MY MEDIA A.SEvaluation ON OPENING SEQUENCE

By Fahad Nazor

Q1: How does your film use, develop and challenge the codes and conventions of similar media products?

Our media product created was an opening sequence to a thriller movie to which we aimed to follow the codes and conventions of our thriller sub-genre: horror. s.

Question 1 continued…

Question 1 continued and finalised

Q2: How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

In my opening sequence the cast consist of 4 characters. The first and main character/protagonist is named Tyra chuck, who is the girl that the house in my movie belongs to along with her parents and she is also the character who organizes the sleep over in which all the main action within the opening sequence as well as the majority of the rest of the film will occur in. The second and third of my characters are named Monika Solanki and Ruksana Monnan, these two characters are not the main ones but are as just as important and featured in the opening sequence as Tyra is. Together they will all make up a group of friends having the sleep over and the turning victim to a series of unfortunate events within the film based on the storyline. The last character featured in my opening sequence and throughout the whole of the film is spiritual but also very vital, the antagonist , this role will be edited to be played completely to its typical codes and conventions with the antagonist being every bit of evil and troublesome in order to suit its ‘ evil guy’ role.

Question 2 continued:

The main Character, Tyra will at first is represented as the typical female protagonist, very vulnerable and also very much linked danger. I will use soft music, to show her daring personality increasing her vulnerability and long timed camera shots while focused on her so the viewers can get to know and understand her quickly by her body language, speech and actions and easily through the extra emphasize on her showing her to be the main character using those technical aspects. However I will then show the other conventions of her typical protagonist like characteristics by using quick slick camera shots and fast music whenever she is involved either in dialogue or action to show her transformation into a heroine throughout. This Character reminds me of a character named ‘Stacey’ from a similar horror movie called ‘cabin in the woods’ because both started off as very vulnerable but full of risk taking, typical female representations in a horror movie but then ended up to fulfil the full role of the protagonist they are aimed to be in similar story line equally showing how the female can toughen up during the hardest and most scariest of situations

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The other two characters Ruksana and Monika’s representation will be very similar and basic from the start. With extra technical aspects of help I will show them to be innocent and normal with little excitement and more cautiousness to their actions within their personalities. Suspense building music will be a big factor when it comes to dialogue between these characters as they will be inherit the typical ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude throughout the film, from start till finish which is very common in the genre film I am basing my production on (Horror). These two characters both remind me of Characters from the ‘final destination’ movie thriller and they have been based exactly from the characters in that movie to ensure and increase accuracy within their roles.

The representation of the antagonist in my production will involve a large amount of common technical aspects throughout. Slow, scary tension building music and fast paced horrific sound effects, dark scenery and quick transitions through camera work will all be used in order for this character to build as much suspense as possible whenever involved and to also emphasize the evil, dark and mysterious characteristics I intend for it to have so viewers easily recognize its typical, common antagonist role.

Q2: Continued and finalised Finally, right from watching the opening sequence you can

recognise our characters as having typical current teenage girl personalities. The base of it all, the sleepover, shows what type of girls they seem to be (active, modern day and the typical teenage girls who love to spend time gossiping and trying new things out together). I used these specific people in order to create a bond with my intended target audience, mainly teenage girls from 13-18, as it was a good pull factor to them because they could relate to the characters in my film’s lifestyle due to being the same age and having the same hobbies.

When in the process of recruiting my cast, I had to pick certain people who not only fitted the character I wanted but also were available on the day of filming. Thankfully I was able o find a group of girls which was exactly what I wanted that were willing to act and comply to my films need in terms of acting so there was no difficulty or problems there however if we could have re-filmed and improved anything from their contribution I would have asked them to improve the quality and increase the confidence within their acting.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that a media institutions that would be very suitable for my media product in terms of distribution would be a company like ‘Brain Damage Films’ (BDF0. BDF specialise in the exact same sub-genre my movie falls under as it is a well known and successful company. Since 2001 Brain Damage Films has been one of the largest and most respected independent horror film distributors worldwide. They have a catalog of hundreds of horror and shock movies ranging from reality/shock classics like Traces of Death to newer, high quality independent features.

The reason I chose this company specifically is because it is already very popular therefore meaning advertising my movie will by very easy due to Bran Damage Film’s mass consumer audience meaning it can quickly make my film known anywhere around the world. Also this specific film distributor specializes in the same genre I have focused my movie on, has experience of distributing similar movies that have become a success and also focuses on the exact same target audience I intend to reach with my movie making it therefore the perfect platform for it to be invested in and become success like most of the other movies BDF has been involved in.

http://braindamagefilms.com/about/

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience of my media product (a horror movie) is a small but venerable ( to my advantage) one of of teenagers who are mostly curious and daring. This is because my horror film itself involve unknowing, naive teenagers as the main protagonists, which are normally the target of serial killers or psychopaths. Young women especially aging from 13-19 would be my main intended target audience due to the fact that, as found out from audience re-search, they commonly enjoy horror films that challeneg their emotions through suspense within the films and many of the events that happen in the film not only include conventions they would expect from a film like this but also are things they can relate to and engage with (e.g the sleep over scene at the beginning of the opening) this is the exact main point and intension of the movie because the more engaged and the more they can relate to it,t the more successful our re-search and carried out actions will make our actual movie to be because of the fact that the target audience targeted was hit successfully.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Poster idea’s: A large title which attracts the eye, bold colours

which stand out from the background, intriguing picture of a main character which would attract viewers to the film, persuasive language which might persuade the viewers to go and see the film, using the main character's name for promotion and a memorable scary slogan since my film is of the horror genre to attract them even further.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We believed that the storyline to our film would attract most young audiences. The storyline is based around

a few young female characters full of mischief. The storyline is also

based around the lives of young adults and their everyday lives. For example, in the opening of our film we show an

introduction to the sleep over and a gossipscene, a scene which represents problems between a young couple, and even a scene which represents jealously amongst friends, all things which will relate

to Most young audiences especially our target audience

and will then attract them to watch the film as they feel like it is addressed and focused on their everyday similar relatable experiences

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?...(continued)

The main filming location in the opening of our film is inside one of the main character's

house which is used for a sleep over. We know that sleep over's are extremely popular amongst young people and therefore we believed that this would be a perfect location for our filming, in

order to attract the younger audiences which were

targeting.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the creation of my media product, a opening

sequence, I’ve learnt a great deal about technologies and they have vastly helped, and improved, my media product.

We used a Canon XHAI camera in order to ensure our shots were clear and technical aspects were to the fullest capabilities we had possible.

We found the canon camera to be very successful as we were able to record the footage in high definition and the quality of sound was good. As our shots required the camera to be extremely stable, used a tripod which I learn to safely assemble the camera onto so we could have this stability. This made our shots look more sleek and professional.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?...(continued)

We used as a computer and a software called Adobe premier to do all the editing and special effects for our opening sequence. This enabled us to cut/crop the unneeded frames. This would allow our sequence to flow smoothly just like a normal opening film. As I had never used a Adobe before it was quite hard getting used to the programme. However I overcome this by practicing in school hours and getting help from other students. Furthermore Adobe premier is a software we used to cut and edit our shots and put the whole film opening together. Taking a lot of time this was successful as the editing of the whole sequence with added after affects such as fade in transitions and fade out affects was good as the sequence flowed well. One of the main aspects that was good with this programme was that it allowed us to edit our soundtrack by enabling us to fade/ increase the tempo, so we could create the ideal soundtrack for our opening.

In conclusion I have therefore learnt that technology is a very important aspect when it comes to media production as it can play a big factor in creating the realism and professionalism of it all meaning it is the main and vital part of the jigsaw.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Progress Summary (Prelim- Main Task)

Conclusively I would say I learnt a lot about the camera shots and use of a camera. There was a dramatic level of progress in taking and lining up camera shots by being re vocal within the group. For example, spirit level, positing in the frame and lineup of shot. Although i dud not do a lot of the main editing I  got the hang of it pretty quickly when I got more opportunity to edit  and enjoyed and am much more confident in doing it. The only issue we did face in editing was the brightness of the frames, because it was too bright when we originally filmed it. Our audience feedback suggested we should have tried to make it even darker that how we edited it in order to fit to the thriller horror sub genre. This would have created more suspense in out main task opening sequence. Other than that, collectively I think as a group we all ore a substantial amount if progress working and articulating our ideas and opinions more as well as technically improving our skills such as editing and filming of camera skills