Audience Feedback

Film Opening

Final Slasher Film Opening

Evaluation

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

Our group focused on the sub genre of a slasher horror film and paid careful attention to the codes and conventions within this genre as they differ greatly when compared to other subgenres of horror, for example paranormal.

When carrying out my research of the typical codes and conventions of a slasher film we found out there are certain specific aspects that apply to many slasher films. For example one aspect was the idea that the victims tend to be young and attractive. In a slasher film the victims often tend to be a group of young teenagers. Our film opening therefore fitted in with this code and convention as our stock characters in our film were a young couple being demonstrated as the victims.















































Within our character profile we pick up upon the fact that the couple are young and attractive to fit in with the slasher conventions but we also mention another point that in slasher films the victims are often showed getting ‘punished’. This idea suggests that the young victims are often shown indulging in vices such as drinking and drugs and are often shown taking part in sexual activity before the murders.

Slasher films that I researched that also show this idea of ‘punishment’ for illegal vices being shown are  ‘Black Christmas’ and ‘Halloween’.

Black Christmas Opening

Halloween Opening

Our group found this idea particularly interesting so therefore tried to apply it within our slasher opening as we showed the boyfriend smoking and the young couple doing inappropriate gestures indicating the rebellious nature behind the young couple. The idea that Lucy and her boyfriend take part in these vices fit in with the fact that they could therefore be punished due to the horrors that may later face them. The film openings which i researched show the victims taking part in the vices straight away within the first two minutes of the opening. 

shot from 'Black Christmas' showing the young victim smoking and drinking excessively.












shot from 'Halloween' in which the young couple are shown to be taking part in sexual activity.








Shots from our slasher film opening which we included to try and fit in with this idea of punished are shown people are Lucy's boyfriend is smoking and they are

Another way in which the film openings from above demonstrate an element of many popular slasher films is that they both include a point of view shot. Both movies use a point of view shot which shows the frame from the killers’ perspective. Not only does this conceal and hide the killers’ identity, which is a common use in slasher films, but it also builds the enigma for the audience. 
Our group also used a point of view shot from the killers’ perspective as the killer watches Lucy showing his obsessed nature that surrounds her. The killers identity is not revealed at all within our opening and therefore also fits in with the codes and conventions of a horror in this way as well.

Two shots showing point of view shots that are used in our film opening.

The killer is shown to be watching Lucy, this shot highlights his obsession.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film opening represents various social groups and also presents the binary opposite of ‘male vs. female’ as the killer, although his identity is not revealed, is presented as a male character. We used stereotypes within our opening film as it allows the audience to immediately relate with the characters and allow them to know more about the characters than they would if stereotypes weren’t initially used.

One of the first social groups that are presented is that of ‘teenagers’ and the idea of the rebellious youth. Teenagers are typically presented with being rebellious and taking advantage of vices like drugs and alcohol. This idea of rebellious youth also fits in with a slasher film as the young victims are being punished for their rebellious activity further illustrating the stereotype of ‘teens’. Here in ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ the teenagers are shown to be taking part in sexual activity and also smoking illegal drugs, this not only straight away allows the audience to depict the sort of characters that they are but also allows the audience, through the activities of which they are doing, to stereotypically associate the characters as teenagers and therefore the stereotypes which apply to that age group. For example the audience can relate the characters as being rebellious, but also venerable due to their age.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Opening

To represent the idea of rebellious youth we showed a close up of Lucy’s boyfriend smoking focusing on the smoke he is breathing out to emphasise the idea that he is rebelling against society and taking part in something he shouldn’t be.

By representing the young couple as being rebellious it confirms typically stereotypes of the younger generation as the media are constantly depicting youth as something almost to fear and a 'lost cause' not just due to the typical 'hoody' image of teenagers but also down to the more simpler activities like smoking and more open sex life's.


Another representation that is shown in our film opening is the idea of gender.
Although the killers identity is not revealed he is associated as a male character through the heavy breathing that is used and the mise en scene of the typical black gloves that are presented as being quite a masculine piece of costume.

The representation which we create of the male characters within our film opening follow the typical conventions and stereotypes of the gender following the dominant ideology. Through the character of Lucy's boyfriend the idea that males are sex driven is shown due to the actions he does like grabbing Lucy inappropriately.

  Lucy on the other hand follows the stereotypes of an average female character. At the beginning of our film opening Lucy is shown to be getting ready and a lot of the beginning shots of her show her putting on her makeup and doing her hair. This idea follows the stereotype that women are always obsessing over their image and should look beautiful to fit in within society.

By having two young victims the main one being that of a girl and a male killer it immediately presents the binary opposite of ‘male vs. female’ to the audience. Due to the stereotypes of male of female the dominant ideology will therefore show the male killer being the strong and dominant character who will therefore hold the most power over the female submissive victim. 

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

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located in Hollywood. The company was founded in 1912 and is currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom. 

It is the third oldest existing film studio in the world behind Universal Studios & Gaumont Pictures showing the large and vast experience that the company would therefore have.. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the largest (top-grossing) movie studios. Although this is an American film distribution company due to the large experience and world wide recognition it has it would therefore be good in getting a new film into the cinema line and getting it the recognition it needs to become a successful and large grossing film.

The company also distributes many successful horror films like "Psycho" and one of the most recent being "The Devil Inside".

The Devil Inside Trailer

Vertigo Films

On the other hand another film distribution company that could distribute the film is that of “Vertigo Films”. Vertigo Films is a UK Media company, which was founded in 2002 to create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema.

The company aims to show British talent and actors throughout the majority of their films, for example the new “Street Dance 2” which not only contains many British actors like Nichola Burley, Matthew Bourne protégé Richard Winsor and Charlotte Rampling. The film also showcases British talent such as Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity and Flawless but also 2008 winner George Sampson.

The company has released a large number of horror films showing the keen interest the company has in horror and diverse genres. For example “The Children” “Wakewood” “Outcast” and “Im the angel of death”

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

When carrying out the audience questionnaires we aimed our film at a target audience of 16 - 20 year olds, with the main age being that of 17 year olds like ourselves.

In order to target our audience we carried out a questionnaire and included many of the results within our film opening. Our questionnaire showed that the majority of people asked preferred it when the narrative of the plot is not revealed at the opening of the film as it lets too much of the suspense and audience questioning go allowing the audience to expect the climax.

Although this was an idea we originally thought of including within our film opening, after carrying out our audience questionnaire we decided not to include it as it wasn't what our target audience wanted.


Also from our results we found out that a majority of people believe that lighting and music help to build the enigma and suspense throughout a horror film.

Therefore within our film we use various lighting with a contrast between black and white images when the killers manic state is shown to colour when the victims are shown highlighting the contrast between them both. We also use very fast paced tense music which flows with the action that is taking place.

WHAT TECHNOLOGY DID YOU USE IN MAKING YOUR FILM?


When making our film we used a range of technology throughout the different stages of development being: research planning and production. By using these technologies it allowed us to add special effects to our final film opening like music and voice-overs and meant we could organise our planning and research keeping continuity within our opening and filming. 

The main piece of technology that brought all of our research planning and production together was our blogs created through the website blogger. Blogger is a site in which you can create pages and posts creating a page in which people can view them and comment. 

By using this site for our media project it meant that our work could be organised and neat as it was kept all together and we could keep track of our progress by just visiting the website. I believe blogger visually enhanced our work as it meant that our portfolios could be more technical in keeping with the theme of media work and look instantly tidier. For example the film openings that we watched could be immediately uploaded to our blogs as there is an option to insert videos from youtube, and all our sheets and planning could simply be scanned onto our blogs as a jpeg file.

Research


Internet
Whilst carrying out our sub-genre research and watching different slasher film openings we used the Internet, in particular the search engine google, to familiarise ourselves with the genre.

Using the internet allowed us to create an in depth understanding of the genre as it brought up many sites that provided us with a basic outline of the codes and conventions of a slasher film. These conventions that we found out from the Internet and made into a ‘mindmap’ were further backed up through the film openings that I watched online showing the information provided was reliable.

Planning


Celtx

The first piece of technology that we used during our planning stage was Celtx. Celtx is free media pre-production software designed for creating and organising media projects like screenplays, films, videos, stage plays and comics.

We used Celtx to create our storyboard and our script. By using Celtx for our storyboard it allowed us to almost visualise our opening before even filming, another advantage of using Celtx to create a storyboard over other methods like drawing out a storyboard was that it was a much faster process and also meant the story board was presented clearly and organised. This is because instead of drawing out the frame shot we could easily take a picture of the shot and upload it to Celtx with a description of the action taking place in the shot and anymore additional information.

We also used Celtx to create our script for our film opening. Although our opening didn't, after production, contain any dialogue we still payed particular attention to our script as it contained information about the shots to be used and characters. Celtx was particularly useful in making our scripts as it lay the different information out neatly and professional with options to write about camera shots and movement and character descriptions.

Scanner
During the research and planning stage I largely relied upon a scanner to upload many of my sheets and findings onto my blog portfolio as a JPEG file. Some examples of items i scanned were the codes and conventions of a slasher films and the final versions of my storyboard and script (shown above).
Scanning these items straight onto my blog saved a lot of time during the planning and production process and it meant that I didn't have to spend time retyping all of the information out and could concentrate on the filming and editing of my final opening. The scanner was also useful in uploading the final version of the script and story board as it showed the changes and alterations we had made much more clearly then if we were to have to explain them.
















































Production


Digital Camera
The digital camera was mainly used in the production process and filming our final film opening and preliminary task, however it was also used in the planning process and creating our storyboard. To create our storyboard we relied upon the camera as we had to take different shots to recreate framings that would appear in our final opening. This worked better than drawing what we imagined the frames to be like as from taking a clear image it is much easier to distinguish the difference from mid-shots and close ups and also because it structured our outline of our film easily as the image were a basis and format that the filming could follow.

We also used the digital camera to film our final film opening, with the additional use of a tripod to create a steady shot the camera allowed us to capture moving images which could the be edited to create an effective opening. The camera was useful in allowing us to film a different range of shots through the use of zoom and watch the clips back straight away after filming them.










imovie


imovie is an apple software application that imports video footage off a camera to the mac and once imported allows you to edit the shots adding titles music and effects.

imovie helped us in particular as we could add subtitles over frames such as the names of the actors and who directed the film etc. Imovie also allowed us to include edits and transitions such as 'fade to black' and 'cross dissolves'.

This software also allowed us to change the speed and colour of the frames, when we showed to killers perspective we always presented the framing and clips in black and white to distinguish the difference.
The following too clips show the original version of a selected moment from our final film opening and the final version after the imovie alterations and edits that we did. To change the clip we changed the saturation of the clip and added a black and white effect to it. We also increased the speed of the clip up to give the effect of 'manic' cutting out.

Zamzar


Zamzar is a web application which allows the users to very quickly convert files without installing any software and just typing in a URL of the chosen video. Using Zamzar in our editing process was very quick and simple and saved a lot of valuable time.

With the aid of zamzar to convert and download our music soundtrack and opening universal credits, through imovie we were also able to layer these sounds creating a much more sleek and professional effect.

HOW HAVE YOUR SKILLS DEVELOPED FROM THE PRELIMINARY TASK?


During the production and filming of the preliminary task, although we faced a few problems and the filming was not up to the standards we wished, this only helped up to learn from our mistakes develop the skills and improve upon them in our final slasher opening.

One example of this was our use of lighting, during the preliminary task the lighting was very dark creating shadows on the face. Due to this the filming quality immediately looked very poor creating an amateur like feel to the task. However in contrast to this during our filming of our film opening, due to the mistakes in the previous task we always bared the lighting in mind to therefore the shots were much clearer allowing the audience to pick up on more information within the shot such as the characters facial expressions. The impact of the lighting within the final film opening can be instantly understood more when comparing it to the preliminary task as the shot looks much clearer and crisp.

Shot from our final film opening

Shot from our preliminary task






















The other main aspect which we improved upon from our preliminary task was the frame work and filming quality. During our preliminary task there were often lots of moment in which the framing of the shot was not straight making the frame look angled and askew to the audience. The filming quality was also very poor as there were also moments in which the camera was quite shaky and not held firmly upon the tripod. However within the final film opening the shots and frame work was largely improved as framing was straight with the object in focus clearly within the centre of the frame and also the shot was held still so there were no shaky or lost moments to the audience.

Shots from the preliminary task in which the framing 
can be clearly shown to be angled and not straight.

Shots from final film opening in which the framing 

is much more centre and clear for the audience