Our film is very much based on the four case studies, Sin City, Psycho, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and David Attwood’s Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles on BBC 2. All of these play a huge part in influencing our piece and our piece helps develop them.
The use of Sin City helped us think about colour focus and correction. We ended up not using colour focus in order to make certain colours stand out in the black and white persona. However, due to the fact that we wanted out piece to be completely back and white and not just grayscale, we used the gamma correction tool to get rid as much as the grey colour as possible, copying Sin City more. We also followed in the film’s footsteps by having a section of narration at the beginning; A lot like Sin City also. In this sense, we developed on Frank Miller’s original ideas and took Media products to a whole new level.
Sin City Colour Correction -
A Widow's Death Colour Correction -
From Hound of the Baskervilles we took the countryside idea, very fitting for a film set in 1843. If we were to continue and make the whole film, we would set all of it in the countryside, perhaps in a location like Dartmoor, due to its natural spookiness and melancholy-type feel. We developed on the idea that nature will always take its toll on people and in our film, a very religious effect is cast, adding an eerie feel to this satanic piece.
Hound of the Baskervilles Countryside -
The Widow's Death Countryside -
The world-wide famous film 'Psycho', made in 1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the 'Master of Suspense also helped to bring across the medical condition schizophrenia. Psycho is the tale of a lone woman who stops off at a motel off the highway and meets the motel owner; Norman Bates who offers her a place to stay. Later on, she is showering and gets murdered by a woman with blond hair - known as the infamous Psycho Shower Scene. In the end, the murderer is Norman Bates, who acts as both himself and his deceased mother who he talks to and responds to himself. It is a superb classic which has defined horror and suspense cinema for years, and working off it made us feel that our piece would gain some more definitive culture, attracting the die-hard movie fans and driving our plot.
Lastly, we developed on the idea of Schizophrenia from the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, using a disease to keep up a movie. This disease is unlike any other and it is done extremely well in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde due to the fact that they use a metaphor to explain it. This being when Dr. Jekyll takes the potion, he becomes Mr. Hyde – a much nastier version of himself; portraying the condition. In our film, we kept the condition obvious to the audience, just so they would know how much it affected the actual film. Overall, our product took a lot of inspiration from this original classic, and it was developed huge because of it.
To conclude, the three movies we drew inspiration from helped our piece hugely and it could not have been done with that inspiration. Our film helps challenge the former products, pushing the concepts to new levels, creating a new, brilliant media product.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our Questionnaire was the main thing driving our social group representation, so we always referred back to it if we wanted help. Our film was meant to scare people into emotional discomfort because a lot of people get thrills of that as they are being edged out of their comfort zones. Therefore, setting the opening of the film in a church would bring a religious, maybe slightly satanic, feel to the piece – A lot like the Omen or the Exorcist. The church is very traditional, therefore making it very old. The crumbling graves and the faded stain glass windows really helped to set the mood and set an eerie atmosphere. George Green, who played the murderer, was dressed in a long black cloak, holding an axe. This is a lot like The Shining (which is also a much liked horror movie). We tried to relate to certain social groups purely through different old and new horror movies, like the Shining or the Omen. Another favourite was The Exorcist. This way we could relate to horror fans from across the board and in this sense, our questionnaire helped us hugely.
The Widow’s Death –
The Shining –
3. What kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why?
Lionsgate
The reason for why I picked this media institution is because although our film is predominatly British, it's convention is that of a horror film and Lionsgate tend to back horror movies quite strongly. For example, Lionsgate to date have worked on all of the Saw films, with Saw VII coming later out this year and are working on a new product called 'Buried', a very unconvential horror film. Lionsgate also works with films of the Indie category such as 'Precious' and 'Why did I get married too?'. A recently released film called 'Whip It!' is an Indie comedy, supported by Lionsgate, with the director making her debut. This shows that Lionsgate are willing to take chances, making us a perfect pick. If the target audience found out that we were working with Lionsgate (which we would make very clear), they would show more of an interest because Lionsgate is so big. I can also see this film perhaps becoming big in America, due to its American actor; Robert Downey Jr. This will therefore help the movie become huge in the American box office and Britain would soon follow. Overall, I picked Lionsgate because of its favouritism towards horror and indie movies, which will help attract huge audiences from Britain and abroad.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
At first, the rating of 12A appealed to us the most, due to the fact that it would allow a bigger audience to come and see the movie, therefore increasing its popularity and of course, the Box Office totals. However, in order to achieve the horror feel, we had to raise the rating, just so we could make the film we always wanted to.
In the end, we chose the rating of 15 just so we could more substantial horror to achieve the desired effect. Therefore this film would appeal to older teenagers ranging up to older audiences. There is no specific limit on the age limit of people who come to see this, all that matters is that the wide stream audience meant for this movie, enjoy it to its full potential, making this small film a big hit.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
When starting off this film, we asked our audience: 'What makes a Horror Film?' and with the results we got, we based our final product on. The answers were mainly related around the actual sub-genres of horror movies, these being Slashers, Snuff, Physiological etc. We worked around the answer in order to please as many people as possible and although our film is of an Indie genre, we allowed different horror elements to be included to maximize impact.
In the media business, audiences are attracted by the content and the 'first look' of the product. In a film's case, this would be used by advertising, and our movie was no different. Through the use of posters, our film was advertised to the general public. If we were to make a complete film and not just the introduction, we would add a trailer, with certain movie shots explaining what the film is about and giving the audience a hunger for more. We used trailers like the ones in the 'Film Influences and Movie Trailers' to reel in our audience and to give them a taste for our newly-released film. 30 second T.V trailer ads would be shown in-between shows to grab the public's attention about this brand new thriller. To conclude, audiences would be attracted to our movie due to the use of posters, T.V spots and trailers, reeling in the older audiences.
Below are the two posters we designed for our piece:
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
DIGITAL VIDEO CAMCORDERS
We used a HD Panasonic Camcorder to film all the shots we needed and we found that it picked up a lot of detail, making it perfect for filming something professionally cheaply. It picked up the majority of what we wanted and the end result of our film was very good. However, I found, unless you are using an Audio Recorder alongside the Camcorder, noise was of the excess, ruining an almost perfect scene. In our film beginning, we have no sound – just recorded noise from the studio – however, it was impossible to rid the clips of all sound completely, leaving a faint buzzing behind, due to the camera’s sensitivity. The camera also had trouble picking up images in the dark, again strongly affecting the film’s quality. You will notice, as the widow proceeds into the Church, the lighting dims, changing the camera’s view. This affected us quite badly when it came to editing and took a lot of changing the gamma in order to get it right. Overall though, I believed we used the best equipment available and I have no come to terms with the workings of cameras fully.
APPLE MACS
I have never used an Apple Mac before in full detail, so to be let loose on one in order to create our video was great. Apple Macs are fantastic to use and they are specially designed for people who want to edit and play around with films and sounds, so it was perfect for creating a very detailed media piece cheaply. The programs we used were: Final Cut Express, Photoshop and Apple Film Titles and all of these helped us produce the quality of film we have now. Final Cut Express was the program we used the most, as it let us drag our film clips into it, add audio and effects or remove sounds. FCE is where we made the film into what it is and learning how to do so will come in handy in the future. Photoshop helped us with the advertising of the product where we dragged screenshots and added text. This helped us create the posters, displaying the title, a screenshot and the rating. Without Photoshop, I would have not been able to learn all about product advertising and what a great effect it had on products. Lastly, we used LiveText to create the very beginning of the film, with the blood red text, introducing the film and the characters. Without this, the audience would have no idea (without further research) who starred in the film and who directed and produced it. Without these three Apple applications, we would not have even known where to start when it comes to creating films.
CUBASE VST 3 & AUDIO RECORDER
We used Cubase as the main audio recorder for our film. Every single sound heard in the film was sat down and changed on Cubase. Without Cubase, we would have had to go through a lot of difficulty, changing and adding audio. It was relatively simple to use, even for my first time and I soon got the hang of it. Due to Cubase and its Audio equipment, I now have a through idea on how to work audio equipment for the future.
Overall, all three technologies helped us create a film which was of the highest standard because it allowed us to add, edit and remove any aspect we did not like and by doing so, our film came out of the highest quality. To conclude, I have learnt a lot when it comes to dealing with Apple Macs and its applications and I am sure it will help me in the future.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I was new to Media when I started it for A Level so my Preliminary task taught me a lot. It taught me the basics of camera and film editing usage, which came in handy because our product was entirely digital and therefore, learning these skills were vital. Not many of us knew how to use an Apple Mac or using Apple programs such as LiveText, Final Cut Express and Cubase VST3 so during the Preliminary Task we got to get to grips with using such complex equipment. Therefore, our Prelim task helped us learn and develop our skills when it came to creating short films.
In theory, we knew all about different camera shots and angles due to the fact that we had learn about it, but we had never been able to put it into full practise. Therefore, by using them in the Prelim task (such as the Over-The-Shoulder shot) helped us learn what sort of shots would suit films of a horror convention, such as the First Person shot for when the widow gets murdered. This suited the horror convention but not the Prelim film. This meant, by completing the Preliminary film, we found out what shots were vital for which convention.
Our Preliminary storyboard came in handy hugely and therefore we decided to use a very detailed one for the Final Film. This meant we had something solid to work off and develop from. Our Preliminary therefore taught us how important storyboards where and why they are used so widely in the film business.
Lastly, in our Preliminary film we did not have a very good or detailed script, letting down a potentially very good piece. So, for our Final Film, we prepared hugely, buying costumes and props and writing a script so we could be completely ready for when it came to filming. This paid off hugely because we produced a film of extremely high quality.
To conclude, our Preliminary film taught us a lot so when it came round to making the final film, we were prepared, had a storyboard, props, costume and a script ready so we could make the best possible film.
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