This document evaluates the media production techniques used in the student's opening horror sequence. It discusses the use of camerawork like establishing shots and handheld shots to create an unsettling atmosphere. Editing techniques like slow motion and cutting were used similarly to horror films. The costume portrayed the main character as young and innocent to emphasize her possession. Titles and credits were included to draw the audience in. Props like fake blood and candles created a dark, mysterious ambience. The student learned various production and post-production technologies through constructing this project. Planning was done using blogger, while production utilized a Nikon camera and editing was done in Adobe Premiere. Overall, the student felt their skills and the project

1. Evaluation 1
In what way does your media use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
Camerawork
We used a large variety of different camera angles and
shots such as an establishing shot to emphasise the
isolation of the setting, which can make the reader more
scared which reinforces the horror theme of our opening
sequence. We also used the technique of a handheld
shot to convey an uneasy atmosphere in the sequence,
therefore following the typical conventions of a horror
film. The high angle shot over Lucia (the young
possessed girl) suggests she is being watched by the
unknown. This may unsettle the audience, which also
reinforces the conventions of a typical horror film by the
effect it makes on its audience.
Editing
We used many different editing techniques similar to the
ones used in typical horror films. For example, we used
slow motion in some shots to emphasise the theme of
mystery in our sequence. Additionally, we also used the
cutting technique when making Lucia disappear, this was
to give off a spooky and shocking effect.

2. Costume
We dressed Lucia (our main character/the possessed girl) in
a white dress to emphasise the fact she is young and
innocent. We also styled her hair in to two plaits to
emphasise innocence too. The dress was short to give
off an impression she was once young and fun. We
dressed our possessed girl in this costume to portray
the idea that she had only just been possessed, and was
once a young, fun and innocent girl. We got the
essence of this costume idea from the possessed
character in the 1976 film ‘The Omen’ where the
young possessed boy is always dressed in young and
innocent looking clothes normal children would wear,
which tricks the viewer into thinking they aren't
possessed. However Lucia’s possession is shown
through her disappearing and then reappearing further
in the clip, tricking the viewer creating more of a shock
for the viewer.
Titles
Our production follows the conventions of a title sequence
as we have the credits the whole way through, stating
the directors at the end of the credits and the film title,
‘HIDE’, right at the end. We intentionally put the
credits over the clips to draw the audience into the film
opening but also allowing them to address the
production and directing crew. We got the inspiration
of a title sequence after watching a Horror films
‘Insidious’ which we thought looked very effective and
decided to draw from their idea.

3. Props
One prop mostly used was the fake blood on Lucia’s hands, this was used to
give off a threatening yet gory vibe to the viewer, also suggesting the
possessed girl had committed a satanic task. We also used tea candles for
the ritual over the Hexagram, which were used to give the scene a dark
atmosphere and give off a mysterious ambience. We used red tape to form
the Hexagram, we chose the colour red as it has connotations of blood, fire
and evil, which we felt would fit with the horror theme of our production.

4. Evaluation 2: How does your media
product present particular social
groups?
The possessed girl in our
opening sequence is about 17
years old, dressed in innocent
looking clothes to emphasise her
innocence. She walks slowly to
emphasise her lack of control of
her body, as a slow and evil
demon is possessing her and
controlling her. The main
character, Lucia, previously had
depression which could be said
to have lead her to demonic
forces which ended up gaining
control over her.

5. Evaluation 3: What kind of media institution
might distribute your media product and why?
Our opening sequence is a Horror, so we
decided to use some production companies
which we know helped produce horror films.
One company we decided to use was
Twisted Pictures which is an independent
production company which have produced
films like Saw and Texas Chainsaw 3D. We
used Universal Pictures as our distribution
institute to make the film seem more
professional, therefore more attractive.
Universal Pictures is an international
company which means our film would be
distributed internationally which is beneficial
for our opening as more people will end up
seeing our film. Successful Hollywood films
such as ‘As Above So Below’ and ‘Ouija’
were both distributed by Universal pictures,
both also being Horror films.

6. Evaluation 4:Who would be the audience
for your media product?
 Our production will have a niche audience of
teens and young adults. Most likely people
who like horror films and gothic themed
medias such as rock/heavy metal music too.
Our primary audience for our opening
sequence would be teenagers as they
typically enjoy thrilling and horror themed
films. However our secondary audience will
most likely be adults. Additionally, our main
character ‘Lucia’ is seventeen years old so
teens can relate to her as they will also be
similar ages to her. This primary target
audience also explains why we picked the
distributer ‘Universal Pictures’ because the
company are known for distributing many
films which are targeted at teenagers, such
as ‘Pitch Perfect’ and ‘Ted’. To the left is a
mood board of the types of media materials
our initial target audience take interest in.

7. Evaluation 5: How did you attract/
address your audience?
 In our opening, we addressed our
audience through the mise-en-scene
and sound. The sound we used was a
voice over of a little girl saying creepy
comments, this was to intrigue the
audience and create more of a sense of
mystery for them. In addition, the
location we chose was a forest. This
attracts the audience as it adds a sense
of isolation and makes the audience
more intrigued. The sound track was
previously the theme tune for the T.V
Show ‘American Horror Story’. We
assumed that this decision would attract
more American Horror Story fans which
would increase the target audience of
our opening sequence. However, due to
group discussions over this decision, it
was decided that we were going to use
a different sound for our clip because
we wanted more voice in our sound
track than music, as we have no
diegetic sound in our opening
sequence.

8. Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?Through the production process of our opening sequence,
I learnt many different ways of using technology. This
helped me gain more skills for editing my production and
communicating with my group members.
Planning and Research
Through the planning stage I documented all of my
research and notes in a Blogger account. This was useful
because it kept me up to date on what I’ve done so I can
keep up with my work. I used the app Whats-app to
communicate with my team to share ideas for our
coursework and opening sequence. For our content of our
production, we used Youtube to research different types of
horror films for inspiration and to look at the typical
conventions, such as film techniques, in horror films.
Production
We used a ‘ Nikon Coolpix L810' camera which was useful
to use as it had a special filming setting and button so it
made it easier to take a video straight away. The camera is
a good quality camera which meant our production came
out at a good quality making the opening sequence look
more professional. For our blog, we used the same camera
we used to film our opening sequence to take photos of
our setting, costumes, props etc…

9. Post Production
After we produced our opening sequence we had to edit the footage.
We used the program ‘Adobe Premiere’ to edit our clips. We slowed
down the pace, cut parts out and edited in the sound tracks using this
program. But in order to transfer our clips onto this program we had to
convert our files so they were compatible with the editing program. To
do this we used ‘Video Converter’ online so this could happen. I didn’t
struggle much when editing because I had used these programs
before. After editing the product, in order to put our production on our
blogs we had to export the file through premiere. Leaving us with an
MP4 file in the end.
Evaluation
Overall, I found the Premiere Program very useful as it definitely
contributed to production of the media product as we technically
produced the file through this program.

10. Evaluation 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 on my preliminary
task , I have noticed that our techniques
used in our opening sequence have
improved due to our improvement in
editing and camerawork skills. For
example, we used more editing
techniques in our opening sequence due
to our improved skills on the Adobe
Premiere software. I only worked with
one other person for my preliminary task
so it could be said that less input of ideas
were contributed to our task, however
more input was put into our opening
sequence as three other people were in
my group and I felt that it was necessary
to include the input of others within my
work.