2. 1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In our horror opening ‘She’s Watching You’ we used some forms of conventions of products in the horror genre. For example we used a teenage girl which horror films use to represent the fact of being under threat as girls are more likely to act under threat when some scary is going on.
3. We also used a few high angles to show the sense that the person was being watched and looked at without her knowing. This is a good convention to use as it makes the audience get the feeling you want them to feel which is under threat and in danger.
4. 2.How does your media product represent particular social groups? The main character in our horror opening is the teenage girl that is shown as being alone at home getting ready to meet her boyfriend. She is shown as a normal teenage girl getting ready by putting her makeup on and choosing her clothes. This is showing a social group of ‘Teenagers’ as she is on facebook and texting, a thing that teenagers would do before going out. Our characters appearance and costume is shown her as a normal ‘Girly’ teenager and that’s why we think she is similar to the teenage character from ‘Scary Movie’ They are both shown as vulnerable teenagers that are jumpy and easily scared, they are both dressed in a similar way and both shown as quite ‘Girly’. They both also have a similar role in their film. Our Character Teenage girl from ‘Scary Movie’
5. The other character in our horror opening is ‘The little girl’ she appears in the TV screen once the teenage character has left the room, this is similar to the young girl that appears in the TV of ‘The Ring’ They are both similar as they are both represented as young girls and shown as quite intimidating and scary. We have shown our character as being an old fashioned girl like wearing clothes from the ‘Victorian Times’ showing her as wearing a long white night dress and her makeup shown as smudged like something has happened to the young girl. Our Character The girl from ‘The Ring’
6. Our production company name is Century Gothic Films. We chose this name for our production company because we thought that the name fit into the concept of horror. A production company is responsible for the production of new media and sometimes the company can be responsible for the funding of the production. Our opening of our film is similar to aspects of ‘The Ring’ when our character appears in the television. We had a costume designer who created the look of the ghostly girl so she resembles the girl in ‘The Ring’. Companies such as ‘Redbus Film Distribution’ and ‘Warner Brothers’ could have distributed a film like ours. The order of our titles appear in a way like other horror openings, with our main title being shown at the end of the opening, this creates more sense of threat as the audience will be sitting waiting to know what the name of the film is. The order of the other titles are set in order of actors/ actresses names, producer, music by, assistant producer, costume designer, written by, sound effects and director. This order is similar to ‘Deadwood’ a film we looked at on ‘Art of the title’. 3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
7. 4.Who would be the audience for your media product? The majority of teenagers would enjoy watching horror films, as the horror genre is popular for this age category. A lot of teenagers would shop in the high street and dress casually for fashion, and this links back to our horror opening as the main character is dressed in this way (i.e. wearing a leather jacket). Teenage girls have the norm of wearing makeup, going on Facebook and meeting friends of boyfriends, and this is represented in our horror opening.
8. Having 15 as a certification would mean that dangerous and self-harming behaviour would not be shown as it can intimidate the audience. Strong horror and violence may be allowed but it cannot be sadistic or sexualised. Strong language is frequently allowed if it Is used in context. Nudity and sex may be portrayed to the audience if there is a lack of strong detail.
9. 5.How did you attract/address your audience? We attracted our target audience by using teenagers in our opening, so our audience to relate to them. We drawn inspiration for our opening from the film ‘The Ring’. We combined the teenage norms of getting dressed up to go out, with the girl that appears on the television screen. The ring also is a ‘15’ and so attracts the same audience.
10. Whilst we were producing and editing our foundation portfolio we used a variety of different technological programs. The three main programs we used were Final Cut, Garage Band and Live Type. Final Cut is an editing software which aloud us to edit our footage together efficiently and outlet it in a wide range of formats i.eQuicktime. This was a key software to get used to as we would use it in further projects. 6.What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this project?
11. The second software which we used as a big part of our task was Garage Band. This software allows you to create your own sound track to put over your video. We used this to build tension in our horror opening. We learnt from this that its easy to make your own soundtrack up instead of using pre made one’s because then it is totally your work. Also with this software you can record your voice and then change the sound of it by clicking on which sound you want it to sound like, we did actually use this feature and it worked really well.
12. Live type was another key program we had to get used to as this is what we used to add titles onto our filming. With live type you can change the size, font, effect and colour of the text which is effective in our horror opening.
13. 7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? Looking back at our preliminary task we have learnt many new skills in editing footage together for our main task, the horror opening. We now know how to import videos using iMovie and then putting them into Final Cut. When editing our 2 minute horror opening we also learnt how to use other useful programmes such as Garage Band and LiveType, we didn’t use any of these programmes in creating our preliminary task but we learnt how to use them in the making of our horror opening. We found these quite straight forward to use and they made our final product look better. The main thing we feel we have learnt is how to edit properly in Final Cut and how to use the programme, as in the process of making our preliminary task we wasn’t sure on how to use the programme correctly. However, in the process of making our 2 minute opening we learnt how to use the software and found it easy to use.
