Evaluation : Preliminary Coursework

Evaluation : Preliminary Coursework

Evaluation : Preliminary Coursework

Evaluation : Preliminary Coursework

Evaluation: Ralia Evaluation Write-up

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
Firstly, the title of the film 'Deadly Love' hints the storyline of the film. The word 'Deadly' connects and is associated with many horror films. This is a common convention that horror movies do as the title of the film as it is short and already builds suspense and the audience will easily be able to guess the genre of the film. This helps the audience remember the title easier as it is the last thing shown in the trailer before the building black. This is also an aspect that we incorporated in the film.
Moreover, the settings we used in our film are typical locations used in horror films. For example, we chose to have a scene of walking through the park  because a lot of shots are surrounded by nature and isolated areas in 'real' horror films. For example, Friday the 13th the first few shots are shown in outdoor locations which look harmless e.g. a lake and a forest. The props used in our film conform to the usual horror films, for example, close ups of the weapons are shown on the opening scene, this is also a typical convention in a horror film.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film shows particular social groups as the main character is a male who takes advantage of young vulnerable girls. This represents the typical horror film where girls are always the victims. the photo on the right is an example of women being used in horror films as the victim ( the Women in Black 2) . we chose to make women the victims because this was a typical role played by women in horror films. Moreover , we chose to use teenage girls in particular because this represents our target audience. Women are seen as vulnerable and innocent so therefore why would such things as murder be wished upon them. Furthermore , this creates a 'male gaze' of filmography. The use of females as the victims catches male attention as men love to believe that they are more dominant than females, this creates a sense of power.

This photo on the left is of Dr. Raymond and Rashida walking through the park this represents social groups because these are some of the activities that young people will engage. As he placed a rose into her hand this that he wants her to feel loved, then he gets her at her most vulnerable position and goes in for the kill.



What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
An institution is a company that disperses a media product for audience consumptions. A film would go to the cinema nationally or internationally. The UK film council is a media institution that has launched short films. They aim to make the UK a global centre for films amongst the worlds competitive film industry. I chose this company because they are known to support many upcoming film directors. Which is what RADDLTD needs because we are a new company and it would be good for us to have this support from this media institution to help widen out audiences. Moreover, BBC would be a good media institution  that would disperse of media product because they are committed in finding and developing new talents. However, they are picky on the films they back.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our media product will be Teenagers . this is because various aspects of our film are aimed at teenagers such as the age of the characters, the technology used and the settings where the scenes took place. These are all aspects in which teenagers would find interesting and can relate to. We thought by having our target audience as teenagers this would be easier because we are also teenagers and we can contribute aspect of our on lives into the film.

Our film will be classed
as a 15+ film because it contains some violence , and frightening scenes which may not be appropriate for younger audiences . Before we created our film we were required to do research on the different types of thriller films in order to get a clear understanding and idea of the type of film we wanted to create,
How do you attract/ address your audience ?
In our media product , we aimed to target our target audiences attention in the opening scene of our horror film. it is important to do so in the beginning because this will capture their attention and they are more likely to want to watch the remaining of the film.To attract our audience we ensured that key aspects were met such as the costume , props , and dialogue used were the same as our target audience of teenagers . The scene where the blood is going down the drain will be interesting to the people into the goriness in horror films, also viewers who are interested in suspense and mystery will enjoy this film. we believe that the storyline of our film would attract young viewers . The storyline is about a man who is obsessed with young women and reals them in with his charm and then he murders them, this will please to our audience as some teenagers are into these type of disturbing films .
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt that in order to produce a good film, media technologies are necessary to have. For example, we used Premiere Pro to edit our film and without the use of editing our film would not be the same. In the beginning our group found it difficult in using the editing software, but with the help of my teacher it made it easier as time went on. We had to create a blog to record everything on that we did. We also had to put all of out power points onto slide share We also had to use SurveyMonkey to conduct a question for our target audience, at first it was difficult when using the technology but as time went on it became easier to use them.
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 my preliminary coursework  I can see that my editing and filming skills have improved drastically. Now that we have completed our film it is clear that we have developed our skills and we are now more advanced and have learned a lot throughout this course. I can see that we have improved in using different camera shots and angles effectively. Overall, I feel       that if i could complete another film that it would be even better than our first one because now we know what we need to do and know how to use the media technologies effectively in order to make our film run more smoothly. I think doing the preliminary coursework was a good way in measuring our progress to see where we are now, I believe that know that we have completed our film that our other films and productions produced  by RADDLTD. would be much better.

Evaluation: Diego Evaluation Write-up

Evaluation Write-up 

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

This year, part of my media coursework consisted in creating the opening scene to a horror movie which my group and I were successfully able to accomplish. We called the film Deadly Love because it's a killer horror style that features a psychopath which for some reasons decimates his girlfriends. This genre we chose mixes also psychological horror and romance horror factors because they have the ability to make films look more realistic. 

In our film Deadly Love we've shown forms and conventions of real media products; we opened our first scene with elements that left the audience asking questions as to what is happening, such as music building suspense with creepy sounds as well as the choice of the locations that essentially presented the type of film.

Films such as "The silence of the Lambs" and "Psycho" have similar forms and conventions, so I think that we've been able to recognize and respect these initial elements of horror movies. 

More factors we have used are sound effects such as water flowing down in the sink (diegetic sound) and a terrified scream (non-diegetic sound).

Our mise-en-scene representation wasn't casual as we took consideration of how real media products make use of every little single characteristic as to make films fit in the particular genres. We've been careful with the lightning as it is quite important; we've created an atmosphere by having dark settings to guarantee more dramatic effects throughout the scenes. 

The costumes used by the other actors in my group were pretty casual clothing as in horror films the victims don't expect the tragedies about to happen. Differently for me that I had to play the part of the murderer, I had to wear very dark and black clothes. 

In the film called "When a stranger calls" they used very similar forms of mise-en-scene so I believe we were able to keep it up with real media films in terms of general ideas of what a horror movie should be like.

The props being used in Deadly Love are essentially typical of horror movies including murder weapons (in our case a long, sharp knife).
The character types were based around a psychopath (usually a man, we didn't challenge the concept) murdering vulnerable targets (usually women). Same ideas are shown in "Halloween" or "Silence of the Lambs" so I believe that my group has followed the right track.

(How does your media product represent particular social groups?)

It's a fact and there's a lot of evidence in the binary structure that shows that today's films fail to adequately depict the increasing ethnic minority groups such as black asian and latinos on the big screens. There have been noticeable improvements but the main characters in movies are still played by white people.
In Deadly Love, all the characters seen are of black African ethnic background so we challenged this on going tendency by having black people. In the area we live in, as well as the school we attend, there are ethnic diversities and black is slightly prevalent so we thought indirectly that by having black characters, the film would have been more representative to the particular area.

In Deadly Love, we have used the stereotypical gender representation as having the male represented as tough and hard murdering female for no reason. The girlfriends are represented as fragile and soft and as a result they get attacked by the big and strong man that holds the power over them.

Some stereotypical characteristics in films today is that they generally represent young people as being still immature, stupid, lazy, careless and never going to achieve anything . In Deadly Love, we have challenged this concept as we are teenagers ourselves and we demonstrated that we can actually hold power just like professionals do. However, we have to admit that the characters in the film showed a more mature side of life that doesn't really match with their age. This is scene in the extent to which the characters have a loving relationship as we have included also a scene where the guy in on his knees proposing. This is not what teenagers would normally do so even though I have stated that young people can play the main character part we slightly challenged the stereotypical representation of our generation.

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

For my media product I would love to be represented by an accountable company or organization. Specifically there is a massive publishing I would like to distribute my product to; the BBC which is the largest UK-based public-service broadcaster in the world, The reason why I would choose the BBC to sponsor me is because it's popular and very well known around the world especially in the UK as statistics state that millions of viewers watch television series, documentaries and concert specials on BBC channels.

By having my movie distributed by the BBC, I believe it would be successful as they have a lot of experience and I'm sure this institution will dissolve any competition that may arise by being supported by another institution.
The main reason why I would love my super dramatic film Deadly Love to be distributed by the BBC is because they have the ability to help me expand my popularity in such a way that I could gain a potential much larger and varied audience.

One good thing about the BBC is that it is a worldwide organisation so this means that my film Deadly Love if it's watched by as much people as possible, it could hopefully influence the attitudes, beliefs and desire of people worldwide.

(Who would be the audience for your media product?)

The audience for my film Deadly Love would be an audience that can connect and is relevant to the horror genre. Specifically my target audience would be aged 16+ as the film covers more mature factors such as psychopaths killing vulnerable victims.

Deadly Love is not gender biased, boys and girls can equally watch it, as there is nothing too much feminine or too much masculine, both genders can definitely connect and feel intrigued while watching it. Demographics state that there is a 42% men and 58% women split. There's not a great disproportion of the two genders watching Horror movies so what I aimed to do was to produce a movie that is something that can relate to both genders not just one.

I didn't take into consideration other factors such as religion, race or sexuality because they don't really matter... Anyone should be able to watch, relate and recommend Deadly Love. There's not a single reason why my film should stop anyone from watching it.

My aim would be to attract more and more audiences in different ways for my film as I know that without audiences there would be no potential media. To Sum up, my target audience would be ANYONE that can connect with the horror genre with its different sub-genres.

(How did you attract/address your audience?)

In my film Deadly Love, once I figured out what my target audience was (boys&girls 16-25). I had to think of different aspects that would actually attract this audience. With the help of the other individuals in my group I was able to emphasize on gender essentially with the use of make up on the gilrs' faces as to, in a funny way, lead a few boys have a crush on them. We also emphasized as well on the male character's charm in the same way that we did on the girls. It wasn't necessarily sexual objectification as we didn't expose body parts but just a way to attract the audience a little bit more.

The choice of the music used in Deadly Love was another factor used to attract the audience. Music is very powerful and everybody can deeply feel and relate to the sounds so I used the right song theme to set up the correct atmosphere that could attract our potential audience.

Another way that I have attracted the audience is by not giving away too much of the film. The 2 minutes opening scene to Deadly Love  has led the audience to ask themselves "What is going to happen to the other girl?", "But why is he killing all these girls?".
By filming only the first 2 minutes of the film, the audience wanted to watch the rest of it.
This affected the relationship between the audience and the characters we presented in the film.

Finally in our film we have included key moments that attract people such as the blood going down the drain, stabbing with knifes and panning shots. People who like Horror movies, love mystery and suspense and so smartly enough we were able to make use of these elements in a nice way.


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

From the process of constructing our film Deadly Love, I have learnt to use a video camera. This might sound funny and silly, but this was the first time that I actually used a video camera. So I was able to acquire new skills as using a simple video camera was easy and fun. Using  video cameras has helped me learn different filming techniques including a wide range of camera shots and camera angles that were previously unknown to me.

I have also learnt to use the editing software Adobe Premiere Pro. With Premiere Pro I have created projects including my film Deadly Love, starting off by importing video clips on my Micro SD memory card and after that I was ready to start editing. With the help of my teacher I have learnt to make changes to my video clips such as extending shots, adjusting the beginning and the end frame, adding titles, using effects and transitions between clips to improve the look and bringing audio tracks to make my videos come to life.
Finally, when my projects were ready to be finalized, I have learnt to export them into real video formats.

On the process of completing my film Deadly Love, I had the chance to use Garageband. I have used Garageband to record sounds, in my case a loud scream which I have then imported onto Premiere Pro for my film. I have, however, struggled when recording the scream as I tried put a lot of effort into trying to eliminate the outside noises as much as possible.

Overall there are many things that I have learnt this year, from basic stuff to more complicated and I have acquired new skills that will help me in the future.


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

Since my preliminary task I have seen a constant improvement of my technical abilities and skills in the editing process. I have been able to interact more with modern technology in lots of ways and I have also been able to rely on the help of the members of my group on a weekly basis to complete tasks that our teacher assigned us.

When editing my preliminary coursework I was insecure and not familiar with the software so the process was slow but with a little more practice, experience and positive feedback , I learnt everything I needed to know about Premiere Pro and I was able to be quicker, more confident and familiar with the software step by step.

I believe that Media has been intellectually challenging and very beneficial as I now possess media related terminology in my own vocabulary. I also need to say that I've learnt how to plan and construct my film using specific technical skills that my teacher has taught me and then my group and I put our own creative art to make our film even mire special.

Finally, I must admit that the list of the things that I have learnt is endless but overall I have been able to develop enquiry, critical thinking and most importantly decision making skills together with the other members of my group.

Evaluation: Demmy Evaluation Write-up

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

I believe that our Film 'Deadly Love' shows forms and conventions of real media product; in our opening scene is set out really scary like a Horror movie, I was inspired to tell my group to set it the way we set it out by watching American Horror Story, even though in American Horror story the way they set it out was by doing quick shots of there surroundings, I thought it was a good idea and so that we could link it to our movie I suggested doing a slower pan of our surroundings instead.

The lettering for the title, colours and credits was even inspired by movies like Annabelle, due to the darkness and sharpness of the colours and we felt as though the colours used would let people know that it was a horror film. in terms of the sound in the movie, we tried to make use of non-diagetic (when Rashida was about to be killed by roman the scream she let out just as she saw the knife in his hands coming towards her) and diagetic sounds (the water flowing down the sink when Roman was washing the blood of his hands) so that it could sound a lot more realistic

The mise-en-scene in our movie was very casual- the park, date night, outside, the bathroom, because in horror films the murders seem to take place in natural settings but we made sure to try and make the settings not too casual which is why you don't see another person in our film apart from the four characters. We also made sure that our lighting was specific to each scene, for instance the lighting in date scene, we made sure that the background was completely dark so that Destiny and Roman was the main focus also we wanted it that dark so it could be more dramatic and horror like. Even in terms of the costume, ,we wanted it to be very simple so that you wouldn't suspect the killer, also we wanted it to be very realistic because in real life a killer doesn't walk around in a killer costume like that in scream.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My Film Deadly Love represents the following: Class, Race, Age, Gender and Sexuality.
In terms of Class i would say that our film is targeted towards working class ethic groups because our cast is all young black people, whereas most films today are targeted towards middle class, white, heterosexual males.

I would also say that our film is targeted towards working class ethic people because of the scene in which Roman stabs and strangles Destiny because that violent nature is stereotypical given to black young people in which Roman is in our movie.

I would say that our movie is targeted towards young people as the characters are young, and according to research it is mainly young people who watch horror movies. In terms of gender in this movie I feel like we have covered that and we have covered the stereotypical roles for instance both girls in the movie we're killed and they did nothing to fight back showing how weak and fragile they are especially when they were given the rose, it was as though they melted in his hands.

We even covered the typical male dominating role in our film, as Roman has a power over them especially when he kills them, he has the power to end there lives, we see this at the beginning of the movie when the camera pans over the wall of girls he has killed.

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

I think there is only one company which could help get our movie to where we want it to go and that is BBC. The BBC is the largest UK's public-service broadcaster, it is recognised by countries worldwide and it even produces there own movies. BBC movies is known for producing british independent films, but they are known for specific movies such as documentary types and movies which teach people a lesson, which is what our movie does, it teaches girls to beware of who they trust in an exaggerated way and it is also suspenseful to watch.

If we don't use the BBC there are still other avenues that we could explore such as Independent and National cinemas, even go on and produce DVDs

Who would be your target audience for your media product?
Our target audience for our movie is anyone 16+  that likes horror movies, because our move is a horror thriller and it is involves killing which is not something that kids under the age of 16 should be watching. I wouldn't say we have a specific target audience for our film as i believe that any age (over 16) any race, gender, sexuality can watch it. the characters in the film might be a certain race but when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter because it a film and it should be about the content of the movie rather than the colour of the skin. Also i would say that our movie is for boys and girls, even though in our film the ratio between boys and girls are out numbered but again I don't think that it should affect the target audience for those watching our film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I think that we attracted our audience with our opening scene, because it was misterious and had people asking questions throughout like who are all those girls- on the wall in Romans bathroom. In fact i would say we made people scared from the beginning because the very first thing you see is a knife in his hand and him marking off his latest victim, then you see him wash off the blood from his hands and looking onto his next ones.

I also think we attracted them with the charcters because all the characters in the film are young and our target audience is young.

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

I would say I have learnt a lot about technologies from the process of making our movie. Firstly I lent how to use a video recorder because I had never had to because i always used to use my phone and now a days with Iphones and Ipads I don't think that many people of our age still do. but i leanr how to use it, I learnt about camera shots and angles and what they mean, for instance: A High Angle shot is where the camera looks down at the person making the person in the shot look small and vulnerable and a Low Angle shot is where the camera is looking up at you making the person in the shot look more big and powerful. 

I have also learnt about new software's that I had never heard of before such as Adobe Premiere Pro, which is a Video Editing Software. I learnt how to apply it to our movie, in terms of editing, adding effects, adding sound, music and sound effects, adding titles and subtitles.

I also learnt about a software called Garageband, which is what we used to do the scream in our movie to make it more effective. I learnt how to edit with it, how to recored with it and how to import it into our movie.

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

I would defiantly say that I have learnt a lot about filming compared to when i started with the preliminary course work, because when i watch it back, the continuity makes me laugh and the fact that it wasn't made to a high standard that I believe that our film is now. I have learnt about camera shots and angles, about tricks and effects that you can use to convey a message, i have learnt so much so looking back at it makes me realise that and makes me want to go back and add all the stuff that i have learnt now to it.