My Media Project

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at this project I feel I understand why planning and research is at first I though it was pointless and wanted to jump into the project however I see now that it helps you understand your project more which is good as if you understand it more you will make a better project however I do like my project, looking back I’m also glad I now know how to edit I realise how important it is and I’m glad I can do more to help instead of being good at the filming but useless at the editing, Also looking back I wish there were things we added to the hallucination that we did not have time to do like add a contrast on final cut pro and put makeup on her but once again that is down to planning which I understand better now.

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

Firstly I have learnt how to edit on I movie which has helped me in other projects which I am happy about I have also learnt how to use the effects on I movie. Another thing I have learnt is how important the tri pod is when filming as well as how to use the camera I knew how to use it before but I am more confident with it and more confident to try different shots, however I still do not understand how to use a final cut pro it is much more complicated compared to I movie but it has shown me how important final cut pro is at times.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly I think having a young actor helps if you have an older man as an actor people’s views may change on the film as they may feel it is not targeted at them so having young actors helps. Also are Title sequence sets up enigmas that will make our chosen audience want to carry on watching like who is this girl why is she following the actor also the fact we made the title sequence interesting like not keeping the same shots and making scenes that scare you like when the hallucination pops out of nowhere again another enigma, I think the fact that we are quite young ourselves helped us address our chosen audience as we chose things that would attract us, the fact his house is a bit of a bachelor pad shows audiences he is young and does not really care about if his home is clean I think all these elements helps address our chosen audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As our film has a rating of 15 and upwards it would be for people for 15 and upwards but more specific boys and girls of 15 to 25 as it is a horror and most couples around that age will go to a horror. Also as it is not extremely violent that is why the film would be a 15 it also has adult content like insomnia that I don’t not think a twelve year old could grasp so that is why it is a 15. Another reason it is a 15 is it is because it will maximize our audience as more people will go see the film which is good as it shows us what type of people enjoyed the film. I also think any culture or sexuality will enjoy this film as its not aimed at one group any type of person can watch it.

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

The institution I would choose to distribute our media product would be universal studios, firstly it is a world renown institution and more people are likely to go see a film if it is being supported by a big company like universal as they have made many big and good titles. I would also choose them as in my opinion they would be the best in the business as they have distributed many films would make them very professional they have also made many different genre of films including horror so they would know how to market and to distribute our film correctly.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents doctors it does not represent teenagers as Daniel Pye is playing an adult doctor in his 20’s on a way it kind of stereotypes doctors as he is very smart and this is displayed through his costume, we also show they work long hours as he is very tired and is shown through Daniels performance also he wears classes which is a widely renown stereotype from people, he also gets up very early showing he has to be in work early as he is either important or he has a lot of work to do. However he also represents a young man a bit of a bachelor his room looks like a bachelor pad things are not in place on his bed side table like he does not care where it is as long as he can see it also he looks very young like he is a new doctor just out of university. Some of the Mis-en-scene has connotations of this there is a swim suit calendar on the wall showing he is young and a bit of a bachelor. He also sleeps in his close showing he does not really care about getting in pyjamas as if he has a lifers to short view about life.

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

Our media product is a horror it does both challenge and develop the usual conventions of horror. For example we do have a villain but its not like Jason or Freddy or a usual ghost it is like The Machinist tit is a hallucination that he see everywhere which he believes is a ghost haunting him so it could be argued that our hallucination is a villain. Another convention we challenge is there are no deaths in the film like the ghost/hallucination has killed someone there are always victims in the film but in this film there is only the protagonist (Daniel Pye) and the ghost/hallucination (Kirstie Houghton) so that’s anther convention we challenge. However we use the convention of scary music and tense scenes there is tense music towards the end of the title sequence also like most films we have tense scenes like any horror so we have conventions and we develop some of them as well. We also don’t have a location like a haunted house we have various locations where the ghost haunts the protagonists such as his house and the hospital he works at. But we also don’t use smaller conventions there is not really much blood film and there is no weapon as the villain is not a killer. We also challenge the convention of colour most horror films use colour unless they are old or going for a deep meaning our film does not use colour making our film look more sinister so we challenge the convention of light and colour of horror.

Traces poster

We have decided to do a poster for our film traces once we have done it. It will be put on the blog.

What now

• We have reshot and re-edited.
• all there is now to do is to brighten up the ghost.

DVD cover

This is our DVD cover for our film i think it works as it is accurate to the film and it looks like a horror cover i think if i saw it in a Hmv i would buy it or read the back.

Re-edited

We have re-edited the sequence it looks a lot better as Daniel Pye loks much scared in the film, the only problem was when we edited the continuity was ruined as som bottles suddenly appear so we had to delete the scene from the project.

Re-shot

Today we re-shot our scen for our film i went wll and all we have do is add it ino the squence which should be easy enough, also it is much more scay it makes you jump more.

Dvd case

To get maybe a better grade and to make the project more realistic we are currently making a dvd cover for the film traces.

Final cut pro

We started using final cut pro a week ago and its hard to get used to however we need to get used to it as it has beeter effects than i movie.

Typography for our film

Typography for our film needed to look ghostly or sinister as our film has an evil sinister feel about it and also it is about ghostly hallucinations. So that was the type of typography we are using for the film which our techer sayid suits the project well however the final pieace of typography that says Traces at the end of the film needs to have a kind of ghostly humming at the end to scare people and to add a better effect.

What we need to do so far

so far we need to

• Make our title sequence a bit more tidy so try and cut the scenes so they flow.
• Add a contrast to the ghost and make her brighter.
• Add music to the title sequence .
• The evaluation.
• Re shoot a scene so it looks more realistic.
• Make blog a bit more chunky full of information.
• Make another storyboard.

re-shooting

My group have to re shoot a scene to make dan's petrified scream look more realistic as at the moment it looks a bit pathetic and does not display the right emotion to the audience there response to the current scream was laughter as it seemed a bit more of a joke.

Black and White

We decidied to make our project black and white as it is not really being done and it gives the film a more sinister feel to it. Initially we were not going to do this however after talking t through with the group it was a possitive choice as it also gives the film a noir feel and sort of combines horror and the noir genres.

Critique on our title sequence

Our audience wanted to watch our film from watching the opening title sequence however thy believed it gave to much away and could guess the story line although saying that they could not guess the whole film. They also felt that the subliminal shots in the montage were good however some of the shots need tidying although they are good. They also said that there needed to be more sound effects in the title sequence and that the emerging title of traces needs to be made longer and needs a sound effect that is scary and shocks you. Daniel pye our actor needs to be more terrified in one of the shots so we are going to reshoot it. we need to bring music in when Daniel the audience said. The audience said it is clear thet the film is a well thought about project as the mis_en_scene is brilliant as well as the shots and performance of our actors. The final comment by the audience is that we need to tidy and refine shots and dd certain things like the music and the new shot of pye.

What i hope to acheive with this project

Obviously the first thing i would like to achieve is a high group grade as well as a high project grade i feel that the group has overcome many issues personal arguments within the group as well as problems we faced during planning and filming, i feel that we deserve a high grade as we have put our heart and souls into this project, also i feel that this project has helped me understand why planning is such an important thing as well as helping me achieve a more leader role than sitting back and letting my group do everything which i am enjoying more as my ideas are quite good and have helped make some of the shots look good i feel i am becoming more of a team member of the group as i am always helping. I would like to achieve a better editing skill which Lauren has helped do as i am observing how to use i movie. Overall i feel that we have achieved so much but there is more we need to do which we are in the process of doing such as re shooting and editing.

Reflection on project so far

So far i feel our group has overcome many problems such a arguments in the group which were sorted out and now we are working more as a team, also i feel the shooting went amazingly as we shot everything we needed and only need to reshoot one thing which is Dan's scream although we have to reshoot this i feel Dan is the best actor for the job as he did not complain and listened to everything we told him to do without a fault. As i said the filming went very well but this is becouse we all worked well discussing the scenes befor we did them allowing us to know exactly what we were going to do. The editing process went well but i beleive this is down to Lauren we all discussed what needed to be cut and eddisted and she did it the only thing we have to do now with editing is tidy some shots and add a few effects and music which we are thinking of now i beleve we are going to use a contrupuntal sound for music. The things we have to do now is reshoot one scene and finish editing and add music which i believe we will have done within two weeks.

Shot list

1. The first shot is a blank screen with Daniel pye screaming.
2. Then a subjective point of view of him looking at the time.
3. He wakes up and suddenly sits up in front of the camera it is a close up shot.
4. then he leans over to grabs the tablets this is a close up shot.
5. He takes the tablet and drinks and lies back down this is a mid shot.
6. Then we have a montage (a series of fast paced shots) of Dan trying to get to sleep this is another mid shot.
7. Then a subjective point of view of the alarm going off and dan stopping it ringing.
8. Then a long shot of dan getting out of bed then heading to the bath room this is continued as he walks towards the camera.
9. Then a close up of Daniel alking towards the sink.
10. A subjective point of view of Daniel running some water in a sink.
11. We the get a close up of Daniel leaning over to get a wash then the Ghost appearing he screams turns around and runs out the bathroom.
12. Another longshot of Daniel heading back to his bedroom.
13. Then a close up of him grabbing his things and running back out towards the corridor.
14. We put the camera on the floor so Dan runs past it so here is a close up on is feet then as he gose down the stairs we seem him as a midshot through the banister.
15. We then get a subjective pint of view of him running down the stairs then turning back and seeing the ghost.
16. We then get a subjective point of view of the ghost.
17. Then a mid shot of dan opening the door.
18. Then a close up of his hand on the door knob.
19. then a longshot of him outside the door running out.
20. Then we see a blank screen with the title of the film traces.

photos of location

These are the location shots of the house we

were filming in all the shots we have used are the ones we used for the scenes. The reason they are late is because Lauren forgot she had them. These pictures establish meaning in the opening as the room and the bathroom look like a bit of a bachelor pad like a single man lives there which is what we wnted to get across so i think this location works very well.

The day that we filmed

we filmed on the 8th of January i should have wrote this post closer to the time but i had to get the date of filming off kirstie as i could not remember. the day went really well when we started filming we used lots of different camera angles that we all talked about before hand then shot and most of them we used it gives the project a more interesting look, we also made little changes to the story itself for instance this hallucination chasing him which adds a more scary feel to the film especially now it is in black and white we will have to re shoot some shots as i have mentioned before, also when we were shooting we had to move things and add things like aftershave to make it look more like a mans house also we changed location from a flat to a house even know the flat was a good idea the house was bigger for better shots easier to get to and we could shoot almost anyday.

Shooting schedule

Film title:Traces

Day of filming: 8th January

Location: Laurens house

Cast: Daniel Pye as doctor sam storey
Kirsty Houghton as the ghost/hallucination

Times 11:25- 3:30

What happened: we went to Laurens Scotchers house to film we were there most the day and we were out during school, it took around 3 hours and we finished the film ready to edit it went very smoothly and no problems occurred during the shoot.

our inspiration for our media project

When we were originally coming up with the idea for our project we were originally doing a horror with a ghost but we as a group felt it had been done to much, Mrs Moore our teacher told us to watch the machinist so we did and this showed us what we could do so using a similar but completely different at the same time our film is about an insomniac who See's a girl he believes he has killed and our micro elements show this through the whole title sequence which our audience picked up on. So our inspiration was the machinist as its storyline and twists allowed us to take our film in a different direction which makes the film a new film and not a recycled idea that keeps being used.