Evaluation Activity 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to ful product?

 In our preliminary task we did well, but we could have done better. For example, we used fairly normal and ordinary shots, but in our opening scene we tried very different shots to make ours stand out. For example one shot we used was a low angle shot from under the bed. It was designed in order to make the audience believe there was someone watching her from underneath the bed. In our preliminary task we used shots that you would expect to see every day. For example, we used an over the shoulder shot at a slight high angle to show the lack of power one character had. This shows how our framing skills had advanced and we were thinking about the shot a lot more. We were doing a lot better with our framing and were able to think of more inventive shots and made the story board a lot better.

 The shots used also shows how we were thinking about the movie a lot more. This is shown in the use of titles. For example, in our preliminary task we used fairly unprofessional titles that weren't very relevant to the scene. In contrast to the opening scene we created, we thought about the titles a lot more. They look normal and bland, but we thought about about that and there was a reason for that. The thought that it would compare to the titles at the end of the sequence.  We wanted to link the the titles to the feeling in the movie. We used bland and normal font as in the movie nothing had really gone wrong. However, at the end after the murder scene and the suicide scene, everything was almost in a mess and so we made a handwritten messy font.

The editing was also improved massively compared to the preliminary task. In the preliminary task we used a simple shot reverse shot of someone walking though the door, which was not very advanced. However, we tried something very different in our opening scene. We used a foot going down onto the camera and used a shot reverse shot of the foot hitting the ground. It worked very well and showed how our thinking and editing had got a lot better. We also used the movement of the foot and mimicked the movement with the titles with the zoom feature. We tried to mimic the movement as much as possible, but we where limited by the software we had. This idea just shows how we were thinking about small features of the film more. The editing was a lot smoother and flowed a lot better in the opening scene. We made some mistakes in the preliminary task, but in the opening scene, we executed the task a lot better and worked very well. All these factors prove how much our skills and ideas have moved on since the preliminary task.  

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

During our film project we used various types of technology. One of the most important pieces of tech was the camera we used which was a panasonic SDR-S50. It was my camera and had obviously used it before, but I did learn a bit more about its different features that I hadn't used before. With our project, we tried out different shot angles to grab the attention and make our film stand out. The camera was really good in this aspect as it's small and light. This made it easier to hold it steady for awkward shots for example the wormed eyed shot and the under bed shot. The camera also has 78x optical zoom where as other cameras on offer didn't have anything near that. We used the zoom a lot during our film and the control you have over the zoom made it a lot easier. The microphone is a lot better on this camera as well which made the whole quality of our film better.

When editing the film footage we used Imovie on the macs to edit the footage. I had used this piece of technology before so I thought that there would not be much more to learn on this software. However, when editing this movie we used aspects of the program I had not previously used. For example, we utilized the music and the sound aspect a lot more. We had recorded two voices to add to our movie for effect which worked fantastically and was a lot better quality than I expected. We also recorded a piece of music played by Matt Raulston which again was fantastic quality and the music fitted perfectly with the film. We also used the the movie affects and audio affects in order to create different moods. We were enable to turn down the lighting used and add different affects to the footage to make it more ominous. We also used a lot of slow motion to make the movie work well. It worked fantastically and made the film very effective. We could also change the pitch of the audio to counter the the slowing down of the video footage.

 We used blogger in order to keep track of our progress and share any information with each other we needed. I had used it before so there was not much else to learn about the program, I just used some aspects more than others. For example, we have used the labels aspect more during this project. This feature if blogger enables the audience to navigate it a lot better and find any posts a lot easier. We used other programs to improve the blog. For example, I used a "Goanimate," in order to create a youtube video of an interview with Christopher Nolan. We also annotated screen shots of films on programs such as "Glogster."

We used Youtube a lot to improve our research and annotate our film. For example, we looked at many horror films that our similar to ours for comparison to compare our films with the best. We could also trial music with our film before adding it. We found music that we liked and recorded someone playing it on piano. We originally got ideas of music from Youtube and worked around it from there to research  We also annotated our finished product of the film on Youtube in order to show how it address's our audience.

Evaluation Activity 5 - How did you attract/address your target audience?

This is our media opening scene. We have annotated it so that it shows how we addressed our audience.

These are a couple of examples of pier feedback. We got very positive results and we included them in our movie.

Evaluation Activity 4 - Who would be the target audience for your media product?

Our target audience is going to be teenagers at the age of 15 up to the age of 27. This is due to the fact that horror films are mainly watched by people of a young age who enjoy the tension and violence of of a horror film. We would expect them to be concerned about fashion and shop at places like Topman, HMV, game, New Look etc. They would watch these genres for the adrenaline rush as they enjoy the feeling of "being alive." This helps with our film as we use violence and other horror conventions to create tension and a feeling of fear. The violence also makes the audience feel almost disgusted by the thought and sight of it. This is a factor of the film that we hope will stick in peoples memory.

This picture is Lewis, he is a 17 year old who is doing his A2 levels. He enjoys horror films for the feeling of adrenaline and fear. The age group for this film would be a 15, which is mainly due to the violence and discriminating and strong language which would be used later in the film according to the BBFC.

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

If I were to pick a way that my film, considering the size of it, was distributed I would hope and expect the following. First of all to release the film "Animus," I would enter it in the Cannes Film Festival which is held in Cannes, France and is regarded as one of the most prestigious and well known film festivals. There most prestigious award given is the Palme d'Or or Golden Palm. Films such as Pulp fiction in 1994 and Apocalypse Now in 1979 have won it. The first winner of this fantastic award was a film called Union Pacific in 1939. This award if for films made all over the world and has had winners from countries stretching from USA to India.

Films such as these winners are usually taken into great interest by broadcasting companies not just for the Golden Palm, but any other award from the Cannes Festival. If our film does well in the festival I would hope it goes to a distributor such Channel 4 were we would hope to be put on a channel such as Film 4. This would raise awareness for our film and gain popularity. We would hope it would be shown on other channels and then put it on in a small cinema during the summer to increase the chance of it being shown.  It would then as a final step of distributing be on sale as a DVD.

Once the film has been released on DVD and possibly shown in a cinema, we would like to put it on the Internet either on youtube, but I would prefer a proper movie site. This would make our movie more professional and more reliable. It would therefore be more well known and hopefully gain more awareness for our film and make more money. An appropriate site would be "Indie Talk," which is were independent films can be seen. This helps movies gain popularity and hopefully get bigger.

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

In our film, our murderer has been compared to Jason from the film "Friday 13th."  Our character however doesn't look like Jason, but i believe there are many key similarities with the characters. For example, the way in which they murder there victims is very similar. Jason kills his victims in a very personal way with a machete. This is a very brutal type of murder, similarly with our character who beats his victims with a pole. Both these methods of murder suggest that the characters are mentally unstable through different causes. Our character is motivated by hate and revenge which slowly drove him to this act of hideous violence.
Another similarity with these characters is that there identity is kept hidden. Jason does it through a mask so that his whole body is seen. Our character uses lighting to obscure people from finding his identity and his face is hidden in the film. These techniques are both used to fill the audience with a sense of curiosity and is used to create tension.
There are differences with these characters as Jason is made memorable by his mask as it is implanted on your memory. Our character would be remembered by his pipe and the brutal way he kills people. These are both similar murderers with a few differences

Evaluation Activity 1 - In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?

The title of the film and title font and style
In this evaluation activity, I will be evaluating aspects of our film. This first aspect I will be looking at is the title of the film, "Animus." We found the name "Animus," when I was looking at the thesaurus for words related to fire, revenge or any such words. We wanted a punchy one word name that would be relevant, but effective. When looking at the word revenge, I saw the word animus and looked into it. I found that the word describes the part of a males brain that creates a hatred and hostility towards some one. We found this described our killer well and so made that our title. The font was well thought of and is used to contrast the credits. Before the murder scene, the font is quite bland and simple which connotes how the film is normal with nothing of interest happening. The we used for the main title is meant to be the direct opposite of this. It is meant to connote fear, madness and panic. We chose this font as it seems hand written as if the murderer has written it. Our title can be comared with the film "Insomnia," as it as well is a short punhcy word. These types of titles make the audience wonder what it means and adds a sense of curiosity. Isomnia is a sleep disorder that can be linked to the brain similarly to Animus. Our tifle font and style is also similar to the film "Se7en," which is a disturbed murder film as well. They both have a meaning suggesting madness and chaos.

Setting/location
The location we chose for the two different scenes were discussed in great detail. For the first shot, we wanted somewhere quite remote, but at the same time have witnesses for the event. We chose the river in Guildford in the later afternoon. This was due to the fact it was getting slightly dark and at that time there would not be many people. It would therefore at as a good place to shoot especially as it had a river were the man would be able to commit suicide. For the second scene, we wanted somewhere were the killing would make a big impact. We thought that shooting it in someones home would be a good idea as it would make more of an affect as they are invading someones home. We then started discussing how the killing would happen and decided that he would hide and strike from a hidden place. The location therefore had to have a hiding place for the murderer. In the film "Strangers," is set in a persons home similarly to one of our scenes which has a big imact on the audience as it is invading their home. It suggest that they can get you even where you would normally feel safe.

Costumes and props
For the costumes of the man committing suicide, we chose simple clothes that you would wear everyday, but we needed his face to be hidden at certain points. For the woman, we wanted her to seem a professional who had come home from work. We therefore gave her a smart dress and coat with a blazer. The blazer reinforces the stereotype of a professional and therefore worked well. For the killer, we wanted a very simple outfit with nothing that stands out so that if someone saw him they would not take a second look. We chose black shirt and trousers as it is very simple. We didn't use many props, but the main one we used was the pole the murderer uses for killing. Murdering someone with a pole suggest two things. They are either mad, as it is a very gruesome death and would have to have a mental deficiency or hardness to deal with it, or want to take revenge on some one for the same reason. Our films most noticeable prop, the pipe, is similar to other movies. For example in "Friday 13th," the murder, Jason, uses a machete which is similar to our murder technique as it is very close and brutal murder. this techniquq of murder suggests madness or crazieness.

Camera work and editing
When doing our storyboard we wanted to make shots that were different and made our film stand out. We used birds and worm eyed shots to change it up. We were trying to add unusual camera angles and shots and did so quite successfully. For out editing, we wanted a mixture of fast and slow paced editing. For the murder scene we wanted to use fast paced editing with quick and sharp changes. This makes a more panicked affect and adds more tension to the film. However, when editing the suicide scene we wanted to to slope the scene down so used slow paced editing. We also wanted to use different transitions to make the movie flow better. One idea we had was the fade to white after the first scene then zoom out of a white door. This worked a lot better than I anticipated  and linked the two scenes very well. We used other transitions in different places in order to make the film flow better and most of them succeeded in their task. In the film "Halloween," they use similar editing and style of music. The music used is very mellow, but adds tension and is strange for the type of scene. This is similar to our movie as we defy the music conventions in our movie.

Genre and how the opening scene suggests it
Our genre we used for this film was a horror/thriller genre and we included alot of the normal conventions you would aspect to see in these types of films. For example, we used a lot of violence and faced paced editing in some places which is a usual horror or thriller convention. Both of these factors suggest the genre as well as some others. However, we wanted to make a balance in our film between the horror/thriller and normal calm scenes. We therefore put a calm scene at the beginning despite the suicide.
We introduced our main character in an unusual way. The murder, who's identity is unknown at this point is revealed and you learn quite a lot about him. The pole suggests madness of revenge as it is a very brutal method of killing someone. The audience could pick up on a couple of other things, but we wanted to keep and a lot of the information hidden from the audience inm the opening scene. He is introduced in the second scene when he is scene in the mirror and later kills a woman. Other films such as "Drag me to Hell," also use violence in their opening scene to suggest their genre.

Special effects
We did also use some effects, for example on the first scene we used a vignette affect which makes the whole shot darker and limits the light which made it look a lot better. We didn't use that many as we filmed in correct conditions and were in able to get the effect we wanted without any computer aids. "The Grudge," also uses darkening special effects in order to create more tension similarly to our film.