1.How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title Scene from 'Se7en'

From our research we noticed how most of the victims in slashers/thrillers were female . In our title sequence we have not made it clear to as what is actually going on, but we have only used female characters, apart from the boyfriend. This uses conventions of real media.

However unlike most slashers we do not show someone dieing straight away in our film. The title scene to our film keeps the audience guessing. It is not clear to as what is going on. This is a suspected convention of thrillers as you do not want to give too much away at the start as it can make the audience loose interest in the film as it is predictable. However at the same time if you make things too confusing you are going to loose a large number of your audience because it will be too difficult to follow. By adding the still images of the girls at the beginning of our film it helps the audience to signify that something has happened to them and now its going to happen to the main character. It does not make it clear though what has happened and who's eyes we are looking through.

We based the style of our film on 'The Blair Witched Project' by using hand held cameras. We though that this would be the best style of filming for our film as it makes it look like you are looking at the victim through the stalkers eyes

Four our title sequence we used ideas from all the films we did our research on and analysed. We took ideas from the film 'Se7en'. In 'Se7en' when the producers and actors names show on the screen all the background images are blanked out, their names are shown on blank black screens, we used that idea in our title sequence. (As shown above.)

However unlike in 'Se7en' we did not use this effect in for every title. Instead we only used it for the first 3. The reason for this being that we bought a title up between each still picture shot, we displayed the titles on a white background . We chose to display them on a white background to help make it clear that the still images were photos; the white background acting at the flash of the camera.

2. How does your media product represent particualr social groups?

In our film we have used a traditional representation of females. The female characters in the film are seen as victims and vulnerable. This is very stereotypical traditional view of women as it is portraying them as vulnerable and weaker than men.
However at the same time we Incorporated some modern mis-en-scene so the majority of the audience can relate to the characters in our film. We created our modern mis-en-scene through all of the characters that are shown in our title scenes. To achieve this we showed the 'main character' as having a stereotypical life of a college girl ; she has the social aspects- the friends, the boyfriend. We dressed her in modern, young clothes, showed her using technology that the average teenager using everyday, e.g. mobile phone, computer. All of these are things that our target audience of 15-19 year olds can relate to, as they are all things you expect to find in the average teenagers life.
By dressing the character in casual clothes it allow all different type of people relate to her as she is not dressed in clothes that are stereotypically associated with particular social groups. The main characters boyfriend also creates a modern mis-en-scene. By dressing him in a tracksuit, with the big head phones, it gives the audience the impression he is 'cool' character, hence why he has the girlfriend.
Our film displays teenagers in a positive way, usually teenagers are portrayed via the media as being moody and troublesome, however that is not the case in our film. Our film does not show this, it shows the teenager as happy, and average, enjoying spending time with her friends and boyfriend whilst studying.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A mainstream distributor is likely to distribute our film because our film is a slasher/thriller. These genres appeal to a big target audience, therefore there will be a big interest in the film.

If a big film production company, i.e Columbia (who distributed films such as 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' were to pick this film up it would mean they could put money into casting.

By getting famous actors or actresses to star in films it increases the audience range, as even if slasher/thrillers are not their preferred genre they are more likely to watch that film if someone who they like is in it.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Steve Barlow. He is 17 years old. He is currently studying at his local 6th form. He is taking A-levels in Psychology, Media and Music. He enjoys playing the drums, going out with his friends, playing the X-box and listening to music. He likes watching T.V dramas such as Spooks, as they are not predictable and they require you to think about what is happening throughout the programme. Steve Regularly goes to the cinema, and is forever adding to his DVD collection. He is quite open minded about films, but his favourite genres include horrors/slashers and thrillers. He enjoys films such as 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', and anything that will keep him on the edge of his seat. However he particularly enjoys film that include horror/slasher aspects but also require him to have to think about the plot, such as 'Se7en' and 'Saw'.

Our film would appeal to Steve as we have created a sense of enigma. Our film is not predictable.It is also quite psychological as it requires you to think about the plot and get in the mind of the stalker. However our film will not just appeal to teenage boys, even though teenagers would be our main target audience, I think it would also appeal and we could gain a large audience from adults as well, especially adults under the age of 25.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We combined aspects of both thrillers and slashers in our film, by doing this we have increased the size of our target audience as our film will appeal to people who enjoy two different genres of film. Enigma has been created within our film, as our film does not have a set genre. We have created mystery and confusion by using aspects from thriller. This keeps the audience on their toes as they need to closely follow the plot so they are aware of what is going on. However at the same time our film keeps you on the edge of your seat by including the exciting aspects you get from slashers. Combining two genres is common, well known films that mix genres are all the 'Scary Movie' Films. They use comedy, mixed with horror.

6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To edit our movie we used iMovie. On iMovie we were able to turn video footage in to still images. We then added sound effects of a camera taking a picture to show that these still images were photos. We also converted all our still shots in sepia tone, and turned the saturation right down on them so they looked more like photos. This was enough editing to show that this was a photo when were having video footage, followed by a still image, followed by the rest of the video footage for that scene ect. However at the beginning of the film where we show the pictures of the four girls, just using those editing techniques were not enough to show that the still images were photographs of previous victims. To make the images look more like still photographs we used the Ken Burns tool on the four photos.This allows you to make the images move slowly and slightly (depending on how much you make it move) across the screen. This made the images look more like photographs and added a creepier feel to the photos.

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

When we did our preliminary task I had very little knowledge on how to create a short film. Our shots were very basic and our editing consisted on cutting scenes, no special effects were used.

For our actual film we planned what we were going to do and how we were going to do it in a lot more depth. We analysed and researched films of the slasher/thriller genre. We looked at the locations used in these films, characters, shots used, and how they displayed their titles. We considered all these aspects in the the planning and story boarding of our film. When analysing films from similar genres to the film we were aiming to achieved we realised that very little of the plot is actually given away. It is common for these kind of films to create enigma. We considered this when storyboarding our film, and applied it to our title scene. It is not totally clear to as what is really going on in our title sequence, you can see that someone is being followed, however you do not know who by, this creates a sense of unknowing, making the viewer want to carry on watching the film to get an understanding of what is happening.

When it came to the actual filming we did not have the best camera to film with, therefore we were limited to the shots we could use, so we kept the shots simple. This didn't really create much of a problem as we planned on using simple shots as we wanted to film free hand, to give the 'Blair Witch Project' feel to our film.

By using simple shots we had to use different techniques during the editing to create the 'stalker' feel that we planned on creating. When editing our preliminary I did not know how to use iMovie. However by the end of our task i was able to create effects using iMovie, such as creating still shots from video footage and using techniques like the Ken Burns effect to make them look more like photos. I also learnt how to apply sound effects such as the camera noise, and backing tracks.

Costumes/Props

We have chosen to keep the clothing of our film simple, so we are going to dress our characters in casual simple everyday clothes that you would expect to see student wearing. The props we have decided to use are all very related to studying and the fact they are at school. e.g folders, computers. We have also used some props such as mobile phones and headphones as communicating with others via technology and listening to music are both something nearly every teenager does.

Setting/Location

The reason we choose to use our school as our filming location is because it is easily accessible and is a suitable setting for our plot. We wanted an 'American High School' and due to how modern our school is and the decor of it this was achievable without any input from us. Also filming in a school seemed like the most logical idea as we are using teenagers as our cast, and obviously High Schools are full of teenagers.

Research into locations

The genre we chose was teen horror. From our research into this genre we noticed that most these films were set either in school or around school, e.g. house parties with school friends, prom ect. Therefore we thought it was best to take advantage of our own school for the setting of our opening scene, reasons for this being that our school is newly built and very modern, this creates the mis-en-scene of an ‘American high’ school. The way our school has been built means there are no blind spots. This worked to our advantage, especially as our film is on stalking. This allowed our actors to always be viewable to the camera from what ever angle we chose to film from. The corridors of our room are also wide, making filming easier, the school is also well lit, even though we are creating a horror, having a well lit setting will play to our advantage as all our shots will be clear, to which we can then edit later on during our editing stage to add the sense of fear and create the typical lighting used in horror films.
Obviously we will have no problems with accessing our setting to film as it going to be available to us whenever we need it. Another positive about filming at our school is that it never changes. Therefore if we need to re-film a scene again on a different day it will not be a problem as none of the internal décor would be any different t how it was first time round.

Shot list

1. Emma and Louie sat at the computers – long shot, POV, zooms in on Emma’s face.

2. Long shot, POV, from a birds eye angle of Emma and Stacy meeting on the bridge. Zoom in on them talking. Tracking shot as they walk off the bridge.

3. Mid-shot POV of Emma and Stacy talking on the seats from a left Angle .Zooms in on them talking.

4. POV tracking shot of Emma walking down the stairs, long shot zooms into mid.

5. POV long shot of Emma and Louie talking in the projection room, mid-shot of Louie leaving the projection room

6. POV long shot of Emma alone in the projection room. POV tracking shot moving in towards Emma. Zooms into close up of Emma as she turns.

7. POV close up of other victims as they turn their heads to be met by their stalker.Shot list.

Time Plan

February 11th - Start researching genres and discussing which genre to we are going to choose.

February 25th – Decide on genre and write the basic outline to the story.

March 4th – Research title scenes from films of the same genre that we have choose.

March 11th – Start drawing up our story board.

Monday 25th – Discuss possible locations and actors which we could use.

April 15th – Start filming

April 22nd – Finish filming.

April 29th - Start editing

May 6th - Finish editing

May 13th - Evaluate our work

Wild child

The first shot of Poppy is a transition shot, it shows the reflection of a beach in a window which then transitions into slow camera track of Poppy led in bed starting from viewing her through the window. A long shot is used, this shows us the setting of the scene, and allows us to see she is in bed. The music is very soft and calm to start with, portraying poppy as innocent, or 'a sleeping beauty'.The music and the setting tell us the genre of the film is going to be a drama. The camera slowly zooms in to a close up of poppy's face, she wakes and swears. The music then cuts from the soft tones to a rocky pop tune. This changes the mood of the scene. It then cuts to a long shot of Poppyjumping out of bed, it becomes a lot more fast pace, Poppy runs across the camera. They use special effects, as Popppy is runnign across the camera she runs into the title, which shatters, this portrays poppy feelings and helps portay that poppy has remembered something bad. It then cuts to a close up of poopys calender. Poppy's calender has a drawing of a volcano on a certain date, with lots of bright coloured arrows pointing to it, this shows us that something importatnt is happeneing today.