EVALUATION

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of existing media products?




Our media product challenge the codes and conventions of existing media products as it uses very common conventions of the horror genre such as use of stereotypical characters for example the 'scream queen' played by Alex Webb, a blonde exposed characters, enforcing the method of the male gaze who is introduced as the first character on screen along with her boyfriend who are both sexually active, she gets killed off first then her boyfriend next as a form of the killers motive as he is jelous/wants to punish the couple for being sexually active. We have then used the final girl character, who survives until the end she is brunette/virgin type played by Beth Cooper such as Laurie Strode in Halloween. Isolated/Desolate locations were used 'The Moors' to show the very open proximity from civilisation and enforce the feeling of being watched, this is seen in ;wronf turn' and 'blair witch project'. We have also composed our own music, set out to interfere with you heartbeat and make you feel uncomfortable which are very commonly used in the horror genre such as 'Jaws' if we were to make the whole film we would then go on to use the music played over the killing, over every killing in the film as a form of repetition and to signify something terrible is going to happen. Whilst editing we also experimented with different stabbing sounds on the internet however found the most realistic was to use Hitchcocks idea in Physco to stab a melon numerous times and found this was the most realistic method.










How does your media product represent particular social groups?




The main social group we wanted to represent was teenage/youth. We managed to to this by incorparting it in our mise en scene/props using themes such as sex alcohol and drug use. We then went on to dress our cast informally, casually and 'middle/lower class' this invloved wearing tanktops/jeans/hoodys which are all youth orientated, showing piercings and making some of the cast members being slightly more exposed. They also used slang in the dialogue to reinforce the teenage social group, often what is portrayed in the media today and as they has northern accents and set in west yorkshire, it was easier to portray them as working class/lower middle class teenagers due to the yorkshire accents not being particulary belivable or realistic of an upper class set of teenagers.




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




As optimum releasing and warp films distribute low budget horror films using northern actors which they have done such as Donkey Punch, they would be ideal for distributing out product or someone who works with them if we were to make it into a full length film. The factors for this is that it is digitally made, a low budegt film, made with northern actors, set in northern england (avoiding the upper class stereotype whch warp films like. However our film would unlikley to achieve box office release and have cross over appeal to america as they are only aware of upper class london stereotypes which our film lacks.




Who would be the audience for your media product?




Our production contains strong alcohol use and violence therefore would be rated 15-24, due to these factors and many more, we discovered this whilst going through the BBFC guidelines where we discovered it involved the characteristics of a 15 rated film. The top age of 24 was used because of the themes and cats invloved they would not appeal to an older adult audience and the dialogue used may give them an oppostional reading. Both genders however would enjoy our film, due to the male gaze from the scream queen providing entertainemnt to watch her on screen, whilst the female gender would enjoy seeing the final girl surviving as a girl role model. Males typicaly enjoy the horror/gore element to the film and the teenage audience are stereotypically drawn the the horror/slasher genre when it is a teen film as comedy may be invloved and similar age group are invloved which they can relate to. We however did not branch out do different ethnicitys by using an all white british cast this could be improved if we were to make a full length feature film. Adults to not find these type of storylines intresting, they perfer sophisticated and more indpeth storyline intresting, therefore will have an oppostional reading. Younger peers that are under the age of 15, even though they will not be allowed to watch it in the cinema will want to watch this product as they strive to be like their peers who are 15-18 year olds.









What have you learnt about the technologies whilst constructing this media product?




At the beginning of this product i could use the basics of Imovie and vaguely edit a short film whilst on the pre lim task, however i has no knowledge of using music composing interent programmes such as garage band. Throughout this process my knowledge of this has grown through imovie, garageband and Livetype.

Our group learnt how to put blue filters to add to the horror genre and edit the killing scene by putting together quick shots and play music over it. I have learnt how to adjust setting on the cameras, use voice recorders and set up the boom mike and use it to our advantage which has benefited our product hugely, adjusting the focus.




Looking back to your pre-liminary task what do you feel you have learnt to your full final product?




Since the pre-lim task we have used far better and more advanced equipment such as the boom mike, which has helped greatley as throught the pre-lim task background noise/wind was a disruption and made the product less realistic however in our final product we were able to use the boom mike to our advantage blocking out all the background noise enabling our audience to concentrate on the editing and dialogue rather they anything else happening. We have edited every day applying our new knowledge to the film benefiting it as it looks more proffesional.

In the prelim task small mistakes such as lighting, clothing, background noise, dialogue, mise en scene etc mattered very little compared to the amount it does in the realy product and our group has taken much more consideration into these factors. Acting skills have been closely monitored due to our prelim task where the scream queen acting was very uncovincing and unable to be used, we have made sure it is realistic.The variety of shots has also improved as we have realised how important it is to achieve realism putting in poiint of view shots etc compared to the prelim where there was limited choice of shots.

Another factor is that in our pre-lim task we were unable to gain audience feedback giving us an unclear idea on if the audience had a preffered reading or not, so in the final product we were able to gain improvements form the comments made.