Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Thomas Brown. He is 16 years and 3 months old, and he lives in the suburbs of Nottingham.
He dresses casually, usually donning jeans and a printed t-shirt with trainers. He enjoys hanging out with his friends, playing video games, going to the cinema and listening to music.
He likes to watch films such as Harry Potter, TRON, Shutter Island, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Inception, Happy Gilmore, The Big Lebowski, Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and he will usually go to see these at the cinema before buying them on DVD to watch with his friends.
He watches television programmes such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, Friends, Top Gear, The Big Bang Theory and The Inbetweeners, so mainly comedy.

The music this boy listens to varies, but the main genres he enjoys are indie, rock, techno and dub-step. He doesn’t listen to popular music very often, as he feels that this type of music is overrated, the songs sound too similar and the lyrics are superficial.  

Thomas is a stereotypical boyish-boy, who enjoys male orientated programmes and music, and therefore he would most probably like the male orientated and “manly” genre of our film (horror, which we discovered is a genre favoured mostly by males from our questionnaire). However, he is also a little less mainstream, due to his choice of music, and consequently he would probably appreciate the unique quality of the location of this film (a school), which is not very conventional or usual of the horror genre. Also, due to his age, he attends school, which means that he would be able to relate strongly to this location, increasing his fear when watching and also making him anxious during future trips to school.

Evaluation: Question 3

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

A film distributor is a company or individual that releases a film to the public either by cinema, DVD, television or downloads. A distributor may do this directly or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors.

In addition to this, we also feel that our production would be distributed by a British distribution company, as British distributers are known for taking on small or amateur productions that do not have the funding or skills to earn distribution from larger companies (such as The British Film Institute). Our film is also solely British, with British actors, directors, producers and camera men, so that is another reason why having a British distributer would make sense.

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our horror film, Slaughter School, the main character is a teenage girl. She wears girly clothing (a short dress with leggings and studded boots, and a fur coat that can be seen on the floor at the start) and wears her hair in a feminine way (down and straight). She acts in a weak and nervous way at the threats surrounding her (she gasps at the deadly message on the whiteboard and holds her hands up to her face), and she also displays a rather unintelligent personality as she goes closer to the source of supposed danger when the door slams. We have represented teenage girls as easily scared, timid, overtly girly and slightly dim-witted, and we feel that we have represented them in a stereotypical way according to our genre, as this is how teenage girls are represented in most horror films. For instance, Casey Becker in Scream and Paige Edwards in House of Wax, who are both killed like our main character, display similar traits, such as: not act intelligently in their threatening situation, wearing girly, fashionable clothing and gasping/screaming a lot, showing that we have indeed represented teenage girls in a similar way to other related media texts.

Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products (i.e. of film openings)? 

      
This shot is of the red titles against the background of an isolated school ground. This is a convention that we have used, as many horror film titles are included in the opening to create a sense of tension and to give a feeling that 'something is building up' (see The Grudge). The titles are also included in the opening as they give an opportunity for things to be placed in the background that foreshadow elements of the film (again, see The Grudge at 2:40, where the murderer's hair is shown). We have achieved this by placing our isolated school locations in the background, in order to foreshadow our character's isolation in this location and the unhinged activities that will later take place there. Horror film titles are also usually red, as this colour holds strong connotations of blood and gore, and we have used this convention by including all red titles in our opening. 

This frame shows our main character in our filming location, a school. This challenges normal horror convention, as typical horror films are located in scary places where horror-like deeds and action are expected to take place, such as a wood or a torture chamber. Our film is shot in a school, and therefore the form of a creepy location is challenged, as a school is a friendly and peaceful environment where people do positive things (such as learn). However, as the school is deserted, we have also used a horror film convention (that of isolation), which is used in many horror film openings to give a sense of disorientation and to create a daunting atmosphere.

      Another horror film convention that we have used is that of a young and slightly dim-witted girl (our character acts dim-witted by going towards the source of the noise instead of running away) who is killed first. In many horror film openings, the first person to get murdered/harmed is normally a young and dumb girl who acts in a rather unintelligent way considering the circumstances (take Scream for instance, where Casey Becker, a teenage girl, is killed in the opening sequence by a masked murderer after flirting with him on the phone, which is a rather foolish thing to do).

      
In our horror film opening, we have also developed an idea that is being used by many directors nowadays in the horror/thriller genre. In order to give a feeling of disorientation, reflect the scared feelings of the characters and create a far more realistic atmosphere, directors are starting to use more and more shaky shots in their films. We have used at least three of these shots and also shaky point-of-view shots in order to create a feeling of uncertainty, to match our main character’s nervous feelings and to foreshadow the unhinged events that will later take place. 

      
In many horror film openings, a hint is given at who or what the killer is and the sort of way in which they will be killing. For instance, in the Scream opening, we are introduced to Ghostface, who is then the killer for the rest of the film. He kills his victim in the opening with a knife, which is then followed on in the rest of the movie with more violent and bloody deaths. In The Ring, the scary, young girl comes from the television, and this is hinted at in the opening titles by a teenage girl screaming in the direction of a television set, without actually showing what is on it. We have used this convention as our killer is shown in a subtle way (by a hand and some clothing) and it is implied that the murders will be mostly violent and gruesome as he/she is holding a bloody hammer, but we do not actually see the death.

Editing

We have been editing our horror film for a while now, and everything concerning the cutting, transitions, fonts and music is going well. However, we have noticed through the process of editing that the colour of our clips is far too bright and cheery for such a dark and creepy production, so we have decided to change our clips to a black and white colour scheme. This makes our clips look far more scary and sinister, and it also gives them a better quality look. We are aware that a black and white colour scheme is usually used on clips that form some sort of flashback or dream sequence, but as our clip is rather ambiguous anyway, we feel that it could well be a dream or flashback, as it is the start of the film and there are many possibilities for the rest of the production, if it was to be made into a full scale film. In order to compliment the new, dream-like feel of our clip, we have taken out all of the sound, and have just left in the music track. However, we needed to leave in sounds such as the creaking door and our character’s voice, so we altered them in a music software to make them sound more dream-like so that they would work well with the new feel of our piece.  

Altered Storyboard

Throughout the process of filming our production, we have changed many elements of our storyboard. We found that some shots didn’t flow very well together when put into practise, we realised that some shots weren’t physically possible for us (because of lack of space, it needed to be higher than we could reach, etc) and, as we have also altered the storyline slightly, we needed to alter some of the shots, and create new ones, in order to compliment this.

New Storyline:
Our new storyline begins in pretty much the same way as our old one, with our victim sleeping, waking up, and realising that she has slept past her home time. She still makes her way out of the common room, attempts to open the media room door, hears a noise and walks towards the source of the noise, but when she walks through the second door (to get closer to the noise), she now finds blood on the floor, inspects it and then notices the killer at the top of the stairs before the screen fades to black and we hear her screaming. We had to take out the corridor sequence from the film as we were not permitted entrance to the corridor in order to film this. We feel it looks better without this sequence, as the viewers do not get to find out the fate of the character, but from the screaming they are able to piece it together in their mind, creating something worse than the reality of the situation (as people tend to do this when watching horror films), and the screams also create a very haunting effect.

(Previous storyline here)

Filming Pt. 2

We have been filming our horror clip, Slaughter School, for some time now. We are doing this in our media lessons and in any free periods that we have, as it is set in school and therefore needs to be filmed within school hours. We have filmed a great deal of our project, but recently we have had to go back and film certain elements of it again, due to wrong lighting or bad lighting, and incorrect or inappropriate misé-en-scene that was left in the shot carelessly. We have also had to alter various elements of our storyboard, as some shots have not been physically possible or have not worked out quite as we hoped.