How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups? on Prezi

An apology for lateness.

So I made a promise to myself today that i'd get all my media work done. It seems that if you don't sleep the night before because sleeping round your best friend's house makes you uneasy then you fall asleep in the day while getting your media notebook to do the coursework. Then you wake up with a spliting headache and want to throw things around the room. Le sigh. This is my life.

I will however be getting all my current works in progress (yes I have actually had a good start on them) all up on Wednesday and today depending on the ones I finish in these next few hours. Tommorow is my day off because I have my drama exam. So it's not really a day off. A day off from Media? Yes. A day off from school? No.

Just thought i'd let whoever is interested know and apologize for my lateness. There is probably tonnes of grammatical errors in this post and most of it probably doesn't make sense. Oh well.

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

For our project we were asked to create a 2-3 minute opening to a film of any genre of our choice. We chose the genre of Horror because we're (Me, Jess and Sarah) all huge fans of t.v programmes and films within the Horror/Sci-fi genre such as Supernatural. There were many inspirations behind our film but Supernatural was one of our biggest influences.This was shown through our use of the Satanic ritual as Supernatural is focused around the idea of demons and Satanism is often brought up because of this (Satan himself is also brought up in this programme but that's irrelevent). We wanted to do something quite dark and mysterious as we wanted the storyline to be interpreted differently for individuals watching. This is why we haven't actually established whether my character Esther is real or not because we wanted to leave it to the audience's imagination.

We wanted our project to be original so we tried not to conform to the stereotypes that we see used in most Horror film openings - hence our idea of Esther's reality/non-reality not being established. However there are still some aspects of our film that would usually be shown to signify Horror within a typical Horror Film. How many times have I used the word Horror in that paragraph? It doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

Props we used that are often associated with Horror - Candles, Mirrors/Broken Mirrors, A rocking horse, Old books or a book and the Pentagram.

Candles.

I know it sounds silly but candles are often used within Horror Films. Usually this is to give the characters within the film a sense of security as the lights have all mysteriously gone out and they can't find any other source of light. This may also be used to trick certain members of the audience into thinking everything will be okay because of old/current fears of the dark that individuals within the audience may have and the light symbolises security to them. But as is the case in most Horror films we (should) know that it's not safe when the candles come out because that means someone or something has shut off the power in order to sneak up on a character or to seperate the character from their friends because one of them/or the character themself decides to be heroic and try to figure out what's turned the lights out. However in our opening we challenge (I suppose) this use of Candles by having the Villain Jess use them rather than the Victim because it is a part of her Satanic Ritual.

Mirrors/broken mirrors.

This may be an obvious one but Mirrors are one of the most common props used in Horror Films. There is even a horror film called Mirrors about a girl who was possessed finding a way to rid herself of the demon by encasing it in a Mirror. In this film the Mirror is used as a way of containing somebody else's soul (like the Bloody Mary legend) though they can be used as a metaphorical or literal way of reflecting a character's soul (who's looking into the Mirror) or revealing what is inside their soul to the audience. Though you cannot see what Jess see's when she looks into the mirror because the scene shot isn't angled towards the mirror it is safe to presume that she can see something horrific/frightening about herself or maybe even Esther looking back at her. :OOO

A rocking horse.

Though we didn't intentionally add the rocking horse to our film as a way of signifying horror it is another common prop used within horror films. I think we just liked the creepy sound it made so we decided to use it but let's pretend that it was intentional. I think the use of the Rocking Horse in horror films could be used for three things:

•  As a sense of security for audience members/the characters like the candles as it reminds them of childhood when you were told by your parents that monsters weren't real or could perhaps remind people of a time when you could just call and your parents would come rushing in to reassure you that everything is okay.
• It could have the opposite effect and be used to horrify the audience that something so innocent and pure could be part or involved in something so terrifying. That in turn spoils this idea of innocence and youth and for some may become a subconscience reminder of horror for both adults and children when they see a rocking horse in real life.

An old book/old books in general.

I wasn't sure if this prop could be considered as stereotypical of most horror films but horror films that usually have an aspect of the supernatural tend to include a magical agent of some kind. The magical agent usually takes on the form of a book. In our film opening we can see Jess reading a SATANIC RITUAL  (effects on the words satanic ritual are courtesy of Harry) from an old book that kills off her best friend.

(Note this is not the book we used during filming. This is a book I found on google images.)

The pentagram.

Pentagrams are associated with black magic and Satanism which is why they’re used in most horror films with storylines linked to religion. So it was the perfect prop for our film. Though ours is made from cello tape it still had a massive impact on our setting as it not only added to the realism of Jess being a normal girl (apart from her satanic personality) who can't afford an expensive set up for her witchy rendezvous but also gave our scene more of a paranormal/eerie feel to it which was what we wanted. Much like most of the horror films pentagrams are featured in our pentagram was used for a sinister ritual rather than any other purpose so instead of challenging conventions of real media products we have used them within our piece pentagram-wise.

Another aspect of our film that challenges the conventions of real media products are the characters themselves. Our main character is Jess. A 16 year old girl who looks harmless but turns out to be a crazed, satanic killer. By using Jess as our main character we have challenged the conventions of most horror films because it is out of the ordinary for the killer to be played by a teenage girl when generally the killer would be played by a grown man who's out for revenge after a freak accident or in some cases young children who have been taken over by the devil. Films such as 'The Omen' for example.

Similarly the character of Esther within our film challenges the coventions of real media products because she is also young and seemingly harmless. Even the way her character comes across is quite naive and innocent (well she acts innocent) which goes against the usual conventions of horror. Whereas most villain's are potrayed as vicious and blood thirsty, Esther is potrayed as someone who is trying to look out for her friend rather than to corrupt her. This is shown when she says: "We can't afford accidents Jess. Do you want to get caught?" which suggests she is genuinely concerned for Jess even if she has led her astray.




Lighting.

We used a variation of lighting in both scene's of our final project. The death scene at the beginning shows two different settings so we had to use two different lighting schemes (?). For the Satanic ritual scene we used minimal lighting, the only lighting we did use was from the candles surrounding the pentagram (we have done a health and safety post on the candles so don't worry!) because we wanted the atmosphere that Jess was in to represent her inner darkness or the darkness of what she was doing which is used quite often in horror films. As mentioned above in my paragraph about candles people find security in light...so having a scene in the darkness is like a signifier that something bad is going to happen. For the death scene we wanted the lighting to be more naturalistic so we tried to make the scene look really home-ly. We didn't make the room too bright as we still wanted to show it was night but we kept the kitchen light on to reflect into the living room where Sarah was sitting. We also had brief flashes of light coming from the television to establish normality as she's sitting at home watching television like an average girl would. I would have said that we've challenged the conventions of real media products through our use of lighting in the Death scene because most use dim/dark lighting as (like the Satanic ritual scene) the darkness is signifying the evil in the film and in our Death scene we've used warm lighting (i'm not sure if this makes sense so I will try and find another word to describe the type of lighting we used later) that doesn't tell the audience that anything is going to happen so when it does (had the scene not been accompanied with flashes of Jess's satanic ritual) it's unexpected.

The scene where we've challenged the conventions of real horror films the most is in the dream sequence. Our dream sequence involves a lot of natural light because it was filmed at Cedars Park but we added artificial, high-key lighting during the editing process to give it an unnatural glow. The reason we did this was not only because we wanted to show it was a dream but we wanted to show Jess's memories of her and Sarah as really happy as their friendship was a high point in her life (shown through high saturation) and almost to show the purity of her life before she met Esther. Everything was bright and shiny and then Esther appeared and her innocence began to fade. Another shot during the dream sequence we also used to show this idea of Jess's innocence fading is when Esther and Jess are mimicking each other's movements. We tried to show this by having Esther completely immersed in darkness whereas Jess still has patches of light surrounding her to show that Esther is manipulating/perishing Jess's mind but she still has some sense left in her. An example of this is when Jess throws Esther out of the room as an attempt to recapture some of her sanity. It challenges conventions of horror because dream sequences usually have low-key lighting and are dominated by darkness as if the dream is a warning of the things yet to come.

Our final project!

Feedback on our Final Draft analysis.

A couple of weeks ago we had our Media showcase evening! It didn't all go to plan but overall the evening was good and it was nice to see everybody else's final projects as well because we've/I’ve been so engrossed in my coursework that I/we didn't get much of a chance to see what everybody else was doing. I'd like to add that everything was great as well. I'm very proud of my Media Class. :) This was also a brilliant opportunity for us to get some feedback on all our hard work so we forced (we didn't really force them...) everybody in the audience to fill out a questionnaire so that we could analyse the results. It sounds easy...but after we received 56 answered questionnaires’ back we quickly realised it isn't. However we still managed to do it and as Sarah rightly put - we persevered! So here goes:
After we divided the questionnaires into 3 piles and tallied our data, we combined all of our results and discovered that our film was most enjoyed by/received the most positive comments from females of around 0-20. This could be due to the fact that our group consists only of 0-20 females so we made a film that would appeal to us and that target audience.

Did you think the choice of settings in the video were appropriate?
Positive answers: 51
Neutral answers: 4
Negative answers: 1
Example Comments:

• The location suited our genre of film
• Very good choice and variation of settings
• Could have used more settings

From the feedback we received from this question it was agreed overall that we chose good settings. People said that the genre of the film matched the settings we chose especially within the dream sequence as it gave our film some depth and helped explain that it was a psychological thriller. Someone said the settings we used made our film more believable (then went on to give us 10/10...not that i'm bragging). We didn't receive much feedback on the setting during the death sequence but previous questionnaire's (initial research on our first draft) said that they thought the attic worked well with the theme of Satanism.

How successful was the video in satisfying the conventions of the genre?
Positive answers: 53
Neutral answers: 3
Negative answers: 0
Example Comments:

• Yes the notion of reality is questioned
• Brilliant (N'awww)
• Good use of music

From the feedback we received here it shows that our video was successful in satisfying the conventions of Horror for more than half of the audience. We got alot of one/two word answers that said things such as: "Yes, spooky." or "Very, eerie." which we counted as positive comments. The comment on our opening questioning the notion of reality was a big success for us as that was what we were aiming to show during our dream sequence as we wanted to show that our film was a Pyschological Thriller but not give too much away of the plot that could later occur if this was a real film.

How successful is the editing?
Positive answers: 53
Neutral answers: 2
Negative answers: 1
Example Comments:

• Very good transitions between shots
• Fast clean cuts
• Good use of filters in the dream sequence

This feedback shows me/us that people thought the dream sequence was edited really well and they liked the variation of filters/effects we used. Another comment we received was that the rapid cuts in the beginning really built up the tension especially with the music behind which was what we were aiming for. Most of the comments said that the transitions were smooth within our piece and though there was one negative answer I can't find what they said in my pile of questionnaire's. If I do I will post what they said below this post.

How successful were the choice and execution of camera angles and movement?
Positive answers: 52
Neutral answers: 3
Negative answers: 1
Example Comments:

• Liked the flash back to the past
• Thought shots where Sarah died were the best (...i'm sure they didn't mean it how it came out...)
• Some of the shots were shaky

The feedback shows that people didn't have much of an issue with our camerawork. They did say there were some moments where the camera was shaky and things became blurred but overall the camera angles were really effective. The shot where the shakiness is most noticeable is after my character and Jess's character have fought about Sarah's death and she kicks me out because as the camera approaches Jess lying in her bed the camera wobbled and shook. Someone said they really liked the above shot of Jess when she looks up at the camera after having killed her best friend as it was creepy.

Was a clear narrative established?
Positive answers: 48
Neutral answers: 7
Negative anwers: 1
Example Comments:

• Yeah because you can see that Sarah dies because Jess's imaginary friend told her to kill her
• Not quite
• Great storyline and very clear.

There was some confusion over our storyline however most claimed they were able to follow it. Feedback we received from the questionnaire and other forms of research showed that people preferred our dream sequence in the Second Draft to the conversation scene in the First Draft as the plot became more clear and it fit in more with our Pyschological thriller genre. Some people wrote that the storyline still didn't make sense but most said they understood.

Which section of the film was most successful and why?
Positive answers: 51
Neutral answers: 4
Negative answers: 1
Example Comments:

• The bit with the fountain
• The beginning where the girl was dying
• The satanic bit

Most of the feedback we received said that there faviroute moments were within the Satanic Ritual when Jess was speaking and some said they liked the dream sequence. There wasn't much between the answers we received as some people simply answered: "All of it." which didn't actually help us with our analysis. People liked watching Jess's plot unfolding and seeing how all of this was affecting Jess so it's safe to say that Jess was everybody's faviroute character. I don't have the negative comment in my questionnaire's but i'll check it over in the morning and add that to the bottom if I find it.

What could we do to improve?
Positive answers: 14
Neutral answers: 31
Negative answers: 8
Example Comments:

• Not much (a very productive comment)
• Make the story clearer
• Use different lighting

Many of the questionnaire's we got back had people trying to avoid answering this question because they didn't want to hurt our feelings or just weren't sure what we could do. From the few honestly answered questionnaire's we got back we had plenty of different points people said we could improve. Some were about the storyline, others were about the camera angles and there was one about the lighting but mostly people told us we did a good job and everything was fabulous.

Thankyou to all the people who answered our questionnaire's! We appreciate it so much! You will all be mentioned in our speeches when we receive oscars for best actress, best director and best media project (I kid, I kid.)

Average Score out of 10: 9

Coursework Development.

Coursework development

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Final project storyboard explanation.

This is our final storyboard for our project. We filmed this last week some time in our free period. Unfortunately it was other people's free period as well and they also wanted to work on their Media. Ignore Luke and Livvy in the background. I couldn't as I was there and could feel them behind me but you can try to. I'm sorry that this video is so long. We had to explain what each individual shot meant in our Dream Sequence and that took quite a while.

P.S Don't listen to us when it says there is still time for a coke. There's never time for a coke when that sign comes up.