Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Audience Feeback

Audience feedback is important for the film, it is also a part of seeing if it is successful or not among people. The results at box office sometimes could not tell whether a film is good or not, it also could not be capable of telling if it is successful of attracting its target audience. From the comments on Youtube, we can see that these young adults are interested in our psycho film.
hurtwoodhousemedia (6小时之前)
sexsells :D
LegasyOleg (7小时之前)
0
Psycho-style Yeah! I like it, moreover now a girl is a killer.
By the way very nice choice of actress role.
fatboy22222222222222 (8小时之前)
0
nice subversion of the stereotype of the male killer killing the woman in the shower e.g. psycho


Therefore we seem to have a great success in terms of attracting our target audience of teenagers and young adults. They also state that this is a psycho style which this film is our inspiration at the beginning. Also it breaks a stereotypical view that a girl is a killer. Furthermore, the choice of cast is successful as the audience states that it is a very nice choice of the actress role.

I also got some feedbacks from my friends after watching our main task.
Kevin Fei: the preparation of the actress before killing is awesome!!
Adam:the stabbing shot was really good and intense.
Emily Lau: I like the part that Chloe walks in and seductively takes her clothes off and drop it on the ground.

Friday, 26 March 2010

Task 7 What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product










Planning and preparation





When we did our preliminary task, there was no real planning but only simple storyboarding to draw an idea of the shots. As we were given a simple set with numbers of simple shots such as middle shot, close up, we did not really need to organize everything that we have done for the main task.





For the main task, we spent 3 hours on drawing the storyboards, including highlighting. We were much more recognized of the importance of the storyboards as it enhances our film ideas. Therefore it concludes that the planning of the main task such as storyboarding was much more complex and detailed.





Also, we did not need to worry about the location of the film when we did our preliminary task, it was chosen already and set up in the studio, as we went along to shoot during the lesson, we even did not realize what should be considered for the location, whereas in the main task, we were struggling about the location whether in Cornhill House or the main building.





Furthermore, we needed to sort out our props and costumes, we went to the theatre to ask for a bottle of blood, but in the prelim basic task, we did hardly anything for props and costumes, the only aspect that we were looking for was the actor and the actress.









Film-making skills




This is a over shoulder shot of the actress which we did not have in the prelim basic task.. In order to get this shot, the camera had to follow her footsteps horizontally and moving steadily to make this look realistic. It was really difficult not to move at all, so we took a long time on this. Also, this is our opening scene which her identity has not revealed yet.

This is the wide shot of the entire location. From the picture, you can only see 3 brick walls, one door, one window and one light. This set is our only location requirement. This was a typical wide shot of the whole scene which simply illustrates the relationships between these three people. Also, this is telling a story with dialogue, but in the main task, we preferred to use visual thing to tell the story.







Use of camera





In terms of use of camera, we had many improvements in the prelim basic task; we had more angles of shot such as crane shot. In order to do that, we used the ladder in front of the set; put the camera on the top and to achieve this. However, in the main task, we needed much more shots in terms of cutting and editing, so we basically used every useful source in the location to highlight the location. It is highly focused on the location but not the characters in the main task instead of having every single shot with people talking or acting.









For example, we tried to highlight the location that was happened in bathroom; the jock jacket on the hanger reveals his identity which we did for telling the audience who he is. Overall, the characters are important as well but not as very important as in the prelim basic task because we did not have lots of idea on the simple set in the studio.









Sound development





We only had dialogue in the prelim basic task, because they were telling the story in that way, yet the main task was telling the story without any word or phrase. We had some sound effects such as boom to highlight the stabbing shot and some crescendo sound to make the atmosphere tense and horrified. In the prelim main task, we only recorded the ambient sound, there were no other sound that we could record and make in terms of improving the film. When we finished editing the shots, we started fitting in some sound effects into the proper shots for development. We had hundreds of example in the Macbook and we spent some time on choosing a suitable sound, especially the sound of boom which could really impress the audience.









After effects





In Final Cut, we used to cut the bottom bit of the shower scene, as we can see the boy’s underwear which will lead to a fake and unrealistic film. We used the Final Cut Pro and cut the bottom line. In the prelim basic task, we did not do things like this because we were not having any situation that a man has to be in shower but pretend to be naked. The sreengrab below shows the male character is in shower without seeing anything at the bottom that is because we cut the edge of the bottom in order to hide his underwear









Task 6 What have you learnt about technologies from process of constructing this product

Task 5 How did your attract/address your audience

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

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


As our film is made to be violent and involving lots of scene of blood, it cannot be shown to under the age of 12. However, I believe that our film is targeted on teenagers for the following reasons.

1) 2 main characters in film are teenagers and they both are very gorgeous and attractive.

2) This story happens in school and therefore might attract people who are still in school to watch.

3) This film involves number of shots that are extremely violent and it is aimed to bring more young audience into the cinema because the majority of teenagers are interested in violence.

4) Also, this looks like a love story between 2 gorgeous characters in school and the storyline is not complex, but when they watch the shot that the actress goes into bathroom, this is where the violence and the atmosphere change from a sexy and mysterious genre to a ruthless murder film.

In conclusion, I suggest that our target audience is from the age of 15 to 24, because people who are at this age are active and in favour of violence and love story.

Task 3 what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?




An instituion is responsible for producing media texts.

As I have researched about numbers of media institution which might distribute our media product, I found that Lionsgate is the best entertainment company for distributing our media product.
1) It is the leading independent filmed entertainment studio, it had produced and distributed hundreds of films, especially some horror films.
2) In 2000, it distributed a famous horror film called American Psycho and the next in 2002. Both films had a successful result at box office and therefore it seemed that Lionsgate might be good at distributing horror films.
3) Also, Saw is a 2004 horror film distributed by this company, it grossed $103 million in 9 weeks, and it is another film that is financial success at the box office.
4) However, I think this type of company would interest in our film because our film is a horror film and involved two good characters which might bring so many audiences. It is similar to American Psycho which was successful at box office, therefore they might consider that our film will be produced and distributed well in order to attract more audience

Task 2 How does your product represent particular social groups?






This is our school’s main building and we shoot our film in here instead of Cornhill House which none of us have ever been to visit. Our film represents young adults in the college and high school, they are active and creative. During their years in high school and college, everyone would be in a relationship with someone, even more complex relationship. However, our two main characters that are from our school strongly represent what teenagers look like in school and college. Also, the story is mainly about the relationship broken in school with violence of the same age, such as our actors are between the age of 16-17.



This shot is a mid shot Chloe, who is our killer. What she is wearing and her emotion on the face are very attractive. She wears a white vest and from this distance, we can kind of see that she is very hot and the majority of teenagers will think that they will have sex in a short time as Chloe takes off her clothes and hair band that seem to get ready for shower. Also, she is tall, skinny, blonde and extremely sexy appeal to the audience, this is a typical teenager character which will bring so much attention on her.


Our victim Josh Jackson is having shower throughout the film, as this happens in bathroom, he has to get half naked to show his top of body. From this distance of shot, we can see his muscle and he is washing his hair in a very sexy style. The jacket that is hanged next to the shower shows his identity that Josh is a typical jock. He looks young, perhaps a man with muscle which represents high class of teenagers.