Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Our Pre-Lim: completely rubbish, but a good place to start. Creating a film isn't easily - let alone one scene. The lighting (which we couldn't control, and also the glare of the walls/wall displays meant that made the corridor so well-lit (never thought I'd complain about lighting being 'too good') that the surroundings attract more attention than our actor. The camera angles, were all wrong, meaning that there wasn't enough focus on the characters and their emotions. The mise-en-scene/setting (as we've already said) was inadequate, we worked with it but a school environment was not the perfect scene for a film. The audio was sub-par at best, whether this was due to our filming technique or the fact that our environment wasn't perfect in terms of acoustics. It was just one big storm of basic mistakes.

But it led to this...

This is everything. The progress made from our original Pre-Lim has been incredible. Everything that's in our opening scene is there for a reason and has been analysed as such. Our production company's logo is a burning candle, which is a metaphor for life and death. This also infers/relates to the type of films that our company might produce. The black and white filter simulates a security/CCTV camera, which makes our film look legitimate, this is in addition to the security camera signs added in the edit. All of this makes our audience believe what is going on and believing it, buying into the story, is a guaranteed way of gaining success at the box office.

Our own music was created. The dark, low tones connote danger - acting as hermeneutic code. The use of black and white in the second part of the scene is a convention used in flashback scenes in general - but was adopted from the film Curse of Chucky.

The female characters in our film are shown to be weak and helpless, a convention shown throughout the thriller and horror genres. It may not be necessarily relatable to audiences (there are strong women out there), however, following the convention is what makes films successful. Moreover, the audience are on the same level as the protagonist/main character as they know as much as he does. They're left to ask why? What? Who? etc. We utilised the natural lighting from the trees to create a half-lit set. This created an eerie atmosphere that insinuates that something bad is going to happen. Moreover, our young audience can relate to our main character's interactions with the police. While the audience knows our character is innocent, the police do not, and their accusing nature is something that our audience may empathise with (via their experiences) and is sadly quite realistic.

To summarise, the main focus point of our short opening was to be realistic. It went into such depth that we would obsess over the tiniest continuities, but from this I can say we've advanced from our Pre-Lim into something great.

Evaluation 6: What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evauation 5 How did you attract address your audience?

Evaluation 5 from Alex Bell

Evaluation 4: Who would be the audience for your media product? - WORD/SLIDESHARE

Socio-Economic Scale:

A - higher managerial administrative professionals

B - intermediate administrative professionals

C1 - supervisory, clerical, junior administrative professionals 
C2 - skilled manual workers

D - semi / unskilled workers

E - state pensioners with little / no income, widows, minimum pay earners, and the unemployed

Target Audience Profile

In general, thriller films often target the lower end of the Socio-Economic Scale. They typically target those who are often less successful AND/OR poorer, and use such films as escapism - according to the Uses and Gratification Theory (the theory that suggest why audiences use a piece of media). As a result, my film Forest Horror targets males aged 13-21 who are situated on the C1 - E, as they can view the film, at box office and the also contribute to the primary fanbase of Netflix. Moreover Forest Horror also has a secondary  audience of females aged 14-22 as women are shown (in some research) to be enjoy thriller films more than male counterparts, and they (in most market research) watch more commercial television and are therefore more likely to interact with our film's TV marketing campaign. 

Target Audience Profile
As outlined in previous posts, our perfected audience member would be:

IDEAL CANDIDATE
NAME: James Lloyd
AGE: 17
OCCUPATION: Student / Part-Time  
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: White (western - UK/USA)
INTERESTS: Rugby, Football, Social Media



Moreover, this audience is from the C1-E categories as they're most likely to want to view our product as they can find it relatable. Due to our audience's low age they're likely to be attracted to the main character of the film - an award-winning young actor. What's more, while our opening is sad (the murders and the protagonist's treatment while in police custody - them thinking he's the one responsible) can be seen as relatable as, generally younger generations have negative interactions with the police. This can link to the Uses and Gratification - according to social interaction and identity (meaning our audiences can both relate and empathise with our protagonist.

Finally, the fact that our protagonist is brought to his knees by the murderer and yet can rise up again to beat him (as scene in the opening scene) can link to our audience. This is due to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as the audience thinks that if our protagonist can rise up, then so can they - which relates to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

#1T4TS

Alex

Evalutation 3: Who would distribute/exhibit your media product and why?

Evaluation 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? PUBLISHER/SLIDESHARE

But the contrast in the black and white scenes is effective as it is a convention used in other thriller films, such as the Curse of Chucky. This alternate lighting is bizarre and acts as hermeneutic code. The sudden change in colour suggests that something is wrong or is about to happen. It is often used to show the past, and it acts as hermeneutic code - the audience knows something has happened/is about to happen and are therefore engaged as they try to work out what's going on.

Our target audience can relate to the protagonist situation as - due to the fact that teenagers generally have negative interactions with the police. While there may be no violence (unlike the Dark Knight) and our main character is not the villain, it is clear that the police are treating the protagonist like a villain, and this not only gains sympathy for the main character but also, through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it gives a sense of connection (via the love and belonging section of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). In that way, one can argue that we followed the stereotype of teenagers interactions with the police due to the fact that teenagers are stereotypically involved with the police because they've committed the crime, not been the victim.

Also the common convention of most films in general (particularly horror and thriller movies) the killer often remains anonymous. And although the protagonist knows the identity of the murderer / antagonist. This goes against the general convention of the protagonist having to work out who the murderer is. The theme of a mask is not only for realistic purposes, as it covers the antagonist's face; but it symbolises the hidden intentions of the antagonist - as the other characters don't know what's going to happen


One can draw parallels between the setting used in Silence of the Lambs and The Forest. The same woodland environment provides the same lack of lighting. This creates an eerie scene as not much can be seen. This acts as both hermeneutic and proairetic code. This is due to the fact that this part of the scene is both a transition between actions, and it, itself is connoting something is going to happen itself. This is due to the fact that we know only one person will escape and therefore seeing him hours earlier makes the audience think what happened?

The use of special effects (SFX) was a convention adopted from Se7en. Se7en uses SFX to transition between different parts / elements of the scene didn't use. We adopted the same uses of SFX as it is conventional.