Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In my media product, I used media conventions influenced by others, for example the murderer knocking on the door was inspired by the knocking on the door in ‘The Strangers’ film, the flash forward used was inspired by the flash forwards in ‘Final Destination’ -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olYY333JaFA and the normality of the female conversation was inspired by the start of ‘The Ring’ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e4DBZ_eeGg .
I also used the typical media conventions to portray certain characters in different ways, e.g. Brooke was mainly filmed at a high angle to highlight her vulnerability and weakness.

The murderer was mainly filmed at low angle shots to highlight his superiority and make him appear superior.

Mandy is also usually filmed at a low angle to highlight her bravery and determinateness.

Also, in the morning scene, I used over the shoulder shots; typical for conversations.

I also challenged typical media conventions by being more experimental e.g. the spinning bottle scene with the bottle’s POV

; almost all POV shots are from another human / animal not an object. I decided to use this shot as it creates an edgy twist from the start of the film and foreshadows that although what the girls are doing is considered as normal, there is something not quite right. Usually in a horror film, when someone gets attacked they make sure the audience can see every detail of wounds and blood, whereas I challenged this and decided to have a match on action shot of stabbing into the cake

– which created an enigma code, as the audience doesn’t know what happened.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product uses female teenagers. Their age is stereotypically represented as they are drinking alcohol which is deemed to be a typical teenage trait.

Being female, Brooke reinforces the female stereotype as within the dialogue, mis-en-scene and high angle shot, she is represented as weak which is a stereotypical female trait. On the other hand, Mandy challenges the female stereotype as she is represented as being brave as she saves Brooke and is filmed at low angles.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My media institution would be an Independent film company as the film was cheap to make, and so would the rest of the film. There are not many special effects as they aren’t needed for the story line. Also the more experimental shots probably wouldn’t be used in a blockbuster film. The actors in my film speak in an American accent; therefore the company would be based in America. Being based in America has a much larger audience than being based in the UK.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
As the film rating is a ‘15’, the films target audience are teenagers and young adults (age range 15-21). Also the main characters in my film are females, therefore females would be my primary audience and males my secondary audience (as they are likely to go to the cinema with females). The people who watch my film would also like films like ‘Paranormal Activity’, ‘The Ring’ and ‘Final Destination’

How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my female audience by using female characters as the main characters, this means females and relate and aspire the characters. I attracted the film to teenagers as the characters were also teenagers, therefore they can also relate and aspire to them, I also attracted to this aged audience by making the film scary enough to be a ‘15’, but not scary enough to be an ‘18’ – if the film was too scary it would make it illegal for the majority of my target audience to watch.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt how to edit films in iMovie effectively by incorporating horror conventions into the film. For example; adding scary sounding music created a horror atmosphere, cross cutting between the murderer and Brooke built up suspense and making Brookes vision in black and white showed that it was in her mind.

I also had more props to use e.g. the fake blood, to make the film more realistic.

I also learnt basic camera skills whilst filming, like setting up the tripod and using the digital camera.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt how to make a story line far more exciting, creating a genre atmosphere within the editing and experimenting with different shots whilst filming.