Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses various forms and conventions, these include the names of the characters - Dan Loomis and Chris Voorhees, Loomis is a name that has occured various times in horror film history in classic films such as Halloween and Psycho, Voorhees is the surname of the central antagonist in teh Friday the 13th film series.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product depicts two C2 social group characters from the North of England. This will appeal mostly to the C1C1DE range but not excluding A and B although it is unlikely that they will watch the film. The two characters are C2-class public school pupils who are not wearing uniform (signifying that they are in the 6th form/post 16 group (16-18 years))

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Although most films that depict the North of England are limited with their box office success there have been some success stories such as This is England and Billy Elliot but it is most likely that my product would be distibuted by a smaller company ot perhaps even an indie as these do not strictly apply to a mainstream audience, such companies unclude Warp Films, Working Title and Film4 but I would like my product to tap into the mainstream, UK-wide (perhaps even global) audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience (as described earlier in the blog) would be the 15-34 age range, this is due to the face that it is a horror film and so is unsuitable for younger audiences and not of interest to much of the older audience and also due to the face that the two characters shown in the intro are teenagers which would heighten tge appeal to this age range.

How did you attract your audience?
I attracted my primary audience by using two teenage, caucasian male characters, this would appeal to a wide range of audiences and not just teenage males.
Later scenes in the film could include non-caucasian characters and also females to broaden the appeal even further.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Since the start of the process I have learnt a lot about how to edit films (my previous experience was limited because I was away on a geography field trip for the editing process of the preliminary task but I think I learnt enough to make a good standard of product. I have also learned various camera techniques such as how to adjust the white balance on the camcorders and that using a tripod is a very good method of filming. Although I didn't use my own sound in the final product I did try out Garageband (another piece of software for the Mac) and learned things from it that I didn't know before.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progession from it to the full product?
Firstly, I have learned that, although a large group was harder to work in because of the conflicting opinions on what to do, working individually increases the workload by a lot and because of this I feel that I was unable to produce the product to the standard that I could have made it in a pair.

During my task I encountered a number of problems which I beleive affected the quality of my final product, these included not being able to film as early as I wanted to due to the unavailabilty of cast members, this led to me reducing the number of characters from 3 to 2 and even then one of my cast members couldn't make it and as I was low on time I decided to take the role myself, this limited the quality of the actual filming as I was relying heavily on a tripod which led to some scenes being of lower quality than they could have been although I am still impressed with what I managed to do for my final product.
I also missed out on some school work time when I was selected to take part in a visit to RAF Valley in Wales (I am a member of the Air Cadets).

Props

I made little use of props except for the bags that are used.

Sound

For sound I used the actual audio from filming for most of the intro but there is one section (just before Chris goes into the woods) where the audio was too quiet, I had a number of options here such as overdubbing the audio but instead I decided to shoot another shot from behind a tree which used the faint dialogue to it's advantage and also builds to the overall horror effect.

During filming I encountered some audio interference which I decided to leave in as I think it again added to the overall effect of tension in the film.

I, at one point, was going to record an original sound track for the film but was unable to do so in the time that I had so I decided to use a default music track at the end of the intro whilst the titles are showing that I got from the defalt iMovie sound effects. I did record the synth chord when Chris was going into the woods though using the program GarageBand.

Target Audience and BBFC

Age: The target age range for my media product is the 15-34 age range. The minimum age reflecting the BBFC classification that I intended my film to be rated, this is due to:
- Infrequent uses of strong language (although none appears in the into sequence it is intended that there will be some later in the film that is appropriate to the theme).
- Violence (fairly strong but it wouldn't dwell on the injury or infliction of pain) - Again, although none is shown in the intro sequence, (although one reading could be that it is implied) it is intended that it would feature later on in the film.
- Horror - The film is in the horror/thriller genre and strong threats/menaces would, again be used later on in the film.
- Imitable techniques - Although some violence will be used later in the film it will not dwell on the imitable detail or prominently feature easily accessible weapons.
The film would contain no nudity, sexual activity or drug use.
Also, as the two characters are around 16/17 it would have a greater appeal to the younger end of the target age spectrum.

Ethnicity: The two male lead characters in the opening sequence are caucasian, this is due to the fact that it reflects the setting (middle class British town) although it isn't made specifically for a caucasian audience and will have appeal to a multi-ethnic audience. There could also be scope to add some non-caucasian characters.

Gender: Horror is seen as a male-dominated genre but this doesn't rule out females in lead roles as seen in films such as the Halloween series or female audiences. My film opening has no female characters in it but they would feature later on in the film.

Socio-Economic Groupings: My film features two C2 (lower-middle class) characters and so should automatically have appeal to that group. Overall it is designed to appeal, as most horror movies are, to a C1C2DE group range, this of course doesn't rule out the fact that the AB range could watch it but it is not specifically designed for them.

Nationality/Region: Both characters in the film are from the North of England, although their accents aren't "broad" like the sterotype of the North and so could appeal to more of an audience as films focusing on the North tend not to get very far (although there have been exceptions such as The Full Monty and Billy Elliot)

Microdrama and narrative theory

Early on in the year, we got into groups to film a microdrama following the narrative theory and characters of Toerov and Propp.
My microdrama couldn't be uploaded due to technical problems but it may be available on the blogs of my co-workers for the production, Georgina Cooke and Ben Garvey.

Sound research

In preparation for my project I have been looking at various sources of copyright-free sound.

http://www.kutube.org/templates/mus_link.htm - Has links to various sites that have copyright free music and sound effects available to download. From this site I found the following sites:

http://podsafeaudio.com/jamroom/ - Unsigned artists, various genres, must give credit.

http://www.copyleft-music.com/ - Copyright free MP3 music and unsigned artists

http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/index.html - Free sound effects

http://www.soundjay.com/ - Various free sound effects

Other sites I found include:

http://ww.freeplaymusic.com

http://www.akmmusic.co.uk

http://www.soundzabound.com

http://www.audio.lgfl.org.uk

http://www.audiojungle.net

http://www.musicmediatracks.com

http://www.trackline.com

http://www.tonspion.de

http://phlow-magazine.com

If I wanted to, I could record my own music to use in my production as I have the equipment to record guitar/bass guitar.