How did you attract/address your audience?

I have used youtubes annotation tools to add speech bubbles to our film. The annotations highlight key features of our opening and they effect they have on the audience we are trying to attract.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For this evaluation activity we have created a video with 9 different people asking them about themselves and what they thought about our film opening. Our target audience is between the ages of 15 to 21. This age would typically listen to music which is popular, played on the radio often and in the charts. They are most likely to shop at high street stores such as topshop/man, hollister, superdry etc. Common T.V programmes are comedies, reality shows and shows which include young people as it makes them relatable to this age group.

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

For this evaluation we have done a video explaining our production company and why it was a suitable choice for our film. We also talked about where the money would come from and the titles of our film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main character is similar to 'Casey' from 'Scream. Although she doesn't have a main part in the film we found them alike in personality and their situation in the film.

They are similar in the fact that they are both portrayed as vulnerable as home alone, which causes the audience to feel sympathy for the character. They are also similar in the way that they dress as they both wear casual clothes suited to their age and allowing the audience to relate to them.

They are different as Casey is older in the film and she also talks a lot more than our main character allowing the audience to get to know her better.

 We chose to compare our main character to Vanessa Hudgens from 'High School Musical' as they are similar in the way they dress and are both portrayed as innocent characters. However, they are different in the way that they act in different genres of film.

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

For this evaluation activity I am going to take 9 different shots from my film and evaluate whether they conform to the typical stereotype of an opening sequence of a horror film.

1) Title of film
The title of our film is similar in the fact that it is on a black background, with a simple font. This is a common convention in horror films as many films have this title, one being 'The Strangers.' Most horror films which have a smaller font are more tension building films which fits in with our storyline as we want to create a tense mood. Although the smear around the outside is not a common convention in horror titles it is still sticking to the traditional horror titles of black and red. The actual name 'The Visitors' doesn't give much away and leaves the audience guessing which is another common convention of horror films. We got our inspiration for this title from 'The Strangers' as we thought it was effective and mysterious.

2) Setting/ Location
Our setting is typical of a horror setting as it is just in a house in a normal neighbourhood. Many films have this setting e.g. Paranormal Activity. This is a common setting for horror films because it is a relatable place for the audience which also makes it scarier, this is why we chose it for our film. Our first shot in the film is of the road/house which is how most horror films generally start with an establishing shot as it familiarises the audience with where the action is going to take place.


                                                                                     

3) Costumes and Props

In this clip you can see the the costume of our main character, she is dressed in typical clothes that a teenage girl would wear. This is common in horror films as it makes the characters more relatable to the audience, especially a teenage audience. We have followed the conventions of horror films in the aspect of how the murderer is dressed, as he is in all black clothes and the knife that he holds is highlighted. The way we have dressed our two characters fits to the conventions of the horror genre as it clearly sets the two characters apart highlighting who is the victim and who is the murderer.

4) Camera work and editing

I chose this shot because we used match on action of the door opening which was effective and we also used it later on when the curtain were being closed and the fridge being opened. This is a common film technique in many genres but especially horror has it draws the audiences attention in by highlighting a usually boring action, therefore building tension. Throughout we have also used a variety of shots and lots of long takes, especially when making the tea dragging out the activity, hence building tension.

5) Title font and style
For our opening credit font we had Times New Roman which is an old looking font which is a common style in horror titles. It gives a scary edge to the opening. We had to have them in white as it was the only colour which showed up on all our scenes, however this is not a common colour used for fonts in horror films but it did make them stand out effectively.

6) Story and how the opening sets it up
I chose this screen grab as it is the first indication to the audience that the girl is not alone, as it shows the perspective of somebody from outside looking in. From the opening sequence the story which the audience gets is that a girl is home alone and is just around the house making tea etc. As the shots keep cutting to outside it suggests to the audience that something is going to happen with this person who is looking in, this is confirmed when the audience sees a shot of the murderer behind the girl at the back door, after this the title come up ending the opening leaving the opening as a cliffhanger and the audience in suspense.

7) Genre and how the opening suggests it

The main aspect of our opening which suggests it is horror is the eerie music. However, we have used convention of a horror film to ensure that it is clear that the genre is horror, for example this screen grab shows the girl in a isolated location as nobody else is around, it is also filmed in the dark which is common in horror films as it makes the film scarier as anything can happen in the dark.

8) How characters are introduced
This is the first clear shot the audience gets of the main character, this is effective as the audience have seen her enter the house alone and they can see she is young so vulnerable. We introduce our murderer through his viewpoint and don't actually reveal his identity which builds tension for the audience as they don't know what to expect.

9) Special effects                                        We have not used many special effects but this screen grab shows the transition we used to make the change between the shot of the fridge closing and the title smoother. We also used fade in and out transition on our opening credits.

Final Opening Two Minutes

This is our final opening two minutes.

shot list

Shot	Description
1	Long shot of main character walking towards the camera shows audience character also establishes setting.
2	Long shot of main character walking away from the camera towards the house, audiences first glimpse of the house, the main set.
3	Close up of key being put into the door and door opening, builds tension as is highlighting everyday actions.
4	Shot from outside looking in, from the perspective of the murderer it is shaky to show this.
5	Over the shoulder shot of cup being taken out of the cupboard.
6	Aerial shot of tea bag being dropped into the mug, once again building tension as dragging out everyday activities.
7	Shot from outside again but closer to the window, mid shot of main character inside.
8	Over the shoulder shot and handheld as camera follows main character down the hallway.
9	Long shot of main character walking into the living room then over to the curtains and drawing them.
10	Shot from outside where the curtains are seen being drawn inside.
11	Long/mid shot as main character leaves the living room.
12	Over the shoulder shot and handheld as the camera follows the main character back down the hallway to the kitchen.
13	Close up of kettle.
14	Extreme close up of kettle switch as it flicks up, builds tension as over exaggerating a simple task.
15	Aerial shot as water is poured into the mug.
16	Mid shot of main character walking over to the fridge.
17	Shot from inside the fridge as it is opened, main character in foreground of the shot getting milk, murderer can be seen in the background standing at the back door behind her.

Titles of our film

For our opening we decided to do inter titles over our opening as it would build suspense throughout the opening as they slowly faded in and out. The font I used was Times New Roman because I thought it fitted in with the horror genre and is a popular old style font which is sometimes associated with the horror genre. The font was in white because that was the easiest colour that could be seen over all of the scenes. For our final title I decided to put a wipe transition just as the fridge door closed as it made the opening flow smoother as without it there was a big jump between the scene and the title.

Film Diary Entry Three

We filmed the final parts of our film today. We filmed some shots of the victim turning around after the fridge has been closed then a close up of her face and different shots of the milk being dropped. We hope this will improve our opening and now just have to edit that part in and improve our titles.

Film Diary Entry Two

We have managed to finish our editing and filming, however we have decided to change the ending of our opening. We think that if the victim at the end turns round and we have a close up of her face would make it more dramatic. We also think that a scream over the titles would build tension more effectively and create a chilling atmosphere.

Film Diary Entry One

Today we started filming, we were hoping that it would all run smoothly however some builders flooded the bathroom in Ellie's house therefore restricting where we could film. However we worked around this problem and managed to finish all our filming and most of our editing.

Music

We found a website which has lots of music on it to choose from for our soundtrack. http://freeplaymusic.com/ allows you to use their music for your own personal use without any copyright issues.
We found four songs that we liked and downloaded them and tried each one with our film to see which one we thought was the best.



This is the first song we looked at, its called Behind The Looking Glass, it has a slow tempo and is played on string instruments creating a tense atmosphere which builds suspense. We don't think we are going to use this one because it is very high pitched and doesn't fit particularly well with our film opening because we do not want all the tension that the music brings.



The second song we looked at was called Demented Dreams which is played on the piano, this creates a dark mysterious tone. We quite liked this one because it has not got too much tension and sets a good mysterious tone for the opening of the film.



The third soundtrack which we looked at is called vampire night which is played on a variety of instruments (drums, strings, chimes) this creates a dramatic tone. We did not think this was suitable for our opening because it didn't really match with what was happening in our opening. It also created more of a Gothic feeling to the film which didn't match with our characters or setting.







The final soundtrack we looked at was called Eerie Angel which is played on the strings and the woodwinds, this creates a tense eerie tone. We have decided this is the track we will use for our opening as the tone at the beginning matches the setting of the film and the lighting also. It also had high points in the places we wanted to be specifically tense. We also like the way it builds in suspense throughout which is good as we want the tension to build throughout our opening.

Costume

For our second idea our costume ideas our similar to our original, we are putting the murderer in black clothes as it makes the person seem more intimidating especially as we are filming in the dark.

 



For our main character we have just put her in typical clothes which a teenager would wear as we want her to portray a normal teenage girl. This will also make her relatable to a teenage audience.

Location Pictures

As our location is different for idea two from idea one we have had to take new location pitctures. Our new location for idea two is ellies house:

Casting for idea two

As we have decided to use idea two we have had complications with our casting as the same people can now not make it. For our second idea we needed one main female character and then a male character for a couple of seconds at the end of the opening.

For this idea we have cast John Glover as our male character as we decided he would be more intimidating than Ellie:



We decided that I should play the main character as I would be able to make it and understood how important it was to make time for it:



However, If I am now the main character in the film it does mean that Ellie will have to do the filming as I appear in every shot. So I will take more of an active role in the editing and will still be a part of deciding which camera shots/angles to use.

Insidious Clip

http://youtu.be/f7UUtLZ1Sgw

This scene from insidious has inspired part of our film, as the camera follows the woman walking around the house in one long take we thought that it built tension among the audience and was an effective technique. We have decided to try a similar technique for our film.

It is also a simple technique which we could do easily as long as we held our hands steady and made it look realistic.

Titles

We have been experimenting with titles in photo shop and have a few possibilities to choose from:

We created this one with just a plain black background and bold red writing. We are not sure whether to use this one as we think it may be too simple, however sometimes this can work as simple titles can create more tension.

This is our most likely choice for our opening title sequence.  We stayed on the colour scheme of red and black as they are the colours most associated with horror films. We used an old style font for the writing to create more of a horror opening. The red smear around it gives the title more of a scary edge as it makes it different.

Mood Board

I have created a mood board for teenagers, focusing on the ages of 15 - 18. This is the target audience of our film so by doing this it shows us what our audience’s interests are. Although this is just a generalisation of teenagers interests it can help us to make our characters in our film more relatable to a teenage audience as the characters will have similar interests. This could also make the characters seem more realistic because it shows them as normal people rather than fictional characters; this could also help make the film more believable as the audience may be able to see themselves in the characters. As my mood board does include a lot of technology a good idea for a horror film targeted at audience could be a story line such as something like online stalking. Through this mood board it also shows that if we were to do marketing for our film a key technique would be to do it through online social networking sites.

Planning for idea two

As we have changed our storyboard, we are now going to have to re - plan our casting, location and costuming.

Idea One

We tried this idea first, however we have now decided that we are not going to use this idea and are going to go with idea two instead. We thought that although the idea was good we had almost planned to fit a whole film into the opening two minutes. By doing this we didn't allow any tension to build as we couldn't do any long takes or drag any particular actions on because we were short on time. Our murderer was also more humorous than scary because we had to film during the day rather than at dusk as we planned because the lighting did not work out. We did also find that we were trying to cover too much ground as the distances we were trying to cover in two minutes made the film faster paced than planned. Other problems we encountered were that our actor and the horse we planned to use did not get along well together and it took us around an hour just to get a 5 second clip for the film. Eventually we decided that this film was taking up more time than we actually had and it would be easier to try our second idea.

Film Diary Entry Five

We have completed filming and have started editing, however we have realised that our suspense building moments are not as effective as we thought they would be. This has made us consider changing our storyline to our second idea as it may be a better horror opening. We also thought that our second idea could be scarier because it is more of a familiar surrounding so more relatable to the audience.

Film Diary Entry Four

Have finally got round to filming today, however Becky can no longer make it so we have a new character of Ellie Glover as the murderer.

We did encounter a few problems today, one being the fact that Amy has a phobia of horses which she failed to mention making it difficult to film the part which has Willow and Amy together.

Film Diary Entry three

We were planning on filming today, however it has snowed a couple of inches overnight making the filming not possible to go ahead. If we were producing a big budget film this would cause problems as we would be behind schedule therefore costing us a lot of money, however we still have plenty of time to film so will cause no problems.

Film Diary Entry Two

We discovered that there are many problems, one being the fact that the camera will not connect up to the computer so we cannot get any of our footage. So we are having to use one of the school cameras  to start again which we decided is probably for the best because a lot of our footage had bad lighting and as the light was lost quickly it changes dramatically from shot to shot.

Film Diary Entry One

We filmed our entire film today, apart from the ending which will onlt take about 20 minutes to complete. We did have to work fast today for fear of losing the light so may have to reshoot some parts.