The document discusses the film opening created by the student. It uses horror film conventions like flashbacks and obscured identities to build suspense. The flashbacks are from the point of view of the main character, a white female. The opening draws in the target horror film audience of ages 15 and older through its suspenseful use of flashbacks and non-diegetic sounds. The student has learned filming, editing, and post-production skills through creating the opening.

1. Rosie Busby

2. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Our film is similar to many other horror films due to the generic conventions in
which most horror films have. The first important convention is that of keeping
the audience at the edge of their seats due to being in the unknown of what
could happen next. We had made this effective using an eerie non diegetic sound
and sound effects in which a particular character makes for example, crying.
There are other horror films in which use fairly similar techniques to draw
attention to what is happening and also at the same time scaring the audience a
little. For example, in our film opening we used flashback sequences from a
particular character to what they had witnessed previously. Sleepy Hollow is an
example of a horror film with effective flashbacks which help the audience
understand what had happened previous to the events and to bring the storyline
together.
During the flashbacks you never clearly see the face of the killer, which adds to
the affect on the audience of wanting to know who it is. This is similar to films
such as the Scream Trilogy, as the murderer is hidden behind a mask and a
costume giving no hints to who it could possibly be, but the audience know it’s
someone that’s in the group. However, with our film it is possible that it is a
member of the group, but it is also possible to be someone completely out of the
question- you may not have come across them before.

3. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
Before filming we decided to watch a variety of different horror films in
which would help us prepare and create our film opening. In all the films we
had watched the characters were either teenagers or young adults. We
decided to use a white female for our main character, though she is unseen
in the flashbacks as they are from her point of view, we use a range of shots
such as close ups and extreme close ups in a low key lighting to show her
facial expressions and body language.
The other characters are not stereotyped which is different from most
horror films as they are quite stereotypical with characters and the roles the
play.

4. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and
why?
The media institution that might be interested in distributing our media
product would be Summit Entertainment. I think they would be interested
because from looking at films they distribute I can see that they are one of
the main institutions that distributes films in the horror genre. For example,
the Wrong Turn franchise and Sorority Row.
How we created our film opening enables a potential decent plot and is
similar to the films in which the institution distributes. It is particularly more
similar to the Wrong Turn franchise as our film is based in a wooded area and
the murderer would act similarly to the ‘hillbillies’ in Wrong Turn in the way
of killing its victims. As this film is quite popular, I think that they would
definitely distribute our film as I think it would do quite well theatrically and
also the film would be of a high budget as it would do incredibly well with
special effects.

5. Who would be the audience for
your media product?
The audience of our horror film are people aged 15 and over, this is because
it isn’t appropriate for younger ages due to the content of strong violence,
language and horror in which people may find offensive and disturbing. We
chose the certificate of 15 because we felt that it was more suitable than a
12 but not as bad as an 18. As we didn’t have any dialogue in our film
opening we didn’t need to worry about bad language and that there are no
graphic scenes in order to be an 18.

6. How did you attract/address your audience?
The film opening itself would draw the attention of the target audience. The
flashbacks of previous victims seen through the eyes of a survivor and the
affects it caused her drags the audience in, asking questions to themselves
of what’s going to happen next? Was the killer caught? Is it going to happen
again? The non diegetic sound fills the audience with suspense and has them
sat on the edge of their seats as each flashback shows of the events that had
taken place.

7. What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this
product?
I have learnt quite a lot whilst filming and editing our film opening. I have
mainly improved on editing the clips together, as before I wouldn’t have
known how to do it. Using Final Cut had been a challenge at first, but after
using it a while and knowing what to do, it became a lot easier. Also, I know
how to use a camera correctly so I could take good footage for our film
opening. Since our first take on a preliminary task, the editing and filming
wasn’t brilliant, but since then I have made improvements on both editing
and filming.
Final Cut
Express. This is
what we used to
put our film
together.
This is a Sanyo camera, we
used to this to film our
footage.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel
you have learnt in the progression from it to the full
product?
Looking back at the preliminary task that we had done at the beginning of
the year I have learnt quite a lot. For example, the different camera angles in
which we can use to shoot our footage which can give off different effects,
such as a high angled shot. As mentioned before, I have learnt a lot about
editing and using a camera whilst shooting footage correctly. I have also
learnt how to use other programmes, such as Live Type and Soundtrack Pro
whilst creating our final piece. I had also watched some tutorials on YouTube
to help understand how to use them effectively.