Monday 10 May 2010
Sunday 9 May 2010
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The primary audience for our media product is late teens and adults. As the genre comes under psychological thriller it would contain dark and distressing scenes which would be inappropriate for children under 15 years of age. Similarly, the film
Orphan is also rated 15 for the same reasons, as both Orphan and our product also contain elements of drama and horror. Our target audience in terms of gender would be predominantly women and girls in their late teens. This is because the protagonist is a female; with the film being based around her life. However, 'Thrillers' and 'Horrors', largely have a target audience of men. Therefore, because of the films genre, it would also attract a lot of male spectators as well as female. Because the genre is a psychological thriller, our product is aimed at a niche audience. People with specific interests in elements such as mystery, drama and process of the mind would have interest in the film. However, this would be a smaller audience with more unique taste, rather than the majority audience who have more interest in romantic-comedies and dramas, in which they can relate to.
Orphan is also rated 15 for the same reasons, as both Orphan and our product also contain elements of drama and horror. Our target audience in terms of gender would be predominantly women and girls in their late teens. This is because the protagonist is a female; with the film being based around her life. However, 'Thrillers' and 'Horrors', largely have a target audience of men. Therefore, because of the films genre, it would also attract a lot of male spectators as well as female. Because the genre is a psychological thriller, our product is aimed at a niche audience. People with specific interests in elements such as mystery, drama and process of the mind would have interest in the film. However, this would be a smaller audience with more unique taste, rather than the majority audience who have more interest in romantic-comedies and dramas, in which they can relate to.Saturday 8 May 2010
How did you attract/address your audience?
The genre of the opening sequence is psychological thriller and we used a variety of ways to show this genre and grab the audiences attention. To start, our audience is more likely to be females of the age between 15-30. It is a big age range but the plot line, camera work, sound etc keeps everyone interested. To start of, we chose the title of the opening film to be Emily and the reason for this is because we wanted the audience to see our media product from Emily's perspective. This makes the media product much more personal and distinctive. We could not target anyone under the age of 15 because we had to remember that this is a form of thriller and it could affect anyone under the age of 15. The location is eerie and Emily is alone which increases the tension. She looks upset and focused on what she is upset in an isolated graveyard. This ultimately shows off her independent personality. The female target audience can understand this which makes them even more interested even though Emily is 11 years old. Age does not matter in our media product so that's why it is aimed for women aged between 15-30. The fact that Emily is walking very slow at the beginning creates a sad mood to engage the audience with her pain and suffering. The opening of the film approaches an emotional mood very subtly and we want our audience to understand this. However, the main genre is psychological thriller and not long after her walk, Emily visits a 
mysterious grave and the audience do not know whose grave it is or why Emily is connected to it. We used an over the shoulder shot as Emily is wiping the leaves of the grave to symbolise that she is being watched over by someone. This camera work technique has also been approached very subtly but what follows on links the two shots together. Emily hears mysterious whispers calling out her name of which she response in a shocked way. This suddenly increases the tension and keeps our audience engaged. It also rained on the day we filmed which to our luck amplifies the 
eerie mood of the graveyard scene. As she runs, she trips over a branch next to small pink flowers. This branch is juxtaposed with the flowers as a way to show that Emily messed up in various points of her short life which led her to this troubled life while the flowers represent her life before all this trouble had entered her life. The flowers also represent her g
irly lifestyle before these events which links to the target audience of our media product. However, there are elements of Emily's old lifestyle in her present situation when you consider her bedroom. Thus, there are quite a few aspects in this opening film which relates its self to the target audience.
mysterious grave and the audience do not know whose grave it is or why Emily is connected to it. We used an over the shoulder shot as Emily is wiping the leaves of the grave to symbolise that she is being watched over by someone. This camera work technique has also been approached very subtly but what follows on links the two shots together. Emily hears mysterious whispers calling out her name of which she response in a shocked way. This suddenly increases the tension and keeps our audience engaged. It also rained on the day we filmed which to our luck amplifies the 
eerie mood of the graveyard scene. As she runs, she trips over a branch next to small pink flowers. This branch is juxtaposed with the flowers as a way to show that Emily messed up in various points of her short life which led her to this troubled life while the flowers represent her life before all this trouble had entered her life. The flowers also represent her g
irly lifestyle before these events which links to the target audience of our media product. However, there are elements of Emily's old lifestyle in her present situation when you consider her bedroom. Thus, there are quite a few aspects in this opening film which relates its self to the target audience.Thursday 6 May 2010
What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?
The Orphan and the Knowing are films which to some extent is similar to ours. Orphan’s main production company is Warner Bros. Pictures which is a big company and it also distributed the film. Knowing is produced by Summit Entertainment and distributed by Summit Entertainment. These production and distribution companies are big and being realistic, they wouldn’t produce or distribute our media product. However, we did some research about what kind of low budget independent British film companies would produce or distribute our product. Hammer Film Production is a British film company. This company produced a lot of films that have a genre of thriller, science fiction etc. As our media product fits in
to a psychological thriller genre, we thought it could be possible that they could produce our media product. Another option could be Film4 Productions which is a production company owned by channel 4. They produced a lot of films made in the UK and all of them were reasonably low budget films e.g. East are East. Shaun of the dead is a British film of low budget and was produced by Working Title 2. Other films successfully produced by Working Title 2 are Billy Elliot and The Calcium Kid. Working Title is a production company which might be interested in our media product because it is a bigger production company than Working Title 2.
to a psychological thriller genre, we thought it could be possible that they could produce our media product. Another option could be Film4 Productions which is a production company owned by channel 4. They produced a lot of films made in the UK and all of them were reasonably low budget films e.g. East are East. Shaun of the dead is a British film of low budget and was produced by Working Title 2. Other films successfully produced by Working Title 2 are Billy Elliot and The Calcium Kid. Working Title is a production company which might be interested in our media product because it is a bigger production company than Working Title 2. Monday 26 April 2010
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product genre can be categorized as a psychological thriller with the story focused on a little girl. We got the idea of focusing on a little girl from films like Knowing and Orphan. They are real media products which also base their story on a little girl. We took both genres of the films and looked at which we could use to make our media product stand out and give it its own meaning. In terms of structure, we decided to start differently compared to the films we have researched. You will find that our film opening starts with the main character walking into a graveyard. As the media product has to be 2 minutes long, we decided to really get into our storyline and engage the audience. Therefore, we started with a graveyard to create the eerie mood. All the way to the end, the story focuses on this character which differs from the other films we researched in terms of how many characters are introduced to at the beginning.
In Knowing, the opening of the film takes place in a school showing the involvement of the character with the rest of the characters. However, our film opening isolates the character and we try to put her in the centre of the story plot. The camerawork we used represents the genre of the film. The high angle shot from the tree shows someone else watching the girl. That shot was an important part to our media product because it produces the sense of someone watching her which intensifies the genre of our media product.
At the end of our opening film, we zoom in to the characters face which is very effective ending to the opening because that invites the audience into the character's life.
An important prop in our media product is a small doll Emily holds near the end of the opening. We used a close up to show this doll because it has a significant meaning here but the audience at this stagee will now know how this doll ties in with the plot of the story. We thought the close up was vital to include because close ups on props really does give clues to the audience of what to expect later in the film.
In terms of sound, we found it confusing as to whether we should use music or not. The quality of diegetic sound we captured was very good so we really wanted that to stand out for example the wind you hear when watching our media product really captures the mood. However, we thought a lack of non diegetic sound would not create the atmosphere we wanted. We did at the end decide to use sound suitable for the genre of the film.
The mise en scene in our media product is very simple but it could be said that the costume of the character reallt stands out. Emily is wearing a school uniform which can make the audience associate her with tenderness and innocence. However, this girl is far from this as she is has more to her that meets the eye which ofcourse is not so obvious in the beginning. Nevertheless, this is an assumption the audience can make.
Monday 19 April 2010
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In the process of constructing our product, our group learnt about different technologies, in particular when using the camera and editing software. We learnt how to use new elements of the camera, such as a variety of interesting shots that will be suitable for the mood of the film. Gradually, we became more comfortable with filming and produced more creative shots. Knowing how to use the camera and editing software meant that we could be adventurous and daring with what footage we had to film. For example in the graveyard scene one member of the group climbed up a tree in order to create a low angle shot, making Emily look more inferior to her surroundings.
In our original plan we decided to have a scene at the beginning where Emily was on the swings in the park. However, while editing we realised and came to the conclusion that this scene didn’t fit in as it was too lengthy and it didn’t flow seamlessly into the next scene. So we deleted it so our film opening can run smoothly.
Another device that we used was the sound track for the film. Because it was raining one day when we were filming we put the diegetic raining sound high so we could get a feeling of the atmosphere and it gives the film more tension. Also we realised that the weather is an important part of our film, therefore when we captured our piece we realised that the lighting wasn’t continuous. To tackle this problem we toned down the lighting of some parts of the film. This increased the continuity to make the film appear as it was filmed in the same day.
Furthermore there have been a lot of times where we filmed something and when we edited it, it did not fit in with the rest of the film. Therefore we learnt to film as many times as we could to use different angles so that when it comes to editing it we have enough footage to rely on.
In conclusion, this experience taught us how technology (editing software) can be used to create a specific effect that we want such as the sound, lighting etc. Learning how to use the technology and software’s really helped us in the process of construction for our final project and made us aware of the errors we made and helped us realise what to do if we use the software’s again.
In our original plan we decided to have a scene at the beginning where Emily was on the swings in the park. However, while editing we realised and came to the conclusion that this scene didn’t fit in as it was too lengthy and it didn’t flow seamlessly into the next scene. So we deleted it so our film opening can run smoothly.
Another device that we used was the sound track for the film. Because it was raining one day when we were filming we put the diegetic raining sound high so we could get a feeling of the atmosphere and it gives the film more tension. Also we realised that the weather is an important part of our film, therefore when we captured our piece we realised that the lighting wasn’t continuous. To tackle this problem we toned down the lighting of some parts of the film. This increased the continuity to make the film appear as it was filmed in the same day.
Furthermore there have been a lot of times where we filmed something and when we edited it, it did not fit in with the rest of the film. Therefore we learnt to film as many times as we could to use different angles so that when it comes to editing it we have enough footage to rely on.
In conclusion, this experience taught us how technology (editing software) can be used to create a specific effect that we want such as the sound, lighting etc. Learning how to use the technology and software’s really helped us in the process of construction for our final project and made us aware of the errors we made and helped us realise what to do if we use the software’s again.
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