Hello, welcome to my blog! I am studying AS media studies The content of this page is the background, research and planning that has been completed leading up to the production of our slasher film opening Red christmas, influenced by Black Xmas!

Wednesday 8 May 2013

Welcome...

Welcome to my blog, the posts you will find on this page are all part of the research and planning that lead up to the production of my final product, Red Christmas.

Sunday 5 May 2013

Evaluation- Question 1: conventions

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

In many ways our product challenges forms of conventions of the slasher genre. Our Final girl is the first victim. After the opening sequence the film will go on to kill of the rest of the choir girls (all of whom look like typical scream queens) one by one. Throughout the opening sequence sexual content and extreme violence is lacking, both of which are generally expected when viewing a slasher or horror film.
However in other ways our media product follows the typical conventions of a slasher film. Following Todarovs theory, it starts with a form of equilibrium as the killer is dressed up and in context with the season/ holiday of winter/ Christmas time.
In terms of cinematography our opening is fairly stereotypical of what would be expected in a slasher opening. The short shots and fast pace editing, that we used,also match common conventions.

Saturday 4 May 2013

Evaluation- Question 2: Social groups

How does your media product reflect particular social groups?

All of the actresses in our film are aged 16-17, we chose this age range on purpose- to match our primary audience. The killer is older, this to entice the secondary audience of 25+. All of our characters are from West Yorkshire, this means that the audience is narrowed down from national audience to a more localized one. However our opening does not contain much narrative, and also it is common that the slasher audience is fairly blase about the accent as the gore and violence is more important. 

Friday 3 May 2013

Evaluation- Question 3: Distribution

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

The aim of distributers is to launch a film and then sustain a high position for the movie within the media world. Advertisement of films is the main incentive for people to buy cinema tickets and view a film, in order to achieve good advertisement, film companies are in high competetion to have their film distributed by one of the more famous distributing ccompanies. in order to gain knowledge about the types of films that are interesting the public at any given time, distributers alone spend roughly £300 million a year on builiding interest among audiences by marketing new releases, this itself is a highly competetive business. Due to this £300 million a year cost, many distirubuters are not willing to take risks when looking at films which do not use the southern English archetypes. The cost of marketing and film prints is so high which is the reason why many low budget indie producers struggle to find a distirubtiuon deal. This result in films not making it to the cinema and instead going straight to DVD, and therefore missing out on essential adveritisement. Hollywood dominates when it comes to the exhibition of films, this being another reason why the majority of UK films fail to get box office releases.

Digitalisation is changing the process in which films are distibutors. In order to save costs when researching the publics disired genre type, social net working sites such as twitter and facebook can be used. Both can be very useful for gaining knowledge before making a film and then recieving feedback about certain aspects of the finished product.

Red Christmas is going to be a micro budget indie film, for this reason famous distributers such as 20th century fox and dream works would not be interested as it does not fit into the category of a worldwide large budget film. This is aswell as the fact that we shall not be using an established stars, an expensive location or extreme special effects.

after researching film disributor companies i collected information on the top 10 Grossing Distributors 1995-2012; listed below

MoviesTotal GrossAverage GrossMarket Share
1Warner Bros.532$29,135,050,869$54,765,13315.25%
2Walt Disney Pictures453$27,024,974,288$59,657,78014.15%
3Sony Pictures534$24,744,320,642$46,337,67912.96%
4Paramount Pictures352$22,915,131,099$65,099,80412.00%
520th Century Fox364$21,288,127,358$58,483,86611.15%
6Universal338$19,832,959,028$58,677,39410.38%
7New Line196$7,407,184,271$37,791,7563.88%
8Dreamworks SKG77$5,988,394,230$77,771,3543.14%
9Miramax377$5,621,593,306$14,911,3882.94%
10MGM229$5,059,893,917$22,095,6072.65%


Evaluation- Question 4: Audience

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Although our does not contain scenes of a sexual nature or extreme gore, it does have the killing scene which contains a small amount of violence. For these reasons we though a BBFC rating of 15 would be appropriate. Our primary audience is age 15- 25. As our characters are aged 16-18, those under 20 will be more attracted to the film. This age range is typical for that of a slasher genre film so they are the easiest to target. Our secondary audience is for people above 25, as our film contains the general principals of a slasher film- suspense and tension, targeting the older ages should not be too difficult. However the actual story line of our movie is more reflective on youth and a teenagers life, meaning those above 25 may not be able to relate to it as well as teenagers could.

Thursday 2 May 2013

Evaluation- Question 5: Audience

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Throughout our film we stuck to the common conventions of a slasher film, using attractive females for male gaze and the stereotypical final girl and scream queen. Sticking to these ideas, we thought that attracting an audience would come easier. We used social networking sites to both attract and address our audience. By publishing our teaser trailer and treatment to sites such as twitter and facebook, we were able to give the audience a taste of what was to come. The aim of this to keep them interested in the development leading up to the final product.