Evaluation for my media main task

1. Media Evaluation
Opening to a horror film.

2. In what ways does your film opening use, develop or
challenge forms and convections of real media
products?
When researching the genre for our film, we found that there are
many different conventions involved in horror films. For example, the
setting is usually very dark, isolated areas that create an eyry and
disorientated atmosphere. In my film, I developed this by using a dark
street and woods as the main setting for my opening scene. I
challenged the conventions in my next scene. Although the main
setting is still the woods from the previous scene, it is still day time;
this takes away the disorientated atmosphere and replaces it with a
more assured atmosphere.
In horror films, there are usually villainous and heroic figures. Although
it is only the first couple of minutes, we my film challenges this by only
having a villain with no hero. The other characters are either the
villains victims or onlookers to the victims body.
The lighting in horror films is usually quite dark, if it isn’t the lighting is
natural. We continued this convention by only using dark lighting for
the murder scene and natural lighting for the discovering of the victims
body.

3. How does your film represent particular social groups?
My film represents the social group of homosexual people.
Actors 3 and 4 play a homosexual male couple who are
represented as regular people who you wouldn’t think are gay
if they weren't holding hands. They didn’t need to be too
camp as most homosexual people are not these days. There is
also a straight couple in the victim and her boyfriend. They are
represented as your regular couple even though you do not
hear his voice.
In our film, the victim is a woman. Usually in horror films,
women are seen as weak and helpless. This can create
sympathy for the woman as she is helpless in her attack. This
continues horrors representation of women as unable to cope
in situations such as being stalked and killed.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your
film and why?
After researching media institutions, I have found
that a media institution such as Film4 would
distribute my film. As well as Hollywood
blockbusters such as 12 Years A Slave and 127
Hours, they have distributed small, low budget films
such as Tyrannosaur, Kill List and Dream Of A Life.
Film4 are an institution that take chances on low
budget films as they see potential in young film
makers from different backgrounds. This gives film
makers, who may not have the funding, an
opportunity to show their ideas and make a film.

5. Who would be the audience for your film? And how
would you attract them?
Early in the process of research for our film, we profiled our target
audience. We did this to help us target who would be interested in our
film and opens the opportunity to create surveys that will tell us what
they look for in horror films. The age of our target audience would be
between 15 and 35 years old. The film itself maybe 18+ however 15-18
year olds are bound to watch the film against the guidelines. It is
targeted to both genders as horror can appeal to both genders. I feel a
viewers income level doesn’t impact their interest in a film, therefore
the income level of our target audience is set on a wide spectrum.
The audience will be attracted to the film through the features they
described to us in the surveys issued to them, for example if they liked
blood we’ll use blood to attract their interest. They would find out
about our film on adverts on social networking sites such as twitter
and youtube.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this text?
The process had taught me how to use movie
editing software, in this case I used Final Cut Pro.
This taught me how to put together short shorts
and combine them into one continuous scene. I
have also learnt how to change a shots lighting
through final cut pro so that the light is matching in
each shot, this ensures the light is similar in each
shot. This is essential in making one continuous
without making any continuity errors such as the
sky being a different colour throughout the shots.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel
you have learnt in the progression from it to the final
production?
The transition between the preliminary task and the
process behind the main task has taught me to plan
everything before filming and ensure everything is in
working order ready for filming. For example, the
cameras may not be charged and you may have to use a
different camera which messes up the continuity of
camera quality and visual differences.
It has also taught me how to apply a genres conventions
to a piece of film. In my preliminary task, we didn’t need
to use any genre conventions as our piece of film did not
have a specific genre. Whereas in the main task, we
needed to make sure that each convention was being
applied and shown properly.