Evaluation Questions

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


Our film uses a lot of continuity editing which is a common technique used in filmmaking, this created a sense that what is happening on screen is happening as you see it, although our product also uses some jump cuts and other unusual editing techniques, for example a sudden image of a horses head shown for a fraction of a second, to show that something is not right and to increase tension.
Our media product is supposed to be unnerving as opposed to
 scary, and i think it does this by making sure that the viewer is never quite sure of what is going on. 

A horses head mask, shown for a fraction of a second to confuse the viewer.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


The only social group shown in our media product is a middle class teenager, who is shown to be going to an interview before a series of unexpected and unnerving things happen to him. This may be seen as portraying uncertainty amongst teens and especially in terms of plans for the future, especially in finding a job. The fact that the main character is portrayed as quite ordinary and the setting being a familiar one to students could suggest that this could happen to anyone, which hopefully makes the film more scary. 

Both of the women in our media product are shown from an angle that hides their face, this may be seen as showing them as a lower status or that they are not as important in the film.


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

I think Film4 would distribute our media product because they usually specialise in indie/low budget movies.

Our movie doesn't use any special effects so the budget is quite low. This means that our movie would be suitable for Film4.




Who would be the audience for your media product?


I think that the target audience for our media product would be aged between 15 - 25 and interested in psychological thrillers, this would be because the main character is in this age group. The setting of most of the film is set in a sixth form building so this may further appeal to students or people in that age range.  




How did you attract/address your audience?


We showed our media product to a group of people and then asked them what they thought about it, a lot of them said that they would be interested in watching the rest of the film to see what happens to the main character. 


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

One of the main pieces of technology that I used was the website Blogger, we used this website to note down our progress in our coursework. 
I found Blogger very easy to use and made it easy to keep track of what we had done, some downsides were that we were unable to upload our videos directly from iMovie to Blogger but had to indirectly upload them via YouTube.

Another website that I used was IMDb, this was useful for finding reliable and concise information about the films we were studying, there was a very large amount of info on almost every film I could think of, so IMDb was very useful for researching films. 

Another piece of technology that we used were the digital cameras, they were very easy to use and we ended up with very good quality videos from them, some of the drawbacks, though,  were that for most of the time we were unable to use a tripod, so the camera had to be balanced on a stack of chairs or handheld, this could mean that some of the shots were not as stable as we would have liked or may not have been from the exact angle that we had hoped for.

To edit our film we used Apple iMovie, which I found to be very intuitive and easy to use to trim the clips and edit them together and also adding music and sound effects.






















Looking back at your continuity task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?

In the preliminary task we used 3 cameras, and set them up in a room according to the 180 degree rule.  This helped us to think about how to position the cameras to follow the 180 degree rule and focus on important events.

The preliminary task was also useful for getting to know the software on the macs (iMovie) and learn how to edit the clips together to keep the continuity of the story.  

Jacobs Ladder Overview

On 06 Oct 1971, in Vietnam, the American soldier Jacob Singer is wounded by a bayonet during an attack to his platoon. He wakes up in a New York subway while going home late at night after working overtime in the post office. He is divorced from Sarah, lives with his colleague and lover Jezebel in a small Brooklyn apartment and misses his young son Gabe, who died in an accident for which Jacob feels responsible. During the next days, Jacob is chased by demons and finds the army conspiracy against him, while having strange visions during different moments of his life.

The Collector Overview

Freddie Clegg isn't sure if he can carry out his plan for "her" until he stumbles across an isolated house for sale in the English countryside, the house he spots while he's butterfly collecting. The "her" is London based art student Miranda Grey, the plan to kidnap and hold her captive. Much like he loves his butterflies, Freddie loves Miranda, but from afar. In his mind, his love for her is based on respect for her as a person and not physical lust. So when he does manage to kidnap her and hold her hostage in the basement of his newly purchased house, she, not knowing who he is, is surprised that he is neither looking for ransom money or to sexually assault or rape her. He tries to respect her wishes except the most important wish of letting her go. As she tries to understand what he wants from her, they negotiate the terms of her captivity. All the while, she tries how best to escape while maintaining her safety while in the precarious position of being captive.

Film 4

Film4 did not originally focus on broadcasting blockbusters, but nowadays broadcasts many mainstream Hollywood movies. The channel frequently has themed nights or seasons in which a number of films centred around one genre, director or actor are shown. As Channel 4 also owns a film production company, Film4 Productions, it shows many of its in-house productions.

Occasional non-film (but film-related) programmes are also shown.

Wherever possible, films are shown in their correct aspect ratio. No digital on-screen graphics are superimposed. Under UK broadcasting rules, it was able to screen most films unedited and in earlier timeslots when it was a subscription channel, but these concessions were lost when it became free-to-air, and more adult material is now confined to after the 9pm watershed. Some films are also now edited to make them suitable for pre-watershed screenings, a decision which was criticised by viewers on the channel's now defunct internet forum.

Film4 was originally known as FilmFour and became Channel 4's second channel (after Channel 4 itself) when it launched on 1 November 1998. It was a subscription-only service available on satellite television via the Sky platform, digital terrestrial via ITV Digital (until the platform went into administration in 2002), and most UK cable services. It cost £5.99 or £6.00 a month (depending on platform), eventually rising to up to £7. The launch night, which was also broadcast on Channel 4, was hosted by Johnny Vaughan and the first film to be shown was What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Later, additional channels were added, FilmFour World and FilmFour Extreme which operated on a timeshare and the timeshift channel FilmFour +1. FilmFour World and Extreme were discontinued in 2003 and replaced by FilmFour Weekly, which screened four films across the week at the same time each day to make it easier to catch a film at least once. FilmFour Weekly ceased broadcasting on 19 July 2006 when the subscription service ended.

The subscription service ended on 19 July 2006 and the channel re-launched (under the slightly modified name of Film4) as a free-to-air service a few days later on 23 July. When the channel became free, it also returned to digital terrestrial as part of the Freeview brand, and became completely free-to-air on satellite television. Due to the change, the channel's availability increased from 300,000 (subscribers) to 18 million households. It also changed its broadcasting hours to 12:45 - 08:45, and commercial breaks were included during films for the first time. The first film broadcast under the new format was the British non-subscription television premiere of Lost in Translation. With the exception of Movies4Men available on a local multiplex in Greater Manchester only, Film4 remains the only free film channel available on digital terrestrial television.

Prior to 20 August 2007 Film4 operated a one-hour-timeshift channel, Film4+1, on satellite, cable and Freeview. This channel was dropped on Freeview to make way for Channel 4+1 but continues to be broadcast on Sky, Virgin and Freesat services. TalkTalk TV offers the non timeshifted channel along with a Video on demand service, Film4 on Demand.

From 23 May 2009, the broadcasting hours were changed to 11:00 - 04:00, with it broadcasting teleshopping or an animated caption stating it will return at 11:00 during the downtime hours.

On 20 July 2010, Film4 HD launched exclusively on Virgin Media's cable television platform on channel 429.

On 1 November 2010, Film4 partnered with FilmFlex to launch Film4oD.

Storyboards

These are the storyboards that we made in our group for the opening sequence of our film. 

The first shot is an establishing shot that moves down to show the main character entering the building. The shot will be a very high/birds eye shot to make him seem smaller. There will be diegetic sound of cars going past but no music.

The second and third shots shows the main character entering the building holding a letter, the camera starts in an over-the-shoulder shot and moves out to show him entering the building. 

The Main character then goes into 'Room 101' this is shown from a high angle with a CCTV camera effect. There will be diegetic sound of machinery and footsteps, it will be a medium long shot and should move on an axis on a reverse arc to replicate the movement of a CCTV camera. After a second or two he is shown running out of the room and the viewers aren't shown what was in the room. For the scenes where the main character is running away   we will edit the shots together quickly and so that the shots are around half a second in length, this will make it appear frantic and emphasise the panic of the situation. After running away he gets lost and then finds himself back at room 101, we will use things like canted angles and eerie music to connote that something strange is going on.

Then we had an idea to have a scene where a point of view shot is used to show that the character is being watched, this would be done by using a handheld camera and to make it appear to be following him. The next shot shows that he hears a noise and looks around, the POV shot is shown to hide around a corner as he looks around. An eyeline match is then used to show that he cant see anything there. A medium shot could be used to show him as he walks over to where he heard the noise, which then moves in an arc to show his face as he looks around the corner. The music in the background will be gradually building up at this point. As he looks around the corner the music suddenly stops and the camera zooms into his face to show his expression of fear. The viewers are left asking what he has seen as the opening sequence ends. 

Session 9 Overview

An asbestos abatement crew wins the bid for an abandoned insane asylum. What should be a straightforward, if rather rushed, job, is complicated by the personal histories of the crew. In particular, Hank is dating Phil's old girlfriend, and Gordon's new baby seems to be unnerving him more than should be expected. Things get more complicated as would-be lawyer Mike plays the tapes from a former patient with multiple personalities, including the mysterious Simon who does not appear until Session 9, and as Hank disappears after finding some old coins.

Conventions of a psychological horror

Weapons

When watching a Psychological horror film, the weapons you tend to see are not actual physical weapons, but tend to be more supernatural and psychological. For example, the killer’s twisted minds act a weapon of fear against the victims in the film. Also, in Supernatural horror films things such as visions, jumpy moments and so on are used as weapons of fear, supernaturally, rather than actually possessing a knife, or axe for example.

Settings

Some of the main settings you will see time and time again when watching a Psychological horror film are big houses, forest/ woodland areas, ware houses, schools, and hospitals and so on. These types of settings create realism for the target audience as they are able to relate to the film on some level, having seen/ been or currently live in these settings. This increases the fear for the audiences are they begin to picture themselves in these positions.

Sights

Quite often, when watching a psychological horror film, there are flashbacks that take the audience back to see why the killer is disturbed and to explain what happened to them in their lives that has lead them to become mentally challenged.

We also may see shadows/ silhouettes which UN nerve and terrify the audiences.

Sounds

Common sounds/ music that we hear when watching a Psychological Horror film are; Contrapuntal Sound- this is sound that doesn’t match the action that is on screen. E.g. at the end of the ‘Orphan’ film trailer, before the sting.

This contradicts the action taking place on screen and adds to the paranormal fears of the film.

Psychological horror films use eerie music, like other sub genres to build tension and to create suspense.

Characters  

A disturbed, or tormented individual is the main antagonist, usually comes back to get revenge on their victims. The victims can differ but like any horror film, a high percentage of the victims are female. The uses of children as the killers are also very popular. E.g. the Orphan, the Omen. When psychological horror films use children as the killer, again, the victims tend to be female. This could have something to do with the fact that mothers are maternal and the female audiences watching will be able to relate to the character in some way.

General Conventions

This type of horror tends to be more subtle, meaning there is less physical harm and bloody gore visible to the viewers.

Psychological horrors create discomfort in the viewer by exposing common or universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears.

They expose the evil that hides behind normality, but with splashes of the paranormal which the audience is unable to relate to completely. (This relates to the idea of why people enjoy horror films which is because they thrive on the excitement of being scared, yet in a controlled setting).

Some say that this sub genre should not be linked to horror, because it relates more the thriller genre, but in psychological horror one of the main purposes of the film is to frighten the audience mentally, whereas this is not the case in thrillers.