FINAL EVALUATION

Silent Hill film cover analysis

Title Sequence - Psycho

Final Film Evaluation

HERE IS THE LINK FOR OUR FINAL FILM ON YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2gtzahD0tY 

1.       What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

      Before drawing out the storyboard for our horror film, we researched the different codes and conventions of horror films. This then helped us a great deal when thinking about the sound, editing, camera shots and mise-en scene that would go in to our film, as we had a better understanding of what other successful horror films included. The thriller convention is immediately established in the very first shot of our film, which is an old, eerie looking house set in the middle of nowhere without any surroundings, apart from bare fields. This scary, ancient looking house is a typical sort of setting for a Horror Film.

The mysterious music that goes along with this shot is also something that is popular in the horror genre as it builds up suspense and tension in the viewers mind. We also use voyeurism in our film which is an idea that we got from one of Hitchcock’s most famous horror films, Psycho. Voyeurism is where a particular character is being watched upon by another character, and you see through the person eyes that are watching them (from their point of view). This technique makes the audience feel uneasy with the situation, adding to the scary, thriller effect. In our film, we have two parts of the film that are filmed so that the shot looks like you are in the position of the villain, who is holding a video camera spying on the little girl. So from the audience’s point of view, we see all the marks and letters on the screen of the video camera and obviously the little girl through the lens of the camera. This isn’t just a standard point of view, we have taken it that extra step further to make our audience feel really uneasy, and to emphasise the scariness. A typical character that is used in horror films is ghosts, therefore we decided to use a ghost in our horror film. We chose to use the ghost as the villain because it brings a feeling of unpredictableness to the audience as they can’t see the ghost, making it have a hidden identity. It’s the ‘unseen’ villain, you never know when it will appear! Our film challenges conventions by having all of it filmed in broad daylight. Typically in a horror film, there would usually be scenes of darkness where nothing is really to be seen that well, which adds to the ‘unknown’ and ‘spooky’ effect. We decided not to include this convention in our film, but I think we still achieved the spooky horror effect with the editing, camera shots/angles and mise en scene.

2.       How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product mainly represents young, sweet and innocent girls ranging from 8-10 years old, that are an easy target for evil personalities. We made our main character (who is an 8 year old girl) look very ‘girly’ by having her wear a floral patterned, knee-length dress. We decided to have her wear knee-high socks with the dress, we thought of this because you would usually associate knee-length socks with something a school girl might wear with their school uniform, so this would let the audience think that perhaps she goes to school and this would let them guess her age. We also thought of putting the knee-high socks with the dress as we didn’t want too much skin to be revealed, as we thought 8 year old girls don’t go about wearing short dresses and bare legs! (Their mums would make sure there dressed appropriately), and also this could be uncomfortable for viewers to watch. We had her wear plimsolls as shoes, which could represent her sporty, active side to her personality implying she’s fit and healthy. Also we put a plait in her hair as this is a hairstyle you would usually associate with this sort of age group, so this gave the audience a clue as to what sort of age she is. The plaited hair added to the sweet and innocent look we were trying to create, this was to engage our audience and make them take a liking to the ‘cute’ look of this little girl.

3.       What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that our film would definitely be Mainstream. Mainstream films are usually made by major entertainment studios or companies. Because of better financing, these films can afford more expensive actors, wide releases and are sold at popular retail stores. Therefore we have decided that Mainstream would be better for our film as it is more global and well-known that an Art House film, and our film has quite a large mixed audience. When researching different production companies, we came across ‘Hammer Film Productions’. We decided to use this company as our distributor as it has produced similar genre films to ours such as ‘The Resident’ and ‘Let Me In’ and have been extremely victorious in doing so. Accordingly they are now very experienced in making films of a similar style to mine and are also well known for producing films of a high quality. Therefore they would make a good choice of film distributor. My media product could be released and then circulate worldwide, which then means that a large audience can consume it and as a result a high number of sales will be made resulting in maximum profit. After my film had been released at cinemas it could be released on DVD in order for the audience and consumers of the product to buy it. This is a typical move of other media products of similar style.

4.       Who would be the audience for your media product?

After researching the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and then watching our final piece of our horror opening, we came to a decision that our film is aimed at a 15+ audience, as this is the certificate rating it fits into. My results from the audience research that I carried out showed that our type of film appeals more to the late teen ages (15-18 year olds). Reasoning’s for this is that the type of characters we have in our film (e.g. a ghost, and a little girl) are the type of conventions that they find the most haunting in a horror film, and they would enjoy watching this sort of movie. This teenage age group would also be a good way of getting free advertisement as most teenagers are associated with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. We could use these sites to upload and post advertisements of our films on a regular basis and we could also set up some sort of comment page which would allow our audience to comment with their feedback after watching the film, costing us nothing and gaining us a much wider audience! We also thought that families could be quite a big audience for our film, as the narrative of our film includes a mother and daughter relationship, making it a family based film. Families, or even more specific - single mothers (as that is what the mother in our film is), could relate to the situation she is in and find the storyline engaging. We also came to a decision that the most likely gender to watch our film would be females, as the two main characters in the film are females, therefore our film could interest people of the same gender as them.

5.       How did you attract/address your audience?

Within the film we used a number of techniques to engage the audience. This mainly consists of things like the spooky, eerie soundtrack that plays all the way though the opening, fast jump cuts from some scenes to others, slow motion effects, loud bang sound effects and many more. Part of our film that I feel worked successfully is the part where the young girl is sitting in her room talking to her ghost friend (which we can’t see). It is filmed through a window, showing the bars which run through the panels of the window. This implies a sense of claustrophobia for our audience, they feel as if they are sneakily spying on this little girl through some bars – implying the little girl is trapped. The camera then zooms even further up to the young girl who is talking, making the audience feel extremely up close and personal with the girl, putting them in an uneasy and uncomfortable situation. The low key, spooky music that is going along with scene builds up the tense feeling that the audience are feeling at this point. Usually in horror films that include ghosts, the ghost is immediately portrayed as some sort of villain and acts in an evil way towards an innocent character. However, in our film the ghost is set out as a ‘friendly’ ghost and starts off being nice and kind towards the young girl. This could lose the audience’s attention, or perhaps make them a little bored as it isn’t really something that would usually fit a horror storyline. But when the ghost turns evil towards the end of our opening sequence, the audience are engaged as it is unexpected and excites them for what else is to come within the film. The storyline to our film includes a mother and daughter moving house, and then in this village that they move to, the young girl makes a friend that is a ghost who then turns evil and possesses the young girl. Some people that are watching the film could relate to this storyline, for example they could of recently moved house or were planning on moving house, and so the storyline could affect them as they might think that what’s happening in the film might happen to them because they are in the same situation. Moving house is something families do, so this will engage them and leave them feeling haunted and spooked, which is the feeling we are trying to create for our audience.

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

Before filming and editing our footage for our opening sequence we had an hour’s master class on how to use ‘Apple MacBook Pro Final Cut’. This was something new to most of us in the class. We were given a booklet containing lots of points on how to use Final Cut, which came in very handy. After we had our footage we went into the Mac rooms in school in our spare time and in some of our Media lessons and began to bring our film together by using this programme to edit it. The thing we found most tricky with using Final Cut was actually getting everything into the right order and cutting it in the right places, so it made sense to our audience. We had to get used to using different tools on the programme, and understanding what they did. At some points when we were editing we did take risks, just to see what different tools would do even though we didn’t fully understand what we were clicking on. This sometimes benefited our film, and we decided to keep some of these aspects, others really didn’t fit it therefore we clicked ‘undo’ to remove what we had just done. I found using Final Cut a very challenging process, but after we had finished editing I felt a good sense of achievement as I had learnt something new (which wasn’t exactly easy). Another thing I have learnt about technologies from this process, is that when using video cameras they must be fully charged before going out to film footage, we realised this from our preliminary task when we got to our destination that the camera unfortunately didn’t have enough charge so we had to re-schedule a filming date. We took this on board when planning our filming schedule for our main task and made sure that our camera was fully charged before going out to film our footage.

7.       Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that throughout the progression from our preliminary task to our main task I have learnt how important planning and research is. Without sitting down and fully planning out a filming schedule that includes where we are filming, what day and what time etc. we wouldn’t have been able to be as organised as we were. The research also helped us a lot, such as researching the codes and conventions of horror films helped us think of ideas of what to include in our sequence. Researching other horror film openings and analysing these thoroughly also helped us come up with ideas and helped us recognise what other successful horror films included. Researching different production companies helped us make a decision what type of company would distribute our film, and also recognising if our film is Mainstream or Art House.

Target Audience Research

Here are my results from a questionnaire that I handed out about peoples preferences within horror films. I handed it to 20 people, ranging in different ages from 12-50 years old. After collecting back the questionnaires, I gathered my information and produced pie charts to show my results. Below I have shown a few questions and their results.These results show that the majority of people who watch horror films are aged between 19 and 25. And not many people aged 40 and above watched horror films.

This question shows that the majority of people who I asked preferred to watch a horror film with their friends. This helped us decide on our plot and what to include to attract the sort of people that would watch it.

These results show that most people look for horror films that give them an adrenaline rush. This also helped towards thinking of ideas of what to include in our film to ensure that our targeted audience are watching something they enjoy.

This question proved that people are more likely to share, recommend horror films they have seen. Also exchange them with one another. This is good, free publicity for film companies and and easy way for their film to get noticed and to get selling!

This question shows that watching films monthly and weekly are very popular and is most likely to be what our audeince would do. This links in with cinema deals, such as paying monthly for an unlimited cinema card to visit whenever you want. Also, orange wednesdays 2 for 1 deal is very popular within our specific teen age range. As its cheaper and more suited and appealing for them.

Questionnaire Feedback

David, aged 20

1. What Genre of film would you say this film is and how can you tell this?
I would say its a horror film just from the general spooky storyline and efects used throughout the film, such as the scary music and setting.

2. What was your favourite aspects from the sequence and why?
I particularly liked the 2 scenes that are filmed as if you are looking through a video camera - I thought this worked extrememly well and added a spooky/eerie effect as I couldnt tell who was behind the camera filming.

3. What areas do you feel could be improved and how/why?
I think it was all very good. The only thing I would say is that you could have added in more quick shots at the end where all the bad things start happening to her, there was only her being dragged along on the carpet and her drowning in the bath. I think a few more would have increased the 'horror' effect and definitely make me feel more suspensed and on edge.

4. Do you feel the storyline was easy to understand, if yes or no explain why?
Yes i thought it was made very clear with the good acting skills, and the dialogue made it clear to me that he was a ghost and was her friend etc.

5. Do you feel the name of the film related well to the story?
Very well, 'The Unseen' links well with what happens in the story as we can't see the ghost - he is unseen!

6. Did you think that the editing and credits were done well and flowed well? Explain why/why not.
The editing skills were really good. I liked the slow motion parts, this was a nice effect and the added in sound effects such as the loud bangs towards the end - they were a great aspect of the sequence. Yes the credits also worked well.

7. Do you have any other comments/feedback?
I thought it was great, the editing skills and the general storyline all worked really well.

Qustionnaire Feedback

Faye, aged 23

1. What Genre of film would you say this film is and how can you tell this?
Its a horror film and I could tell this by the music and setting.

2. What was your favourite aspects from the sequence and why?
My favourite part was the bit where you filmed the scene through the window which looked really effective, making the scene look mysterious.

3. What areas do you feel could be improved and how/why?
The part where she was reading the notice board in the graveyard wasn't clear to me, and it was hard to understand its relevance to the rest of the film.

4. Do you feel the storyline was easy to understand, if yes or no explain why?
Yes it was easy to understand because you made it clear what the story was about with showing the grave and reading his name aloud, and talking about him to the mother.

5. Do you feel the name of the film related well to the story?
Yes definitely, it fitted in well.

6. Did you think that the editing and credits were done well and flowed well? Explain why/why not.
The editing was good and made me jump at points, especially towards the end I liked the quick jump cuts and loud bang noises that were edited in. The credits where good and straight to the point.

7. Do you have any other comments/feedback?
I particularly liked the scene when the chair was swinging on its own, it was very tense and full of suspense. Overall, a very good film opening well done!