I feel that our opening scene doesn't really develop any of the conventions of real media but I do believe that it does challenge and use them. We have used the same camera angles and shots that real media would use. We used the point of view shot, which is a classic in horror films, to make the audience feel like they are involved with the film. The close ups and other shots we used are used in most of real media today. The music we used is classic for horror films as it builds up tension and makes the audience feel paranoid. The ways in which our film challenges real media is by the girls not being stereotyped. Usually in horror films the women are the once who get killed or if the woman is the killer she is sexually objectified and can only kill her victim by having sex with them. Our murderer doesn't kill men, she kills her best friends which is unusual for horror films.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We have aimed our thriller at teenagers so we decided to use a group of teenage girls. We haven't made it that stereotypical of a group of teenagers. The characters don't drink or take drugs but they are shown having an argument over some gossip that one of them has spread. The other way that the girls are stereotyped is when they are ganging up on Danika. They are having an intense argument over something small but its been turned into a big deal, like it usually is with teenagers, and its being dealt with in a violent confrontation. Danika is taking revenge on the other girls by killing them one by one and making the other girls suffer with the worry of where their friends are disappearing to. I feel that the revenge side of the killing is definitely stereotypical of teenage girls but the having a girl killer who is killing her best friends isn't as in most thriller films its a male who is the murderer or if it is a female killer then she is killing men and can only do that through sexual actions.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
At first I believe Blue Sky Productions will give our film, Danika, to small media institutions to see what feelings they have about the film. Once they have watched it, gave us feedback and hopefully told us that the target audience would be highly interested in our film then we will send it off to bigger companies. We would make a trailer and get it shown in the cinema when a 15-certificate film or a horror film is being shown so that its target audience that sees the trailer and not just people who are not interested in thrillers. The film will then get shown in cinema's. If it is successful in the U.K then we will pitch it to international companies. This will bring in more profit for the company and will make the film highly popular. Once the film is finished in the cinema if T.V. companies are interested, "Sky Movies", and movie sites like "Love Film" and "Netflix" then it will go to them and eventually will go onto DVD.Who would be the audience for your media product?
As a group we have decided to have a target audience of 15 and above. We did target audience research to see who watched the most thriller films. We looked at age range and gender to decide this. The research told us that more women watch thriller films than men and that 15-25 year olds watch them the most. Looking at these statistics we decided, as a group, to aim the film at young women, as this will bring in more profit for us. The characters are easy to relate to as every woman has the age of the characters, 16-17, and they have all had problems with their friends. We feel that the subject they fight over is one that every woman can relate to either on Danika's side or on Jane, Mia and Lily's side. The music we have chosen gives the film the thriller feeling that our target audience loves. We used the snowy setting to create pathetic fallacy, where the weather represents the feelings of the character. We wanted our target audience to feel the coldness of their friendship and see how Danika felt inside.
How did you attract/address your audiences?
To attract our audience we use a variety of techniques to attract our audience to our film. One of the ways was making a poster. This poster was made to let people know what the name of the flm is, what the genre of the film and a basic plot to the film. The name of the film is printed across the top so it is clear to people what the film is called. You can tell the genre by the darkness of the poster and the dead girl on it. This clearly shows that the film is a horror. We felt that using the dead girl to advertise the film will make the target audience interested in what happened to her. The plot is basically printed on the poster by showing that one of the characters gets murdered. Again this will interest the audience in what happens to the girl and what else happens during the film. The other way we addressed our audience was through the social networking site Facebook. We posted a link to our opening scene onto facebook so people can view it. From here they can share it to all of their friends and so on. This will make our film popular by word of mouth because most people in the world have a Facebook account and most people have internet at anytime on their mobiles and computers so they can view it on YouTube and show their friends.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As a group we used a lot of different technology to create our film. Firstly we learnt how to use a camera and tripod. The camera was easy to use but it was hard to get the right shots and angles to create the right effect. We had to retake shots again and again to try out what different shots we could have and what was the most effective. The tripod was simple to use. We were able to get the right height and able to keep the camera steady whilst filming. When using Adobe Premiere we got confused at first but once we knew how to use all the tools and add effects, music and transitions, we were able to edit our film quickly and effectively. To film our podcasts we used the Photobooth that is only availble on Apple devices. Photobooth was easy to use but we kept making mistakes and laughing so it took longer than we thought it would. To share our work we used a number of sites such as Blogger, Prezi and Youtube. Blogger and Prezi were completely new sites to our group but as a group we were able to work out how to use them. For me personally, YouTube was easy to use as I have uploaded video's to YouTube before. We used a programme called Celtx to write our script, master catalogue and creat our storyboard. We were able to do this quickly and create good pieces of work.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Personally I have learnt a lot. I have learnt how to create different views of peoples characters with a camera by just changing the angle of it. I used software that I have never used before making this opening scene for example, Adobe Premiere. Before making the opening scene I had never heard of this programme but through using it I have now learnt how to cut footage, add it together to make it flow, add transitions such as fade to white and fade to black, add music, add effects such as black and white and add credits and title scenes. I have also learnt how the audience view certain characters and why they view them in that way. I found this side of the research really interesting as I got to learn about the psychology of media. Other information I learnt was about the different horror genres. I never knew there were different types of horror films before we started the research but now I can tell the difference between each of the types. Over all of this though I have learnt that working in a team is harder than I thought it would be. There were arguments over who was doing what work, when we were filming and when we were staying behind to do work. We overcame the problems quickly as we are such good friends and we got all the work done in the end.
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