Monday 28 March 2011

Question 1 evaluation - Leanne

The task was to produce a two minute opening sequence to a horror film, including credits. We carried out a lot of research into horror film openings and how they set the scene and plot. We watched similar horror genres to ours, like Nightmare on Elm street, and watched how that film used lighting, props, sound, camera angles and editing to add to the horror part of the opening.
Both 'The Grudge' and 'Nightmare on Elm street' inspired us in different ways. We liked how 'The Grudge' created suspense and liked how the girl was dragged into the attic. We also liked how you only saw a glimpse of the creature so it didnt give the rest off the film away. For 'Nightmare on Elm street' We liked the suspence created by music and lighting. We wanted to create a similar effect and not give too much away through dialogue. We also liked that it was a dead person and not real life.
The production worked well, although there were a few absences for some group members because of illness but I think we did well with the time and people we had. I think we worked well as a group although we could have been better organised and filmed much quicker. Another problem was getting actors and actresses sorted out and have them meet at a time and date. We worked around this by making sure all had free periods in college and filmed then. We also at first had problems with booking equipment off, so instead of selecting a new person to book it out each week we gave one member of the group to book and pick up the equipment on fridays. This helped us overcome our problem.




Quarantine trailer
We used this clip to show the drag away scene in it.
This clip helped us know what kind of camera angle, lighting and position to be in in our own horror clip. It also helped to establish a speed of the drag away scene.

This is a still image from the Quarantine trailer where the girl gets dragged away.
We have taken this still image to show how the girl in this clip gets dragged away. We have also used this as it shows how we took inspiration for our own work. I have taken another still image from our own work to show the similarities.




Here you can see that we kept the victims hands in front off him, just like the Quarantine, so it would create the same 'dragging effect'. Just like in the Quarantine still image we used the light just on the face and arms to create the same effect of darkness surrounding the victim. The darkness in both still images also creates the effect that the victim is talking to the audience.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Samuel Hutsby. Evaluation.

AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question

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

These statistics are from the IMDB research and user ratings, these show the average spread of voters from the audience from a typical horror from our genre (ghost/supernatural) ‘the ring’.
                                                                               
Votes                               Average
 58,689                                 7.2                                  
 11,810                                 7.3                                
 619                                      7.4
 270                                      7.4
34,575                                  7.2
 7,757                                   7.3
 19,695                                 7.2
 3,047                                   7.3
 3,281                                   7.0
 591                                      6.8

                                       
As you can see by the statistics shown our key audience was MALES: aged 18-29 these also rated this, the highest as well as having the most voters. This group is associated with these horror films due to marketing strategies put in place to attract the young adult audience, they like suspense and the mystery of whether this is an actual phenomenon or some explainable occurrence, we have applied this to our storyline to hopefully keep with the conventions this audience has fallen in love with.


 Big Scare15 October 2002
Author: hlakey79 from Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I must say that I consider myself to be a lover of horror, but much too often, sex and gore is subsituted for real horror and you don't get that feeling of genuine fear in the pit of your stomach. Not so with "The Ring". Never have I seen a film that has affected me so. The images seem to tug at your subconscious, at the dark things we keep inside.

This review shows the extent of which this film affected its audience, hlakey79, a.k.a Jake Youngs 23 Wisconin. Also backed our results from the user database.