Evaluation by Paige Bowater, Elizabeth Moore and Adam Hicks

A. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
We have challenged the norm of film making with our piece in a number of ways, and I believe we have also developed them further from other types of media. Our media product did not include the expenses that most modern day productions involve, such as the hiring of actors and set costs. Ours only involved being in the right place, using the right people, and actually making it good quality. Our production was very different to most productions as our storyline was unique, as our plot involved using the stereotypically perfect family, but changing it into something that is far from perfect, that involved murder and mystery in a way that was instead sinister and curious. All in all our production was very simple in terms of cost, and it was also very simple in terms of filming, but I believe that we did not lose any quality or proffesional-esque qualities. We also managed to quickly film and produce it, and this made it different to other media products, as we managed to quickly release it at a low cost meaning we benefit from making a high quality piece of work, without losing expenses such as lack of time, lack of money or lack of actors, whereas other media products would suffer due to all of these issues, meaning that ours is even more unique, successful and respectable.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591095/ : Insidious (IMDb movie review) (Accessed 31/1/14)

VIDEOS AND REFERENCES FOR PART A

http://youtu.be/Q0ykcMjI-Gk This Clip works with our production, as it explains the key features that production companies must use to be successful. we had to follow similar rules to these, so that our production would be good quality and successful. I like to think that we have achieved this well, as I think that our finished version of our production is very well made, well filmed and well produced, and I believe that we got the best out of it that we could have. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4tS5Wf83Ds

B. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Our media product shows social groups as a whole as diverse and different from one another, all though including their own sinister or extremist differences, as our film shows the average, stereotypical family in their own home, but this also includes slight differences due to the original Lillium. The original is dressed very gothicly, to show that she does not fit in with her own family, as they are overly normal and none-unique. This is an issue within our plot line, and from the parents point of view she is not perfect enough, so is killed and replaced with a clone, but a pure version. The second Lillium is dressed purely in white, and looks innocent and perfect, making her fit in more with the stereotype, such as that filled by movies such as the American beauty. In American beauty, the family is portrayed as a simple, stereotypical American family. The father and mother work, while the daughter is in school. In reality the family is much less than normal, as in fact the father quits his job to pursue his interests, and inevitably dies, while his wife is cheating on him. also his daughter is dating a man planning on murdering her father. This is much different to what is shown to the public in the movie, through things such as their neighbourhood, more than expensive house, and lifestyle and jobs. This is similar to our plot line, as in ours we show a normal Christian family at the beginning, with Lillium being the exception, whereas in reality clones are a normal thing, and the family is far from normal as the father kills Lillium and replaces her. this represents different social groups such as the gothic stereotype and the average family in two different ways, explaining that what you see Is not always what you get, and that more often than not, there is more than meets the eye happening, despite how well something is hidden from open view. The inclusion of American beauty also show the social group of the stereotypical family, and shows how different they are in reality and that something is nearly always hidden from view. In our production explains that what happens inside the family isnt as innocent and caring as it seems.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/ : American Beauty (IMDb movie review) (Accessed 31/1/14)

VIDEOS AND REFERENCES FOR PART B

http://youtu.be/3ycmmJ6rxA8 http://youtu.be/7pOOEFd22i4
This clip works, as it explains the meaning of the murder, and why it happened. this links into our production, as ours will also explain why Lillium is murdered by her father. The two clips link together, as it shows that there is a mystery going on, and that the truth will eventually come out. This all leads up to a climax at the end, explaining everything that has happened, such as the death of Lester in American Beauty and the death of Lillium in our production.

C. WHAT KIND OF INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA, AND WHY?

White men are represented as being powerful and controlling in our piece, as the dominant character is Mr. Hanshall. The female adult character, obeys every wish of her husband, thus suggesting that the female stereotype of being feeble is accurate. The piece also conforms to a pre-concieved idea that teenagers are disobedient, as the younger character runs away from her parents. (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message646359/pg1 -last accessed on 28.01.14) This may promote us to an amateur horror, production company as by following the stereotypes in our opening scene, audiences are not distracted by a cocktail of bizarre characters, and yet as a full piece, Lillums drastic character is shocking and explosive, giving the piece appeal to an audience. Small companies could include, Armageddon productions (http://www.filmconnection.com/referencelibrary/trade-resources/production-companies/ - last accessed on 30.01.14) This is because our piece is Amateur and they are an independent company that produces small films. Our plot is both unique and enticing. The concept of cloning children is one of which we believe is individual and exciting to view. The opening implies this idea, without giving away too much information to an audience, as a way of keeping them hooked and surprised at the future plot twists we would develop. Audiences have already reacted positively towards our piece, claiming that it is both dramatic and unsettling, and that they would continue to watch it as a full piece. Our piece ad dresses everything that audiences have asked for during our research. We questioned a range of ages, ethnicities and people in careers, what they are fed up of seeing in horror films. A majority mentioned predictable protagonists, and a couple having a happy ending, such as The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2004) This is reflected in our idea for a full film plot, in that the clone of the original girl (Lillium) is the killer yet also a hero, and as she finally commits suicide following murdering her partner, there is no happy ending. We also left the piece open to a sequel by implying that the Toy Box Co owner survived Lilliums attack. Thus this all suggests that a company distributing our production would get a strong fan base built from viewers of our opening and therefore they will profit from two pieces.

VIDEOS AND REFERNCES FOR PART C

http://youtu.be/t-3Lj9R9v7A The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2004) http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message646359/pg stereotypes of people in society ( last accessed on 28.01.14) http://www.filmconnection.com/reference-library/traderesources/production-companies/ - small companies (last accessed on 30.01.14)

D. WHAT WOULD YOUR AUDIENCE BE, AND WHY?

Our audience would be horror/psychological thriller fans. We feel as though our piece is in a similar category as Gothica (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2013) as it shows both elements of horror and thriller. The demographics for our target audience are: Age: between the ages of 15-35 due to some elements being too graphic for young children. Ethnicity: Predominately white, English, female teenagers as they will be able to relate to the main character of Lillium. Our piece does include characters of different ethnicity such as Mitch who is Hispanic some other clones (black, Asian, etc), so therefore it may appeal to all races in later aspects of the film. Background: we would target the unemployed and student part of the market as our film is low budget and therefore will not appeal to people psychographic: Our piece will probably appeal more to Reformers as it will provoke a conscious need to stop medical development, in order to stop the film from becoming possible. The morals of cloning will be questioned after watching our piece (effects debate) , which all though could be seen as negative, it will attract a large audience thus generating a significant profit for the production company.

VIDEOS AND REFERNCES FOR PART D

Horror film: Creating and marketing fear- by Steffen Hantke (demographics) Gothica (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2013) http://www.slideshare.net/zarabutterworth/researchi ng-horror-audiences - demographics- last accessed on 31.01.14

E. HOW DO YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

When we were told to first start thinking about our film opening, our first thought of genre was horror. We then went on the internet and looked up different horror films and their opening sequences. Looking at these made us realize that to make our opening more interesting we would make a fusion of genres, horror and psychological thriller. After we decided our genre we then went on to think of what the audience would expect from these genres, so we did some more research and noted that for the horror genre we would need some recognition of the following: Blood and gore, violence, an atmosphere and death. For psychological thriller: Mystery and some type of twist or multiple twists. This we all took into account so when shooting we added all of them aspects. Blood and gore The blood pouring out of Lilliums mouth. Violence The shooting of Lillium by her father. Atmosphere The music building in the background, and the low lighting of the dining room. Mystery Why Mr. Hanshall shot his daughter, what does he mean by replacement, and who is the man at the end of the opening. Twist In an additional scene, Lillium is shown to be alive and healthy standing at the front door with a member of staff from Toy Box Co. Throughout the whole creation of the film opening we came up with creative decisions influenced by audience expectations. When filming the outside shots we made sure it was a cloudy day so that the skies where darker than normal. This is an example of horror and psychological thriller, as horror is scene as dark and psychological has a gloomy sense to it which is what the cloudiness represents. The dining room had dark coloured furniture and curtains, also the lighting was low. This was mostly to show the horror elements. The blood shot was slightly more difficult to do as there was many was in which would could do the shot. We went from tomato ketchup to strawberry jam, but in the end we used cranberry sauce as it looked the closest to a blood texture. This made the shot look even more effective and dramatic. This links with the horror genre as audiences expect blood and gore which we have managed to achieve with this method. The Mpeg production title of the statue of liberty took much editing to get it to what it looks now. First we took an image of the statue of Google images, and saved it. Then we went on to PicMonkey and started to edit the image. Darkening and adding red tones to show the dark and blood aspects. Overall we believed we had achieved in portraying the horror genre across with the editing to the image.

FILM EXAMPLES OF OUR GENRE

The purge 2013
Insidious 2 2013 Black swan 2010 Psycho 1960

F. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION THIS PRODUCTS?
The technology used to put the clips together and edit was final cut. By using final cut we was able to change music and sound levels. This allows you to heighten and lower the volumes a videos speech/background and music. If you have a scene where you want the speech to be loud and clear but the music quiet you would go onto the sound bar for the music, then use pin points to lower the sound down to the appropriate level so that it reaches the desire of what the scene should sound like. Then if the volume of the speech needs to be increased then you would follow the same steps but decrease the level with the pin points. Transitions help make a sequence flow when putting scenes together. QuickTime was one of the transitions that we used the most when editing our scenes. Cross dissolve is the common one used for the scenes as it could fade a scene in and out. Tittles, this was a little more complex to do then people normally think on Final cut. , can cut videos and cross dissolve then together.

VIDEOS AND REFERENCES FOR PART F

http://youtu.be/pUc7MjsiIj0

G. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?
The preliminary task gave us a chance to experiment with new shots and angles and helped us to perfect the over the shoulder shot in concordance with the 30 rule. It helped us to find an accurate way to record our opening shot, in order for it not to be shaky, hence why we used a tripod attached to a dolly. The match on action shot used in the preliminary task, in our own opinion, wasn't very effective and therefore we chose not to include it in our final piece. We feel as though, it may seem like we have avoided the trickier side of recording, it actually made out piece seem more professional. Our final cut skills have developed as a group and therefore we feel as though the final piece flows better, and looks more professional than the preliminary task. The cut transition from the preliminary task became a cross dissolve effect used widely throughout the final piece.

SHOTS THROUGHOUT THE PRELIMINARY TASK

1 8 0 Match on action D E G R E E R U L E

Shot/Reverse shot