How does you media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups? on Prezi

How did you address/attract your audience?

BECK Evaluation on Prezi

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to your full product?

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

How Kirsty made the title:

Kirsty created the title in Photoshop. She used a downloaded font called broken74 because she thought it reflected the approaching horror of the film.


The line underneath the text was part of a downloaded title. She changed the colour to a dark red that looked like blood. She then added a black outer glow around it to make it stand out and look creepier. She included the line because she felt it gave a sense of finality and strength to the title, increasing the tension of the film.

She added a dark blue background then put a white radial gradient, at 61% opacity into the middle of it, that created a faint white circle behind the title, i.e. it lighted up the background behind the text. This again made it stand out more and also gave it a dark and sinister look.


Kirsty drew a shape that resembled blood dripping into a puddle, and then placed it underneath the letter V so that it looked like the blood was pouring off of the letter. She then made two little droplet shapes so that it looked like blood was dripping off of the other side of the V as well which made it seem a bit more realistic. This made it scarier and gave an insight into what might happen later in the film.

She brought the letter V in front of the line so that the blood effect would work properly and so that it stood out more. She then added a bevel and emboss to the text, line and dripping blood shape to make it stand out more and create a terrifying effect.
Below is a picture of the finished title:

Once we added the title to our product we made the title sharpen when the music that we added over the top of it reached its peak to add to the effect.

How we made our company logo:
Kirsty used this part of the new line cinema logo design and got rid of everything else in the image in Illustrator, so Kirsty ended up with this:

Kirsty then transferred this image to Photoshop.
Kirsty found the picture below on the internet then flipped it horizontally so that it faced the right and resized it to suit the image of the filmstrip. She then deleted the white background so that the camera was all that was left.

Kirsty wanted a dramatic sky effect in the background to add an eerie mood to the logo. This also reflects the type of films our company would make – horror films. She used a layer mask in Photoshop by dragging the cursor from bottom to the top of the page. It starts out white so that the ground disappears and gradually starts to go transparent at around half way up the page. So it still allows the sky to be seen but not the ground (which is what she wanted).

She created the filmstrip manually on Photoshop by making a black rectangle then putting smaller rectangles in the middle of the big one, but changing the colour to white. Then she made smaller squares to put above and below the white rectangles and made these white as well. She changed the opacity of the small squares and smaller rectangles to 5% so that rather than being completely transparent it gives the appearance of a real filmstrip.

Kirsty then added the text – a single letter, in capitals and herald font so that it is bold and stands out, to each small rectangle. She changed the colour of the text to a wood background, then added a pattern overlay filter, under bevel and emboss, of a fire effect.

She put a white background as a mask over the top of the sky but behind each letter to make them stand out. She then applied a wave filter by clicking on filter then picking distort from the drop down menu then clicking on wave on the second drop down menu.
So by doing all of this she created this film strip:

Kirsty then used the smudge tool on the end of the film strip by clicking on the black film strip and dragging it into the camera lens. She did this in order to give the effect of the filmstrip emerging from the camera.

She added the text shown below in herald font so that it stood out and put it at the bottom next to the new line cinema logo underneath the camera and filmstrip.

Below is an image of the finished logo:

Once we put this into IMovieHD we added a dark fog to make it look animated and also to make it scarier.

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

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

Institutions on Prezi

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Omar Hay, he is twenty three and lives in Streatham, London. He is of Black British origin and works as an administrator and Foxtons estate-agents. Omar likes to wear jeans with t-shirts, shirts and jackets. He also like wear trainers or plimsolls.

Omar is very sociable and likes to go out in his spare time. One of the things he enjoys doing when he goes out is go shopping with his friends. He regularly purchases item from stores such as Top Man, Office UCS, Burton, River Island, Footlocker and Next.

As well as shopping in his spare time he also likes, playing football, going clubbing, going out to eat and going to the cinemas. When clubbing he likes to places such as Tiger Tiger, Lloyds and Bar Seven.

In his spare time when going out to eat he would either go with his friends or his girlfriend. Generally he enjoys going to restaurants like, TGI Fridays, Frankie's and Bennie's, Toby Carvery and Harvester.

Omar enjoys mainly scary, action or comedy films when he goes to the cinema with his friends. Some of the past films he has watched and enjoyed in the past are Bourne Ultimatum, Mirrors, Be Cool, Rush Hour, Role Models, The Matrix, Paranormal Activity, The Omen, Hangover, 28 Days Later, American Pie and Scary Movie.

Omar like very recent music; the type of music in the charts today. He mainly listens to RnB, Hip Hop, Rap, Pop and House music. He regularly listens to the radio in his car however does not listen to it outside his car. The station he likes are KISS 100, Radio One and Choice FM.

In his spare time after work Omar also like watching television. The show he enjoys watching are CSI, The Fresh Prince of Belair, Law and Order, Heroes, 24 and The Wire.

This is a collage we have made that represents all Omar's likes.

We think Omar and other boy like him will watch our film because most people in their early twentys are set out to have fun and do something exciting. We feel as our move is a horror it will create excitement and in doing so will be fun. Therefore appealing to Omar and other people similar to him.
1.bp.blogspot.com
1.bp.blogspot.com

This is Ryan Connor he is sixteen, lives in the suburbs of London and of white British origin. He wears tracksuits bottoms or jeans. He also wears trainers and coloured t-shirts. Ryan goes Croydon College where he is studying PE, Media and Sociology.

In his spear time he likes playing a variety of sports, such as football, ruby and basketball. On the weekends he likes going out with his friends. When he does this Ryan and his friends like to go shopping, get something to eat or go cinemas.

The type of shops Ryan likes purchasing clothing from are, River Island, JD Sports, Blue Inc, Sports World, Four Feet and JJB. He also like to eat in restaurants such as Nandoes, TGI Fridays, KFC, Chinese restaurants and McDonald's.

The films he has enjoyed in the past have mainly either been action films, scary films or teenager representation films. For example, Freddie vs Jason, KidultHood, AdultHood, Scream, Wanted, Resident Evil, Taken, Sixteen, Paranormal Activity, Training Day, Bad Boys and The Omen. On the odd occasion he does like watching comedies such as Hangover, Liar Liar and What Happens in Vegas.

He also likes to watch television in his spare time after college. The shows he enjoys are Skins, Inbertweeners, Flash Forward, 24 and Simpsons.

Ryan likes up to date modern music, the type of music in the charts. For example Hip Hop, rap, RnB and House. Although Ryan listens to music a lot he rarely listens to the radio. However on the odd occasion that the does he like listening to station such as Capital FM, KISS 100, Radio 1 and Choice FM.

This is a collage we have created of all Ryan's likes.

We think that our film will appeal to Ryan and other similar boys to him because he is a typical adrenalin driven, slightly imerture, teenaged boy. Therefore as our film will create adrenalin and excitement, due to it being a horror, Ryan and boys like him will want to watch our film.

2.bp.blogspot.com
2.bp.blogspot.com

The Final Product- Vengeance

Our Feedback

Costume and Music

Lily's costume was picked because the costume had to be casual but smart to show that she is going to school. We picked the colours because we thought the black reflects the gloom and danger ahead whilst the white reflects Lily's innocence. The colours and normality of what she is wearing also makes it seem more realistic.


We chose the music because it is not too depressing, dark or scary and yet not too happy or out of character for a typical horror film, it also seems like music that could be heard on a radio so it goes with the scene of Lily turning on the radio. We decided to make it ourselves because we found it very difficult to find non-copyrighted music that suited our film. We also added scary non-copyrighted music to go over the title to make it more dramatic.

Out Takes

Kirsty gets run over...

we do not know exactly this clip came about but we had a laugh as it appears that Kirsty is run over by this white van.

Costume Malfunction

I think the locker was stuck, we concentrated so much on trying to make the things fall out of the locker, I wasn't even able to open it!

The Rough Cut- Vengeance

This is the first draft of our opening sequence, we still need to add music and titles.

Monday 1st March- Filming Day 4 (Woods)

We decided to film during the daytime for the forest scene, so during the lesson we went to the woods. It took about an hour and a half, because we wanted to film as many different shots as possible, and found when we got there, there were many different shots we wanted to film, more than what we put in the storyboard. This went well and was probably our best filming session.

Friday 26th February- Filming Day 3 (Elly's House Take 2)

Due to the problems we experienced with the first filming day on this location. We had to film again.
This went well as we were able to highlight the shots which we liked and we actually wanted to film, this lessened the amount of takes we had to do and was much easier than the first time around. I actually also think the shots we toook in this filming seesion were better as we had learnt from our mistakes of the first time around.
We now know that we must upload our footage directly after shooting so that this mistake will not be made again.

Storyboard

Below is the first draft of the storyboard for the opening sequence of our film

Tuesday 16th February- Filming Day 2 (Elly's House)

On tuesday we planned to film the waking up shots and the forest scene, unfortunately we could not film the forest scene because it was raining and would have bee too difficult to film. In the end we had to just film the waking up shots. Towards the end the battery died so our filming session was cut short. fortunately we only had one more shot to do which is simple and can be easily done at any time.




We tried doing the waking up scence without the main character having to hold the camera but this did not work too well (as shown below) so we re-done it with the main character holding the camera in a hand held shot.

Unfortunately when we uploaded the footage from this filming day we realised some footage had not been taped and some had been filmed over. This unfortunately meant this whole scene had to be re-filmed.

Thursday 11th February- Filming Day 1 (Drama Room Corridor)

We started filming for this shot, in the drama room corridor, this proved extremely difficult as there was another group filiming in the same location and numerous people walking through the corridor to get to lockers and other rooms.
It was also difficult to get the books to fall out of the locker without looking very fake or dramatic, after many attempts we managed to get one shot.

Synopsis

Lily, an average seventeen year old girl, falls asleep during her lesson one day and wakes up to find that she is alone in an abandoned school. She searches for a way out but is locked inside the school and runs into three other people in her year that are not particularly nice to her. The four of them know that someone else is in the building and they find notes posted around the school giving them directions on how to get out of the school. The directions are brutal and eventually the three classmates die, leaving Lily alone to escape the school and run to a nearby woods where she is followed by whoever was behind this.

Lily is chased around the woods and finally faces a woman she recognised as her mother's client who's baby died recently (Lily's mother, a midwife, phones her before she goes to her lesson and falls asleep to tell her that she will be taking care of a client out of town) and wants to get revenge for her baby's death. After some more running through the woods trying to kill Lily, the woman accidentally kills herself, leaving Lily to escape.

Screenplay

Below is the screenplay for the opening sequence of our film 'Vengeance'.


EXT. THE WOODS. NIGHT
LILY is running through the woods and steps on a twig.
She continues running and slows down by a tree and then stops to look around hopelessly while breathing heavily.


INT. LILY'S HOUSE. DAY
LILY wakes up to the sound of her alarm and sighs.
She slowly walks into her bathroom and shuts the door behind her.


EXT. LILY'S HOUSE. DAY
LILY walks out of her house with a mournful expression and turns to walk down the road.


EXT. SCHOOL. DAY
LILY walks towards the school building's doors.


INT. SCHOOL. DAY
LILY walks to her locker with a bored expression and opens it. All of her books fall out of her locker and people who are around laugh at her. She angrily slams her locker shut.

Casting Shots

Elly, who is a fellow member of our group, will be playingthe main character, Lily. We thought that she would be great for this role as she can easily act serious and listens to every idea our group has and plays the role to the best of her ability. Elly is always free during lessons and after school when we need to film so it is easy to film on the days we planned to. Plus she can scream without bursting into laughter!

Another member of our group, Bareen, will be playing the role of Sophia, who is one of the three other main characters who are introduced nearer the end of the opening squence but do not make a proper appearance until later in the film. We decided that the main focus should be on Lily because she would appear throughout the whole film and the other main characters die later in the film. We chose Bareen to play the part because she can act natural and can laugh easily without making it sound fake. Furthermore, she was, like Elly, free to film during lessons so we had plenty of opportunity to film.

Our friend, Marina, is playing Valerie who stands along with Sophia (Bareen) by her locker and laughs at Lily when she drops her books. We chose Marina to play the part because she has an amazing ability to laugh completely naturally at any little thing but can also wait until the appropriate moment. She is also has a very bubbly and enthusiastic personality which suits the character perfectly and so it was easy for her to play the part.

Bryony, another of our friends, is playing Kate, who simply rolls her eyes at Lily for dropping her books. Bryony was free when we needed to film this scene and is great at keeping a straight face and natural look no matter what is going on which is why we pleaded with her (she gave in reletively quickly - that's how good we are) to act in out opening sequence.

We are all very happy with our choices for the cast because all four cast members are of different ethnic groups, therefore giving a wider range of races and therefore can interest a wider audience and all of them were able to play their roles flawlessly with few mishaps.

Location Shots

The house was chosen because it looks very normal and not suspicious

This is the woods behind the school, however they are very small and there is no designated path. Also the ground is very uneven so it would make it hard to make the tripod straight to get a straight shot.

This is the small locker room in the sixth form block, we were trying to decide between this room and the large drama room corridor.

Eventually we chose the drama room corridor to to our filming, this way we could easily achieve a good pan because there was enough room in the corridor.

Audiences

The genre of film we are planning on shooting is horror. This genre of film is mostly popular to 18-24year old males. However there seems to be no typical horror movie viewer.

Our film will be aimed at young people around 16+, but anticipate that horror films are watched by people who are younger or older than our target age.
We are using a young female protagonist, who will appeal to most of the female viewers. Using a school setting will also help to relate to the viewer, who would have probably been to school quite recently.
If advertising our film to our target audience we would have to think about where would be the most effective place. This I believe would be television, advertisements shown after 9pm so not to appeal to a younger audience.

Influences

Kill Bill's opening sequence is an influence for our thoughts on our own opening sequence. Kill Bill begins with a flashback in black and white to distinctly show it is not in the present setting. By using the diegetic sound of the woman's heavy breathing to create tension and suspense which can be very useful for our own production as we are creating horror movie and these elements can be included.

The second influence is the opening sequence of Halloween.Like our film Halloween is a horror film. The film begins with a point of view shot using a handheld camera to create suspense and mystery. We are contemplating using these two elements in our film. The music is also a great influence as it again creates suspense and establishes the mood for the horror film



The third influence for our film is called 'Eden Lake'. The opening sequence for this film is the most influential for us as it begins with a flash forward. The flash forward is very short clips that flash between the credits of a woman who is screaming and crying - clearly being tortured. The flash forward was in total about ten seconds then immediately went to the present day of that same woman teaching a class of young children. From the first few seconds of the film, the audience immediately know that this film is a horror by the flash forward and even the opening credits as the font style was quite bulky and red - a common colour used to foreshadow danger or horrors.

Office Space

An opening sequence happens in every film it has many functions including introducing the company who made the film and main characters of the film.

In the opening for 'Office Space' the classic introduction for 20th century fox is used to introduce who has produced the film. This gives the viewers a sense of security as it is a well known company.
This is followed by the official opening credits for the film, along with the opening music. The credits which are in the brightly coloured blue give the film a light-hearted feel and give you an insight into the genre of the film. The credit have the names of the actors/actresses who will be starring in the film. Which can also give you an indication of the genre.

The first shot used in the film is an establishing shot, which introduces the viewer to the place or environment within a film, it rarely involves the central characters as it does not in the opening for office space.
An aerial shot is used to give you a real sense of the traffic that there is in the area, as it can only be seen from this view.

Office space introduces the first character in the traffic jam, it then shows a second and third character in which looks like the same traffic jam. This gives the indication that these characters may be linked later on in the film.

Shots of the first mans feet when hes is stopping ans starting helps the viewer to empathise with him.
The second mans comical singing gives you the idea that the film is of the comedy genre and sets the mood for the rest of the film.
There is also an introduction of a third character at the end of the clip which indicates these three characters will be the main characters in the film.

Media Studies Brief

The set brief for our Video project is to create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. This blog will document the pre-production, production and evaluation stages of this project.