Email Screenshots (Re-casting)

Equipment List

Day 1 of filming:

• Family pictures

• Matches and box

• A lighter

• A fully charged camera

• External microphone

• Tripod

Day 2 of filming:

• Makeup

• Costume (dress)

• Teddy bear

• A fully charged camera

• External microphone

• Tripod

Evaluation 3

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

As my team and I would be an example of an independent film company; because of this we would have to distribute our film on social media as it is a cheap option; as we wouldn't have access to any financing.We chose the genre of horror as, after extensive research, we found that horror films are usually the cheapest to produce.

The financial restrictions is one of the main factors, keeping the divide between conglomerates and independent films companies. As we would be an independent film company, similar to Warp films; we would predict that our success would be similar to the success of '71.

We are using paramount to release our film so it can reach a wider audience. 

Below are screen shots for one of the many websites we looked at for our research into the best genre for our budget. I will also enlist some of the other websites: 

http://www.hypable.com/10-block-buster-movies-with-tiny-budgets/

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls055140840/

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0410/movie-genres-with-the-best-roi.aspx

This is our Ident for our production.

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My production consisted of one character; this character was a young girl. I used a variety of different camera angles and shots to present the protagonist. The main actor's only prop was a teddy bear; this connotes innocence and childlike aspects. As this contrasts with the look of the character as well as her eery demeanour, it leaves the audience feeling inquisitive as well feeling uneasy. Through this use of mise en scene we are giving indications about the character to the audience, that dialogue and movement alone may not have conveyed. 

In our production we are generally presenting people of a younger age, although people of older ages appear in photos at the start of our production, movement or dialogue is not present. Our only character appearing in our production is the young female antagonist, because of this she holds the audiences full attention giving her power; additionally a sense of importance is added to the character.The camera constantly follows the girl, giving her control and maintaining the attention of the audience. In addition, it is clear that the young girl plays the villain of the production; this implies that she has the strength and power to potentially overrule an older character in later scenes. However, as the character has no dialogue throughout the opening this could limit her power, potentially deeming her to be less important; it could be argued that this is purely down to her gender, therefore presenting females in a prejudiced way.

The stereotypical aspect of our production was the way in which we present our young character. She is seen dropping a teddy bear, this clearly indicates that the character is a young girl. 

Evaluation 1

In what way does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Through watching a range of horror films (including Saw, Circle, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Insidious) I compiled a list of conventions that were common in all or most of them. These conventions, which are the things that typically arise in a genre, included gore, isolated settings, a villain, a lone survivor, a lack of consequences for the villain and weapons. Technical elements that were common throughout the films were dim lighting, long shots to show isolated settings, close ups of the villains so that they are only partially revealed and a lot of jump cuts in the editing. Research also included asking a cross section of audience about the expectations of a horror. The people I asked expected to see similar things to each other and to the conventions I had found. The most common responses were gore and jump scares, a lot of the responses to our questionnaire showed that audiences also wanted to see children as part of the narrative. There was a clear pattern of how we needed to encode our production piece so that the audience would be able to recognise it as a stereotypical horror. I wanted to create an opening that captured the stereotypical aspects of a horror film; this is reflected within our main character. 
The next step was to create a storyboard. 

I conducted research of the typical elements of a horror film and presented the information in a prezi format. 

Camera Positioning

Camera Shot A: The tripod was placed in the centre of the rocks so we were able to do a panning shot of the surrounding rocks. This part of the woods was the flattest therefore the tripod was able to be placed comfortably and not wobble. Positioning it roughly in the centre allowed us to get a camera angle that was quite evenly spread between each rock so we could portray an accurate representation of the location.

Camera Shot B: This camera shot was taken by the cinematographer being stood on top of the rock in order to get a higher angled shot. Our aim was to get high enough to do an establishing shop however the rocks were slightly too low in order for the establishing shot to be very effective. The high shot, however, made the girl look small showing her innocence and vulnerability t0 the audience.

Camera Shot C: This shot was positioned with the camera facing west in order to get a long shot of the girl walking away from the camera. The rock behind it made a shadow effect on the camera so it looked darker and made the scene seem more tense. We also used this camera position to do a dolly tracking shot up and down the girls body which built suspense as to what she would look like. We found this area in the woods was also less muddy than other parts so we decided to film the shots involving the teddy therefore if we did for some reason have to redo the shots, the teddy wouldn't be muddy and would correctly match the continuity editing.

Camera Shot D: The camera was positioned on the rock with half the lens focussed on the rock and the other half focussed on our character walking in the background. We thought this would give a sinister effect almost like someone was watching her and would make the shot more scary and effective.

Camera Shot E: We decided that we liked the idea of integrating the camera into the trees to use them in helping us get more unique camera angles so this shot is where we put the lens between branches and did a dolly panning shot of the tress around it. It is also in the area where we set up the tripod to do an extreme long shot of our character standing amongst the trees as the different sized and shaped branches created a creepy effect.

Analysis of Film Openings: Buscombe's Theory & Audience Theories