activity 3

I think that our film could go to a cinema release, and if this is possible then it could be shown at theatres such as Odeon or Curzon Cinema. However, if this film turns out as unsuccesful then it will be released strait away to a DVD. We could also allow our film to be shown on daytime television on the popular channel Film4 on Sky broadband. I can also see this film being played on Channel one in the daytime television and by putting the film on cinema or daytime television we can attract a larger target audiance. We could advertise this film on television or on posters.

activity 7

When filming the preliminary task, I feel I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to the full product. As a group, we experimented with the camera and tried to use a rage of shot types such as ‘shot reverse shot’, ‘match on action shot’ and ‘180 degree angle shot’. We also experimented with angles- I learnt that when using a high angle shot, an object or being will appear inferior and when using a low angle shot they will appear superior. 
I learnt that you have to cut shots out if they do not fit because you cannot use certain shot types or angles unless it is appropriate, otherwise the film will not flow. Editing looks harder than it is and I found it extremely difficult, but in the end I learnt how to crop and edit shots, sound and colour. I also learnt that the tripod is vital to use in order to film a smooth film; otherwise the camera work will appear unprofessional, amateur and will not be successful. The only problem with our opening sequence was the steadiness of the camera, some shots were hand held when it would have been more appropriate to use the tripod for example when the camera turned to look behind at the clown- that should have been shot with the camera in one place and the clown simply standing in positions that are further towards the camera.

activity 6

In the process of constructing this product, I have learnt how to use a camera, a tripod, YouTube, Imovie, Blogger, Macs and GarageBand. When filming we used a large Velbon tripod to hold the Panasonic camera in certain shots, we used this camera as it has up to seventy times optical zoom and takes very clear quality shots. I learnt which buttons to press to record, stop, rewind, play and eject and enter a tape. The tripod was easy to open and fold and to adjust size and angle, it also offered a handle to allow steady panning. We used YouTube to search for an appropriate audio piece to play during the chase between the two main charactors, we decided to search for carnival music and found a very earey, creepy piece in which we inserted to the sequence.

 We also used YouTube to view other horror films to find inspiration for mise en scene. We used iMovie to edit the film we recorded, I learnt how to change contrast, brightness, add effects and music. I found it difficult cropping and cutting the film, however but in the end I got used to it. We also used blogger to update information to help us with the planning of this sequence, by using an online website we can all easily access the information to make the sequence effective. I really disliked using the Mac’s to upload videos to iMovie as I found it quite complicated, especially as we had to send each other documents to edit and view, I found It difficult finding the area it saved to. I also found it annoying when the Mac’s took ages to save. We also decided to use Garage Band to create a high pitched sound to add effect and to make the audience jump at the appropriate times, this allowed us to change speed, tempo and pitch and was very effective.

activity 5

ACTIVITY FIVE: How did you attract or address the audience?

In the film ‘IT’ Steven King choses to make a scene where the clown is far away from the girl, laughing at her, but when the girl looks behind the washing line the clown appears to be getting closer and closer to her, using a long shot that turns into a very close up shot which makes the audience feel claustrophobic and scared. We decided to have a clown as the main character; this shows supernatural identity and scares the viewers. In our opening sequence, we show this by making the clown appear to get closer and closer without movement even when the young girl is running further away from the clown, we did this using inspiration from Steven King’s popular film, ‘IT’ as this adds a lot of tension. By using a clown as the main character we attract the audience as the fear of clowns is a common fear and is called coulrophobia, it is unexpected for a clown that connotes as jolly and fun to be frightening and dangerous, and so we are contradicting the genre horror. I also feel using this character it adds more of a thrill to the movie because a clown is in a human-like form which could in turn frightern the audience more as they can relate to the protagonist. In our questionnaire we asked ‘what protagonist would scare you the most’, the results came back with a human like figure and so this is another reason why we chose to use a clown.

Evidence of ‘IT’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG1y_YsxANo&feature=related

In the film ‘Sixth sense’ the young boy can see ghosts, this is similar to our film because we have chosen to use a young girl who can also see things, but instead of ghosts she can see a clown which is in fact a figment of her imagination and her mind playing tricks on her. In ‘Sixth sense’ the camera turns to a longshot of ghousts being hung from a classroom ceiling, whereas we used the same convention -rope- but we did not actually put any rope around anyone neck and take a shot. Instead, we decided to put the camera in perspective of the person being hung for safety reasons and we then decided to swing the camera to add dramatic effect.

activity 4

The audience for our media product will be people aged fifteen and over, these people are young adults who are adrenalin seekers. They would be found paintballing, going to theme parks and shopping in places with a label such as Jack Wills. The colours young adults usually wear are quite dull and usually have quite a natural look. They would stereotypically listen to main stream music but rock is also a popular genre at this age. The television programmes they would watch would be soaps or sitcoms such as Eastenders or Inbetweeners. By determining this we know where to advertise our film trailer.

activity 2

Our main character in "Euphoria," is mentally unstable, her mind plays tricks on her and can see something that is not real. Similarly in "Black Swan," the protagonist is also mentally unstable and becomes far too pressured by life she is in and has not adapted to the stress it causes. Eventually, the protagonist commits suicide like our protagonist does in Euphoria. Both characters are similar as they are both very young, naïve and have a natural look. This means that the media product represents naïve young people, or those with mental instibilities as targets to danger.

activity 1

EVALUATION

We developed and challenged forms and conventions using mainly media products when producing our film. Firstly, we did this by designing a logo on a piece of plain paper, we then looked at the logo and  went on the computer to re-design the idea, we made it into a better circle and changed the colours and boldness of the lines. We also came up with the film name 'Euphoria' which challenges the genre as it means joy, whereas a typical horror film would have a frightening name. We decided to use great contrast by adding a very bold, white font against a black background to emphasize the sinister angle, by using this graphology we attract attention to the title which allows the audience to think about the meaning as well as introduce them to the film. To show the names of the people included in the making of this film we used a simple white font so that the main title stands out more and is the main focus.

The geographical location that we decided to use was quite close to our houses and school so that we could re-film any mistakes easily. We decided to film in a forest as our survey said that a lot of people are scared of being alone in a desolate forest at night, and so we used this to effectively scare the viewers. The costumes we used were quite effective as we used a stereotypical costume for the clown- bright red wig, bright red nose, white face, bow tie etc. By using these conventions we will scare the audience more as the clown appears as just a normal clown that entertains children at circus’. We allowed the clown to hold a noose which was an important convention for our film- we used it as the main weapon that ended up killing the young girl. The young girl wore natural coloured clothing, and also had natural blond hair to make her seem pure and innocent which makes the audience more shocked when they find out that she is mentally unstable.

We edited the footage to show match on action shots to display the chase scene between the young girl and the clown, although the clown is not chasing her, she feels like she is and so using this shot we emphasize how she is running fast and wants to get away from what she is seeing. We had to edit a lot of footage as it was too long or did not flow well, for example when the young girl screamed, the actor- Jade, did not scream long enough and so we had to lenghern the duration of the shot so that it looks like she screams for longer. Also, in some shots the actors smiled accidently, or looked into the camera at times they shouldn’t have and so we had to crop this out to make it look more professional. We used a tripod to capture steady shots and clear panning which was quite effective but we also used handheld camera on areas like the chase.

The story is about a young girl that is situated in a mental hospital- this is because on our questionnaire the results came up quite high with our target audience to be scared of horror films set in a mental hospital. The young girl escapes from the institute and is mentally unstable so she can see things that are not there- this is quite obviously a horror but could be mistaken as a thriller. The opening shows that the girl has escaped from the hospital as we include close up shots of her files with explanations of her mental instabilities, the audience also know that she has escaped because the shot cuts strait to a chase. The young girl is introduced in a photograph when the camera goes to a close up shot of her files, wheras the clown is introduced in the very beginning through the title sequence when it cuts to quite cuts of him to scare the viewers. We didn’t use many special effects but we did decide to change the contrast and brightness of certain shots to make the clown appear brighter and the forest appear darker.