Fixation Link
Question 1
#1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
The first frame is for our main title Fixation. We decided to have our main title at point 1:46-1:47 as when it enters it separates the two characters personalities and shows that they are in different scenes living two different, separate lives. The music remains the same, to set the same feel throughout the scene. And although the music remains mysterious in the party scene, it is used to show the lurking from the stalker and show the audience she is present. The title flickers, which gives the dramatic effect from our opening, and this indicates the genre is thriller, along with the font.
The second frame which used conventions is of the location and setting. This is a over the shoulder shot of the stalker, Eileen, walking up the driveway. This suggests that James is a middle class boy as we have a clear shot of his house. It gives us a clear mind set of the type of protagonist James is going to be. In a film called 'truth or dare' there is a house party that is taking place. We used the idea of a house party too, as this attracts our target audience because that is the type of hobby's teenagers have nowadays.
The third frame is to represent costumes.
This is also a shot of the stalker walking up the driveway as this is the only
long shot we include in our opening that gives us a view of what she is wearing.
She is wearing all black. Connotations of black are evil and gloom. She is also
wearing kitten heels, so she feels sexy within herself. She thinks that if she
looks sexy, James will go with her. This helps identify the personality of the
character Eileen. In the film 'Scream' the main character is always dressed in
all black, we got this inspiration from this as most scary protagonists dress in
all black clothing. This then gives away their image and a straight association
with all black is the evil character in the films.
The fourth frame is to show editing.
Throughout our editing, we include our titles within our opening scene to make
it more mysterious feel. As our genre is thriller, and our film is about a
stalker, we thought a stalker wall would easily show the personality of the
protagonist Eileen. We have used a 'ghosting' effect on Premiere, which consists
of layers over images which shows more than one shot at each time. This gives
the effect of the information on the board consistently entering Eileen's mind
and she is constantly reviewing her board on James and adding more
information. 
The fifth frame is to show our font. The
font we chose is plane and simple but still gives the thriller vibe. We chose
this font because it does not give too much away, but at the same time gives
thriller hints that we thought were necessary. This pans over some of our
stalker board, which shows the audience the importance of this feature. In the
movie 'Signs;' all of the font that the titles are written in are Serif, and
this gives the horror feel as it almost looks old and spooky. This is where we
got our inspiration from and decided to duplicate this idea.
The sixth frame is representing the story and how the opening sets it up. Here, is another over the shoulder shot of Eileen reviewing her information board on James. The board is very important in our movie, and it is an essential as without this the film would not make sense and would not give the stalker vibe we are specifically aiming for. This gives us a view of what she is seeing, and the layout the board is set in. It strongly shows Eileen's personality, and explains that she is obsessed with someone.
The seventh frame shows the genre and how
the opening suggests it. I have given another shot of Eileen walking up the
driveway. The lighting shows that the setting is dark and gloomy, and this
clearly gives the interpretation that the setting is thriller. Also, the
clothing that she is wearing shows that she is a dark character and plays a evil
role.
The eighth frame is how characters are
introduced. Our characters are introduced in different ways. Eileen is
introduced in a way of evil, as her gloomy lighting sets her personality
straight and indicates that she is the evil character in the film. In the
opening, we never see Eileens face, just like in the film 'Scream'. Throughout
the whole of the film scream, we never see the evil protagonists face, which
gives you the feel of barely knowing who the person under the mask is. This is
similar to the story we wanted to give off, as (only in the opening) we want to
remain Eileen to be mysterious, and this is why we never see her face. The next
character is James, and he is introduced in a way that he is shown at the party.
This is a stereotypical teenage boy, who drinks and attends parties and it gives
across that this will be the victim in the film.
The last
frame is special effects, and we have put a tweet over clips of the party scene.
This shows that this is the party that the tweet is talking about, and James has
announced to the whole of twitter that there is a party at his house and that
everyone is welcome. We have put the opacity to low, so that it does not stand
out too much and distract us from the scene in the background.
Overall, I think
that our opening sequence is very successful. We do include some
challenges in our opening sequence and these include having a female villain,
not seeing the villains face and the party scene. Having a female villain was a
challenge for us, and a lot of market research took place before we decided to
use this thought. We noticed that in most thriller films, the evil protagonist
is mainly a male so we decided to oppose this idea to make it more original.
Next, we don't her face. This was also a challenge we portrayed but we thought
it would give more of a intense feel as. Next is the party scene, we had a big
challenge here. In most thriller films, the opening maintains as a scary vibe,
yet ours differs in a way that it includes something fun within to contradict
the two personalities. This then disorientates the audience as they will remain
confused.
A way in which we
support this is that we maintain the typical thriller conventions by keeping the
music eery, the lighting dark, the clothing bland and the setting spooky.
To develop our idea
we took our conventions and put the titles into our map. We then went further as
we included them in our scene instead of putting them over after on editing
Question 2
Question 2 How does your media represent particualr social groups?
Here I created a collage on all different things typical teenagers enjoy and also some people they idolise. This gives an insight to the typical popular school children's enjoyment and shows the social groups we aim to attract. In my collage I include lots of things that our social group of teenagers, enjoy and people they idolise.
Make-up: Teenage girls love makeup, they can't live without it and this is a big factor in a teenage girls life story. Young girls love getting dressed up and going to parties, and our target audience will also have a big interest in makeup as this is the age people experiment with it.
'Perfect girls': This image includes female celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus, and these are girls that most teenage boys 'fancy'. So this is why I included them in my collage, as boys are very interested in these type of girls and usually define them as 'perfect' or the 'ideal woman' and most teenage girls aspire to be like them.
'Perfect boys': I have also included male celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Zac Efron and Louis Tomlinson. These boys are very big in the celebrity world, and teenage girls love them. They stalk them on social networking sites and wish they would notice them, even if it is just once. Boys envy them, and usually associate any criticism they can with them.
Relationships: Chris Brown and Rihanna are also on my collage. They did used to be a couple, and teenagers are this age are obsessed with relationships. This is why I included this, as also in our film a relationship would take place between a girl and our main protagonist James, and our other protagonist Eileen, will envy this relationship.
We decided to go against Propp's character theory as we wanted to make our film more original. We decided to go with a male victim, which is different to the majority of thriller films.
James is one of our main protagonist's in our film opening. He is a white, middle class teenage boy who is approaching 17 years old. We show that he is middle class by showing a shot of his house when Eileen, our other protagonist, walks up his driveway. The house is a middle class house with a driveway, with 2 garages which includes a step up to the door. A house similar to James class would be: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43266800.html?premiumA=true
He is a stereotypical teenager, throwing and attending parties, being a user on twitter and sending regular tweets, drinking with his friends high amounts of alcohol and he is also very grungy as he does not really care about his appearance, just his reputation. We portray him in this way so we can associate well him with with the target audience as we want the audience to form a connection with him, so then when he gets taken later on in the film, you feel sorry for him. Teenagers drink a high amount of alcohol these days, here is an article showing the major risks that this has on their bodies: http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/05/specialist-calls-for-debate-on-drinking-age-as-teenagers-being-treated-for-liver-disease-4250061/
Our target audience is a 15, so this includes people are about 15-17 years old, and this is the age of the teenagers in our film and the age of James. This is why we included a popular teenage boy, as during teenage years everyone wants to be popular so the target audience can relate. Also at the party scene, this makes it easy to identify the personality and popularity his character. We also chose to do this type of opening to raise awareness to teenagers and people that use social networking sites. There is a typical expression given 'It would never happen to me' is a regular thought that teenagers think when hearing tragic stories like these. But the truth is, it really can happen to anyone and we wanted to make sure people understand this. However, James is not a typical victim, as he is male, and most movies that we researched that are similar to ours, use the victim as a girl instead of a boy. Similarly, in a film called 'Facebook stalker' a man uses Facebook to stalk a girl from a coffee shop. This is similar to our film, as a protagonist stalks another protagonist via social networking sites such as twitter. This then raises awareness to our target audience of the possible risks. Teenagers announce a lot of personal things on twitter, her is an article about this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2538523/Stars-social-networking-sites-reveal-VERY-personal-photographs-Golden-Globes.html
We discovered that James' character is a lot similar to the character "James Cook' in the TV show Skins and this is the character we wanted to portray. He is shown in a very grungy way, but all girls in school like him and he is very popular. He also believes that he is unbeatable. However, the difference is that Cook's family are very upper class as his Mother has a very big house. This is the only difference in character roles that Cook and James have.
This is the image we wanted to portray James as: Cook from TV series 'Skins'
We decided to go against Propp's character theory as we wanted to make our film more original. We decided to go with a female villain, which is different to the majority of thriller films.
Eileen is the other protagonist in our film opening. She is a white, middle class female who is middle aged. We show this by her clothing, as she dresses quite old fashioned including kitten heels with a long black coat with her hair slit back to her head in a low pony tail. We choose not to give much off about Eileen, and this gives the mysterious vibe behind her. We never see her face, and this is a major challenge we decided to take and could confuse the audience about what type of person she is. She is not stereotypical, as she is a woman and from market research, we found you irregularly come across female villains is this genre of film. As the mass of interpretations are that men are the villains and women are the victim, but we wanted to reverse this to make it more original and create something different.
Mental Illness
Our character Eileen suffers with a mental illness of depression. A few years ago, before her obsession with James, her husband was killed in a violent car crash. She has been mourning ever since and really misses her husband. This is why she seeks male comfort, and believes James can give her the same satisfaction and love as her husband could.
In a film called oral fixation, I found that there is a character that looks over a board. This is similar to our movie when our board is shown. He is keeping track of a lady. However this man is not the stalker, he is just trying to help the man that is being stalked get away from the danger that the stalker is putting him in. When I saw this clip, i was very surprised as I watched this film for the first time after we completed our opening sequence. Once seeing this, we became very confident with our idea and about the choices we made because a film with the same theme 'Stalker' used the same convention as we did.
Another film that we found that was similar to ours was Prom night, but this film is everything we did not want to make ours about. A man stalks a young girl and makes a evil move to her. He does everything he can to make sure he gets 'the girl' and even his actions are killing the girls family and friends. This is a very stereotypical film as it is an older man stalking a young, popular girl. The girl is popular, and is a stereotypical victim and this is the personality we wanted to include however we reversed it so the victim is a boy instead of a girl, but with the same traits.
Typical villains in thriller/stalker movies: Stalker and murderer in movie 'Prom Night'
Here I created a collage on all different things typical teenagers enjoy and also some people they idolise. This gives an insight to the typical popular school children's enjoyment and shows the social groups we aim to attract. In my collage I include lots of things that our social group of teenagers, enjoy and people they idolise.
Make-up: Teenage girls love makeup, they can't live without it and this is a big factor in a teenage girls life story. Young girls love getting dressed up and going to parties, and our target audience will also have a big interest in makeup as this is the age people experiment with it.
'Perfect girls': This image includes female celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus, and these are girls that most teenage boys 'fancy'. So this is why I included them in my collage, as boys are very interested in these type of girls and usually define them as 'perfect' or the 'ideal woman' and most teenage girls aspire to be like them.
'Perfect boys': I have also included male celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Zac Efron and Louis Tomlinson. These boys are very big in the celebrity world, and teenage girls love them. They stalk them on social networking sites and wish they would notice them, even if it is just once. Boys envy them, and usually associate any criticism they can with them.
Relationships: Chris Brown and Rihanna are also on my collage. They did used to be a couple, and teenagers are this age are obsessed with relationships. This is why I included this, as also in our film a relationship would take place between a girl and our main protagonist James, and our other protagonist Eileen, will envy this relationship.
Our Protagonists
James is one of our main protagonist's in our film opening. He is a white, middle class teenage boy who is approaching 17 years old. We show that he is middle class by showing a shot of his house when Eileen, our other protagonist, walks up his driveway. The house is a middle class house with a driveway, with 2 garages which includes a step up to the door. A house similar to James class would be: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43266800.html?premiumA=true
He is a stereotypical teenager, throwing and attending parties, being a user on twitter and sending regular tweets, drinking with his friends high amounts of alcohol and he is also very grungy as he does not really care about his appearance, just his reputation. We portray him in this way so we can associate well him with with the target audience as we want the audience to form a connection with him, so then when he gets taken later on in the film, you feel sorry for him. Teenagers drink a high amount of alcohol these days, here is an article showing the major risks that this has on their bodies: http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/05/specialist-calls-for-debate-on-drinking-age-as-teenagers-being-treated-for-liver-disease-4250061/Our target audience is a 15, so this includes people are about 15-17 years old, and this is the age of the teenagers in our film and the age of James. This is why we included a popular teenage boy, as during teenage years everyone wants to be popular so the target audience can relate. Also at the party scene, this makes it easy to identify the personality and popularity his character. We also chose to do this type of opening to raise awareness to teenagers and people that use social networking sites. There is a typical expression given 'It would never happen to me' is a regular thought that teenagers think when hearing tragic stories like these. But the truth is, it really can happen to anyone and we wanted to make sure people understand this. However, James is not a typical victim, as he is male, and most movies that we researched that are similar to ours, use the victim as a girl instead of a boy. Similarly, in a film called 'Facebook stalker' a man uses Facebook to stalk a girl from a coffee shop. This is similar to our film, as a protagonist stalks another protagonist via social networking sites such as twitter. This then raises awareness to our target audience of the possible risks. Teenagers announce a lot of personal things on twitter, her is an article about this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2538523/Stars-social-networking-sites-reveal-VERY-personal-photographs-Golden-Globes.htmlWe discovered that James' character is a lot similar to the character "James Cook' in the TV show Skins and this is the character we wanted to portray. He is shown in a very grungy way, but all girls in school like him and he is very popular. He also believes that he is unbeatable. However, the difference is that Cook's family are very upper class as his Mother has a very big house. This is the only difference in character roles that Cook and James have.This is the image we wanted to portray James as: Cook from TV series 'Skins'
Typical victim's in thriller/stalker movies: Donner from movie 'Prom Night'
We found that in most thriller/stalker movies, the victim was mainly a white female. We decided to challenge this idea and change it to a male. We then found a film, Prom Night, which also includes a stalker and the victim was, a white young girl, which then supported our research. Here is a link to support this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
We found that in most thriller/stalker movies, the victim was mainly a white female. We decided to challenge this idea and change it to a male. We then found a film, Prom Night, which also includes a stalker and the victim was, a white young girl, which then supported our research. Here is a link to support this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
We decided to go against Propp's character theory as we wanted to make our film more original. We decided to go with a female villain, which is different to the majority of thriller films.
Eileen is the other protagonist in our film opening. She is a white, middle class female who is middle aged. We show this by her clothing, as she dresses quite old fashioned including kitten heels with a long black coat with her hair slit back to her head in a low pony tail. We choose not to give much off about Eileen, and this gives the mysterious vibe behind her. We never see her face, and this is a major challenge we decided to take and could confuse the audience about what type of person she is. She is not stereotypical, as she is a woman and from market research, we found you irregularly come across female villains is this genre of film. As the mass of interpretations are that men are the villains and women are the victim, but we wanted to reverse this to make it more original and create something different. Mental Illness
Our character Eileen suffers with a mental illness of depression. A few years ago, before her obsession with James, her husband was killed in a violent car crash. She has been mourning ever since and really misses her husband. This is why she seeks male comfort, and believes James can give her the same satisfaction and love as her husband could.
In a film called oral fixation, I found that there is a character that looks over a board. This is similar to our movie when our board is shown. He is keeping track of a lady. However this man is not the stalker, he is just trying to help the man that is being stalked get away from the danger that the stalker is putting him in. When I saw this clip, i was very surprised as I watched this film for the first time after we completed our opening sequence. Once seeing this, we became very confident with our idea and about the choices we made because a film with the same theme 'Stalker' used the same convention as we did.Another film that we found that was similar to ours was Prom night, but this film is everything we did not want to make ours about. A man stalks a young girl and makes a evil move to her. He does everything he can to make sure he gets 'the girl' and even his actions are killing the girls family and friends. This is a very stereotypical film as it is an older man stalking a young, popular girl. The girl is popular, and is a stereotypical victim and this is the personality we wanted to include however we reversed it so the victim is a boy instead of a girl, but with the same traits.
This is the image we wanted to portray Eileen as: Stalker in film 'Oral Fixation':
Typical villains in thriller/stalker movies: Stalker and murderer in movie 'Prom Night'
Question 3
Question 3 What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?
More information:
As talked about above we feel that Fox search Light or Lions Gate would most likely produce/distribute our film, however there are others out there. For example Paramount released a film in the last couple of years called STALKER-the film is based on a successful writer and her assistant, who incidentally turns out to be her stalker. Like our film, STALKER brakes the conventions of normal thriller because the main two roles are a female, the young assistant stalks the writer which, in the scheme of things has not been done often, to have a film with a young female stalker is very uncommon in major films.have released many thrillers/films that defy general film conventions and so we therefore feel that our film FIXATION would have been welcomed by Paramount however we still feel that FIXATION would of been better off with Fox Search Light because they have a higher audience rating with a large scale presence in the world wide film market.
We also decided to change the name of our production company because we felt that the company needed to be portrayed I'm a certain light hence why we chose 'Scorpion Productions' for example the static electrical sound that scorpion tale makes represents the horror/thriller aspect of our company and the flashing lights represent a comic side that we could look into at a later date.
Unique or similar?
After deciding to do a thriller stalker we found it very hard to brake the conventions of a normal stalker film purely because there is such a wide variety of stalker films out there and so it is harder for us to do a unique film, however we feel we have accomplished this is some aspects of our film, as previously stated our film has different qualities than other stalker films for example the genders have swapped around, the male stalker is now female and the victim is a young teenage male.Although the genders have been played with in many different stalker films, in most cases it is a woman stalking another woman (an example of this film is 'The roommate'), a young girl stalking her love interest
(generally an older man/teacher) or a man stalking a young woman (Sleep Tight),
because there were so many different versions of a stalker film it was extremaly had to have one that was unique from the others. This is when we decided to have a middle aged woman stalking a teenage boy, although this may have been done before we felt that it had not been studied/done as much of the others, therefor in the aspect of character gender we have successfully made ours unique.
Also in most stalker films the stalker is jealous or has been scorned by the victim or a relavite of the victim's, this is not the case in our film where as the stalker and the victim have no personal connection or running with one and other again this makes the aspect of our film different of others.
However if you strip our film down to the bare basics they are similar to others. Someone abducts another person, the family search and search for the missing person, with no idea who or why they were taken and if they will return. It is obvious to us that its hard to make a well versed genre stand out from the rest and we therefor worked with what we had, I think that some aspects of our film are very different from others but some parts are very similar to other stalker films.
All about the Mise-En-Scene.
The mise-en-scene of our thriller are based around both our main characters. For example at the very beginning of our film when we first see the map with the stalker sitting in front of the board-the light is dark and gloomy already setting the scene for the audience,the props used at this first shot is obviously the map,the unorganised look of it adds to the Mise-en-scene it gives the audience an idea of the time scale of this board, it also creates a serious of questions for the audience. Who is she? Why is she using the board? What it is for? What is on the board? Where is it? Who is the boy? Why are the rest crossed out? All these create an enigma code for the audience to latch on to.
One of the other poignant shots in our film are the shots of the stalker walking up to the victims house,this has a lot of mise-en-scene in it. We used no props because we wanted to focus on the character and their profile(how they came across) for example we wanted the stalker to come across as a mysterious character, we didn't want the audience to have much knowledge of our character, we wanted the audience to have an understanding of what she was doing but not who she is.
Another major aspect of the mise-en-scene is the costume. As you can see she is wearing all black-black coat, black trousers, black heels with sleek ponytail. This shows the audience that the film is set within the 20/21st century, her appearance also indicates that the stalker has little care for her appearance, by wearing all black she wants to blend in with her background, this is another characteristic of a stalker, they hide in plain sight, and blend into the surroundings.
Her posture is very forward and she walks with confidence this also shows the audience that she is a strong character and knows what she wants/looking for again suggesting to the audience that of she is determined to get what/who she is after.
The background of this shot shows her walking up a pathway to a large house, the background of this shot is very crucial for the audience,this is where they are able to start piecing the different bits together. The background also shows that the film is indeed set in the 21st century.
Because the character is in the centre of the camera shot our whole focus is on her, again this indicates to us that she is one of the main characters, at this point we are able to tell she is the antagonist in the film.
The next vital shot in this sequence is the 'party' shots, these show a group of teenagers enjoying birthday celebrations. We can see that the characters are inside a house which is typical for the 21st century 'birthday party', we used various props in these shots for example the wine bottle, beer cans and birthday badge. This allows the audience to get a better understanding of whats going on. The drink also signifies to the audience what kind of age these teenagers are,which also allows the audience to get a better understand of the plot. The characters in this shot are wearing normal 'party attire' for example some of the girls are wearing dresses others are wearing jeans and smart tops, this again shows to the audience that they are 'normal' teenagers.
The facial expressions of the teens show they are enjoying themselves at this 'party', the strobe lighting also adds to the 'party' effect however because the music is dark and sinful the scene and non-diegetic music contradict each other and therefor give the audience a sense of what will happen in the film. The only thing we see in this shot are the teens, are focus is solely on them which shows to the audience that something will happen to one or all of them.
The final shot of the stalker knocking on the door is the climax to the opening sequence and to the mise-en-scene. No props were used in this shot because we wanted the focus to be solely on the event, again we can tell the two characters apart, the stalker in all black and the boy in the checkered shirt,the background of there is no background to this shot as the entire focus is on the door and who opens it.
In this scene lighting is also very dark because of the atmosphere created, the stalkers body languages suggests that she is very calm and collected, showing to the audience that she has been planning this moment for a very long time which adds to the enigma code.
More information:
As talked about above we feel that Fox search Light or Lions Gate would most likely produce/distribute our film, however there are others out there. For example Paramount released a film in the last couple of years called STALKER-the film is based on a successful writer and her assistant, who incidentally turns out to be her stalker. Like our film, STALKER brakes the conventions of normal thriller because the main two roles are a female, the young assistant stalks the writer which, in the scheme of things has not been done often, to have a film with a young female stalker is very uncommon in major films.have released many thrillers/films that defy general film conventions and so we therefore feel that our film FIXATION would have been welcomed by Paramount however we still feel that FIXATION would of been better off with Fox Search Light because they have a higher audience rating with a large scale presence in the world wide film market.
We also decided to change the name of our production company because we felt that the company needed to be portrayed I'm a certain light hence why we chose 'Scorpion Productions' for example the static electrical sound that scorpion tale makes represents the horror/thriller aspect of our company and the flashing lights represent a comic side that we could look into at a later date.Unique or similar?
After deciding to do a thriller stalker we found it very hard to brake the conventions of a normal stalker film purely because there is such a wide variety of stalker films out there and so it is harder for us to do a unique film, however we feel we have accomplished this is some aspects of our film, as previously stated our film has different qualities than other stalker films for example the genders have swapped around, the male stalker is now female and the victim is a young teenage male.Although the genders have been played with in many different stalker films, in most cases it is a woman stalking another woman (an example of this film is 'The roommate'), a young girl stalking her love interest
Also in most stalker films the stalker is jealous or has been scorned by the victim or a relavite of the victim's, this is not the case in our film where as the stalker and the victim have no personal connection or running with one and other again this makes the aspect of our film different of others.
However if you strip our film down to the bare basics they are similar to others. Someone abducts another person, the family search and search for the missing person, with no idea who or why they were taken and if they will return. It is obvious to us that its hard to make a well versed genre stand out from the rest and we therefor worked with what we had, I think that some aspects of our film are very different from others but some parts are very similar to other stalker films.
All about the Mise-En-Scene.
One of the other poignant shots in our film are the shots of the stalker walking up to the victims house,this has a lot of mise-en-scene in it. We used no props because we wanted to focus on the character and their profile(how they came across) for example we wanted the stalker to come across as a mysterious character, we didn't want the audience to have much knowledge of our character, we wanted the audience to have an understanding of what she was doing but not who she is.
Her posture is very forward and she walks with confidence this also shows the audience that she is a strong character and knows what she wants/looking for again suggesting to the audience that of she is determined to get what/who she is after.
The background of this shot shows her walking up a pathway to a large house, the background of this shot is very crucial for the audience,this is where they are able to start piecing the different bits together. The background also shows that the film is indeed set in the 21st century.
Because the character is in the centre of the camera shot our whole focus is on her, again this indicates to us that she is one of the main characters, at this point we are able to tell she is the antagonist in the film.
The next vital shot in this sequence is the 'party' shots, these show a group of teenagers enjoying birthday celebrations. We can see that the characters are inside a house which is typical for the 21st century 'birthday party', we used various props in these shots for example the wine bottle, beer cans and birthday badge. This allows the audience to get a better understanding of whats going on. The drink also signifies to the audience what kind of age these teenagers are,which also allows the audience to get a better understand of the plot. The characters in this shot are wearing normal 'party attire' for example some of the girls are wearing dresses others are wearing jeans and smart tops, this again shows to the audience that they are 'normal' teenagers.
The facial expressions of the teens show they are enjoying themselves at this 'party', the strobe lighting also adds to the 'party' effect however because the music is dark and sinful the scene and non-diegetic music contradict each other and therefor give the audience a sense of what will happen in the film. The only thing we see in this shot are the teens, are focus is solely on them which shows to the audience that something will happen to one or all of them.
In this scene lighting is also very dark because of the atmosphere created, the stalkers body languages suggests that she is very calm and collected, showing to the audience that she has been planning this moment for a very long time which adds to the enigma code.
Question 4
Question 4 Who would be the audience for your media product?
As you can see by the pictures our target audience is the typical teenager. The stero-typical teenager, who enjoys being with friends, people who take pride in their appearence, shopping, and partying. Our characters will be thrill seekers, who enjoy thriller and horror films. Films that have an intense storyline our what our audience will enjoy. Our audience will be into social networking and enjoy sites such as Twitter.
We would also have to consider a secondary audience to branch out into different audience members. Even though are film is a teenage film and our core audience are teenagers, one of the main characters is in fact an older woman. So this could make it relevant for adults as well. Adults that are in to films with a good storyline that makes you think and keeps you on the edge of your seat may be interested in our film.
Overall I feel that we adressed our target audience well throughout our film.
The film Prom Night is very similuar to our film as it is a Thriller, it is age rating 15 and involves a stalker. Because the age rating of this film is a 15 the same as ours, the target audience is aged 15 and above. This film also uses a mainly teenage cast, the same as our film which attracts the audience. All of the teenage cast are attractive and dress well which is what we aimed for in our film as well, because if they are attractive cast members it is known that people will be more likely to go to the film.
As you can see by the pictures our target audience is the typical teenager. The stero-typical teenager, who enjoys being with friends, people who take pride in their appearence, shopping, and partying. Our characters will be thrill seekers, who enjoy thriller and horror films. Films that have an intense storyline our what our audience will enjoy. Our audience will be into social networking and enjoy sites such as Twitter.
We would also have to consider a secondary audience to branch out into different audience members. Even though are film is a teenage film and our core audience are teenagers, one of the main characters is in fact an older woman. So this could make it relevant for adults as well. Adults that are in to films with a good storyline that makes you think and keeps you on the edge of your seat may be interested in our film.
Overall I feel that we adressed our target audience well throughout our film.
The film Prom Night is very similuar to our film as it is a Thriller, it is age rating 15 and involves a stalker. Because the age rating of this film is a 15 the same as ours, the target audience is aged 15 and above. This film also uses a mainly teenage cast, the same as our film which attracts the audience. All of the teenage cast are attractive and dress well which is what we aimed for in our film as well, because if they are attractive cast members it is known that people will be more likely to go to the film.
Question 5
Question 5 How do you attract/address your audience?
Our target audience is teenagers both boys and girls, aged 15-17, and our secondary audience is adults both women and men. As you can see from the annotations within the YouTube clip of our final production, we attracted and addressed our audience in many ways that would apply to them. Using a well known production company automatically attracts the audience as it is something that they would be familiar with, but also using a small production company 'scorpion products' introduces another audience, independent films play a big part in the film industry and many people enjoy independent films, the fact that a small production company is used may encourage more audience members to go and see the film as they enjoy independent films. Because the titles are original and creative this would attract the independent film lovers also, the fact that the titles are homemade and raw show to the audience that a lot of time has been spent making the film on a low budget which some audience members will enjoy. The narrative was a very important part in our film. The fact that you can never see one of the protagonists faces throughout the whole opening, builds up enigma straight away which draws in both the target audience of teenagers and the secondary audience of adults as they will both be asking questions throughout the film, it leaves the audience thinking and asking questions, such as 'who is the woman?' Using familiar items on the stalker board such as train tickets and school reports makes this more personal to our target audience as these
are things that they can relate with, and also involving things such as gym memberships will relate to our secondary audience as they are older. We decided to add in eerie music to address our audience, as they have chosen to go and see a thriller they most probably enjoy thriller films, meaning that they enjoy being scared and having an adrenaline rush. The music helps to build up tension. We decided to have just the music alone and no talking within our opening sequence as this builds up the tension and leaves the audience imaging what the characters may sound like. During the opening credits it allows the audience to take in what is on the stalker board as their are no other distractions, the things on the board could be key clues to what is going to happen on the film later on. After research we found that people that enjoy going to cinema are mainly middle class, we set our film in a middle class house to relate to the audience. The young
teenagers at a party drinking also relates to the target audience as this is most probably something that they are familiar with. This can also relate to the secondary audience as this may provoke memories of them as teenagers and going to parties. The characters are also dressed well and in a similar fashion to what we expect our target audience to be dressed like, this gives them an instant 'likeable' factor. Twitter is also very current to the audience, the target audience most probably use Twitter, and the secondary audience would still be able to relate to it whether or not they use it as it is all over the media. We involved Twitter within our film as not only will the audience be able to relate with twitter but we also wanted to raise awareness.
As stated our narrative was a key factor when creating our opening sequence. The fact that you can never see one of the main characters faces allows the audience to visualise what she may look like.
Overall I feel that we addressed and attracted our target and secondary audience very well. Using things that they are familiar with helps to make the film more personal to them and puts it into perspective.
Our target audience is teenagers both boys and girls, aged 15-17, and our secondary audience is adults both women and men. As you can see from the annotations within the YouTube clip of our final production, we attracted and addressed our audience in many ways that would apply to them. Using a well known production company automatically attracts the audience as it is something that they would be familiar with, but also using a small production company 'scorpion products' introduces another audience, independent films play a big part in the film industry and many people enjoy independent films, the fact that a small production company is used may encourage more audience members to go and see the film as they enjoy independent films. Because the titles are original and creative this would attract the independent film lovers also, the fact that the titles are homemade and raw show to the audience that a lot of time has been spent making the film on a low budget which some audience members will enjoy. The narrative was a very important part in our film. The fact that you can never see one of the protagonists faces throughout the whole opening, builds up enigma straight away which draws in both the target audience of teenagers and the secondary audience of adults as they will both be asking questions throughout the film, it leaves the audience thinking and asking questions, such as 'who is the woman?' Using familiar items on the stalker board such as train tickets and school reports makes this more personal to our target audience as these
are things that they can relate with, and also involving things such as gym memberships will relate to our secondary audience as they are older. We decided to add in eerie music to address our audience, as they have chosen to go and see a thriller they most probably enjoy thriller films, meaning that they enjoy being scared and having an adrenaline rush. The music helps to build up tension. We decided to have just the music alone and no talking within our opening sequence as this builds up the tension and leaves the audience imaging what the characters may sound like. During the opening credits it allows the audience to take in what is on the stalker board as their are no other distractions, the things on the board could be key clues to what is going to happen on the film later on. After research we found that people that enjoy going to cinema are mainly middle class, we set our film in a middle class house to relate to the audience. The young
teenagers at a party drinking also relates to the target audience as this is most probably something that they are familiar with. This can also relate to the secondary audience as this may provoke memories of them as teenagers and going to parties. The characters are also dressed well and in a similar fashion to what we expect our target audience to be dressed like, this gives them an instant 'likeable' factor. Twitter is also very current to the audience, the target audience most probably use Twitter, and the secondary audience would still be able to relate to it whether or not they use it as it is all over the media. We involved Twitter within our film as not only will the audience be able to relate with twitter but we also wanted to raise awareness.
We wanted to addresses our audience with the danger of putting things on social networking sites, and the consequences.
As stated our narrative was a key factor when creating our opening sequence. The fact that you can never see one of the main characters faces allows the audience to visualise what she may look like.
Overall I feel that we addressed and attracted our target and secondary audience very well. Using things that they are familiar with helps to make the film more personal to them and puts it into perspective.
Question 6
Above is a rapid video listing what equipment we used.
As we planned and created our finial piece we all learnt how much of an impact technology's can affect what we can create and how well the final product will be. We then also had to battle with how each different piece of technology worked together. A key problem we had while filming was reflections of light on windows and that being picked up on the camera and blinding the rest of the shot.
As we planned and created our finial piece we all learnt how much of an impact technology's can affect what we can create and how well the final product will be. We then also had to battle with how each different piece of technology worked together. A key problem we had while filming was reflections of light on windows and that being picked up on the camera and blinding the rest of the shot.
Below are photos of us using the equipment on location for the fixation shoot:
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| Becky and Charlotte using the camera and tripod on location. |
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| Becky using the camera, you can see the affect of the lights we used in this photo |
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| Here is a shot mid filming, you can see the lights in use as well |
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| Here we are using the camera on the tripod, which we have folded the legs down and made one of the legs predute at 90 degrees perpendicular to the tripod to create a smooth-ish shot in motion |
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| Here the camera is being used at an angle on the tripod to film this static shot. |
In post production we used a selection of different software packages, we used Adobe Premier to cut down each individual clip and stitch the lot of them together. we also used an overlay of the different videos we took to create the 'Ghosting' Affect which is seen throughout the opening. There is an affect in adobe premier called 'ghosting' however we found it not to work as expected resulting in us having to manually create the affect ourselves. In premier we also cut down different pieces of music elements and sound affects then arranged them to fit in with the video elements in our finial piece. We also used a variety of different online programs to write up our evaluation as well as using them for feedback and research. A online programme we used for feedback was Survey Monkey. this allowed us to send out mass emails containing our feedback link as well as the video link. once feedback had been received we were notified by survey monkey where we able to view the feedback from any Internet connected device.
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