Mitch's Evaluation Questions (New & Old)

Old Group (With Louise):

1: Introduction: what did you make, who did you work with and where did the original idea come from?

We were tasked with creating the opening 2 minutes of a horror film, my group’s is about two hikers/campers who get lost and find an old abandoned house, inhabited by a horde of animalistic vampires.

We carried out research into horror films through websites such as IMDB and BBFC, and through watching as many various horror films in our chosen subgenre (Vampire) to better understand how to target our film (audience-wise) and to create a believable film, following codes and conventions of Horror.

Our initial idea was inspired by films such as 30 Days of Night and Daybreakers, also classic horror films, such as The Shining, that focus on the idea of isolation and madness, which, if the film were longer, would be a key theme. We wanted to create a film that not only scared, but had a deeper message about community, and not being alone.

The production has been difficult, due to complications in my partners life meaning she had to leave college. 

I changed groups to work with a group I knew and was on good terms with, I got along with them great, however production has been troublesome due to actors dropping out, and locations being unavailable. In the end, we finally finished filming and have edited and composed a soundtrack.

The premise of their film is different to my own, but their sub genre is the same. Their main inspirations for their film is Dawn of the Dead, which also partly inspired my own.

Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdPWrAMXGGo

3:  Who would be the audience for your media product?

We researched what age groups watch horror films the most and found that the male, mid-to-late teens/early twenties demographic was the highest. We decided to aim our film at this demographic, giving our film a 15 rating.

This meant we could showcase some blood and gore, along with some explicit language, but not as much as an 18 certificate would grant. So I wrote the script in such a way to do this.

New Group (With Amber, Abby and casey):

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

Some notable british production companies could be possible producers for our film, such as Hammer (if we went a less serious, more camp-route), DNA Films or the British Film Council, who both produced 28 Days Later, a similar film to ours.

The British/UK Film Council says it’s aim is ‘To stimulate a competitive, successful and vibrant UK film industry and culture, and to promote the widest possible enjoyment and understanding of cinema throughout the nations and regions of the UK. The UKFC has a mandate that spans cultural, social and economic priorities’. They often fund short, indie films, in their aim to create more UK-made films of various genres, which would make them perfect for our film.

In conventional film creation and cinema, our film production has not been typical, made at a much, much smaller cost, for example. We have not had any distribution or exhibition planned for our film, but a company like the UK Film Council could provide that, showcasing our film at film festivals and in Cinemas across the UK and, with the help of another distribution company, overseas.

9:  Final Question (Answered by all group members) - What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages? (give specific examples of what you did)

I was late to join this group, only joining during the filming stage, but since joining I have tried to contribute as much as possible. I have helped re-draft the script to a higher standard, I have suggested ideas about filming locations, in the end a location I chose was used. I took part in both filming sessions since joining, framing many shots and filming. I, along with the other group members present, directed the actors and offered suggestions.

We are still currently in the editing stage, due to various complications, such as myself being ill and unable to bring in the camera and tape to import footage for several days, because of this we have had to apply for extensions, which have at the time of writing been given to two members of our group, myself and Amber are still waiting on a decision.

In my previous groups, which only got as far as the filming stage, I wrote the script itself, and drew the majority of the storyboard. I was mainly in charge of writing the soundtrack as well. My partner focussed on the technical side while I did the creative, as the film’s idea/premise was mainly my creative vision.

I drew up the titles and my house was used as a location when we did film, before changing groups.

Eval Question 6

We conducted some research into imdb and

Evaluation Question 9 (Abbyyy!)

What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages? (give specific examples of what you did)

In my media group, I did most of the blogging throughout the weeks inputting our progress and what we planned ondoing throughout the week until the next lesson, I was involved in planning the initial ideas and we all pulled our heads together to create our final idea. The filming process was very long because our actors were unavailable for the second time we were filming to get it finished and so ended up filming a total of 5 times, I was involved in picking up the equipment and taking it to the locations. 

We had a lot of trouble with finding actors that we could use, but in the end it worked out well, I think this was due to the group pulling together and making it happen.

I was involved in the editing of the shots and helped to finalise the soundtrack which we all agreed was right for our film in the end.

I think I contributed a fair amount and I'm proud of what we've achieved in the end.

Evaluation Question 7 ( Amber.)

What have you learnt about techmologies from the process of constucting this product?

When we first started this I had no idea how to use Macs and things like I movie so this project has helped me learn how to work them. Through out the process of making our film We have learnt how to use things like Imovie and garage band, I wouldn't say that we are experts on them but we have a general knowledge of how it works and it is pretty simple. We are getting on with it to edit our horror film.
Imovie had helped us edit our film and put it all together, also it had helped us add effect and improve our film so that we can make it as good as it can be. It's also made it simple, it's not complercated which make us able to understand and grasp the consept of how to edit it all together really quickly. Garage band was pretty straight forward too, which again was really helpfull to us because they're was not fussing or complecation when we was producing a soundtrack to go over our film. In our soundtrack we have a voice over which ment  we had to record some one doing the voice over and then apply it to the rest of our sound track. This was pretty easy to do we had some explanation and then we just got on with it. Also we have learnt how to use things like blogger, which has helped us prove what we have done and provided evidence of how hard we are working. Also by blogging it helps show poeple how we have developed our idea and finished with our final result.

I think the different technologies that we had to work with did help us be more creative because we wasn't just using one thing to produce our final thing, so it was like we had more resources, Because the range of things we could use was so wide it didn't limit us and gave us that chance to show that we can think out side the box and create something we could be proud of. Using the technology like Imovie and garage band  ment that we had quite alot of control over our film and soundtrack. It being so basic to use helped us because we wasn't getting stressed out and just going with the things we had, we were able to pick and chose the parts that we wanted in our film and edit things in  and out really easily.

Evaluation Question 3 (Amber)

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product was aimed at mostly males, aged 15 - 24.  We gave it a 15 certificate due to what was going to be in our film like violent scene and interpretation of dead bodies. We gave it a 15 because of the idea we had for out film and compared it to  out BBFC research which gave us the basics on what makes the films the rating they get.

15- you was able to to show sexual activity but not in detail, also violence is allowed as long as it doesn't dwell and the pain inflection. It can not promote discriminating behaviour or language, this goes for drug taking too. Threat is allowed as long as it is not sexual, dangerous behaviour like self harming and scuiced shouldn't be dwelled on and weapons shouldn't be promoted to look " cool" Certain swear words are allowed but not obscene words unless they have been justified.
18- Can show most things as 18's are classed as adults and have the right to choose what they want to watch for their own entertainment. However they're certain boundaries like when it has broken the law or when images of sexual scene are too explicit and can not be justified.

Based on this information this is why we gave our film the target audience we did, it helped us think what we could put in to out film and what wasn't allowed. We was influenced greatly by the film 'dawn of the dead' which is rated 18 and so looked on IMDB of the  film.

Evaluation Question 9 ( Ambers Contribution.)

What was your contribution to the process during planning, production and post production stages?

During the process of this I think i have contributed at the planning, production and post production stage. I have done some of the course work, evaluation questions, the story board and the script, while planning  our film out and preparing the media folder before the deadline. I drew the story boards to out line our idea and give us an idea of the types of shots to use while Casey wrote the story boards. Then me and Casey put  the script together, she wrote it and i inputted ideas, although there wasn't much at first we developed it and came up with a decent script to Say there is hardly any talking involved in our film.
 With the  production I also helped contribute to by filming some  parts and shots also arranging some actors to film with, which had to be done a number of times due to our actor dropping out.I also suggested the first location we filmed at as i knew it pretty well and it seemed like the perfect place to film at, for the type of location we was after and looking for. It was also an easy location and convenient as everyone had a nct bus card.
Unfortunately out Post Production is still on going. We have applied for an extension and have kindly been given it, we were unable to finish it in time due to many reason and we now have until the 14th of April which it will be finished by. However we have our sound track finished and ready to go on to our film when we have finished  editing it which shouldn't be long now. I helped create the soundtrack on garage band which  has worked out pretty good, we have an instrumental which was influenced by the song 'when the sun goes down' by the Arctic Monkeys. it then gets interrupted by a new clip announcing the findings of dead body's and for people to be aware and careful. We are trying to get the editing done and out the way so our film is complete for the deadline, so our film is still on going to be finally finished.

Evaluation Question 4. (Casey's answer ) :)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

            The horror genre tends to stereotype when representing different social groups. Gender in particular is represented very stereotypically; females are seen as the “weaker” gender and are often the characters under threat from the supernatural aspect or the character who is cowering scared. Males are seen as the “stronger” gender; this is presented in horror films by males often being shown as the “hero” character that comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress. Age in horror film is something that is slightly harder to see in my opinion; films seem to generally be based around a certain age group, typically teenagers and young adults. Teenagers and other younger characters are represented as naive, immature, gullible, and unreliable, whereas older characters are presented as wiser, grumpy, and in some cases more vulnerable.

            To accommodate the gender representation, we used a mixture of male and female characters. Our victim #1 was a female, having her already dead represents that she must have been weaker than the attacker at the time, and also makes her appear vulnerable. She is dressed in pink and white (pale colours) to make her appear more feminine, pink is a stereotypically “girly” colour and the paleness of the colour used makes her appear younger and more vulnerable. Our representation of males was mixed as both our jogger and vampire were males. Our jogger was seemingly a stereotypical male as he would appear physically conscious to the audience as he is out jogging, and from the soundtrack the audience would tell that he is educated on issues – things that we associate as more masculine traits. Our vampire is represents males as strong and dangerous – again stereotypical traits. His costume is designed to make him appear as if he has a smart past but has recently gone rogue, his shirt and tie attire makes him seem more mature and smart, which are stereotypically more male features.