Coursework Evaluation : Question 1

In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Horror/suspense media products?

To find the conventions of media products, we did a lot of research into films in this genre.

Costumes and props:

Uusually in horror/suspense films the type of props used have some form of weapon. I think our costume challenges the Conventional Costume of Cult Horror as the usual costume is dark clothing, strange masks and dark makeup to make them look old and mystical. Whether as our costume is we chose black trousers, a white blouse and a green flowy jumper. As shown partially in screenshot 7.

Title: 

The typical title for a horror/suspense film is usually one word, occasionally two words such as 'the ring'. Conventionally films are one word as they are easy to remember and pass word on. However the title for our piece  'Merz'  is rather unconventional as it is french. Most titles are in the same language as spoken in the rest of the film, as the rest of our film is in English it breaks those norms. This is effective as it immediately draws attention and interest to the film as people will want to know what the title means. The short title almost represents the short snappy shots in the opening 2 minutes. 

Camerawork and Editing:

Conventionally the editing of a horror is short harp editing followed by jump scares, however some can be soft and smooth depending on when it is set, for example if it is set in the past then the shot will more likely be soft and flowing with jump scares however if it was set in the future the shots would be fast paced. Therefore I think our piece meets the conventions

Age:

Usually actors and characters in horror suspense movies are much older than a teenager, they're usually in their mid twenties to mid fifties, having a teenager as the main character makes everyone feel uncomfortable as they think could someone that young could have that much of a twisted mind, it raises questions and definitely challenges the conventions and norms of a horror suspense genre film

Setting/Location:

Conventionally a setting will be introduced in the opening 2 minutes of the film however in our opening 2 minutes a setting is not introduced, we are only introduced to a dark room. Normally, locations used in horror films are historical buildings or modern hideouts. Our lack of setting allows the audience to focus on whats happening in the opening 2 minutes.

Title font and style:

Normally, horror films have a dark scrawled titles that have an eerie atmosphere as if you were to have a really scary scene that cut to bubble writing you would ruin the msie-en-scene of the film. 

Our title mostly sticks to these conventions. It is dark, hand written and photographed so it is completely unique to our piece, there is not a font that people can copy.

Character 

Our character challenges the conventions of any horro/suspense media piece dramatically.  Most 

Similarly to how the story is introduced, the characters are usually introduced through narration or dialogue. This usually occurs straight away, and the characters are immediately introduced. 

Coursework Evaluation : Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Coursework Evaluation : Question 3

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

The media institute that would issue our media product would depend on how we were to continue the plot of our film. If we continued with the aim of creating a film that would create a mass profit, it would be distributed by companies such as 'DreamWorks' and 'Marvel' because they produce films that sell to a large target audience, have well-known actors in their cast and invest in advertising. They also produce merchandise that extends the interest in the film and allows them to make more money. Due to this, they would probably want a lighter hearted film with a simple to follow plot so younger audiences could follow the plot.

If we were to continue our film making our film as artistic as possible. Companies such as ‘Warp films', 'Handmade films' and the BFI usually produce more artistic, original films. Which don’t create a high profit like larger companies but they do produce more intriguing harder to follow plot films, specified to a certain age range.

However some films do tend to be released straight to Netflix or he internet as people have a wider access to the internet nowadays. One of the best things about marketing to the social media sector is that you can advertise to the exact demographics you are trying to reach.

Due to this, I think our film would probably be more likely to be distributed by industries such as the BFI, ‘Warp films’ and ‘Handmade films’ or online as its not a conventional film.

Coursework Evaluation : Question 4

Coursework Evaluation : Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Coursework : Evaluation Question 6

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

Over the duration of the starting media to finishing coursework, myself and my group have developed new skills and techniques concerning the use of technologies in our practical and theory work. Throughout the coursework, we depended on computers for almost everything, from transferring data like memory cards and video clips to editing tasks and blog posts. When reflecting on my preliminary task at the beginning of the coursework, I can clearly see our progression in our final outcome.

Coursework Evaluation : Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to your main product?

PRODUCTS:
- Link to our preliminary task:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiD15xWzDJ0

- Link to our main product, (a two minute film opening in sequence, with titles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ufTxFcrHY&t=1s

When reflecting back on our preliminary task we completed at the start of the year, I have learnt numerous things since then, that has helped develop our skills to complete our coursework film opening (the main product). For instance, my editing experience, sound knowledge, and camera shots and angles experimentation.

When reflecting back at my preliminary task I realise how much I have developed and progressed as a media student, building skills on planning, filming technique, and editing but also media and film production as a whole. To start with, I had a fundamental understanding of the film industry, only really watching films without much thought as to how they were made. I think this is somewhat evident in my preliminary task as I had hardly any knowledge of things like the mise-en-scene, dialogue and sound which resulted in a poor quality product. When filming, factors such as having to hand hold the camera instead of using the tripod so the camera stability was faulty or not having much knowledge on sound resulting in poor diagetic and non-diagetic sound. Later on, when editing, elements such as not knowing the software and planning our sequence without an idea of what we wanted also caused the film to be of a lesser quality than we wanted. However, with our coursework project, I had much broader understanding of the filming, and sound, and therefore creating a much better film opening. I think that this marks improvement as it is a clear disparity between my first media product, and the final cut of our two minute opening.

The main thing I've learnt in the progression from our preliminary task and our main product is the editing skills I have developed and the experience that has given us, as a team, to perfect our final film opening. Starting our preliminary task, our team had never even seen the software, Adobe Premiere Pro, before. So, considering this, we started from the bottom, learning the basics and slowly built our skills so we could create the best film we could. In the time between our preliminary task to our final cut, we as a group, and myself, individually, had several mini-projects that also included editing practice to help learn the software. For our final cut, it is also noticeable that we used a lot of after affects in post-production to create the atmosphere we wanted, that we had not previously used, especially in our first preliminary. Without the knowledge of how to do these little things, we couldn't have made the end piece we did, showing the progression between our first go and our last.

Another vital element that I have learnt in the continual progress with media studies, is the importance of sound. Before studying media, I had no idea of how the impact of something that I had previously unnoticed, could be such a big impact on the outcome. I quickly learnt, however, that the sound was as just as important as the visuals in a two minute film opening. For our preliminary task, we weren't very confident about including huge amounts of sound or relying on it to be extremely good but it was more that we overlooked it and covered it with music in post-production. With our final cut, however, we decided early on that we weren't going to use dialogue which was a perfect opportunity to use the sound to our advantage. Just before filming, our team went on a search for the perfect soundtrack to accompany the film, which had to suit the genre and tone for it to work, and thankfully, we did. I think that the difference between the sound quality with the preliminary and the final cut of our media product, is quite significant and it represents the progress of our learning.

Finally, the camera shots and angles are arguably the most important factor in film, and therefore one of the most important in our progression. Apart from editing, I think this is a skill I have learnt most about, due to the experimentation between the preliminary task and the final media product. This experimentaion allowed me to learn and expand my knowledge on different shots and angles, that, in turn, helped create our film opening. I also quickly realised that the editing side of media wouldn't necessarily resolve issues made during filming; it would only assist it a little. As a result I knew that for our final film we needed to capture everything to the last detail, even if it required us to film a particular shot multiple times. For example, in our preliminary task when we shot, we didn't take much care in looking back at footage on location and not bothering to re-shoot to get the perfect angle or the right close-up shot. On the other hand, for our final final opening, some of the macro shots we wanted to capture were hard to get right, and so it was only after half a dozen times of shooting and editing them, we got it right. This is another example of how in the time between the preliminary task and the final media product, I have progressed my knowledge of camera shots and angles even further.

LR