Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I have re taken my AS coursework from last year due to there being a lot of problems with the group i was working with. I have attempted to re take this several times having little success due to having cast no reliable and the idea not being realistic for an indie company to produce especially in summer. This has been a challenge and i have finally finished my blog and changed my idea to have a successful opening that worked well. I am very pleased with the result.  This my journey as i have progressed through.

Eval 1- conventions of real media texts

In what ways does your media product use,develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

With our film we tried to use some of the common conventions for example the scream queen,the killer. But also we wanted to challenge it in a way not common with these slasher films. We wanted to take slasher characteristics but change them such as having a weapon but it not being a knife and the opening just containing the scream queen however a brunette scream queen.

Intertextuality

And a good example that i looked at for influence was the babysitter wanted because in this film they start with the killing . This is also a modern film which i wanted to re create so it was very useful to look at.where there's body parts being shown an quite music building i also looked at cry wolf as i wanted to look at the idea of these being cross cut. This lead me to look at eden lake where i could see how stories could work to be cross cut this took the idea away from a typical slasher.  so this helped me a lot to keep the basic conventions that make is slasher however cross cutting the equilbrium and challenging the theory.

Killer

As for the killer in our film we've chosen to stick to the common convention with our killer being old and a male with a  hidden identity. Also we used Mike Myers from John Carpenter's Halloween as an influence because of hidden identity, and so that we keep with providing narrative enigma instead of giving exposition for the killer's identity.Our killer however uses the a typical basic weapon however not a knife as we needed something big and effective bang to work at the end. i chose to use a mallet at the end as it was big and would look effective been hit against the face. as the guy also has a tool box and is a handyman this puts a twist on it as perhaps she knows him.

Narrative enigma

In my production i show narrative enigma whenever the killer is shown. By dressing the killer in a black hoodie the audience are never able to identify him, this along with the shots of only the killers feet gradually being cut into the action helps create narrative enigma. The audience get to see the killers hands , with gloves on work boots and trousers. From these few shots they without showing the identity of the killer you create tension within the audience. These phew shots also show the characters background such as the work boots , tool box etc. This same concept is used in lots of slasher films. A well known example is the Friday the 13th franchise where Jason is always seen wearing a mask to hide his identity.

 Barthes theory links strongly with the use of narrative enigma , because his theory is about codes of narrative enigma. Hiding the face creating tension within the audience . To look further into this the enigma code this is the theory that suggests that any text such as television , film , a poster etc makes the audience question something and intrigue them to draw them in. I have used this by not showing the killers face , but showing shots of the killer, this then has the audience gripped and wondering who has done it .

Casey

Scream Queen

And with our scream queen we also stuck with the common conventions with her  not academic and sexually active, however she is not stereotypical scream queen. She has brunette hair however has the same appearance we would expect of our typical scream queen. we can see she is sexually active and is the scream queen the narrative as she is wearing tight clothes and low tops. also in the torture part she is wearing minimal clothing also suggesting she is the scream queen due to her nice figure and her being attractive.As a good influence i looked at was Casey in Scream ( Wes Craven, 1996 ) as she was blonde, but also she was vulnerable and useless in fighting the killer i also wanted to see how she acted to make it so realistic.

Final Girl

Then for the final girl character i looked to Halloween for influence here as there's a scene where Laurie Strode , The final girl, was walking with her friends whiles she was carrying book and they were talking about their boyfriends, whereas Laurie didn't have a boyfriend and was more interested in studying. I have taken this on board and made shore i havent used any of this for the opening as it is the scream queen getting killed.i have this in mind for the rest of the film this is when i would bring in the final girl who actually will survive.

Titles

Also for our titles sequence i looked at scream opening to have a loud noise then the final title come in.

And with our titles we choose to show the actors names as they're usual revealed at the start but because our actors haven't been in any films before we used the title 'Introducing...' because this is what's commonly used when an actor is being revealed for the first time. And to show that we understand the common conventions for the titles at the start of the film i made out that we had a star and it was starring rosie waterman. 

Shower scene

Editing

Then with the editing we also showed some common conventions of editing that would be used at the start of other slasher films, for example layering and cross cut shots very fast pace. showing all shot variety and building up. Also for our violent scene we used the common convention of 'fast paced editing' where we chopped up long clips into much shorter takes and used takes from different angles, so that it gives a more realistic feel to it but you don't actually see any violence it just makes to feel like you have because it happens so fast, however in our violent scene i did slow down some clips and reverse to get the final impact. a good example that we looked at was the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960 ) where they chopped up their takes in the scene and used lots of short takes, and they also used non-diegetic sound to good effect with the sound of high pitch violin, and we also used a non-diegetic soundtrack with our violent scene so we've also shown a common convention in this way.

Sound track 

with the non-diegetic soundtrack we've also shown how we understand the common conventions this way because we made our soundtrack so that it builds up the tension with long drawn out notes which are quiet and subtle but not too heavy. But also we've included diegetic sounds which are commonly used in films , for example in our film i have a lot of screaming and noises made by scream queen , door banging , footsteps.

Mise en scene

And for the mise-en-scene aspect of our film we've also demonstrated commonly used conventions, for example with the fake blood that we used on the girl to fake her bruises and cuts. i also used candles which i had previously scene work well in past as coursework the cellar. This worked well i thought i could create the same look which proved very successful.

Target Audience

The characters in the film are  15 and 16 so this also appeals at the target audience as they can relate to this this is a very common convention in all slashers as it what brings in the target audience.. And when we got feedback from a group of teenagers where i realised  alterations so that my film was more effective i constantly did this to keep my video to be the best and allow for any changes.

Eval 2 - social groups

How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

AGE

my media product target audience is 15-24 year olds. My product represents this by the characters in it being young, attractive and fashionable. The main girl is tall , mid-upper class, pretty and wears revealing clothing however is a brunette scream queen this also makes my video more representable. people from this age range and social group and relate there personal image to this and inspire to be like her. The mis en scene also works with this for this social group of girls 15-24 to relate there own lives to this. The mise en scene and location setting is very simple and very realistic it is like something you would see in every day life. This helps also build the tension as it realistic and is like it could almost happen to anybody.

The characters are also stereo typical a killer with drawn from the camera, a revealing scream queen and a stalking scene at the beginning these are all slasher conventions that are used to create narrative enigma this could bring in another social group of older peers who would perhaps look for these things within a slasher film. They would perhaps do this instead of looking at the scream queen and her relationship.

Gender

The final social group i think my media product represents is males. We have used Laura Mulveys theory of male gaze to attract this audience. The scream queen is dressed in revealing clothing , and camera movements and shots objectify body parts making it appealing to this audience. The fact there is also a mystery and torture scene makes it more appealing to this audience as well which perhaps would not usually watch this sort of thing.

Target Audience

We chose to use the common conventions and have a stereotype with our scream queen by having her being an attractive figure and sexually active however she is brunette having a twist on the common blonde convention, and we were also influenced by the scream queen, Casey, in Scream (1996, Wes Craven ) as she is blonde and sexually active and were vulnerable to the killer. Also they're of the teen age which relates to our target audience as the social group we're trying to address is the teenage social groups.

Sexuality

In our production, all the characters are heterosexual. By doing this we are reinforcing what the audience consider to be a normative representation.Although we cant tell this from the opening due to the girl being so available and sexually thrilling for men the idea taken from the babysitter wanted suggests she is heterosexual due to this the audience would find this out later on in the film.

Physical Ability

In my production all of our characters in our opening are physically able. Again by doing this we are reinforcing the normative representation. If we had used disabled characters the situation may have been slightly less realistic and difficult to accurately and believably portray.

BBFC

the killers in slasher genre films commonly have a masked identity and have a psychological problem which leads to their motives of killing. So with my killer i have with drawn his face and framed shots so this is hidden this then can build narrative enigma for the audience.i looked at babysitter wanted for this as this was one of the main influences to my product.

scream queen is 16 and this is anchored by the clothes that she is wearing, for example the scream queen wearing little clothing and it being tight in the stalking scenes also low and revealing. Also the sexual activity that is pursued by the killer looking very pornographic. But also i chose to use actors of this age so that our target audience can relate to the characters more, rather than having the actors of an older age where our target audience won't be able to relate. 

Eval 3- distribution of real media text

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

The distribution of a film (or movie) is the process through which a movie is made available to watch for an audience by a film distributor. This task may be accomplished in a variety of ways; for example, with a theatrical release, a home entertainment release (in which the movie is made available on DVD-video or Blu-ray Disc) .Film industry covers three areas. PRODUCTION (most film projects never make it out of 'development hell') DISTRIBUTION (most UK films fail to attract a distributor willing to take the risk) EXHIBITION (the vast majority of UK films fail to get a box office release; Hollywood dominates)

Distribution is changing as now there is such thing as digitilisation which is now used Digitization is the process of changing content production, storage, distribution, and consumption from an analog to a digital base. Its most important characteristic is that it changes these bases from physical form to binary electronic form.This has such an impact as it largely reduces costs dramatically as everything is done digitally. This has an impact on distribution as now there is no need for any.Although these changes had some effects on media businesses in the first two to three decades of digitization, the business models of media remained relatively stable because newspapers, magazines, and books continued to be printed on paper, recording of audio and video for retail distribution remained as a physical good, and all these types of products continued to be distributed and sold in traditional ways. There for there are a lot more opportunity  for self distribution due to low costs of digitalisation being so cheap.

The basic context of my film is the idea of a stalking scene being cross cut with the girl being tortured this will be flash backs throughout.My genre for my film is a slasher genre and will be a micro budget film as we have no stars  however we do have similarities to franchises and other slashers films such as Scream , Halloween , Black x mas and babysitter wanted. our film is similar as it has same basic content such as the idea of the classic killer and the typical scream queen and final girl. Our film is obviously not going to be a high budget film but a micro budget as we will not have distributers and little cash.

 All these are 2012 films i used search ' top 2012 films into google to search for these and used the website top films of 2012 and imdb to find film information.

The marketing tools needed for distribution in slasher films are posters , trailers , teaser trailers, advertisements on TV magazines etc websites and social networking. an example of this would be scream. I would budget our film at £30 to make as we already have everything we need we just need to pay for small distribution which we will do via internet and social networking sites our budget also will include cast and costumes.
  
Low budget film companies (indie) however do make some money such as warp films.Little manage cinema release and little manage us distribution due to low population in Britain and the target audience been mainly brits. such as this is England  was not appealing to americans as it was not the typical english stereotype.Most films However do make it to the cinema but however sometimes do fail. There are international distributors and different

distributors for different countries due to funding. Examples of this are Dark Knight , have several distributors for other countries such as Village films for Greece and road show film distributors for Australia however there are also international companies which distribute the rest which in this case are warner brothers part of the big 6. Another example of this is this is England. Uk distribution was Optimum Releasing where as for america distributors where ICF first Talk.   This is england by shane meadows is a good example of low budget distribution as he has produced alot of other films that have been a hit distributed by Warp films that have also been distributed internationally and just in the UK such as Donkey Punch and 4 lions both big hits for a low budget distribution.Warp Films also being a low budget distribution like my film have had good success from being such a low budget company and distributing films worldwide and within countries due to target audience and these being social realist genre is very specific.
    
Since our film is such a low budget film we are obviously not going to be able to afford a mega budget film such as Avatar  which had a budget of $237 m and is thought to be the most expensive film ever made. Our film will not meet this as we are micro budget company and our audience is britain where as us have far more wider population and is produced in hollywood where the big 6 distributors are that internationally and world wide distribute films.These films are also more likely to feature big stars to make films more appealing for audience as if there is a well known star they may have seen previous films which makes this more important to watch.These companies can also afford to risk failures as it would take a lot for such well known distributor to come to this where as if an indie production risked a film they could be bankrupted.
   
If our film fails we will use alternative distributors such as youtube and social networking sites. Films have been distributors like this and have had success such as Fred and Another earth. Which have been made and distributed by youtube and networking sites. However also on these sites there are also people who put on videos with takes on these films and there own films which also get distributed nationally and recognised.

Eval 4- audience

who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Primary Audience

Our BBFC rating was 15 rating due to the violence. However it is not an 18 due to the storyline there is no use of sexual references or gory. Our film is intended to build on tension with some violence but not much.The idea is to create narrative enigma for the audience to follow the killing though the killers eyes.This in itself bring down the rating due to there been no violence and innapropriate scenes fro younger years than 15. 

Our primary target audience: The primary target audience is teens due to this been the typical slasher film audience. The films that have influenced our film we have also taken into account there rating such as halloween , scream , and Babysitter wanted.These films vary from 15 to 18, cherry falls been the 18 after watching this film we also decided our film would not be as violent and gory with sexual references this was also a big help in the rating we gave our film . By having the film rating at 15 this also brings in a wider audience its self , as we are also 17 and stars in the film are 17 this helped aim the audience from 15 and above.

Our 2nd primary audience: 

Our 2nd audience is adults above 25. It will be hard to target this audience as we have narrowed down our references to fit the teen age group and to refer there lives. However we are targeting this audience as the film is also creates suspense and tension which can be common with an older age group to watch it for this appeal.
 we chose this to be our target audience due to the slashers box office appeal.Slashers box office appeal are low due to these been mid budget films.They are also all the same genre and don't appeal to all audiences as perhaps a romcom would with big stars. 

The stars in slashers do not seem to well known they however if this is a franchise often the start of there career such as the shower scene in psycho such as janet leigh this really made her career as it such a famous scene. Typical slasher audience  The typical slasher audience is teens ranging from 16-24.This is a typical slasher audience because this genre is most common amongst teens due to the stars been teens and the storyline been about teen life. Teens then can refer to this in there own life's making the element if the slasher genre more scary. Aiming at this group also makes it popular by narrowing down the audience to make all references to the teen age group. 

Uses and gratifications theory 

Mcquils theory argues that the active audience control the textual meanings they select texts fir certain physiological needs. My video agrees with this as slasher is a very specific genre which not everyone likes. It also has a very specific target audience which means it agrees with the viewer having psychological needs to want to watch scary / gory films.

Stuart Halls Theory

Stuart halls theory also agrees with my text , his theory is about different readings preferred reading were the viewer accepts the texts ,negotiated reading where the viewer partly accepts the text and finally oppositional reading the viewer rejects the reading . This agrees with my text due to intertextual references that some people wont understand if they haven't seen a selection of slasher films , and age , if they are too young or too old they may not understand the story and see past the tension created.

Interviewing my Target audience video : 

Eval 5 -attracting your audience

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Attracted 

We attracted our audience by sticking with the stereotypes for the genre such as the final girl , scream queen and killer and focusing on the common slasher conventions. We tried to stick to Laura mulveys theory of the scream queen too making references through out our film.Also we attracted the audience through the female character like most films do , using attractive stars. This attracts male audience as well as female due the characters been female. This attracts male audiences because of the male gaze.

Addressed

We addressed our audience through the characters we used by making references to teen life as the characters used were teens.We were also able to address the audience with the help of digitization by using the social networking sites facebook and twitter, by using these we're enabling ourselves and our production to be accessible by thousands over the internet, mostly family and friends, but they are also open to give us feedback on how to improve the media product and get a good insight in what the audience are looking for and want.

Eval 6 - technologies

What have u learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

throughout my project i have used a lot of different technologies such as blogger , final cut express , imovie , and much more .

Blogger

First i used Blogger this has been a big part of technolgy i have used as i have used it for many blog posts and researching topics. I have also used to blog and extract information.Blogger is where i have put together my coursework, by following lesson schedules and typing up main things i have learnt. When constructing my product i have found blogger to also be a way of distribution of products and my film as well to get feed back.Without this i would have to pay to distribute my products and my course work would have to be by hand . Without this technology media studies would be a lot harder.It has also been alot easier to build this up as it is quick and easy to use . Personally i have also used it off my smart phone this has also been very useful in itself.

Web 2.0

web 2.0 is a theory that agrees with my product and the planning and distribution of it . It is about the network platform spanning and connecting devices.Tim o reilly is associated with the term web 2.0 , it states that this theory allows users to interact and collaborate with each other - dialogue and user generated content and the virtual community  Examples of this are social networking which has allowed my distribution of my product and helped it get bigger such as youtube and blogger , all free services hosted by the web. Another term that comes into this is digitisation which links with this as they support each other as the world is becoming more and more digital.

Final Cut

I have used Final cut express and final cut pro both for making the movie and vodcasts them selves.I have used final cut pro the most as it has been very easy and useful for editing at home and in school.I have used final cut to make vodcast first for my blog.This was very simple as all i had to do was insert footage or pictures and talk over them. I then edited my video on this technology this was fun and once i got to grips with it i found it very easy to work.

Garage Band

I have also used garage band , i have used garage band to create my sound track for the film.This was easy and simplistic. The features were laid out on how to work it.However i did find it challenging putting it together with my film.Without garage band i would of been very hard to make such thing as a sound track to the film that fits perfectly and was our choice.I have learnt from constructing this product the different types of music that fit with different genres. I have also learnt how to work it for feature use this has been very helpful.

Cameras

I have also used hd cameras to film my product as a form of digitisation. These have been very easy to work. I taught myself how to use them after playing around with them on the different shoots. It was very simplistic.Without this technology our media course work would have been alot harder to produce and alot more expensive.It was also very easy uploading the footage as you used an sd card to hold the footage this was very good and really helpful . from using this technology i have learnt how to create different shots, angles and more importantly how to create different footage to achieve purpose.

YouTube 

Throughout our research and planning we used YouTube in a number of different ways. We used it to upload rough cuts, sample footage and vodcasts also to edit .which we can then embed straight to our blogs. YouTube is also very useful for research, especially music videos and their conventions as well as the past videos from our artist. As it is such a big website it is likely to have video content for whatever you are looking for, making it useful for a large proportion of people which people are now depending on. Again this in an interactive website, with an active comment section creating another opportunity for audience feedback.

Tags and labelling

I have added tags to my posts to attract more audiences.I was able to attract more hits to my blog by doing this, if i was too this again i would add more tags from the beginning as i have not done this from the beginning my product would of been a lot more successful.As i only had to time to do the last few, it would have been more useful and lot better to have them all to build this up to see the main tags on my blog.

Gmail

Gmail i used to email my teacher and other members doing the course to look at there and see if there was anything i could help them with.I have also then been able to email my teacher and look at the things i can improve on and get feedback with the latest links sent and links to youtube.

LiveType:

LiveType is the software we used to create the majority of our idents. I found it quite hard to understand at first, but it became easier as I carried on using it. However, I couldn't achieve all the effects I wanted on my ident so i had to export it and reimport it into final cut pro to improve it slightly.

Exhibition and distribution 

HD camera 

To film and to take pictures for my project to show it is progressing i used a HD camera. We used the canon LEGRIA HF R36. We used an HD camera to get the best quality footage possible. A lot of HD cameras are reasonably priced, making them accessible to a wide range of people than previous technology would have allowed before digitisation. 

USBs and HD cards 

I USBs to transfer work from our home computers the ones which we edit on at school. We used a 32Gb one to ensure we had the maximum amount of storage necessary. We used am SD card to Save the footage from the camera instead of using the inbuilt memory. We did this to make the process of moving the footage to the editing software much simpler and quicker. 

Final Cut Pro x

The editing software Final Cut Pro x has a huge range of effects and editing tools to make our video look as professional and effective as possible. We used a range of these effects, especially basic tools such as blade yet also more complicate techniques such as layering. From lighting to cropping Final Cut Pro is very good software and that's why a lot of big film makers are starting to use this.it is also very professional and used widely in the industry by film makers. We have been using final cut for 2 years now, and over this time our skills have really developed and we are now pretty knowledgable on the main tools. However, as final cut pro is such vast software we often came across techniques we wanted to achieve but didn't know how. To over come this we googled and searched on YouTube as a lot of final cut experts post videos and help blogs about how to work simple and much more difficult effects.

Screen Capture
Screen capture is a downloadable device making it extremely easy to screenshot your computer screen, or a particular region open on it. This was vital in the evaluation stage of our coursework as we needed to extensively back up the points we are making on our video and research. As we developed our research we took screenshots along the way so when it came to the evaluation we could use these screenshots to save a lot of time.