Evaluation Sophie Tindall

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

This is an example of the font and colour we use for the other titles, for example production designer and director. We used this font as it looks similar to bones which again denotes death, and also the decay of a dead body. We used white to connote the innocence which contrasts against the font which looks like bones.

Question Two:How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We decided to place the female as the antagonist within our film, as it is typically a male role. We decided to do this to make our film unique, to entice more audience and to boost our viewing figures and profit as it isn’t a typical “boy meets girl, girl falls out of love and boy kills her” storyline. Although we represent the female as possessive, the male is represented as dominant as he is portrayed as having two females attracted to him. This could also be construed that we portray males as cheats and liars.

Within these three shots, we see how we present the two females within our piece. Katie has her hair tied back, much like Annie, but it is very plain and simple. We placed a headband in Annie’s hair to show her following the trends in fashion, making her more appealing to a male. We also see long nails which are typically feminine. The two females contrast each other even though they both include the main elements that make them female. This is to show the audience that people can be different, but we are also inviting the audience to identify with one or the other of these two females, as stated by the Uses and Gratifications theory.

Annie is shown to follow the trends in fashion as we dressed her in typical fashion clothing such as UGG boots and a duffel coat. Her hair is down which denotes she uses straightenerswhich Katie clearly doesn’t as she ties her hair up and appears to not take pride within her appearance. Annie’s clothes show her wealth and show she is from a higher class background.

Annie here is dressed in yellow. This is to connote her bright and happy personality which contrasts the fact she appears to have been murdered, or at least seriously injured. The yellow contrasts against Katie’s plain white t-shirt, showing the difference between the characters and perhaps why Chris decided to leave Katie for Annie, which is what is implied through her anger.

Katie is representative of the lower class as she wears plain clothes which don’t include “labels” of any kind. We dress her plainly to show not only her simple character, but her lack of money to buy materialistic things. We placed her in a setting that was outside and enclosed. The fact she is in what appears to the audience to be a wood, shows she doesn’t feel comfort in a house which majority of people would do.

Through Katie, we see the “jealous ex-girlfriend” stereotype. This is brought into question here as we show Katie from a lower class and her behaviour questions why she would be able to be attached to a boyfriend. She is portrayed to begin with as weak and this is often the stereotype media plays upon when describing people such as Katie’s character. After the murder, this stereotype is turned into much more of a dangerous one and we see that perhaps the “jealous ex-girlfriend” has much more power within her. We are also showing females as being the strong ones in taking control of the situation, even though it isn’t a positive situation to be in control of.

The age of the characters within ‘Peephole’ is not directly specified to the audience, inviting them to come to their own conclusion. The age of our characters is infact around 18-20 which is the typical age for a semi-serious relationship and also the age of who we are aiming our film at so they will be able to identify with the ages of the character.

We didn’t choose any of our characters based on race or disability and neither of these are really shown. The only race that we have in our film is our male actor who is from an Arabic background, but we didn’t choose him for this reason to include race in our film.Equally, we have no disabilities shown or highlighted.

Question Three:What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that our film is more likely to appeal to a niche audience as the theme that occurs in ‘Peephole’ is not one that appears in a mainstream or Hollywood film. I think this because of mainly the storyline and conventions used were often confusing and we could’ve included more conventions to make the film seem more ‘horrific’, even though we covered the basis.

When researching into different media institutions, I looked at how Universal Pictures works, as it is a mainstream company, to see if I could apply it to our film.Universal is a company that produces mainstream, Hollywood films; for example ‘It’s complicated; (2009) and ‘Wolfman’ (2010). “It’s complicated” is a romantic-comedy whereas “Wolfman” is a horror. This shows that Universal caters more than one type of film so we could use Universal if we wanted to make ‘Peephole’ mainstream.

Universal have produced a number of Horror films. Their most “truly great monster movies” (http://classic-horror.com/reviews/wolf_man_1941) ‘The Wolf Man’. This film was re-made in 2009 and achieved:Total Lifetime GrossesDomestic: $61,792,180 45.0% + Foreign: $75,400,000 55.0% = Worldwide: $137,192,180 (figures taken from boxofficemojo.com) This shows me that Universal are capable of producing a big horror film, therefore if they produced ‘Peephole’ we would get sustainably large amounts of profit.

Another production company that could be considered if we were going mainstream could be 20th Century Fox. This production company hasn’t produced many horror films, therefore this may be an advantage as mainly all of their other films are extremely successful. The most notorious horror film they have produced is The Omen (2006). I wouldn’t consider using 20th Century Fox as our production company as they don’t focus on any particular genre, so it would be difficult to see which genre they produce the most and how much box office takings the films would receive.

Fox Searchlight Pictures was founded in 1994 as the independent arm of Twentieth Century Fox. Fox Searchlight Pictures is a specialty film company that both produces and acquires motion pictures. It has its own marketing and distribution operations, and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox. Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group. I think we could consider this production company for ‘Peephole’ if it wasn’t accepted alongside the mainstream films.

When researching into non-mainstream production companies, I looked into Hammer Film Productions who are a UK film company founded in 1934. They are the creators of famous horror films such as ‘Dracula’ in 1958. They have also been partnered with Twentieth Century Fox. Hammer Productions could be a possibility as they are producers of smaller films and are producers of horror films only. But as they are a smaller company, many films don’t receive world wide recognition.

I think we would aim our film towards a mass audience, to maximise our profits. Through following typical horror conventions, we would be able to pitch our film to larger production companies as we would be in line with the other leading major films. Altogether, I think Universal would be the best production company due to their wide varied films they produce from all the genres. Also, Universal Pictures are known all over the world so we would be able to generate the desired amount of attention to gather large profits.

I think ‘Peephole’ should be released due to its new brand of horror storyline. Relationships and relationship break downs are not often the focus of horror films as nowadays, society prefer the gore and thriller side of the genre, such as the ‘Saw’ series. ‘Saw’ offers the hypodermic needle effect as the audience are passive to the action therefore being submerged within the action. The new storyline would hopefully generate much attention as it would appeal to the 15+ age gap as these are the audience members who are likely to be aware of a “jealous girlfriend” situation, with some being able to identify with the characters – as stated in Denis McQuails’s Uses and Gratifications theory.

Question Four:Who would be the audience for your media product?

I would put the target audience age of 15 and above. I think this because when I looked the BBFC website and looked at what is allowed in each age category, the 15 rating reflected our film. A 15 allows moderate language and violence, which is what our film includes. We minimised swearing in our film and the only real violence that occurs is at the end, where the knife is used. We’ve categorised our film at a 15, firstly being the 18 age category was stronger than what our film is and secondly being that we can get a bigger audience in as an ‘18’ cancels all the teenagers who go to the cinema.Also, I think our film could be aimed at both male and female. We tried to make sure our film could be available to both sexes, but horror films are mainly watched by the male population as the gore and graphicness appeals more than to females.

We wrote a questionnaire to accompany our film for year 11 students to watch and fill in for us. The main feedback we received was the section with Katie following Annie with the knife was unrealistic and gave away the storyline too quick . We took this advice removed this scene. We got good feedback on our camera techniques, music, actors/characterisation and general enjoyment of the film which we set as closed questions. We then completed a second questionnaire for similar students to fill in and these results were very positive. The storyline was clearer with the sequence of events changed and our ratings were 8-10 for all aspects.

We attracted our audience mainly by the theme of the film and the nature of it. I think that by changing around the cliché ‘male in love with the female’ to the opposite, would attract our audience because it was different, and almost unique and we know that there are rare films that follow this pattern in the horror genre. We have aimed this at male and females of the age of 15 onwards, and I think teens and young adults are more likely to go and see our film because they can identify with the situation as within society, relationships are the gel within society and what moves it on. Also, more people will be of the correct age to go and see it. On the other hand, it might attract a more female audience, as maybe they would be able to relate to the feeling of falling in love with someone who doesn’t return your love, whereas the males for this film can’t really relate to the lead male.

We found from another questionnaire that females are less interested in horror films than males and the older generation aren’t particularly interested at all. This also uncovered that people would be more interested in a complicated plot line than a film with gore. We have decided to target an audience from demographic groupings C1 to E who are passive and interested in the simple conventions of horror films. Males would watch the film as the film is based around a female and therefore they may go to watch just for the Entertainment need defined by Denis McQuail, to watch for the pleasure and enjoyment rather than for identification. Females may be attracted to our film as they would want to see the opposing view of characters in a horror movie and they would not feel victimized as the female is the antagonist in the film.

Question Five:How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience mainly by the theme of the film and the nature of it. I think that by changing around the cliché ‘male in love with the female’ to the opposite, would attract our audience because it was different, and almost unique and we know that there are rare films that follow this pattern in the horror genre. We have aimed this at male and females of the age of 15 onwards, and I think school children are more likely to go and see our film because they can relate to the school environment, so therefore, another attraction. Also, more people will be of the correct age to go and see it. On the other hand, it might attract a more female audience, as maybe they would be able to relate to the feeling of falling in love with someone who doesn’t return your love, whereas the males for this film can’t really relate to the lead male.

Any audience member would be able to identify to the relationship we see between Chris and Annie, as stated by the Uses and Gratifications theory, as relationships within society currently are prominent with majority of the population being in one, or at least able to draw on a situation similar. The open setting connotes the openness of their relationship and their honesty, which contrasts to how Katie is feeling about them.

Here we use a high angled shot to show Katie speaking to a picture, which we cannot see. The high angled shot makes Katie look vulnerable and sad and this is used to make the audience feel sympathy for her, which we turn around so the audience feel anger towards her after she has killed Annie.

This over the shoulder shot is used to make the audience feel included as they feel as if they are watching Katie burn the picture themselves as burning a picture is something you would wish to hide away.

This shot is actually a tracking shot to make the audience feel they are thoroughly included within the plot as they are close to the feet being dragged away. We used a wide range of shots to keep the action moving so the audience don’t get bored of seeing the same shot to tell the story. Our wide range of shots make the audience feel included within the action and to be able to identify with the character, as stated in Denis McQuail’s Uses and Gratifications theory.

Question Six:What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

The camera equipment we used was useful, but the quality that sometimes was a result of the camera’s was poor. We sometimes found it difficult to get the correct lighting so the action would be clear on the camera. We had one major issue with this where we had to make sure we could shield the light from the camera lens to make sure we could create the desired effect of darkness which is a convention of horror films.A strength of these cameras was they were light and easy to move and use. They were also simple to set up, and also to look back over film.

We decided not to use equipment such as dollys and tripods and all we filmed was handheld. This was so the shots aren’t always completely straight and steady as we wanted to achieve the look the audience are always watching Katie, making them feel fear as they are always watching what is happening.

We used the programme iMovie on the Mac to edit our footage. We found that using this programme edited our work much quicker than any other programme we have used before. There were far more advanced settings involved within this programme that enhanced our film altogether, such as the light filter we added to create the dark effect because the light was too bright. It was easy to cut clips to the exact timings and places using the precision editor. I have learnt that editing is crucial when creating any type of film from any genre. If the clips you have filmed are not perfect, there are ways to make them exactly how you wish to have them and this constantly enhances your film.

I think myself and Jo, my partner, worked well as a team. We distributed work evenly to make sure we had every element completed to the highest standard and consulted each other if needed and whenever possible. By working as a two, I found that filming was quicker as there was only two persons opinions that needed to be put together, instead of 4 for example. Working as a two helped us co-operate with each other through every element of the production of ‘Peephole’.

Using Blogger to log my work was extremely helpful. It saves a lot of time when getting my marked worked and then to change and add corrections was quick and easy. It was easy to add links to back up points you are making within your work and also to add pictures for the same reason.

Question Seven:Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

With the editing from the preliminary task, I think this was successful. The shot-reverse shots worked well and fitted in properly, therefore making sense to the audience. Our use of music was the theme tune from “The Pink Panther”. We used this to add a comic element to the piece and the credit sequence we used was to refer to the nature of The Pink Panther; Spy. The difference between the credits for the preliminary task and our film is substantial. Our credits are simple and we made our logo and end credit ourselves and didn’t rely on anything digital. We use a good transition to show the passing of time from the woman walking in the door to sitting on the table with the other lady. We use transitions in the same way in ‘Peephole’ – to show the passing of time or events so I learnt it from this.

I think the main difference between the preliminary task is the quality of filming. In the preliminary task, we resulted in problems with continuity, whereas in our film now we have learnt how to overcome this and make the film consistent with no problems with the continuity.There is also a difference in the places we shot the film, this was down to having planned our actual film down to every last detail whereas in the preliminary task, this was not the case.

The main issue we encountered with this project was learning how to deal with continuity!

Within this shot, we see 4 females sitting having a chat round a table. There is also Laura in the background.

Within this next shot, the females aren’t at the table and Laura is standing by the door. What should be included within this shot to keep it continuous should be Laura sitting and also the four females still in place!

Another issue we encountered was framing our shots...

In this shot, we can see the script they are reading from. As it is a private conversation, we could’ve used a close up on their lips to highlight the secrecy.Within this shot, there is too much space about Jenni’s head, showing little of her body language so the audience are unable to tell much about her character.

I feel much more confident with the filming equipment thanks to this task. It made me aware of the different settings on the camera and also I learnt how to use a tripod and how to attach a camera and adjust the height.

Overall, the entire preliminary task I think is of poor quality and if I were to re-film I would do it completely differently, making use of mise-en-scene and camera’s efficiently. On the other hand, the preliminary task has shown me how important planning is and the depth and detail it needs to be done in. We did complete a storyboard for this, but any other storyboards I draft and use will be of a high quality and I will plan every precise section of it as I am aware now that it is all within the planning.

Comparing the preliminary task to my main task, I would definitely say that my main task is much stronger. I think this is due to the planning and research that went in to creating ‘Peephole’. Through the use of storyboards, research into conventions and the planning of every detail has helped us film an excellent piece of film that I am very proud of. I feel my use of camera work has improved dramatically and I am able to frame a shot, including everything we need and excluding what we don’t. Through research of the genre of our film, we could see which shots we needed to use and where about and which created the most tension. I have applied all I have learnt through every element of research, planning and the preliminary task and I now feel I could make any genre of film because I am aware of the extent the research and planning needs to be in.

Evaluation Sophie Tindall

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Evaluation Sophie Tindall

Evaluation Sophie Tindall