I N W H AT WAY S D O E S YO U R M E D I A P R O D U C T U S E , D E V E LO P O R CH A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D CO N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A P R O D U C T S ?

QUES T I ON 1 :

M E E T I N G C O N V E NT I O NS• Length, form and structure of my short

film:

• Overall my film is 5:08 minutes in length meaning that it exceeds both the conventions of a short film and also applies to my brief. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a short film has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits; I also had to fit the conventions of my brief for my film to be approximately 5 minutes. Therefore it is very conventional it’s length compared to other productions such as Vincent and The Maker.

• Titles:

• In addition to this, the conventions of the short film specify that the credits of the film should be shown within this timeframe. Here my product also meets these conventions as any relevant information such as directors name and any other credibilities, such as distribution companies, are mentioned within the opening title sequence and end credits of the film. As this was a solo project and I did not use any actors within the making of my film, this allowed me to add credits within the film without exceeding the length of the film.

I DE N T S :

• My products idents are conventional to the film, as they are shown within the typical placement of the start of the film and last around 5-7 seconds, which is a similar length to other existing idents. In addition to this, both companies are also mentioned within my opening credits which again is conventional in its titles to contain within the representation of the film.

• The idents display a clear products and distribution company to the audience, and also represent the horror genre of my film, which is typically shown within horror genres such as Dark Castle Entertainment and Twisted Pictures, both of which contain horror iconography that is associated with the horror genre, which both of my idents also apply to

• However, the ‘Creaking House Pictures’ uses a technique that looks like it could be produced by hand, and displays my animated genre of the film, which is not typical for dents to hold as they are typically computer generated with a modern look to represent a neutral feel about the film such as Warner Bros and Paramount. My other ident ‘Luminosity Productions’ is computer generated, which is typical of dents to hold.

TAR G E T A UD I E N C E D I S C US S IO N

Due to the film being an animation, I found that most animated films can present more serious or violent themes within its storyline to a younger audience as it is clear to them that no harm or serious consequence will occur as the film is not reality or using real actors or locations. Therefore I found that by using stop motion, I will be able to

target a younger audience without affecting the film classification guidelines. As I am a fan of animation, I also found that a lot of films today, especially those of darker themes, can be targeted to a older audience such as 16+. Therefore, after analysing my research into target audience ages, I found that my film could have a wide audience

age range and still be classified as a horror with dark themes without effecting the younger audience or scaring them. I then decided on a suitable age range by preforming research into other existing horror tv series and film,

and seeing their target audience age. It here where I decided that my film would be suitable for ages 8-18.

I would also have to research a target gender for my target audience, to do this and to find out more of what my audiences expectations were and what they wanted to see in order to please the audience, I carried out more

extensive research and audience questionnaires ranging from their interests in the horror genre, their age, and their gender. After discovering that the gender of the target audience were almost balanced, I found that most exciting

products did not aim towards gender. I found that the easiest way to create my product was to not focus on a specific gender and to keep any characters or themes gender neutral to attract both gendered audiences to my

film.

Additionally, I did some research on Pete Buckingham, head of distribution and exhibition for the UK film council to understand more about audiences and audience theory. Young audiences (15-24) represent 32% of the population,

but 40% of the cinema audience. By contrast 55+ represent 34% of the population, but only 20% of the cinema audience. 35-44 Year olds who make up 38% of cinema audience represent 35% of the population. I found that as

my film is rather a niche audience and the timing of my film is very short, I would have to release my film on another platform instead of the cinema, as this wouldn't be suitable for my film. I decided that to release the film online would be the best way for my film as this would be less expensive for families to watch the film as well as

being easily accessible for my age range online would be the most common way that my target audience would be able to hear about and watch my film.

Pete Buckingham also produced a graph of the most typical genres of films and which gender they would apply to. I found that the horror genre is fairly gender neutral, however slightly aimed more towards boys, and this was also

supported in my extensive audience research, therefore I would also have to find a way to aim my film slightly more towards the female audience, such as location, or character representation

GE N R E , H YB R I D OR S UB - GE N R ES

My planning was informed by extensive research: I needed to research narrative and generate initial ideas for my short film as well as decide on my target audience and my intended genre. I knew that I wanted to

produce an Animation and I knew I wanted it to be quite dark and ‘gothic’ in style. I researched the specific conventions of the Animation Genre genre and specifically the darker styles of Animation. I carried out

audience research in order to identify what specific horror genres were the most popular with my target audience: I used a survey monkey questionnaire, an interview with a focus group and social media forums

to find out my intended audiences ideas. Due to the young age of my target market, I decided that a family film horror would be the most appropriate for my film, therefore I had created a hybrid family film horror

mystery genre of film.

Other dark children media products include:

• Narrative:

• A short film,conventionally, short film has a running time of 40 minutes or less. However, this is not necessarily true for animation films as they tend to be shorter in length. My brief specifies that my product has to be approximately 5 minutes in length therefore my narrative has to be very simple to comprehend within the given time and also not too complex so that my younger target audience (8 years) would be able to understand. To determine this I found that I would have to use a linear narrative in order for my audience to be able to grasp my narrative concept in the given time.

• From researching the genre of my short film, my narrative had to clearly display the horror genre through both the aesthetic and storyline of my film. Conventionally, I used various techniques such as a dark aesthetic, soundtrack and the style of my narration to build up enigma of my film, which is vital for a horror film. I depended on a dark tone used throughout the 5 minutes of my film, displaying both an educational moral towards children as well as applying to the conventions of the genre.

• My ending scene is not conventional within short films as it is typical that the whole storyline is covered within the full film, whereas my ending is not clear and ends in a cliff hanger, which is open to interpretation for the audience. I feel this concept enhances the narrative and stands out within my product as it is not conventional within both the horror genre and short films; they often depend on resolution of the situation.

• As my narrative is told throughout a poem, each chapter 4 lines long. This is very unconventional compared to other films in the market today. However, I felt that due to the young audience of the target market, this way of presenting my narration is both associated and easily understood by children in the form of fairy tales. It also is easy rememberable due to the AA,BB rhyming pattern of the narration meaning that the morals and lessons will be easy for young children if they can remember the rhyme. This overall enhances the effect on the audience and challenges the conventions for the storyline that aren’t usually within tv shows or films, but broadens my target market for young children who like fairy tales and books as my film can be linked to the common themes within story books and also how they are presented to the audience such as through chapters and rhymes.

C H A RAC T E R R E P R E S E N TAT I ON :

• From audience feedback, I decided to use a female protagonist as I felt that her vulnerability and her age would be a good representation of typical horror characters and a contrast from the dark setting used within my film, as well as it being requested from my audience questionnaire I produced, in order to target a female audience within my film as the genre is typically male based.

• Each character within my film relates to a stereotypical representation of characters shown within the school environment within reality and also the characters represented within horror films such as the following;

- The main protagonist, often the ‘victim/hero’ of the film.- The villain, often a monster, mutated, freak, alien or serial killer.- The immoral teenagers. - Creepy children.- Police officers - can be good or bad- Supernatural beings- Misfits.

As a convention of the horror genre and an expectation of the audience, I decided not to challenge these conventions as the way that my characters are portrayed within the film is vital to my films storyline. Throughout my production, my film needed characters that were relatable and typical of school children, who were easy to identify with and understand in the given time of the film.

I used stereotypical elements within the aesthetic of the characters such as the characters colour scheme, espeically in the protagonists by adding pink and purple and a bow, to display the characters innocence and purity within the film. and using dark schemes such as the villains dark and earthy coloured clothing to display the audience visually that he was not to be trusted. However, I did also challenge the conventions of the horror genre by mixing the personality and behaviours of the characters to make them seem less predictable to the audience such as combining the immoral personality of the teenager and the involvement of children in order to create my main protagonist, and an unknown supernatural identity of the villain of the film.

LO CAT I O N S , M I S E -E N - SC E NE A N D P R O P S

Throughout my film, I decided to contain locations and scenes that were conventional to the horror genre, I preformed extensive

research of the conventions within horror locations and scenes, as well as asking the target audience what they expected to see

within a horror film. The exterior of my locations were focused to be very dark and mysterious, displaying to the audience the

unknown and the danger of places that were dark and isolated, which was heavily contrasted with my school interior scene, which was very brightly lit. this contrast defined an element of safety at

school, which was full of people and a positive learning environment, displaying to children the importance of school and

behaving well. The characteristics of Locations included the following;

Small communities or isolated environments such as abandoned building or forests. Urban environments, dark streets and narrow hallways are highly popular locations within slasher films rather

than paranormal. Any place that connotes isolation or being alone is likely to be

included as highly populated areas would be an unlikely place for horror or crime events to take place.

Often places with a dark history, such as old buildings, hospitals or school buildings, espeically at night are included as these are

places that are often visited or popular during the day

I used these conventions of horror, as the locations such as school, wood and old abandon building like my cabin, and characters

included in my film were the key elements of identifying my genre to the audience, therefore challenges these conventions may cause

the audience to be unclear of the horror genre, which I portrayed through aesthetic and visual codes I felt that the aesthetic and visuals within my film were a strong feature within my film as it

would be the main objective to be noticed within the film, as many children would use the ‘hypodermic needle’ theory of absorbing

and not question the film, therefore any deep meaning within my storyline or narrative would often be unnoticed and not questioned by my audience if it wasn't as obvious to the target market. Thus

making my visuals stand out and tell the story to the audience with my narrative supporting was the best way to display my genre,

storyline and morals to my target audience.

Due to my film being animated, most of my props and mies-en-scene, were made by hand as well as the characters, meaning that everything created needed to be obvious to the audience.

My main focus of the production design element was the location and the characters rather than the props as they were

not the main feature that would be remembered within the film. To create my characters and props I used the conventions

and stereotypical features within the aesthetic of my characters to help display to the audience what character

represented who straight away, as the audience would only have 5 minutes to determine who was the protagonist,

antagonist ect. Therefore I used dark and light colour scheme contrasts as well as making props within my film simplistic and

easily identifiable aesthetically to the target market.

A NA LY S IS OF L I GHT I NG

As my final scene was the scene that needed to have enigma and a serious tone to signify that the character was in danger asa consequence, I used coloured and flickering lighting which both

replicates the illusion of fire as well as creates signifying red lighting, maintaining a quickened pace and signifys danger and stop to the

audience. My exterior shots were lit by a regular LED white light as the backing of the scene was very dark, therefore

for the audience to be able to see everything within the scene, I had to use strong white light to light the full scene. Although this

doesn’thave much of an effect, that backing of the scene does provide

a red tone within the film, again signifying danger and stop, which

develops within the film until the final scene. The interior school shots of my film, act as a contrasts

of the element of safety within my film. I used this element to encourage the safety element of being in school where my target audience

should feel safe, encouraging the positivity in a learning environment. Toproduce this look, I used a stronger Incandescent lamps, compared to LED,

which helped to produce a less direct light. I found this overall effective as the lighting is not too direct, and gave a natural feel about the setting, which later contrasted with the darker effect of the film. I decided not to linger on this type of lighting as it isn't traditional in the horror genre for

everything to be well lit, therefore to build enigma I used direct spotlight lightingto create shadows and a darker scene, adding to the forbidding feel of the film, which

displays directly to the audience.

The use of lighting within my film, was a mainpoint that my target audience commented on within the

representations of my film. The lighting in my filmhelped the audience to determine an overall mood for

that chapter in order to create an atmosphere for what was going to happen. The visual codes within my film I felt was a strong point to identify with the

audience, as it was the main focus of the film that my audience easily identified with to set the mood of the film.