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.