Activity 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Blair witch project forest shot

One clip from our film which I have chosen to evaluate is the forest run. It is similar to a clip from the film "The Blair witch project," were they use a perspective camera shot for the view of the character and he is running through the forest. They use the perspective shot to create a feeling of suspense as you can hear the heavy breathing of the character and their footsteps. It makes the audience feel like they are in the characters position as it is from their view. We used this shot for the same reason and was a very useful tool in creating suspense. The two shots are obviously different, one of these differences in the lighting. We were hoping to do it in the dark, but when it came to shooting the film, we could not film at a time when it was dark so we had to film it and then add effects and change the lighting and contrast. It wasn't ideal, but it worked for our movie as the effect added the feeling of horror we were hoping for. Both films develop horror conventions as they are both using dark lighting and a perspective shot. They also both have no music to add a feeling of tension. My film has a unique selling point as it includes a super natural character which adds mystery and curiosity.

forest scene from Euphoria

The "IT," clown

A second clip I have chosen to evaluate is the shot of the clown when the persona turns around. It is similar to the film "IT," were a clown is hiding, but gives the impression that it is super natural much like our film. This is shown in "IT," when the clown who was seen behind the sheets, disappears and then reappears. Similarly, the "Euphoria," clown is perceived as super natural when he gets closer, without movement, to the girl when she is running. This adds a sense of mystery to the film as the clowns both are obviously not human and it make the audience want to know were they're from or what they are. Clowns also add fear as they are meant to be a form of entertainment. Both films therefore contradict the horror convention as they are using clowns. They also both have tense music when they attack to build fear and tension. My opening scene however uses the two main characters to create a sense fear and mystery as they are always together when there is a murder which shows a link between the two characters. This could be a unique selling point for our film. It also hints at a mental instability to add curiosity. 

The "Euphoria," clown

Activity 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

In our preliminary task, we did very basic shots and there were some mistakes that I saw when I was editing that it was too late to change. One mistake was one of the shots was not held steady. For our opening to the movie we wanted to hold all the shots steady, unless the situation demands a shot that's not steady. We also wanted to include some more advance shots and to show more camera skill. In the preliminary, I got a shot of a character walking for half of the first draft. I then later learn't that you don't have to get a shot of everything that the character does in order for the movie make sense. I took this into account when we were planning and shooting the movie. I had also learnt to use some of the software I would later use for the opening sequence which saved time in the production of the movie.

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

 For our media project we used many technologies and I learn't about a lot of technologies in the process. The first technology we used was our camera. We used a Panasonic SDR-S50 for a better quality picture and for a better zoom as the Panasonic has 70x optical zoom. It was my camera so when I doing the project, I didn't learn how to use the camera, but I did use the camera to its full potential and I could use all of its facilities.

The tripod we used to get the steady shot was a Velbon make. It was not the first time I used a tripod, but it was the first time I used a Velbon and a full sized one. The Velbon has a spirit level to make sure you are on level ground and you can get a good shot. It also has a facility to make the neck longer to see the shot better. It also has a handle to get a good and steady pan movement.

We used the program "youtube," to select the music type we were going to use. It was a very easy program to use and selecting the music was easy as we knew we wanted some music related with to a clown. We settled for carnival music. We also used youtube to have a look at similar movies to see what techniques they used and to look at different conventions.

We were using macs for our project to upload the videos and to finish our project. We used a firewire connection to upload the videos and then put them onto imovie. I was often using memory stick and e-mailing to transfer files to other group members and to take them home to do work. The mac was different to a PC and took a while to get used too as I hadn't used one in a couple of years. I didn't take long to get used to and I was it efficiently.

We used garage band to create a piece of music for when the girl turned around to look at the clown. I didn't use the software that much apart from to change the speed and to try to change the tempo and pitch. One of our group members Jade was the person who made the music. We needed a high pitched string music. It worked well for our production as the technology allowed us to get the timing right. When I used it, I found it fairly easy to use although I did have to ask for some help for some the functions. I learnt how to use it to its full potential and it is a very useful software.



I used imovie a lot in our project to edit the video and to put the project together. It was easy to use and I got the hang of it very quickly. I found it was good software and was very useful to what I was doing. It had a good range of effects and it was easy to change the brightness and contrast. It had a lot of text options and you could add your own font style. I used the backgrounds and text to add to the project effectively. It has a good contrast facility to make the film flow smoother. This software works very well and I had not used it before. I learnt how to use it to its full potential and found that it was easy to use.

Activity 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We would expect our target audience to be teenagers aged 15-30 years of age of any gender . Our film was rated a 15 certificate because of the violence and fear factor so we would expect no-one under the age of 15 to be watching it however people older than 15 we would expect to be interested in horror films and would enjoying being scared by films. There TV taste would be similar, they would watch programs with a tense feeling and a sense of mystery. They would also like things that they get an adrenaline rush from such as roller-coasters, paint balling and other activities.We would expect them to wear clothes from shops such as Hollister, Top man, Republic, Lakeland and similar shops if they were male. If they were female we would expect them to wear clothes from shops such as New look, Top shop, Hollister, Abercrombie, Jack wills and similar shops. They would listen to music by Kings of Leon, Bon Jovi, Guns and Roses and other similar bands with a Rock genre.

Activity 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main character in "Euphoria," is mentally unstable and keeps imagining a clown. Similarly in "Black Swan," the main character "Nina," takes on a role in a ballet, "Swan Lake," as the white swan, "Odette." As the movie goes on, the  ballet consumes her mind and she becomes more like the black swan, "Odile." The black swan is meant to represent evil and the white swan, good. "Nina," portrayed by Natalie Portman, loses her mind as the movie goes on and starts to get wounds. This is similar to "Euphoria," because in our movie, the main character is sub-conciously murdering her close friends and family. It is more extreme in "Euphoria," but it is the same idea and is due to mental instability.

For our main character, we could find a similar movie character as it follows the horror film convention. With the murderer of the story, we are challenging the horror conventions. A clown would not be somebodies first choice for a murderer and a scary character. It would be more like the character for "Texas Chainsaw massacre." The clown works because of the situation it is in and the fact you would not expect it to be a scary character. There are some similarities you can see with any murderer in a horror film, for example, they both have no reason for the murders and use tools to make the death slow. This shows that the murder is a sign of someone who almost enjoying it and maybe has a mental illness. They also both are wearing formal clothing, although in different states, it makes the murder seem brutal and a spur of the moment. They are also both wearing a mask or something to hide to their face to the mystery.

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

Screamfest Award

For our film, if we put it into the film world, we would expect it to start out in a film festival. One distingished film festival that would suit the film, Euphoria, would be the "Screamfest LA." It gives a great launch pad for a film to get to big cinemas or to DVD. The film festival offers $10,000 and a "Boost film making award," as well as other prizes to help with your film making carrer. It gives films a very good chance, for example, "Paranormal Activity," was a unprofessional made movie, but made $193,355,800 from a buget of $15,000 after winning the competion. A former competitor described their preview said they "had a great premiere screening and got positive reviews as a result." It gives good feedback to films and will helps the film makers bigger offers.

Another way we could advertise our film is in an independant cinema. One cinema that would be ideal for our particular movie is the "Curzon Cinemas," situated in London. They hold small budget films and show they to a wide audience. The cinemas are situated all around London and give movies a wide audience and get different reviews. "Curzon Cinemas," also hold film events to show low rated movies and have a small competitions. It could provide and opportunity for a film to be showed in a bigger cinema, if an investor went to the events or it was rated highly by people.

Suggested TV channel

To get popular support of the movie, "Euphoria," it could be broadcasted on the TV on channels such as "Film 4." I would think of this TV channel because "Euphoria," would not be a big movie and there are movies shown everyday on "Film 4," so there is a better chance of it being watched and a better chance of getting on the TV. This would raise the popularity of the film and could starts sales of DVD's instead of going into a cinema and it would lead on from winning a film festival of a film makers competition.

Another way we could advertise the film, "Euphoria," would be to enter it into a young writers competition. One possibility is the "Cinequest: Picture the Possibilities," competition which is held all over the world in New York, LA, Beijing, London, Mexico City and many others. It is co-hosted by inspirational figures and shared around the world and would be a great opportunity to meet other film makers and get reviews of the film and possibly put it into production.

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

Our media project, an introduction for a film named Euphoria, use many typical horror conventions. We have challengened some conventions, for example, the title of the film is "Euphoria," which means a feeling of happiness. We wanted to think of name that was a single word, but related with a clown. We then decided to challenge the typical horror conventions and the meaning links in with the main character who is mentally unstable. The font of the main title we choose as a group from a selection of about 20 fonts. We original colour scheme was a white background with black text to make it stand out, but be a little ordinary. We choose this font, called "Tosca zero," because it seems derelict which again links in with the story because the girls clothes and condition seems rough. The inverse of the original colour scheme we thought was better because the meaning of "Euphoria," is happy and could be considered as a "clean," word so we thought we should make that white and the black background to symbolise light in the dark. A similar film is "Psycho," which has a similar storyline. The title is also a one word title, but unlike ours it uses a meaning typical meaning and develops the horror conventions. Were as our film challenges he convention, but is a similar film.

For our setting/location, we decided, for the chase scene, to do it in a forest cut from civilisation and cut off from help to emphasise the feeling of isolation for the main character. A forest is a good place for a chase scene because it adds a scary effect. It is much like "The Blair Witch Project," as it has a scene in the forest and it uses it to add to the uncertainty of the events about to unfold. For the first section of the opening scene we used am office area to give the impression that it is in a hospital or office. This gives it a feel of someone trying to find the girl or track her down. The two settings both develop the conventions of the horror genre and work well to create feeling of fear.

For our production, costumes and makeup was a big part of what we were doing. We had to make the clown seem unreal, but at the same time a typical clown. The make up for the clown is similar to the make up used in the film "IT," were they use similar make up to create a "creepy,"effect. For the main character, we wanted her to look like she had been away from civilisation for a long time. He gave her a shirt that was too big implying that she had taken it from some were. It had also been ripped and dirty to show she had been living in a forest for a few days. She also is wearing jogging bottoms suggesting she has been wearing what ever she can get her hands on. She has no make up as well to make it seem like she has been living outside. We used one prop to emphasise the feeling of fear. We gave the clown a noose to carry and hang the girl with which is a good way of killing her because its seems like a more suicidal death rather than a murder. We did challenge the convention of make up for the killer as most killers do not have a noticeable amount of make up. The costume for the girl and the noose is developing the conventions of horror as you would expect them to create a scary effect.

For our film we used a range of different camera shots, but our main shot was a perspective shot to insinuate the girl running which worked very well for our film. It helps portray the girls emotion as you can hear the heavy breathing and foot steps which add to them overall feeling of the film. It is similar to "The Blair Witch Project,"as they use a perspective shot to create a feeling of fear. It is developing the horror convention as it shows the emotion of the main character. We used a range of different shots in our opening. One of our more advanced shots and my favourite shot was in the perspective of the girl which showed a close up of the clown to suggest the clown was holding her. It then panned upwards to a high angle shot while always looking at the clown. It insinuated the clown was lifting her up in order to hang her. It worked very feel for our group and links in well with the horror genre, however I could not find or think of any film that had used that shot or similar. We used shot reverse shot in our introduction were we used a tripod, unlike many of our other shots, and was a shot of the main character running towards and passed the camera. When filming this shot we had to take into account the 180 degree rule to ensure the viewers were not confused when watching the opening scene and make sure they ran and started running in the right position. When we were doing our filming, we knew we would have to add some effects and lighting adjustments, which we would add after we had finished editing the video clips. This was because we filmed it in the day and we decided to stick to typical horror conventions and use dark lighting to create a scary, ominous feel. When I was editing the video clips, it was fairly easy and there were no big problems, but it was hard to link some shots together because we wanted the continuity to be right which with some shots was difficult, so to solve the problem I either removed the shot or put another shot in between to make it work. A second problem we had was when we did a shot of the main character screaming, we did not shoot it for long enough. To over come this problem I had to make a section of the video 25% of the actual speed, silence two clips and then play music over it. I was afraid it would not work, but when I finished the editing, it looked good. When I had finished the video editing, I turned down the brightness and the contrast for all the clips and started looking at available effects. For the chase scene, we tried it in black and white, but the realised it would be better if the red of the clown stood out a bit. I therefore turned the effects off and was adjusting the colour of the shots. I then decided it would look best if I used an effect called "sci-fi." It made the red of the clown stand out, but at the same time made the setting look dark. It was the perfect mix we were looking for and worked brilliantly. For the shots of the doctor report, we always knew what we wanted to do. I turned down the lighting and added an effect called "old," which gave it a tint of brown and an ominous feel to it.

For the titles font and style, we wanted to use a simple font for the production name, and credits to add a greater effect on the title, "Euphoria." For our production company, we used a very simple font style called "American typewriter," in its original form which challenges the conventions of the horror genre as it is a simple font. We made it very plain white text with a black background and no music to create tension. For the credits/names, we used the same font to keep consistency, but we used it for a different reason. The font seems formal or a font you would expect to see in an office which was appropriate as they were used for the shots of the doctor reports. We used them here instead of the chase scene because we did not want to take the emphasis of the scene.

The story of our film was how a normal girl, had a traumatic experience at a carnival, which later effected her massively in life. The film is based around a girl who witnesses a clown murdering all her family and close friends. At the beginning of the film, the clown hangs the main character and then it goes on to explain how she arrived at her fate. The doctor reports hint at the fact that the main character is mentally unstable. The film later reveals that her mental instability causes her to imagine a clown. The clown was therefore a figment of her imagination, which is hinted to at the opening scene as you never see the clown walk. It only ever appears when she turns around. The girl sub-consciously murders her family and friends, due to the experience at the carnival which is why she imagines a clown, but from her perspective, the clown was killing them. It is a typical horror film with death and murder and we use many of the traditional horror conventions.

The genre of or film is horror, but in our opening sequence, it may not always point to that conclusion. The music we have at first is not the typical horror music and seems very jolly and happy which works well to add a fear factor by challenging the conventions, but doesn't show it is a horror film. The shot of the doctor reports, the dark lighting and "old," effects we chose definitely show the horror genre as they add an scary feel to them. The chase scene strongly suggests it is a horror film as it includes a chase scene followed by a murder  and we used dark lighting and a "sci-fi," effect to give it an ominous and scary feel which points towards a horror genre.

In our opening scene, there is only one character introduced which is the main character. You first find out her name on the doctor report and you first see her in her picture. We introduced her this way so the audience would be wondering, from the first scene what is wrong with the girl or clown. This way we can deliver a feeling of mystery from the very beginning and reveal the outcome at the end.

The special effects we used, we put a lot of thought into. The video effects and lighting changes we made added a better atmosphere. We used advanced camera shots to construct the clowns movements which worked very well for our group. We added some transitions to make our movie flow better.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

When we were given our task to do, we were given a certain specification with techniques we had to fit into our shirt film. We watched an example film in which a man walked through a door and started talking to someone. It was not a complex film, but it included all the techniques we needed. We started planing our short film by firstly coming up with short simple ideas in our group consisting of Adam Meehan, Jade Coombes, Charlotte Docherty and I. We had various ideas, one was a character comes into unjam a printer and another was two characters have an argument and one storms out of the room. We came up with many and finally settled on a genre which was a bit different from others. We were going to do a typical romance film were one character drops some books on the floor and they both look up into each others eyes and walk off into the distance. We then decided that Adam and Jade were going to be the actors and so started thinking about were it was going to be set and what was going to happen. We chose a corner that they would walk round, Adam would walk out a building and jade would be walking down a ramp and then they would collide. We drew up the story board thinking about camera angles, camera positioning and mise on scene. After drawing the story board we were ready to film.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

My role in the production of the film was the main camera man and directing the film. We started the shoot with Jade at a table doing some work using an establishing shot to set the scene. Jade then got up and walked away carrying her books. We then switched to a panning long shot in which Adam is inside a building walks down the stairs and towards and past the camera. He then goes through the door while he is texting on his phone and used match on action here (see in photo 1). We had a long shot of Adam walking through the door and towards the corner and Jade walking down the ramp towards the corner. They then collide and it changes to a birds eye shot of the two characters picking up the books. We the used the 180-degree rule and shot reverse shot (seen in photos
2&3) to simulate a convocation and then had the charters walk off into the distance. During the filming we were thinking a lot about the framing and how we could use the camera shots and angles to greater affect. Before we started filming each shot we made sure there was nothing distracting in the shot and we positioned the camera to get the best possible shot. We also positioned the actors so that the main focus was on them and they were always in the middle of the shot or just off centre. However, when we used the match on action, there were two characters on opposite sides of the shot so that the audience knew what was going to happen before they collided.

I was happy with the final result as it is what I imagined it would be like. I feel we used the camera angles well and our camera positioning was very good. Although I believe we did well, we could have improved on a couple of things. For example the camera flow was good, but I wasn't entirely happy with it as I thought it jumped for one scene to the next too much. Also the camera was held steady most of the time, but I noticed in the editing there was a slight shake at one point which was a mistake on my part. As a final point, I thought the acting could have been a bit better as the actors were a bit annoyed with the amount of takes I was doing to get the right shots. They didn't show the emotion that the two characters would have been feeling at that point. The editing was done by Charlotte, but we were there too help make decisions on factors in the editing process as we had to cut down a lot of film because it was meant to be about 20 seconds and ours was a lot longer. I do feel very confident when I am using the camera and Imovie as I know all there functions and how to use them, however I did not know how to do a freeze frame of a shot at first, but eventually found out.

Great expectations freeze frames

The first freeze frame
 They use a very long/ establishing shot to set the scene which appears to be up near Essex. The shot pans as it follows the boy.

Along the boys route there are what appear to be gallows for hanging people suggesting they are in an area that has a lot of criminals.

The boy is alone and there are no houses or poulated areas suggesting that it is a very lonley and solitary place


The second freeze frame

A medium shot shows the criminals and the boys expressions to show their emotion.

The shot also allows you to see the area which they are in.

The mans clothes and the state of his hygene suggest he is a criminal and the chains he is wearing reinforce the theory.

Memento evaluation

The beginning of Memento they use a blue and formal text  on a black background which makes it stand out. It then fades out to a dirty, shaking hand holding a polaroid of a man with blood around him. The man shakes the polaroid and it starts fading out. This suggest that there is something strange about this because the photo is working backwards. The hand suggest he has been doing manual labour as they are dirty and also the fact that the hand is shaking suggest that he has done something that is scary or shocking like murder. The fact he is holding a polaroid of someone that has been shot reinforces the possibility that he has killed someone or maybe he is a detective. The shaking hand maybe suggests he has been shocked by something he has seen.

Insomnia evaluation

The opening sequence for insomnia makes the audience feel like they are in a dream or that the character is slipping in and out of consciousness suggesting they are dyeing. There is also a red liquid which appears to be blood growing on a fabric. This suggests someone has been stabbed or shot and are bleeding. It keeps switching between the blood and a shot of the camera flying over white mountains which could be perceived as heaven or a place that the character holds dear to them. This gives the perception they are dying because typically when someone is dying they think of somewhere they love or heaven. They use stringed instruments to create a piece of music that keeps you in suspense and enhances the mystery which they are playing for the whole of the opening scene. The text flows or grows in like blood and then the film blurs in. This could also link to the name of the film "Insomnia," which is a sleeping disorder and could be someone at the point of exhaustion.

Psycho movie analysis

We watched a horror clip from a film in the 1960s called Psycho which was directed Alfred Hitchcock. The clip we watched was a famous shower scene were a girl is murdered by a dark figure. At the beginning of the clip, everything is white and clean which signifies that the girl was innocent and pure. It is just a normal day for her with no special occurrences which adds a element of fear because it makes the audience believe it could happen at anytime. You can see silhouette walking towards the shower, the shower curtain is used as a component of mystery as it is unclear who it is. The figure then attacks her with a knife which is a symbol of danger and death. It also shows the character is mentally unstable because if you are attacking someone with a knife you will see a lot of blood and you also get into a repetitive motion which shows he has problems with control. They use tense, repetitive on edge music when the murderer is attacking which is similar to the motion of the knife. There is then a shot of the girls expression of pure fear. When the attack if finished, there is blood on the wall and floor colouring the white.  Her hand is sliding down the wall showing her desperation, she clutches for the shower curtain and it falls down which is a symbol of her last hope gone. She falls down with the curtain and the camera zooms out from her eye. It shows there is no more life in her eyes anymore and her blood washes down the drain similarly to her life

Research on the film The Grudge

The Grudge is about an American nurse living and working in Tokyo. She is exposed to a supernatural force when she visits a house. It is a little boy and his mother who are the living dead who were both murdered by the Father and they stay in the house and lock people in a terrible rage before killing them.

The Grudge was directed Takashi Shimizu and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar. It won a BMI Film Music Award in 2005 and has been nominated for six others including Best film award. It was written by Stephen Susco and was produced by Takashige Ichise. The film editing was done by Jeff Betancourt and the cinematography by Hideo Yamamoto. It had a budget of $10,000,000 and had a gross product of $110,175,871. In the opening week in the USA alone it made $39,128,715 and had 3,245 screenings.

The film uses very good components. The mother, who is the one who kills everyone, has a signature noise which is like a crackling noise and every time I hear it I think of some famous scenes from the film. The cinematography is also very good. They use a lot of floating camera and perspective shots to add fear. Another element they use is the low lighting and the dark colours which have a good impact on the atmosphere.

The Comparison between the films "28 Days" and "American Werewolf in London"

American Werewolf in London evaluation
In the film American werewolf in London it uses may different horror components.
There re two guys walking along what appears to be a mountain pass in the Yorkshire dales. They are portrayed as average normal people as they are talking about girls they think who are good looking which is a typical convocation for two men. They walking into a small village or a hamlet which appears to be very innocent. They walk in to the pub and there is an awkward silence and people are hostile towards the boys. It makes the audience feel as if there is something different about this place as the country is typically welcoming. There is a star on the wall surrounded by candles and when the boys ask about it, there is a silence again suggesting that there is something scary behind it. They leave the pub and they are told to stay of the moors and stick to the road a second time. It creates a sense of importance as it is said twice. When they have left, the villagers talk about death and murder which makes the audience believe the boys will die. There is a typical shot of the moon suggesting there is a werewolf

28 Days later
In the horror film 28 days later, it gives you an impression there has been a disaster as there are clips on the TV, but it is just a ape watching the clips of pre-recorded footage. This links well with the rest of the film as there is a disaster later on. The ape seems to be in an evil lab as he is tied up to machines and strapped down. It is also very dark and low light suggesting that what ever is going on isn't good. A group of people then come in wearing balaclavas and your first guess is that they are terrorist as they are braking in. It then reveals that they are helping the many apes trapped in small boxes. The sound of the apes and their actions suggest that there is a sense of panic and fear. A professor then tries to signal the centre, but is stopped by the group. The film uses a typical technique of the professor telling them not to do something and the group ignoring it. The doctor tells them not to let them out because there infected with rage. This strikes fear and curiosity into the audience because you can't physically infect someone with rage and it suggests that there will be death. They let one ape out and it bites the girl and her eyes go red symbolising evil. The apes are finally silent after the girl has been bitten to create a sense of shock.

The similarities in these two films are as follows:
-They both use dark setting to create tension
-There is something going on that the watcher doesn't know about that the inhabitants are hiding
-It is a strange atmosphere, it is unusual and builds suspicion

The differences between the two films are:
-In 28 days the characters are first seen as terrorist figures and then it reviles who they are and what they're doing
-In American Werewolf in London, the two characters are just normal guys who go into a pub
-In American Werewolf in London, they use repetition as they get told to "stick to the road twice."
-In American Werewolf in London, they use the classic moon shot to imply that there is a werewolf near.
-In 28 days they use animals to create fear as animals can always sense fear
-In 28 days they have a scientist who is warning them and says there "infected," this gives it a felling of tension as you know something is wrong.
-In 28 days, they give the girl red eyes after she is bitten which makes her seem evil