Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

This video outlines who our target audience is and what we have done to accommodate them.



As stated in the above video i created, our target audience would be people aged 15 - 25, this age range we produced from our audience research, which we conclusions that teenagers and people in their early 20's really enjoy horror films, we also found this information through some online surveys that have been done on a nationwide basis.

Because 15 - 25 year olds like horror films, they are our target audience because we have a horror based product, the video outlines who our target audience is and what we have done to accommodate them.

Evaluation Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are 3 stages of development in regards to media products being successful  these are production, distribution and exhibition.

Production: The production of a film is the stage where the funds to create the film are raised and the films physical shooting creation begins. The production team will begin to shoot and collect footage for the films editing stage.

Distribution: The final product will be sent to the distribution level so that a distributor can market the films to the various audiences and be sold to exhibitors to be displayed. The distributor will essentially market and sell the film for profits.

Exhibition: Once the film has been distributed to all areas of the media it will be shown to the public via the exhibitor i.e a cinema. This is the stage where the final product is released to its audience for consumption.

The production stage for our opening sequence was carried out by our group, company name - Chair Edge Studios. I feel it would be appropriate for MOMENTUM PICTURES to distribute our Horror movie. The reasoning behind this choice is that MOMENTUM PICTURES are a UK subsidiary for a much larger Canadian company - Alliance films, who are a major Distribution company in that part of the world. This means Distribution links can be made on a worldwide basis allowing the film to reach a much wider audience. I feel a UK distributor would be a more favorable option due to the fact we are a British production team making it a British film we would produce, and traditionally British films are Distributed by British distributors. Here are some of the British distributor - MOMENTUM PICTURES' releases:

 Dark Skies - Genre: Horror

 Welcome to the punch - Genre: Action

Safe Haven - Genre: Drama




















MOMENTUM PICTURES distribute many different genres of film which is a positive if they were to distribute our product, because the audience will know MOMENTUM PICTURES from various different genres, meaning more people will likely have heard of them.

Another distributor, for a more horizontal integration approach would have to be - SCREAM, the number one rated horror magazine distributor in the UK. They would be perfect for distributing our product through their magazines for promotional advertisements, contacts and variety of Establishment.

Furthermore, not only do SCREAM distribute magazines to the public, they also have a website that could be used to promote our product, here is a sample of their website:

Evaluation question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our opening sequence aimed to follow a few of the horror genre's typical conventions but also aimed to oppose some of them, to give our product that uniqueness that's important for standing out to an audience.

Our opening sequence has an unconventional opening for a horror film, typically horror movies go straight into a filmed sequence to build tension and suspense straight away. We decided to be unique and have our company logo at the start of the opening sequence, which then leads on to the filmed clips, we did this due to our unique logo consisting of a 5 fingered hand, which would confuse audience members ready for the clips.

Our titles are also unconventional of the horror genre, we used names/credits printed on sheets of paper coming out of a printer as opposed to using software to create and display them. This further gives our sequence that unique looks that's imaginative and different, which is what makes a horror movie good(based on our audience research results).We used viner hand for fonts on text based items throughout.

Rachael, is seen wearing an office like uniform whilst operating a photocopier, this use of mise-en-scene is further opposing the typical conventions of horror films as usually most people are dressed very poorly or in a non hygienic way for good effect. However other characters do follows this convention...

Here to the left of the image Lauren (our main character) can be seen wearing loose/old clothes which are conventional of horror films. They are loose and do not look well trimmed, this intensifies the horror look to make her more scary and more realistic of her role.

Location wise our opening sequence is very conventional of horror films, here in this shot you can see a shot that looks as though it has been filmed by a security camera, a shot often used in horror films such as the grudge here in this clip:

Lighting wise we have gone for the conventional style of having moderately dark lighting with colour correction in place, as you can see from the grudge clip above dark lighting is used with a blue colour correction in place, both of which we have used throughout our opening sequence.

Props wise we have used a range of objects/items that are fairly conventional of horror films, we used the records to the left to further illustrate that our main character is in a psychiatric asylum. The records are a conventional features of films with patients in them and they add a good varied effect of providing proof/evidence that the character is of an abnormal state of mind.

Furthermore, another prop we used was white pills(paracetamol tablets) which we held above a table and slowly released them. Pills are also another conventional feature of films of this type/story line and further illustrate the abnormality of the main character. The pills play a big role in depicting the main character as a drug addict, and as someone who needs emotional/mental help.

Another prop used was the printer and paper for displaying out Credits/Titles, which is a completely unique way of displaying them and something that is untypical of horror films.





All of the above forms our conventional and non conventional features of the horror film genre. They make our office worker look weak(which is conventional of horror films to make a weaker character) and the antagonist look stronger and more dangerous.

We made our antagonist look scary through the use of discolouration in the makeup stage, ragged and torn clothing that looks as though they haven't cleaned themselves or looked after themselves, and through the strange walking movements of the characters role plays. All of the above is the conventional way of creating a scary effect for a given character.

We used a female for our weaker character which plays the victim as stererotypically in horror films the weaker victims are women. She is well dressed and is clearly well presented, however as she is not the main character of our film she gets very little screen time, which is unconventional for a victim in this type of film as the main focus is on the antagonist.

Our soundtrack choice is conventional of horror films in the sense that it sound spooky, it is slow, quiet in places and loud in places which makes for excellent attention grabbing moments and eeriness.

Final Edit for Opening sequence - 100% complete.

here is our final version, edited to show the missing title from the drafted version...




this final version, includes a title missing from the draft, which was the title of the film, this title has been inserted on the very last clip of the opening sequence to follow conventions of the same genre's opening sequences.

Completed 1st draft of Opening Sequence!

after almost 5 hours of editing time, due to many issues with software and our shots i managed to get the final drafted version finished.

this is our first and last draft, the next video will be our completed opening sequence.

this draft is missing only one thing, the title of the film and so it was my job to add the title in somewhere without ruining the sync of the sequence as everything was timed in perfectly, so i will use a conventional title feature timing that many horror/thriller film intros use - i will add it on the very last clip!

feedback comments from class mates were -

"looks really good, very realistic and fits certain conventions but opposes others, well done"

"looks amazing, very professional and well put together, however it is missing the name of the film"

these comments we're what we based our final cut off of, to improve this draft for completion of our opening sequence.

update

We have now successfully filmed all necessary footage needed for our ropening sequence and I am roughly half way through the editing stage.

There has been many obstacles to over come through the editing of the clip, these consist of difficult tracking motions and clip pauses on our credits, as the software i am using for the edit(sony vegas pro) found it difficult to take a clear still image of the moving paper credit we printed, therefore i had to be very precise with the timing of the still image to make the text of the credits readable.

Alongside editing our opening sequence i am in the process of thinking/planning out the various ways for me to complete the evaluation questions, in various different/unique ways to be more creative and provide substantial effectiveness.

filming & editing stage

we have filmed 90% of our needed footage for editing, i am in the process of editing our currently collected footage and we are all trying to film the other 10% of the needed footage at the same time.

due to time constraints, roles in the clips and abilities the groups roles have merged a little through some of our tasks, for example i had to do some of the filming in our opening sequence because rachael was in the clip. Currently i am in the process of creating one of our props which is a record from a mental asylum of our main character, whilst other members are perparing for filming.

beginning of opening sequence edit

I have now had the chance to edit the start of our opening sequence, using sony vegas I produced the first 23 seconds of the opening sequence with various effects, transitions and techniques.

here is the opening clip:




The opening comprises of our company logo animation, the jump cut scenes and our main character - the mental asylum escapee. the clip lasts 23 seconds and took me roughly 30-45minutes to edit in sony vegas.

Inspiration

the main character of Orphan provided inspiration for what our main character should look like

Nightmare on Elm Street inspired the theme of 'stalking' of an innocent looking character, by the 'horror' character.

the setting of this film inspired us to use an instituion of some sort as our location- it means that the audience is left to question the mentality of the characters.

again, this was inspiration as to the way the characters will act.

Production schedule

Storyboard

This is our storyboard , Firstly we discussed the images and captions as a group and decided what each box would contain and the caption to go with it , then the drawings were done by me (Rachael), and the captions by Brogan and Bradley.

Actual production logo/sequence

I produced our company logo/name animation for the beginning of our opening sequence in conjunction with a friend of mine. we both advised eachother on improving our groups original design ideas and helped eachother out with operating the design software(adobe after effects), this is what me and my friend produced:


We used a simple design of text for our production company name(chairedge studios) which is in viner hand font and a maroon colour.

The text is an overlay ontop of what appears to be a layer of glass that has been misted over, with the vague image of a bloody hand coming through the misted glass, this effect was achieved by creating a light blue colour layer with a light placed appropriately behind it, to which another darker layer was placed behind with the bloody handprint on top.

the text(our production name) is placed on glass, which appears to be smashed by our production logo(the 6 fingered bloody hand) which is both original but yet intriguing as the hand has 6 fingers on it, something which only eagle eyed audience members will spot. This idea is an original one and is a conventional feature of most horror films of this type.

The smashing of the glass and therefore our production name, makes the transition into the next clip/sequence of the opening sequence very easy to create and perfect into a flowing motion because the smashing of glass will slow down, and create a nice ending to this part of the sequence, the transition will be achieved by either a fade out from the smashing to a black credit or an actual filmed clip, depending on which looks better in the edit stage(something to be discussed in one of our group meetings).

treatment

TREATMENT

Our idea:

• Opening shot shows a long dark corridor (XLS)
• Camera zooms forwards towards the end of the corridor twice
• Extreme close up of actor's face- very quick cut
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• Camera pans from right to left- shows a woman operating a photocopier in a small room with a large glass window to her left (through which a staircase can be seen) (medium long shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• female character walks down an alleyway, to the right is an opening in which we (the audience) see a glimpse of the horror character (medium shot) [possibly lots of rapid cuts]
• close up of a set of records being thrown down onto a table- a sheet of paper slides out to show a "mental health assessment" record of some sort. (possibly in slow motion)
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• extreme close up shot of the medical records showing the patient name and showing that they are in fact mental assessment records
• high angle shot (CCTV like) showing an empty staircase
• (slow motion?) close up shot of a bottle of pills dropping and spilling out.
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• pan down of the medical records to slowly reveal the writing on it (Extreme close up)
• repeat of CCTV shot except this time a person is stood on the corner of the staircase
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• medium long shot of the photocopier room (focusing on the window)
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (more so than in the first shot) (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can slightly see the head of the horror character peering through the window. (start of a progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to start to reveal a picture of a face (progressive sequence)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can see more of the head of the horror character peering through the window. (progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to continue to reveal a picture of a face (progressive sequence)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can now see all of the head of the horror character peering through the window. (progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to fully reveal a picture of a face ( final shot of progressive sequence) this shot will confirm to the audience that the character outside the photocopier room is the same person who's medical records have been read.
• extreme close up of horror character's face (quick cut to increase effect)
• extreme quick cut of pills bottle spilling

production logo idea

My idea for our production logo is going to be something along the lines of a 6 fingered bloody hand appearing on the screen from far away to eventually come forward and hit some glass at the front of the display, which has our company name "chair edge studios" displayed accross it. This glass then cracks and smashes when hit by the bloody hand, to which the glass and company name fall off of the screen towards the bottom.

here is the bloody hand image I propose to use:

 

 

this image will come from behind our company name, smash the glass the name is on, which will look very cool and will confuse the audience with its 6 fingers as opposed to the normal 5 fingers conventionally placed on our hands. 

soundtrack

this is the soundtrack we are planning to use, I found this on a royalty free website and it fits our opening sequence plan perfectly.

the mood the soundtrack provides is perfect for our intentions, it is very well time to our shots and is a good all rounder for fulfilling our needs.

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=USUAN1200087&Search=Search