Evaluations

Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products us?
Our media product complies with media horror conventions. We follow the conventions of gender within horror movies. The victim in our opeining is female and it's given the stereotypical label of 'damsel in distress'. Our inclusion of pictures in our opeining also furthers the horror conventions. The inclusion of pictures are used on many popular horror movies such as The Ring and Shutter.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our opening scene we used a young female character as our main protagonist. In our intro, our character is seen as naïve and vulnerable as most girls are portrayed in horror movies. We used teenager as the main character and protagonist in our opening. We did this in order to appeal to our target audience, as we felt our audience would be able to relate to the character on screen; this is primarily because our target audience was aged roughly from 15-18.

Who would be the audience for your media product

• Thrill seekers - our target audience would be the typical adrenaline seeking junkees
• Working class/inner city teenagers
• Young adults of both sexes - our audience research showed a ratio of almost '1:1'.

We were mainly influenced by our target audience which allowed us to identify our specific audience.

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

I learnt a various number of skills in regarding camera skills and editing skills from the preliminary task. One of the most important things I learnt from the preliminary task was time management of filming and editing; this led me to excel much quicker a in my main task. Furthermore, due to all the handling of the cameras I was much more comfortable using a wide range of camera angles and shot types from al different positions. I also became very familiar with the editing software which I though was very complicated at first, however finally got the hang of after much practice.

Main task

https://vimeo.com/211680352

Here is the final production of our main task

Visiting the BBFC and classification of Our Horror Film

On January 24th, I, along with my media class, visited The British Board of Film Classification in London. We were introduced to a member of staff there who advanced to running an interactive presentation on the BBFC and film classifications. The BBFC hold the duty of classifying and censoring all films and video works discharged in the UK, as well as producing consumer advice listing references to violence, sex and coarse language among a variety of other things. Those over the certified age of a product can legally purchase it. The classifications used by the BBFC have changed significantly over time to mould to different generations and their outlooks. There are currently 6 different classifications used, which are as follows: U, PG, 12A, 12, 15, 18.
 

We were spoken to about the process it takes in order to classify a film on the higher side of classifications (15 and 18). In order to be classified highly on the list, a film must be deemed inappropriate for younger audiences due to the reoccurring themes of violence, sex and drug use, as well as other unsuitable themes: these also include discrimination (based on gender, sexuality, disability, religion or race), sexual violence, and peadophilia. The frequency of these themes, as well as their graphic and/or explicit nature, are what is the deciding factor of whether a video work is classified as a 15 or 18. It is also the BBFC's duty for making any necessary cuts to any video work. Cuts are often made if distributors request a less-restrictive rating, and are most commonly to any scenes of drug use, violence, or sex/sexual violence. An example of this comes from The Woman In Black, where the BBFC cut several seconds of footage showing a young girl being burned alive in order to obtain the classification of a 12A as opposed to a 15.

Regarding our own media project, it is important that we asses the themes featured. Whilst there are no reoccurring themes of violence, sex or drug or abuse, our last scene does display some aspects of violence. This is due to our paranormal antagonist attacking our main character whilst she screams for help. Although, this is not seen as significantly violent, we must take our younger viewers into consideration. For this reason we have classified our film at 15.

Shotlist

Silence of the lambs opening scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0A-1gbJzdU&t=1s


The film begins with a women running through a dark, misty woods. We are uncertain if she is just running out of own accord or running away from something. This shows some isolation and gives the shot a creepy feel. The bare trees and wash of blue colour adds to this. It is also misty which suggests it is the early hours of the morning.

It gradually becomes apparent that she is running an assault course, the audience start to think that the women is not a feminine as most women are portrayed in most films.

As she goes inside, the masculine blue theme continues. The wall and tables are lined with technology and male oriented items such as gadgets and guns.

The juxtaposition of the men and the female subject 'Clarice' exaggerates how weak she is because the elevator scene filled with men surrounding her making her seem smaller than she really is. Furthermore, the use of the men's red uniforms juxtaposed with the muted colours could possibly represent the male gender being a threat in this film because red connotes danger and death.

The camera work is mainly used to show that she is a women in a mans world. The rope shot seems to show this, as well as the lift shot. The panning shot of Clarice getting over the emphasises the amount of time it is taking her to get over the net to reach her goal. It suggests that she struggles with weakness but is resilient to overcome her obstacles.

The tracking shot and establishing shot cleverly shift the focus from the bigger picture to the main character to so we know who will be the main focus in the story. The title cover the shots and are very bold and the main focus point which could highlight that the scenes are not as important as they are the build up to the more tense areas. The showing of the female taking part in everyday normal activities tells us that she is an everyday person and this causes the audience to feel nervous as we realise this could be involving us as the audience more than we initially thought.

Equipment needed for our production

To create a scary and effective dark room, some props needed will be:

• Trays
• String
• Pegs
• Red Light 

In order to have a frightening antagonist(clown) we will need

• Face paint
• A suit
• Red Tie 
• Red ballon

Matilda:

• Hair tie 
• Hoodie 
• Professional camera 

Filming props:

• Canon camera 
• Tripod 

Editing equipment: 

• Adobe premiere
• Mac computer

Team members and their roles

Aaron - Camera Man, Editor, Music, Screenplay writer.
Isian - Main actress (Matilda), Make-up, Set design, Screenplay writer.
Raphael - Actor (Clown), Co-director, Screenplay writer.
Agnesa - Co-Director, Production Manager, Make-up, Screenplay writer.