Our opening sequence is based on the idea of a horror/thriller film. We have used certain conventions of a horror film in order to make it obvious what the genre of our sequence is supposed to be. Before beginning to film our opening sequence we made sure to research into other horror films opening sequences to see what they all had in common and therefore what to include in our own piece. The two main sequences we looked at were insidious and the woman in black. This is because we felt as if they fit perfectly with the genre which we were going for, the woman in black in particular. From this we picked up on the use of ambient sound throughout the whole sequence - at not one point is there silence. The opening sequences give off an immediate sense of horror, and the woman in black leaves you on the edge of your seat for the rest of the film by leaving a mystery for the audience to solve by watching the rest of the film. We responded to this research by adding in music and sounds similar to those which we researched - this has been extremely effective as it has given to sense of horror which we needed. We tested many different sounds and music in our sequence before finding the right one which created the effect which we wanted - we found many were too dramatic and almost a bit mediocre. .jpg)
Responding to "The woman in black" we also have left our opening sequence on a slight 'cliff hanger,' as we have Lucy standing where her Father is unable to see her. Knowing that she is missing this is aimed to leave the audience on the edge of their seat wondering if it's the real Lucy or is it a supernatural character which we will see haunting Kevin. As well as this, it also leaves them wondering why Lucy went missing in the first place, where did she go, who with. why did it happen etc. I feel that by responding to these conventions we have clearly defined the genre which we were aiming for, which will target our specific audience of teenagers to young adults particularly well.
How does your media product present particular social groups?Our media product has very stereotypical characters of a horror film. For example, we have the Father, who is in a vulnerable mental state after the disappearance of his daughter Lucy, which we learn is his fault. We can see that he is feeling guilty about this as he turns to alcohol and as a result, becomes an alcoholic. This really adds to the story line and shows that there is not only a stereotypical horror story about the supernatural going on, but there is also a Father in distress.
Furthermore, Lucy is also a very stereotypical character of a horror film. This is because she is a young child which we assume to be a ghost (although it is not revealed in our opening sequence,) and therefore she gives off a kind of 'creepy' sense. This is shown through a juxtaposition of her holding teddy bears and dolls, which are designed to be cute and friendly looking, whilst she is dressed in nothing but white and with her makeup done to look particularly creepy and scary. There is also juxtaposition shown in the 'dream sequence.' We can see from Lucy's fathers face that he is distressed by the dream, whereas in the sequence we have the sounds of laughter and the sunlight which is giving off a sense of happiness in contrast to the dark lighting on the filming of Lucy's Dad.
What kind of media institution might be interested in your media product and why?
I feel as if our film as most suitable to be played and watched in a cinema. I think cinemas would benefit from this a great deal due to the genre of our opening sequence. Horror films would tend to appeal to the younger generations, i.e teenagers. Perhaps those who are not 18 yet would go with a group of friends for something to do on a Friday night (Our film would be rated at an age of 15.) Or similarly, it's a good place for males to take a girl on a date. A cinema is often a popular choice to go on a first date as it is dark and saves embarrassment and awkwardness. As well as it being a horror film, which gives the males a chance to act hard and therefore impress the girl they have taken for a date.
I think the cinema would be the most popular place to watch the film as horror films only tend to be watched once, as they only have the scary effect they aim for the first time watching it as things are completely unexpected and therefore 'jumpy' to the audience. However, on the other hand people under the age of 15 may be desperate to see the film, without being able to access it at the cinema. Therefore they may have it bought for them on DVD so that they have the oppertunity to watch it at home.
After seeing it at the cinema, people may also want to buy it on DVD. Therefore I think DVD institutions would be interested in our media product as the target audience may want to purchase it so that they will be able to access and watch it whenever they want in the future. This also gives them the oppertunity to share it with friends and family members who they may think will be interested in the film. A problem with this is illegal downloading - less people are purchasing DVD's or going to the cinema to see them as it has become much easier to find the same films in a good quality online without having to pay a thing. Our target audience of teenagers/young adults in particular, as they will more be more likely to know how to find these links online and will have all the software needed in order to download and watch the films.
What would be the audience for your media product? / How did you attract and address your audience?We decided our primary target audience immediately after deciding on our genre. Our target audience mainly ranges between the younger generation between the ages 15-25, both males and females. I think this was good choice to make as both me and my partner fall into that age bracket and we therefore know what we would personally look for in a film opening like this. Teenagers/young adults seem to be particularly interested in horror films - no matter what kind of social class/group they come from. Horror seems to be a shared interest between all teenagers that I know of. We looked at two of the most popular films that both us and our friends have all watched time and time again and enjoyed: These were 'The Woman In Black' and 'Insidious.' After realising how popular both these films had been with us and our friends we decided to look further into them and take things from the film openings and try to included different aspects into our own, in an attempt to make our film opening more appealing to our target audience.
On the other hand, our secondary target audience are those with a particular interest in horror films. To attract our secondary audience we made sure to include key conventions of typical horror films which we had found in our research, such as the ambient sound and key noises to build up tension.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?
When we first began to film our final piece everything was fairly basic and straight forward. Our camera was easy to use, and had a long and reliable battery life which allowed us to film our whole dream sequence in one go. However, when we started to edit I struggled. I had never used Adobe Premiere before, although my partner anais had used it to edit her GCSE coursework, whilst I had worked on a magazine using photoshop and fireworks. I found this transition difficult to grasp, although working with Anais was very beneficial to me as it allowed me to observe someone else editing before I began to help myself.
Up until the week before our deadline, we had had no issues with Adobe Premiere when editing. However so close to our deadline we began to have problems. We found that when we opened our work, we were unable to do anything but render. When we did try to render the work we found that the programme just stopped responding and we therefore had to shut it down. We thought that this issue may have been to do with the computer we were working on. In an attempt to resolve this we copied all of our videos onto a hard drive to try and open our product on another computer. This however was unsuccessful and we found the same problem on every computer. This problem has still been unresolved, however tomorrow we are going to copy our videos and attempt to re edit them to the same standard which we were at before.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task was a parody of "The Only Way Is Essex." When we edited this we used fairly basic skills which had an effect on the outcome. The product we finalised with was very unprofessional looking. I feel I personally have progressed a lot from this as I now understand more about Adobe Premiere and how to use it to the best of my ability. As a result of this I feel that our film opening comes across as much more professional looking when comparing it to our preliminary task.
In our film opening we have considered all aspects of editing our opening sequence. For example the lighting, sound etc. Whereas we didn't have a lot of time to finalise our preliminary task which lead to us only really considering sound, adding no proper effects to the piece. With our opening sequence however, we have had time to consider all aspects and therefore we have a much better looking piece. We have also added effects to our opening sequence, particularly in the "dream sequence" to make things look more interesting for the audience whilst also building up tension and setting the scene.
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