2. In what ways does your product use,
develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
Our product follows the conventions of horror
films as it begins with an establishing shot
which sets the scene and makes the viewer
question what will happen. It then goes on to a
happy light hearted scene which lifts the mood
before going on to the scary part of the film,
this taking the viewer by surprise and scaring Paranormal Activity two: the main character at
the beginning of the film before the main action
them. From our research we found that this is happens.
the convention that most horror films follow,
for example ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ and
‘Paranormal Activity’.
Also the characters we have chosen are typical
of a horror film: normal people living normal
lives and then things start to go wrong. In the
The main characters of our product before the main action
case of our film, our main characters are a happens- a normal scene, the audience do not suspect what is
going to happen next.
young couple who are moving into a house
and going about their everyday business.
3. Establishing shot...
It sets the scene and makes the audience wonder about the girl in the
window and what he relevance will be in the film.
4. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
Our product shows women to be the victims in the film, for example the
main character in our film is female and she is the one who is being
victimised by the ‘ghost’. This is something common in most of the films
we researched. The main characters in our film are a young couple
moving into a house, which shows young people as being independent.
Main character from our film at the part in the film where things start happening.
5. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product?
Advertising for our product would mainly be done through trailers,
especially in cinemas before films are being shown and also on
television, specifically channel 4 conglomerates. We have chosen
this as our main target audience is 15+ as the age restriction on
our film is 15, and people of this age often visit the cinema and
also channel 4 offers programmes which appeal to this target
audience, therefore we can draw the right target audience to our
product.
If our film was to be released it would firstly be released onto DVD
and sold in HMV and big chain supermarkets EG: ASDA and
Sainsbury’s, and online at PLAY.COM. Also when our film has been
released we will be premiering it on SKY movies. We have chosen
these places to sell the DVD as these are places that are known for
selling DVD’s and are places where I would personally go to buy a
new release DVD. We have also chosen online as this is a way of
buying films that is used a lot by our target audience, also
premiering on SKY movies is a good way to get people interested
and want to go buy it if they didn’t see it at the cinema.
6. What would be the audience for your
media product?
The audience for our product would be anyone
over the age of 15, as we found through
research into film ratings by the BBFC that
horror films generally have this rating. Our
product does not have a particular gender
audience which we have aimed it at. We feel
that mostly young people would want to watch
it, due to the subject and genre.
When Paranormal Activity is shown in
cinema’s they record the reactions of the
audience for advertising, from this you
can see that the general audience for
supernatural horror films is very vast
and different, there is not a specific
group of people they are aimed at,
although mostly there is a younger adult
audience.
7. How would you attract/address your
audience?
As it is a horror film, we have attracted our audience through using
basic horror film conventions and creating a scary atmosphere by
using music and lighting and also costume.
Rachael played the ghost in our film, so we gave her a dark wig and
used pale foundation to make her look as though she was dead. We
also used music to coincide with when she appeared in the mirror,
to make the audience jump.
Rachael’s costume.
We used dark lighting here to create an atmosphere, and we also made
it darker when we edited the film.
8. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing your product?
I learnt how to use imovie through doing the editing process of our
film, which I did not know much about before doing this as in the
preliminary task we did not use overly much editing. We found that
when using imovie there were some problems with finding
appropriate audio and getting music to use and load on to imovie,
so in some places the sound effects and music used was not the
best. What went well was putting the film in order as we did not
film it in order, but in imovie it was easy to piece it together again
and make each shot flow into the next.
When filming the mirror scene we had difficulty angling the camera right so
you couldn't see the camera and you could see the right bit of action,
however we did get this right eventually. Also the sound quality and image
quality of the camera’s used was not great, so it did make our film look not
as professional as it could have, however when editing in imovie, we
improved this slightly by adding lighting effects.
9. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what have you learnt in the
progression of your full product.
I feel that throughout the progression of our product, I personally
have learnt more about the editing process and I feel that as a
group and individually we have done this well to create a realistic
horror film, which follows the conventions of other horror films.
Also, as I was mainly involved in the planning process I feel that I
have definitely learnt more here, as in the preliminary task we did
not plan very well which affected the outcome. In out full product I
think we did a detail plan however we didn’t take into account
subtle details and factors which could effect our product, for
example in the bathroom scene, the story doesn't make much since
because she washes her hands and there is no logic behind why
that is done, we just needed to get the character to the mirror
where the ghost was going to appear. So if we were to do this again
we would plan how and why the character was going over to the
mirror.
10. Contributions to the project
I was in charge of the story board and planning process before hand, and
I also did the acting and casting and also writing the script. I think the
story board could have been more detailed however this did not effect
our final product so this was not a problem. I think my casting choices
were good, and I cast myself and a friend as the main characters, just due
to the fact of having previous acting experience and fitting the role
(which was a normal everyday couple), I cast Rachael as the ghost and
Laura, who was in charge of makeup and costume, made this look
realistic. I kept the script simple and to the point so that there was pace
in the piece which created realism.
