystery and the idea of not knowing to the audience during the title sequence.

Editing:

When editing the title sequence, we made sure everything followed at the beginning of the scene, for example, the young boy walking into the house to walking up the stairs to his room. We then decided that we wanted to make the scene in the child's bedrrom, with the teddy bears being ruined and the pictures being drawn quite jumpy, making the footage look more like it's someone watching as it isn't steady and making the footage follow the connotation of someone runing everything, making things difficult to see.

Sound:

The sound in which we used for our final title sequence was added to the piece to bring more suspense to it. We started the sound process by researching title sequences such as, 'The Omen' to see how other title sequence makers had created an eerie feeling to the film. After researching this, we made our own piece of music on 'garage band' on the apple Macs. However, the group felt that this didn't create enough suspense and searched for a new one. Once we had found one and added it to the sequence we all felt that it made the piece more thriller/horror like. The group decided that there were two main parts in which we all felt the music needed to build up more to keep the audience watching. We added a build up of music when the fridge door closes and the titles appear and at the end of the sequence when the shadow walks across the boy when he is laying down, we all felt this would be a good point to build up the sound as it was the end of the title sequence and the part that seemed most eerie when receiving feedback about it.

Mise-en-scene:

Within the shoots of the title sequence the lighting in which was used started quite light, for example when Harry is walking throught the downstairs of the house, the rooms are light and easy to see most things. However, when he begins to walk up the stairs the light becomes a bit darker and when he reaches the top, the light is very bright. Nevertheless, when the boy walks into the room, the room is very dark (becoming a contrast from the previous light outside the bedroom). This is done to connote to the audience that he may come across as an average child to many, but when people are able to see his room, they would be able to realise that something isn't right with the child, making the film look more like a thriller/horror all due to the lighting.

Typography:

In the title sequence we wanted to use typography that would firstly represent a horror film but also represent the idea of a child being involved. This is when we decided to use a font for the title of the film looking as if it had been scratched by nails onto the fridge door, connoting that someone is in pain, or very dangerous. Then the typography for the names and credits during the title sequence we wanted to make more child-like, which is why the group chose to use a font that included rough lines to draw inbetween which are normally used for children learning to write. For the typography we researched into childrens writing and edgy font to see what worked better with the title sequence, making the typography link.

Media Evaluation - Part 5

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Within our product, we had a main social group which was represented through the whole title sequence...

Stereotype:
The bases of your title sequence started around the idea of the typical stereotype of a young boy. The idea of coming home from school, throwing the coat and bag down on the floor, going to the fridge to grab something to eat from after school and then following the idea of going upstairs to the bedroom the relax after the day. This typical stereotype we doesn’t to break for the film opening as this was one of the ways in which we wanted the audience to understand that this child may act like an average young boy, however he is very different due the change when entering his room.

Props:
The props in which we used for the title sequence also related to the social group of young children due to the use of teddy bears and colourful drawings. We used child-like props that we felt would normally be used by a child to play and look after, instead the child in the sequence does the opposite and ruins toy, showing he isn’t acting like an average child. The clothing in which the character is wearing has been chosen for particular reasons, mainly being that I felt that the boy should be wearing a school uniform with an emblem on it to show that he goes to school, connoting to the audience that he is a child, this is seen sue to the camera shot at the beginning of the sequence as when he walks into the house the camera focuses on the emblem on his top.

Ideology:
The ideology of the young boy’s character seems to be the idea in believing in something evil and hell-like. This is seen by the lighting used and the props in which are being destroyed by him.

Representation:
The representation of the young boy is shown through the whole of the title sequence in which we made due to many different aspects of the product. One of these aspects consisted of camera angles in which we used as the boys face was never shown, connoting mystery, however it also showed made the audience even more unaware of what he really looked like, including his age. The camera shot at the beginning of the sequence was a high angle shot making the child look even smaller, so from first observation the audience would think that this person is a child who the title sequence is about. The representation of this boy not being alone could come from the idea of his bedroom door opening on its own when he goes to walk in, meaning someone is in there waiting for him.

The typography used also shows the social group of young children is it contains the guidelines that are commonly used for children learning to write. The font is also quite rough looking; it isn’t neat and perfectly placed representing that this could be about a child.

Media Evaluation - Part 6

Part 6 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Do you think you have reached your target audience?
I feel that our group did reach to our target audience as when we had to view the product in which we had created; the people who were watching it were the correct age to fit the target audience range, The overall outcome for the title sequence was that it came across as quite eerie, ‘scary at the end not knowing what is in the room with the child’ and the idea of it playing with people’s fears seemed to show to our target audience. Both male and female were watching the sequence and both had the same outcome of the feelings towards it, showing that it isn’t based for one gender more than the other.

Using quotes from the audience feedback address how these did appeal and why?
Most of the feedback in which we received came as being positive comments, one on the music which had been used, ‘I like the music used as it creates more suspense in the piece’, showing that the music seemed to help the title sequence come across as being more eerie. Another comment in which we reserved was, ‘I liked the shot at the end with the shadow going across the boy. Which suggested something bad was going to happen.' I feel that this comment shows that the camera shots and lighting helped to make the title sequence scarier to the target audience.

On the other hand, we did have criticism about the shots in the child’s bedroom when the shot shows the teddies and drawings, as the shot jumps a few times making the images quite hard to view. We were going to delete these shots; however some members of the group felt that they should be kept in as they represent distortion and confusion towards the film.

What was less successful?
With our audience feedback the thing in which some people felt was less successful in the title sequence was the typography used for the credits of the names of the people involved in the film; some felt that this didn’t work as they didn’t link to the story of the film.

How could the work be improved?
Overall, we were all very happy with the sequence in which we had created and felt that the thing which we would choose to improve if we had a little more time would be the typography of the credits as that seemed to be the only thing which people felt negative about when viewing the product. The feedback meant that we needed to change our font for our titles, and lengthen them. However, titles couldn’t simply be edited and the whole clips had to be reverted back to their original, and then re-edited. This was an extremely long process, so we decided to just keep the titles how they were.

Media Evaluation - Part 7

Part 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product?

Main technology used:
Macs - Final Cut Pro, iMovie and Garage Band
Hand held camera

Starting Point...
To start the making of our title sequence we all decided that starting with ‘iMovie’ on the Mac computers would be the best program to begin editing as we were all used to using the program in media production and editing in the past.

Development...
As we continued with our title sequence we decided to use ‘Photoshop Elements’ for our typography creations and changes as we were all quite experienced with the editing program. One of the members in our group was also familiar with ‘Garage Band’, a music creation program found on the Mac computers. Due to this, she decided to try making the soundtrack on the Mac. The camera in which we used was quite easy as there were no problems in uploaded to the computer when we were at school starting to edit. I was the person filming all of the footage in the title sequence due to be having a good knowledge in camera shots and working the camera.

Towards the end...
As we moved to the half way point of editing we decided to transfer our title sequence to ‘Final Cut Pro’, on the Mac computers. We decided to do this as we felt we would be able to do more on the program with editing and sound as there were only limited amounts of techniques you could use on ‘iMovie’; also we felt ‘Final cut pro’ was more advanced for editing.

What have I learnt?
During the making of this title sequence I feel that I learnt to use ‘Final Cut Pro’ as a program to edit videos and sound. I also learnt a lot about feel to create sounds and music on Garage Band.