Stephen Thomas' Media Project Evaluation

1. Media Evaluation
Opening to a horror film.

2. In what ways does your film opening use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
One way in which my opening uses conventions of real media products is at the start,
when a vulnerable girl walks into the woods alone, completely unaware that she is being
followed by a psychotic killer. This is very similar to some existing media production and
horror films, one of them being Friday The 13th. This film creates some of its scariest
moments during and after a build up of somebody who is usually quite vulnerable for
different reasons, being followed into a forest or woods and being slaughtered. As the
series of Friday The 13th films have been successful, we have used similar conventions
to what they have used in order to create a form of horror for our audience. Our opening
changes from the girl in the woods to the next day, and we have quickly changed the
mood to calm. This allows us to introduce of other characters and we use the form of
calmness and nothing major going on in the film, to a sudden change again when the two
newly introduced characters discover the dead body of the girl seen walking into the
woods prior to the scene. This creates a quick and sudden cange of mood and would
hopefully get the audience on the edge of their seats, anticipating what will happen next,
as they know there is a killer on the loose. This uses another form of creating horror as
the audience think that something is going to happen but don’t know when it is going to
happen.

3. How does your film represent particular social
groups?
One social group that has been represented in our opening scene is pregnant women.
Like many pregnant women are, our character that is pregnant is shown as caring for
the baby inside her and is rubbing it at one point, showing her excitement and love for
her unborn baby. Also, the fact that she is pregnant limits the things and activities that
she can do. This affects her when she is walking into the woods and eventually sees
that there is someone behind her wanting to harm her. She is unable to react and fight
back or get out of the woods quickly due to her being heavily pregnant and this causes
her to be extremely vulnerable. As a whole, pregnant women have been represented as
fragile and defenseless.
Another social group in our opening is gay people. we see two gay people which are not
represented as anything too different to hetrosexual people. All we see is them holding
hands together with a slightly different dress sense but nothing that would stick out.
Therefore, the gay social group is represented as normal people with no unorthodox
alteration.
Even though it is not necessarily a social group, our killer is displayed as very tall and
mysterious, as we cannot see his face at any point during the opening.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your
film and why?
A type of media institution that would distribute our film is a small company who show
and distribute films from small companies that use a small budget to produce their films.
This is because our opening was filmed with an extremely low budget of nearly nothing
and it would be nearly impossible for a film like ours to be able to compete with any
large, multi-national media distributors who sell films that have budgets in the millions.
An example of an institution that would show and distribute our film is Film4 as they are
a small film company so they would not distribute big name films straight away as the
big name films would be distributed by much bigger film companies. As our opening is
for a film aimed at a small audience, Film4 would be a suitable institution to distribute it.
The Youtube video shown below is me narrating the reply to this question.

5. Who would be the audience for your film?
The initial audience for our film was anybody who enjoyed watching horror films.
However, there are many different types of codes and conventions for different types of
horror films which allow certain film producers to target market segments.
As a result, we decided to conduct primary research to narrow down who we would
target to be the main audience for the film. Nearly all of people that we asked were over
the age of 16, so we are targeting an older audience, which also allows us to add more
explicit content in our film to entertain the audience. The majority of people that we asked
also enjoy the storyline to shock and a well scripted storyline, so one of our main focus
will be to ensure we have a strong, clear storyline that will help create horror and the use
of shock to get the audience on the edge of their seat.

6. How did you attract/address your audience?
The way in which we attracted out audience was through
storyline. As we analysed our questionnaire results we noticed
that the stroyline was an important factor foin a film for our target
audience. This lead to us making one of the main priorities in our
film, the storyline, as it would attract the majority of our target
customers. Therefore, we attracted our target audience by using
their preferences from the questionnaire.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this text?
One thing that I have learned about technologies from constructing this text is the editing
software and technology. At the start, I had very basic knowledge about the editing
software, however as I have used it more, I have learned more about its features and
functions. This has helped me to make the best possible film with the correct transitions
and editing.
Another technology I have extended my knowledge in is camera angles. This is because
we have had to experiment with different camera angles and when to use them, this has
helped my group to understand more about camera angles and in our film, more camera
angles will have been used in more appropriate places.
Finally, I have learned about different ways of uploading work to my blog. This is
because my evaluation should have different ways of me uploading work, for example
one slide show be me reading, instead of the text on a slide. Therefore, I am more
aware of the different ways and technology used to create and upload work.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the progression from it to
the final production?
From the progression from my preliminary task to my final production, i have learned many things from the editing
software, finding better ways of acting, using appropriate camera shots and using the right editing transitions to
create the effect i was aiming for.
Firstly, the editing software took a while to get used to when i first started using it for the preliminary task as i had
never used it before. However, as i have used it for the preliminary task and the main task, i have learned new
and different functions of the software and have been able to work more efficiently as the i have become more
comfortable with the software so i can get work done quicker.
Secondly, as i had knowledge of the camera shots but not much knowledge of when exactly to use them, the
preliminary task may have included some shots at the wrong time. However, over time i have learned about when
certain camera shots should be included, so the final task would included a lot more camera shots in the right
place to give the intended effect.
Finally, the editing and transitions have become a lot easier to understand and apply. During the preliminary task
video, there were some out of place and inappropriate transitions due to the lack of knowledge and experience of
using them before. Once again, over time and learning more about suitable transitions for certain situations helped
me to fully understand them and the final task will show a lot more organisation with the editing and transitions.