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.
Tuesday 7 May 2013
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.
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.
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
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
| Movies | Total Gross | Average Gross | Market Share | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Warner Bros. | 532 | $29,135,050,869 | $54,765,133 | 15.25% |
| 2 | Walt Disney Pictures | 453 | $27,024,974,288 | $59,657,780 | 14.15% |
| 3 | Sony Pictures | 534 | $24,744,320,642 | $46,337,679 | 12.96% |
| 4 | Paramount Pictures | 352 | $22,915,131,099 | $65,099,804 | 12.00% |
| 5 | 20th Century Fox | 364 | $21,288,127,358 | $58,483,866 | 11.15% |
| 6 | Universal | 338 | $19,832,959,028 | $58,677,394 | 10.38% |
| 7 | New Line | 196 | $7,407,184,271 | $37,791,756 | 3.88% |
| 8 | Dreamworks SKG | 77 | $5,988,394,230 | $77,771,354 | 3.14% |
| 9 | Miramax | 377 | $5,621,593,306 | $14,911,388 | 2.94% |
| 10 | MGM | 229 | $5,059,893,917 | $22,095,607 | 2.65% |
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.
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.
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.
Evaluation- Question 6: Technologies
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
YouTube was where we uploaded our footage, it is in its own right a form of distribution. Anyone had access to watching our film and leaving comments/ liking or disliking to movie. So it was also a way of gaining audience feedback without costing anything.
The main types of technology I have used are-
- Blogger
- Final cut pro
- Garage band
- Livetype
- YouTube
- IMDB
- Rotten Tomatoes
- Digital cameras
- Scribt
Blogger has acted as a sort of diary for throughout the media course, as well as being a source of information. It is wear we have posted all of our planning and research which has built up towards creating the final product. Although I have used 'blogging' like sites before, it was new to me to use them for creating a product like this, however the site itself i found was easy to use overall. As it is a form of social networking site, i was able to download an app for my phone (this was the case for a view of the technologies i used) and blog there which made it more accessible. Blogger was also useful to distribute our product
Final cut pro was the most necessary form of technology in terms of for the editing of the product. It is where we created the rough cuts, the teaser trailer, our idents, and then final product, as well as vodcasts for planning and research. Once you knew your way around final cut it was fairly straight forward to use.
We used garage band to create sound for things such as the teaser trailer, our idents and for the track for the final cut. It was easy to use, the main difficulty was creating a sound track that matched the video footage.
We used sites such as IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to get information on films as well as critics and the publics opinions on different movies. Both sites are basic and therefore very easy to use.
We used sites such as Facebook and Twitter for distribution and to gain feedback. I am familiar to both sites so creating profiles and managing them was not difficult.
YouTube was where we uploaded our footage, it is in its own right a form of distribution. Anyone had access to watching our film and leaving comments/ liking or disliking to movie. So it was also a way of gaining audience feedback without costing anything.Wednesday 1 May 2013
Evaluation- Question 7: Progression
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel like the main difference between the preliminary task and producing the final product is the planning and research that had to be done. The prelim was a 5 minute task that involved no planning or research. We were told which shots we must include and then had to come up with a 2 minute scenario in which the shots must be included. It did not require any editing, just simply to be exported and uploaded to Youtube.
However our final product required research into the genre including things such as shot type and typical characters. We also had to plan our filming specifying when we would be shooting, location and shot types.
I feel like the main difference between the preliminary task and producing the final product is the planning and research that had to be done. The prelim was a 5 minute task that involved no planning or research. We were told which shots we must include and then had to come up with a 2 minute scenario in which the shots must be included. It did not require any editing, just simply to be exported and uploaded to Youtube.
However our final product required research into the genre including things such as shot type and typical characters. We also had to plan our filming specifying when we would be shooting, location and shot types.
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