Evaluation question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience ranges from teenagers aged 15 to young adults of 25 as people over the age of 25 we feel may get a bit bored of the horror genre and teenagers are known for being daring and curious. From our own research we found that most horror films have a target audience of 15-25 as well as ours.  We feel a popular young thing to do is hang out with a large group of friends and go to the cinema to watch a horror movie such as ours, which is a main reason why it is aimed at the younger generation in comparison to elderly. Our target audience consists of both male and female, from our previous research we found that males typically prefer a thriller as they seek the thrill and action more than women, however research shows that women viewings of horror films have exceeded mens for the very first time, women at 58% and men at 42%. This is the reason we have aimed our film at both genders. Our film will be rated 15, as the horror involved in this film could become inappropriate for anyone under this age. Our film also holds relatable characters to this age range, for example the character of Jason who is a good looking young adult, will appeal to girls around the same age. 

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There are many existing horror films which involve a young girl being the scary character in the movie. Our own opening sequence also has a main character of a young girl similar to these films, For example, the character of the 9 year old girl Esther, in the film 'Orphan' released in 2009. her character is mysterious and haunting, like our own character Kayleigh, however Esther is slightly younger. Another film which holds a similar character to ours is 'Case 39', the little girl named Lillith, who appears innocent to the audience at first, however becomes a huge threat to her social worker. Her character is very haunting with a similar appearance to the the main character in our opening sequence. However, in case 39 the audience becomes gradually fearful of Lilliths character, due to her dark side being revealed later on in the film. Whereas our character Kayleigh is almost immediately shown to be the spooky character in our film. 

 A final and most obvious example of a similar existing character is the main character in the film 'The grudge', this is a 2004 american horror film. The girl in this movie is portrays the horror genre, however does not hold any dialogue, similar to our own character Kayleigh. Both characters are not actually living, but a haunting vision created in others minds. Their appearances are very similar- both wear a white robe and have long dark hair covering most of their facial features. They both look lifeless, due to the dark eye makeup and pale faces. They also have very similar roles in their films, they appear only to haunt others which play in the movie. However our character Kayleigh differs from the grudge as she is once shown as a real character, the daughter of Jason, whereas the grudge appears due to a supernatural curse. 

Evaluation question 1

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

Our opening sequence portrays, develops and challenges the forms and conventions of real media products through including key features usually found in a real opening sequence. We feel that the main purpose of an opening sequence is to capture the audiences attention, and appeal to the correct target audience. We have successfully accomplished this,  through relating it to our horror theme by using flashing images, dark colors and creepy sounds. In an opening sequence you normally find features such as the Production company logo to begin, followed by the title introducing the audience to the name of the film.  We included both these aspects in our own opening sequence because this tells the audience the title of our film ‘Awaken’ and our production company logo ‘Twined studios’. We produced both using ‘Motion’ app, which is designed to create titling for film and video production, it allowed us to choose from a variety of fonts and graphics best suited to our film genre, e.g. the main color scheme of Red and black, due to this representing danger as seen in real media products e.g. Red letter studios (a company that specialises in horror movies). Another important feature normally seen in real media products is the introduction of Actors/actresses, directors etc. to give credit to people responsible for producing the film. This is done through presenting their names on screen. We included our actors/actresses, directors and editors names in our opening sequence, again through using ‘Motion’ app. Sound became an important aspect in our opening sequence, as we feel it helped to create the tension needed to portray our horror genre. In many real horror films, you will find dark, distressing sounds such as drones and disturbing lullabyes, which we have included in our final opening sequence. 

Here is an example of the type of costume we used in our opening film sequence to portray the horror genre. Our actor who plays the haunting young girl in our clip wears a white robe and dark scary makeup to emphasise her creepy character. It helps to suggest that this film will be based on horror, and creates a spooky feel for the audience. This character remains in this costume throughout the whole film, creating a signature look for the main character.

Here is an example of how our characters are introduced to the audience. We created this using Motion, and used the same font as the film title. It appears in between clips that show the characters to help the audience identify which actors are playing what part. We also used this style to present the directors and editors of the film, again using the same font to keep a consistent style throughout the sequence.

WWW and EBI

We are pleased with our final film production, and have learnt a lot about editing and filming throughout the procedure. One of our favourite stages of making our opening sequence was editing the clips, here we feel we learnt lots of new skills such as, graphical effects, sounds, blading, cutting and adding transitions to make the film run smoothly. We believe that this aspect of our film went very well, as the types of effects we used related closely to our genre and helped create a sense of fear and tension for the audience. For example, the flashing graphical effects helped the audience identify that the section of the sequence was only a fragment of Jasons memory. When it came to the actual filming, we feel we were able locate good areas to create a horror background,, we feel this really added to the scary feel to our opening sequence. 

Our camera work showed a variety of shots and techniques, including panning shots, wide shots, closeups, handheld movements etc. As well as research on camera shots and movement, we looked back on our previous work we had completed in lessons which tell us how to use these shots effectively. We believe that our panning movement went very well as it was smooth, straight and at a consistent pace.

However when it came to the filming at lottie's house we accidently deleted a few of our essential clips off the camera and were unable to re film it. This meant careful editing was used to try and make it look as natural as possible. We did this by breaking up some of the  scenes with the names of editors, directors and actors/actresses. The other thing we could have improved on is the length of our opening sequence. It is slightly short at 1 minute and 19 seconds, which is also due to the issue of accidental deleted clips. We could have therefore filmed more scenes in order to make the sequence slightly longer. 

Film title

This title appears within the first 15 seconds of our opening sequence, introducing the audience to the title of the film. We produced this motion graphic using the app 'Motion', as after using it to create our production company logo we felt it was the best way to create an effective title for our film production. To differentiate from our company logo, we chose to use a simple black and white colour scheme. 

With the foreground text being white, the letters begin to stand out contrasting with the black  background, catching attention of the audience. The text appears by a gradual fade in from the left, when all letters are present, the text slightly widens before disappearing into blackness, and flashing into the beginning of the sequence. As well as the whining drone sound playing underneath the title, we added further droning sounds to increase volume and depth creating tension. 

Sound

The sound in our opening sequence helps to create and build tension throughout the clip, due to the effect of layering our sounds. We used Final cut pro sound effects which included:

• Heartbeat
• Drone whine
• Radio FX
• Dark drone
• Impact hit reverb
• Crying baby
• Ticking clock
• City sounds

We also imported sounds of our own choice- we had the insidious theme tune running underneath our range of sound effects, it included scary sound effects and high pitched strings. This music was part of our influences, however we decided that it would fit really well with the rest of our sound and therefore included it in our opening sequence.

During the flash back, our sounds are very layered and loud creating a sense of tension and fear for the audience. On the second half of our opening sequence when jason wakes up we used subtle city sounds such as traffic and other ambient sounds to emphasis the fact that he has woken up to reality. 

When the character of Kayleigh appears in the sequence, we use a range of 'Impact hit reverbs' to shock the audience and create a sense of fear, making it obvious that this character is the haunting one in the film. We believe that sound is a very important aspect in the production of a film, we therefore aimed to use it effectively in order to create a sense of fear, relating to our horror genre.

Costume and props

Our use of costume/props was a main feature in producing our opening sequence as it helped give a first impression of our characters and emphasise our focus on horror. 

First of all our costume for our main character Kayleigh is a long white night gown with dark black make up round her eyes and pale white face make up. this gives a deathly look and shows the audience that she is lifeless and is present in order to haunt jason. We got our inspiration of Kayleigh's costume and makeup from a character played in 'the Grudge' who plays a similar role, she also wears a long white dress and has similar deathly makeup.

We dressed our other main character Jason in typical, casual wear- a track suit and a black top. This is to distinguish the contrast between the flash back and reality in our film. It emphasises that the first half of our sequence is not real- the costume and props in this half are very unrealistic to create fear. However in the second half of our opening sequence, after Jason wakes up our costume and props are very typical and up to date. 

We used various props in our opening sequence to help emphasise our horror genre. One of our most significant props is a bed side alarm clock which reads the time of 3:25 which is an important aspect to the plot of the film. This clock appears in the flashback and also when jason wakes up, both reading the same time. This is the exact time that Kayleigh dies. Which shows the audience how its constantly haunting Jason. The repeativness of this clip makes the audience see that this is a key part of the film, it is the time when kayliegh died.