Media Theories: Cultivation Theory

Cultivation theory:This theory suggests that as audiences view increasing numbers of films and TV shows, they gradually develop certain views about the world, some of which are false.
Strengths: This particular approach draws the focus on the fact that audience members develop large quantities of information about the world from the media that they view. In addition, it also recognises the increasing influence the media has on day to day life.
Weaknesses: This approach often comes under the criticism that by judging people's perceptions on the world on the media they use, views such as crimewatch feeds perceptions that Britain is overrun with crime and that the rate is growing, while not contemplating actual facts or evidence.
Notable example(s): War of the worlds, this was during the infamous radio broadcast of 1938 in which people actually mistook the broadcast as a news bulliten, causing mass hysteria and panic.
Another exmple is the film Crash, which made people believe that people often cause crashes deliberately to get a natural high.
The final example is the mainstream news media, as they always focus on the shocking stories to get the views, however this often feeds the perception that the world is a bad place where everyone is out to get you, where in fact, it is only a minority.

Media Theories: Copycat Theory

Copycat theory:
This theory suggests that audiences will copy what they see in the media. However, this is not so much of a theory as opposed to an assumption that has been blown out of contrast by the press.
Strengths: The main power and influence of this theory is how it psychologically prays off the fears and concerns of parents as well as many independent commissions other than the BBFC, and engages their parents to more actively monitor the media that they use. This not only covers movies, but also video games, especially with underage gaming on the rise, with games such as Modern Warfare 2 being predominantly played by young people as an example.
Weaknesses: The main weakness is the opinion of the people regulating their children, as the preconception of danger varies from person to person, so one person's horror movie is another's comedy. Additionally, while short term effects of the media are easily monitored, the long term are not so easily monitored, and therefore the theory cannot be proven correct. Thus leading to moral panic where people suspect that rap music can lead to gun violence for example.
Notable example(s): The most notable example as discussed earlier is the Bulger murder case. Additionally there are multiple cases of children with short tempers due to constant exposure to competitive and mature gaming, examples being Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

Media Theories: Desensitisation Theory

Desensitisation Theory:
This theory states that the longer we are exposed to violence, horror or any other shocking material, we eventually become less sensitive to it and any real life equivalents.
Strengths: This theory draws its information directly from the increasing volume of violence and representations of sex in the media, and regulation committees such as the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) and how they let more shocking material through in comparison to earlier times. It raises the questions of the amounts of representations we should be witness to, and asks how far the effects can go.
Weaknesses: The counter argument for this theory is that there is no way that this theory can be effectively proven, especially when considering how difficult it is to seperate the effects of the media from the effects of the home living conditions (Bulger murder case).
Notable example(s): The most notable example of this, again, is the Bulger murder case, where the children lived at home watching horror movies, but also had abusive parents and poor living conditions. Another example is the last house on the left, as it was rejected when completed due to portrayals of rape, but allowed only a few years ago, this displays a higher cultural acceptability for the film, and that due to the regulations reflecting society, implies that we have indeed been desensitised.

Media Theories: The Hypodermic Model

A substantial portion of our course this year is understanding and being able to relate to media theories on regulation and audience behaviour. These theories have been made to attempt to understand audience members and more specifically why they choose to view the various shows and movies, and also what they will get from viewing it.
These theories cover all kinds of effects, ranging from education to psychotic behaviour. The theories are as follows:

The hypodermic model:
The hypodermic model sugests that the media injects messages and information directly into the minds of the viewers, like a hypodermic needle injects the body, and that this can be considered to be as addictive as heroin.
Strengths: The approach draws attention to the power that media producers have and that media products can be powerful and range from importance relating to each audience member.
Weaknesses: The approach, however insinuates that the audience can be percieved as a group of passive powerless individuals, helplessly taking in false information. The theory is also used focusing on the effects on women and/or children, and finally, the majority of the ways in which people use media are still unnacounted for, rendering the theory incomplete and thus innacurate.
Notable example(s): The James Bulger murder case blamed on the children having viewed child's play three. The theory is that the film injected false information to the suggestable minds of the killers and so made them commit the heinous act.

Shot List

Once we filmed, it was important to keep track of what we had filmed and when in the event that anything needed to be redone, as of such, below is the complete list of the scenes we had shot, including all of the deleted scenes, and on what day.
Day 1 - Thursday 24th November:
Dry Cleaning thug scene
Elderly couple walking a dog scene
Drug dealer Scene

The first day of filming was done on a Thursday, as that day was a Teacher/Parent conference day in our college, thus allowing us to gather in town to film all of the necessary scenes. Furthermore, due to it being a conference day at college, we were able to gather most of our cast and complete most of the filming in one day. However, there were still scenes that needed to be shot. For example, in the first day of shooting I did not have my costume for the nerd character (Shoes, Trousers, Shirt) and as of such, I needed to come back on the Sunday to shoot the love triangle scene. As of such, we also needed to shoot the complete cast gathering on that day.

Day 2 - Sunday 27th November:
Alpha Male pub scene
Love Triangle Scene
Complete cast gathering

The Sunday shooting session was highly successful as mostly everyone from the Thursday shooting returned to appear in the final shot. In addition to this, I had booked the local pub to allow us to shoot a quick scene in the bar on Sunday before they opened for business, and gave us full reign of the bar until we were done shooting. As of such, we were able to shoot the pub scene quickly, and efficiently.
Finally, we were also able to shoot the love triangle scene as I had managed to get my nerd costume ready, and as of such we shot the two scenes back to back, thus closing the filming, and allowing us to edit it together in the following week, to maximum efficiency.

Planning: Location Photos

Part of planning the soap is understanding the setting that would reflect our characters and plots. As of such we needed to find a dark area of town to film in to reflect the atmosphere of our Soap, and therefore establish a plausible setting.
Below are the photos of our locations with a description of how it'll play out in the film.

This is the road sign we will close the commercial on. As the Soap is called Avenue, we figured it would be appropriate if the street name managed to incorporate the name of the soap in one way or other. This find was very fortunate in that sense.

This is a florist where we're planning for the love sick teen to come out with some flowers. These flowers will then be thrown to the ground when he sees his love interest with another man. This is an event we're hoping some people would be able to relate to, or sympathise to, and therefore add to the show's appeal.

This courtyard is where we're planning a scene in which drugs are sold, or someone is mugged. Even though we're uncertain of the nature of the crime, filming it here will add to the realism, of the soap's events.

This dry cleaners is where we're planning to have our businessman come out with a fresh clean suit, at which point something would be spilled on it, or it would get ruined in some way. This will show a level of realism in the street life and also suggest that that character would have a short temper, as he will get very angry at his suit being ruined fresh from the cleaners.

This is another potential location for the street crime scene, being dark and secluded also.

This church tower is something we're hoping we can incorporate into the trailer somehow, as it is very symbolic for the town we're filming in, and an instantly recognisable landmark. This would add to the town's appeal, and also potentially add to the shock value of its resident's shady activities.

This shot features a polish supermarket and also a hair salon. This, if incorporated into the trailer, will show the town's ethnic diversity and also a vast variety of businesses available in the town.

This shot features the area's local pub. This is a location that is common amongst all soaps and we're hoping can act as our character's social hub.

Finally, this is a shot of a scenic bridge spanning the river. This can act as a scenic location in our trailer, should we choose to include it.

Media Planning Storyboard

 The planning was crucial for the soap trailer as we needed a clearly defined structure to help us stay on track on the filming. Without proper storyboard planning, we would not have been able to book filming times with the local businesses thus crippling our organisation.

From the very start, we had a clearly defined storyboard in our heads. We decided to start the film with the shot of David Bangs in the pub drinking his shot as shown from this early story board sketch. Referring to the Todorovian theory model, the alpha male then leaves the pub with a tracking shot, drunk.

We then cut to a scene that tackles a contemporary teenage issue; drug abuse. By showing teen drunkeness and also teen drug abuse, we are able to shift the focus of the soap trailer to modern teenage issues and hopefully give the audience characters to relate to thus engaging the core of our demographic.
The next two shots offer a context and background to our characters and the town, as the two characters shown are homosexual lovers. As they are walking, the alpha, still drunk, barges into them on purpose, making the couple sit down and ponder whether or not their romance is worth the amount of abuse they get, insinuating that the other characters also treat them with hostility.

The next shots feature our second main character portrayed by Josh. This is the love-struck teen who is in love with another main character, portrayed by Emily. This character is buying flowers to impress her, when across the street he sees his love interest and a new boyfriend on a date. Heartbroken, he throws his flowers to the floor and leaves. This is where our geek character, played by me, comes in to study the flowers as a potential botanist or just as an odd hobby, suggesting that this socially awkward character has some peculiar traits or ambitions. This is shown by a non-diegetic voiceover of a teenage girl stating that if he "didn't spend so much time focusing on flowers, people might like" him.

The shot ends with the geek character leaving with the flowers walking past the heartbroken teen. We then jump cut to all of our characters standing around the signpost to avenue road -- the signpost that gave us the inspiration for our Soap title. A non-diegetic voiceover states that "there are two sides to every story" which is our tagline and suggests that everything shown in the trailer has multiple perspectives that will be analysed further in the show itself.

The trailer then closes.

Soap Planning: Coursework Characters and Audience

Our media group has spent the past week planning for our soap coursework trailer based on what we've been covering in lessons, such as characters, settings and themes.
From the beginning, we've known that we'd want to film a more dramatic soap that will be driven on character development, and to show this we came up with the concept of stories having multiple angles, this would then emerge as our show's tagline "each story has two sides".
In late September, Ed came up with the idea of having a character walking through a street observing characters, in different lights - with them being a good citizen at one moment, and then suddenly shifting into a darker personality. Josh, then came up with the tagline "each story has two sides" and from that I wrote up an early draft of a screenplay, which envolves the character walking through the street making non diegetic observations and commentaries on life in the town the soap would be set in, eventually walking to look the camera head on, and as he finishes his trail of thought, a gunshot would echo, at which point the tagline would come in. However, we decided that this would be too dark for a soap, and also too linear from a character viewpoint, focusing the trailer mainly on one individual rather than the community. So this initial screenplay was scrapped.

When we officially began planning, we were a step ahead, having already decided the script's content, and so we went about planning the nature of the show, deciding that the theme of the soap would apply more to a young demographic, like Hollyoaks' demographic. Therefore we decided that everything involved would need to be contemporary. From this, Josh was able to find a suitable track to play during the trailer, which was from the contemporary genre fo dubstep, thus appealing to the youth demographic.

We also had to plan the characters that would be involved. We all pitched in various ideas for the characters, basing our ideas on stock characters that are common in each soap, ranging across all ages and social classes in order to reflect realism of living in a commune. Additionally, we would need to have multiple types of people so audience members would be able to relate to a character in the show, the characters we came up with varied accordingly, by class, age, gender, ethnicity and even social backgrounds.

Various typical characters in a soap were quick, and easy to suggest, with my suggestions of rebellious teens, business people, and a dog to reflect realistic settings. Other characters shown were also quick to decide due to our planning prior, and also having done considerable research on characters commonly apperaing on many soaps, thus allowing us to quickly and efficiently plan out our soap characters.
Once we had planned the characters, it was then time to plan possible plots.

Soap Trailer Comparisons

Due to the nature of our coursework, a large amount of the year has been spent planning a Soap trailer for a "new soap" we as students were creating. Most of the research to this point has been on general conventions of soaps, including characters, settings and themes (see previous posts)
The next part of the research was observing trailers for the two shows in our case study; Hollyoaks and EastEnders, both of which focus on different age demographics and as of such, reflect this in their trailers.
Firstly we have EastEnders' trailer which shows a street in London, a narrator states in a non-diegetic voice over "the EastEnders are coming to BBC one", the theme is then whistled over the end of the trailer as an outline of the River Thames (shown in the intro and now synonymous with the show) is shown on the side of a van.

The soap is targeting a non specifc demographic in the trailer and so the content is simple. It depicts a casual day in London, with an iconic red double decker bus. This represents the show's content as it takes place in an everyday suburb of London, following the lives of it's residents. Additionally, this would also be one of the first times the famous drum beats were shown to the general public, setting up the interpellation between this show and the theme.

The advert in itself is quite minimalistic, showing that the soap may not necessarily need to make reference to contemporary issues at the time or win the audience with flashy gimmicks, and simply instead draws the audience in by stating "The EastEnders are coming to BBC one".

This trailer is deliberately simple and non-detailed to establish the settings and plot of the show, and draw the audience in by playing to their interests and piquing their curiosity over the show itself.

The Hollyoaks trailer, however, plays to a much younger audience, and it shows in the presentation of the trailer itself.

The trailer begins with the characters in the soap introducing themselves in low, suggestive voices, it is accompanied with soft key beat. This establishes the nature of the show, as it is marketing to a teen-young adult demographic, and therefore can get away with being more more risque than the EastEnders trailer.

The trailer then displays a post-modernist twist when one of the characters messes up a line, thus breaking the verisimilitude of the show as the characters are aware they're actors in a show. The actor then argues about the role that she plays, allowing the group to engage in banter "it's only a small role" "so I've heard".
This establishes a youth audience also as it is shown more tongue in cheek, thus allowing the audience to relate to the characters more as they display a more youthful nature than established soap characters possibly will.

Institution study: BBC.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a government funded institution founded on the first of January 1927 and was the world's first national broadcasting system. Originally the BBC was a privately owned organisation which was founded by a group of six independent broadcasting companies on the 18th October 1922 and was known then as the British Broadcasting Company LTD. 

Throughout the history of the company, it's most notable period in history was during World War 2, during which they had broadcast news and informational services.

Since the company was founded, it has maintained a simple mission statement, which is "To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain."

The BBC started TV broadcasting in 1932 using experimental electromechanical 30 line system and begun broadcasting regularly in 1934 and in 1936 their main TV service launched from Alexandra Palace, and lasting until 1956, with News being broadcast exclusively from there.

The BBC also remained the only TV broadcaster in the UK until 1955 when the ITV was launched.

Finally, BBC produced and broadcast programmes for the open university until they moved to a specially built studio in 1981.

Since then, the BBC has been widely known for it's services and shows, and is the most well respected and recognised national service in the world.

Soap Characters

Popular settings and memorable theme tunes in soaps are common conventions but the Soaps themselves cannot possibly work without memorable characters also, and this is also a common convention shared among the soaps.
The characters are typically reminiscent of Vladimir Propp's theory on characters, in which each story has a set character representing a typical archetype to keep the stories moving.
These character types generally consist of:
1) The Villain. This character typically creates the drive for the plot, either by causing trouble or antagonising the other characters.
2) The Hero. This character usually helps the victim or princess, who may have been mistreated by the villain.
3) The victim/princess. This character is usually wronged by the villain, and "rescued" by the hero throughout the storyline.
However, to keep the plot dynamic, the soap writers often shift the roles around, in order to keep the format fresh and engage the viewer's interest. This also reflects reality, as nobody acts in a single characteristic throughout their life.
Communities in soaps also represent typical communities in reality also, with character families, friends and others.
Characters in soaps can also challenge contemporary taboos, which, in turn, keep the stories up to date and more dramatic. An example of this is Colin Russell, who made his début on EastEnders in 1986, and was the first homosexual character in the soap.

Much of the story's narrative throughout his time on the show focused around his sexual preferences and his acceptance into the community.

Soap Settings

Soaps share universal conventions regarding their settings, themes characters and other various elements of the genre.

Setting plays a very important role in a soap, as usually, the setting reflects the community and characters in the soap.
Typically, a soap will be set in an area that can have a small community, an example being a square or commune, like Albert Square from EastEnders, or a suburb of Chester for Hollyoaks. 

The purpose of this is that small areas allow the characters to mingle and communicate with each other more effortlessly, but it also allows the show's writers to write the drama much more seamlessly, with less characters to focus individual plots on.
The setting of the soap also consists of various locations that add to the realism of the settings, and allows for the writers to produce many differing social contexts for any particular scene.
A typical setting in a soap that seems to be a convention in itself is a social hub where much of the show is based at, with the pub "The Queen Vic" for EastEnders and "The Student Union Bar" in Hollyoaks, which also reflect the typical age range of an average viewer of each show, as adults can relate more to a pub than teenagers can, making EastEnders an ideal show for an older demographic, and many of the social hubs in Hollyoaks are clubs and bars and therefore is geared toward a teenage demographic.

The Student Bar (Left) juxtaposed with The Queen Victoria (Right)

The reason that these venues are popular in soaps is because it is a good place to gossip, and as of such, can act as an invaluable location to reveal plot points and set up tensions between characters, adding to the drama.

Another popular (and somewhat obvious) location for all soaps are the individual homes of the characters, these settings can act as locations where characters can discuss private things between their families and close friends, and also to add to the realism that soaps strive for.

Finally, another common setting for soaps are the workplaces of the characters, be it a local shop, a newsagents or the social hubs. These locations act more to add to the realism then to progress stories, although occasionally plot points and character developments can be revealed in these places.

Soap Themes

Soap themes are a convention in their own right in that each soap has a memorable theme tune, with a defining feature, our two examples being the drum roll in EastEnders, and the Guitar riff from Hollyoaks. This is usually to draw the attention of a viewer for quick and easy recognition of the show.
An explanation relating to this phenomenon is described by Louis Althusser in his theory of interpellation, which refers to church bells in the old days when people may not have access to the time, and so the bells would signal the beginning of church. Likewise, the beginning of the theme is usually the catchiest and signals the beginning of the show.
EastEnders
For EastEnders, the drum roll and theme tune had remained for years, and is so well known to the viewers that when they changed it, there was a large amount of complaints, and had to be changed back due to popular demand. The intro also remained the same, changing only to fit with the contemporary setting of the Thames and architectural additions:

(With correct timing it's eerie comparing the similarities between old and new...)

The tune also has a soundbridge at the end making the cut into the episode seem more fluent and natural.

The theme also is continuous, slow paced and fits perfectly with the visuals, in addition, the instruments used are classic, with pianos, drums and even clapping.

Hollyoaks:

Hollyoaks, being geared towards the youth culture demographic is a drastically different theme to EastEnders:

Due to the soap being geared toward a younger generation to EastEnders, the intro is performed by more contemporary instruments, such as guitars and a synthesiser. The imagery is also much more vivid, with multiple cuts to each character with colourful, computer animated backgrounds reflecting their personalities.

Soap reality contrast

One of the best things about soaps for those who watch them is that they are meant to be conveyed as a social document - something the viewers can relate to as they watch them.
However there has been a recent debate as to whether soaps can be conveyed as a social document and rather they patronise and play down to its viewers.
The argument for this theory consists of many points, the first point is that because soaps are so quickly made, they are often consist of very basic writing and the social problems conveyed in the episodes are very generic and stereotypical of the age groups they reflect. An example being part of an extract of one of the episodes we watched, in which the teenagers are skipping school and focus more on technology than their jobs, the adults are having affairs and sneaking around behind people's backs and that elderly people aren't particularly well respected.

Some would argue that this reflects our society, and that the plots represent troubles facing the age groups. However, it often comes across as stereotypical and is considered to be "easy viewing" for the audience, requiring little to no independent thought from the viewers.
The second point in the debate is that the soaps trivialise social issues. Again, this has been seen in the extract we watched, where the teenager skipping school turns her act when given a hearty talk from her mother, whereas in reality, a similar problem would not be fixed so easily. Again, this reflects the argument that soaps often down play to their audience, convincing them that things are much easier to fix in reality, and also encourage the audience to view life in a black and white way, another argument against soaps.

The final point relevant to the representation of every day life is that soaps are quickly written and usually have poor acting, this means that when there is a tender or emotional situation in the show, the actors may not be able to portray the emotions their characters are meant to feel, and the script writing could give audiences false information in how a similar situation would happen in reality.
However, on the other side of the argument, the fans say that because soaps reflect society, the characters and writing can encourage the viewers to act and speak from our minds, and can also make the viewers reflect on their own lives. Continuing from this argument, the fans also say that because the soaps are meant to reflect society in the time period it has been made, watching one from 1960 for example can also double as an historic document and that it reflects how social taboos and behaviours have changed or expanded throughout the time.

Another argument is that soaps reflect social issues faced by real people on a daily basis and that by watching the episodes, an audience member can better understand ways of tackling different discourses, due to the way that issues are solved in a topical and respectful way on the show.
My opinion personally is that soaps aren't social documents as of such, as they are often very downplayed and the characters couldn't possibly reflect the people you know due to various idioms and characteristics, and therefore the contrast between reality and drama, whilst blurred, is still heavily weighed to drama and that people should live independently and not based off an episode of a soap they saw on TV.

Soap Conventions

Recently in one of our classes for Media Studies, we watched a short excerpt from an episode of Eastenders, whilst listing various conventions shown throughout.
During the extract, we viewed many conventions that are typical of soaps, the first of which was domestic issues, where the father and daughter of a family were talking about the relationship between the father and grandmother of the family, this is typical of a soap as it is an excellent source of drama and plot points. In this particular scenario the daughter was under the misconception that the father hated the grandmother of the family, as they had been arguing earlier in the extract. This is also similar to another scene in the extract where a mother and daughter argue because the daughter had been skipping school and is now trying to skip an exam.
This ties in with another convention of soap operas, where the storyline is continuous. This particular plot point was indicated by the fact that the daughter, Bianca, had been skipping school, implying that it had started several episodes before the one we viewed.
Additionally, another important convention showed was the issues facing the youth culture, where Bianca was afraid of going into school who was worried of not fitting in and looking stupid in front of her classmates during the exam. This is an issue that faces many young people going through school, and was utilised by the developers so the younger audience members have something to relate to in the show, which would entice them to keep coming back so they can see how the issue is resolved. Also, similarly, the episode showed a wide range of ages so that they can draw more of an age diverse audience.
The extract also featured technical conventions also, with the majority of shots comprising of mid shots, especially during dialogue. This allows the audience to read the emotions of the characters, especially during important scenes. They also used shot reverse shot very often during the dialogue, so that the viewer can feel like a member of the community, or even a fly on the wall watching the drama unfolding in front of their eyes. This is a common convention in the genre, as each soap has it's own plot points, and also lots of dialogue to shoot, and this allows the dialogue to run more fluently between characters.
The episode also jump cuts often, so that the show gives the audience the impression that all of the drama is unfolding instantaneously.
Finally, all of the audio was diegetic, which adds to the sense of realism that is in itself a convention of soap operas.
Given the knowledge of these soap conventions, I am hoping that the filming and editing of our own advert for a soap will run more efficiently and that the finished product work much more effectively, with the genuine feel of a soap opera.

My magazine and annotation

In our classes we have been covering the devices used by TV listings magazines and how they make the potential customers buy the magazines with the use of lures.
From this study I have been to create my own magazine cover for a TV listings magazine:

After I made this magazine cover I annotated it to explain the choices I made with the magazine and why everything is placed where it is.



Magazine annotations

In our classes we have been covering the devices used by TV listings magazines and how they make the potential customers buy the magazines with the use of lures.
From this study we aim to create our own magazine covers for soaps, and so to understand the magazines better, we have annotated 3 professional magazines, to better understand the layout of the magazines and how they work.

The first magazine we have annotated came from British Magazine TV Choice.

The second magazine we annotated came from TV Times, which has more of a minimalistic layout

The third magazine we annotated had less to annotate on than the other two, also we were rushed to a deadline, but by this point we understood the layout.

AS Posts have ended

Every other post after this one will be for my A2 course.

Horror film, final.

Below is the final of our horror film.

The problems faced whilst filming

During the filming process for our horror movies, we encountered many problems, however the worst problem by far was the lighting.
As we were filming during Autumn, the sun kept setting in awkward times, mostly around 4pm, which gave us a 40 minute period of time to actually film an entire film, which set us back considerably.
The original timing for our film was to start on a Tuesday, and finish either on the Wednesday or at a push, Thursday. Instead it took us until the following Tuesday to finish filming.
However after the filming, we noticed that in one scene it was very dark, and then all of the sudden it was bright again, due to the early sunset. This was quite a pain for us as those two scenes were awkward to film and as a result were awkward to re film. Even more so, as the tripod we had the second time was very loose and so it was difficult to get a shot steady and keep it steady.
The third problem was the setting. Although it was perfect for our film, we had to work around the forest, this lead to many problems such as angles, keeping the tripod level and sometimes would require us to climb into bushes and up trees to get the appropriate shot.
Finally we had to tear Craig's jeans for the final shots, but we forgot to bring a knife and scissors. This led to a series of events that would fit a comedy film, but at the time, it was everything but funny.
The first thing we tried was breaking through the fabric using big pieces of wood, which were all cold, and damp (some of which with things I care not to mention) and ultimately we failed with that idea.
Finally we just decided to knock around the surrounding area asking people to cut Craig's jeans with a knife. Surprisingly we found somebody to do it with the first knock, but his children were curious about the filming, and while we were filming, he and his children came down to watch us film.
This was quite a problem as they were softly talking and when they approached they broke sticks ruining the shot. We allowed them to stay in return for doing us this favour, and in the end they left quite a short while after arriving, but it delayed us about 10 minutes, and we had to pack up early because of the sunset.
In summary, with all the above problems (and all of the dog muck), we got quite a valuable insight into how much harder it is to film a movie as we initially imagined.

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Back in October we started filming our Preliminary Task, which required us to use basic shot types and editing. Since then we have learned various conventions and shot types mentioned in my previous blogs.
In class we were asked "Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?"
In our preliminary task the camera uses simple techniques such as tracking, the shot reverse shot and static shots. We used basic edits such as jump cuts and progressive cuts, there was no music and the video clip itself was very brief. We also learned how to fully use Adobe Premier, covering cuts, to titles and other various editing techniques.

Since then we have filmed one film and then finally our horror movie, and I believed I have learned quite a bit about camera motions, the correct types of shots for each feeling and scene, and to film with editing in mind:

In this shot we filmed the sky for roughly around 7 seconds in order to edit a title in later.

We also learned quite a bit about editing the film, which involves creating titles and incorporating them into the film appropriately using

transitions  and motion control.Music was another thing we have learned in regards to our editing, as we were able to place music and cut it down to fit the video, whereas the thought didn't even occur to us to use music, even though the soundtrack adds to the atmosphere.Finally we learned how to add titles adequately. In our preliminary task we only used one title, which was my name, exam number and the title "Preliminary task".

Naturally we have advanced since then, and now we know how to add film titles in various fonts, distort the fonts, make the titles move and fade in and out.

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the initial filming process, we had to use various pieces of equipment, such as the tripod, to get a straight and even surface to shoot on:

The tripod was irritating at the beginning of the year because they were really small, and aside from the small hand crank, I was unaware you could raise it, so whenever we used the tripod, it was one of us lying or crouching down to operate it. Thankfully, however, we learned that the legs were extendable before we started this horror, otherwise the filming process would have been awkward indeed!
In this photo I am just filming around the area for two reasons, the first reason is because it was getting dark and I needed to see if we could film in the lighting, the second reason was to check for the tripod's stability.
Using the tripod was a challenge at first because I didn't realise that the legs extended. Fortunately though I figured this out before we started filming. The only tripod problem we encountered was that one of the legs was ridiculously stiff, and so we literally had Craig holding one end and me pulling on the leg to extend it, and then having to bash it against a tree to get it to go retract.
The second thing that we used (And quite possibly the most important) was the camera itself.

In this shot I am preparing to film the sequence where the masked murderer is hiding behind a tree, even though it is not very subtle, I believe this worked in the long run. The camera itself was a very handy piece of equipment; it had zoom, which we found incredibly useful when filming the end sequence. It also had a few features that we left out of the film, such as night vision.
The cameras were incredibly handy for the filming, and also 100% necessary, so it was good that we had good cameras.

The camera we were using throughout was a Sony Handycam Carl Zeiss:

These cameras are relatively simple to operate which was good when I started this course earlier this year, as I was worried I would push the wrong buttons and break the unit. However, my concerns were unfounded, and as of such, the filming process was relatively simple in the early days; even though editing was my problem in actually fitting the film together back then.

Thirdly there were props and costumes:

Although this wasn't the costume we used in the end, it does show a lot of the props, such as the white mask the murderer wore in the final scene. This mask was kindly rent to us by the drama department, at the time we thought we were the only ones with this mask, however most people used the mask in their filming also.

The second prop is the knife in Craig's hand.

This knife toy was originally brought for a costume day long back in Primary School where I went in as Peter Pan. It did come in handy for the filming however, as it is retractable, so it looked like we were stabbing him.

The problem with the knife we used was that it was very old, and so the plastic had become frail and delicate. As of such we needed to be very careful. We still managed to break the knife halfway through filming, although luckily, I make models and had glue at my home, and we stuck the blade back on and finished filming.

After the filming we went into college and edited together our film using Adobe Premier, this was really useful because it is a professional recording booth, and thus allowed us to tinker with the slightest detail, eventually allowing us to edit the film together almost seamlessly.

I must have learned something important during my time with this program though because I was lost the first time I used it; there are many options for editing; the most constantly used ones we used were the cross fades during many cuts and edits, and we also attempted ghosting but it messed with our film's outcome, and as a result, we removed this effect from the film. Overall, we used many effects that initially I found overwhelming, this was especially challenging for me, as I had never used Publisher before until literally 3 or so months ago, and I believe that I have learned an incredible amount about the program since then and over time though I've become much more fluent with this program, and can now use it confidently and make films carefully and very specifically.

Finally we had to create a company logo, in the end we settled with bloodthirsty productions and we had a corpse climbing out of a grave.

This logo was created by Craig Robson, although I had made a few early drafts, which you can see here. This is an incredible improvement I think, as I, like Publisher, had never used photoshop before this year, and with such a precise and immense program, I was completely overwhelmed by all of the functions, and at first I believed nothing would work. Now, I can make relatively simple images, although I have much to learn, I still believe I had come a long way since the beginning of this year. I also have the program at home so I can practice there as well, which comes in handy for many reasons.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In class today we were discussing how our film would attract the target audience, and so we uploaded the videos to youtube and annotated them.

The reason that our film will attract our target audience is because our target is the mainstream audience enjoys stereotypical horror movies and our film uses many common conventions from the horror genre.
In regards to our target audience, because it is an independant film and as of such will be cheaper than the main hollywood horrors.

Who would be the target of your media product?

After some discussion both Craig and I decided our target audience would be males age 18 - 25, on account of the gore and the themes of the horror movies.
We used a chart to decide our demographic's income bracket, it ranged A to E.

Using this chart we were able to decide the income demographic for our audiences.
Below is a photograph of our main demograpic:

The income bracket is the earnings that they make, E is students and unemployed people and D is the blue collar workers; the workers who are semi skilled and usually manual. This is because my main demographic for my audience are students, and so they wouldn't be working anything over a D job during their studies.

These two are unemployed, so their income brakcet is E, I am targeting this demographic because females in particular enjoy horror movies and so they are more likely to go and see the film.

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

In our media class we did voiceovers for our movies which describes movie companies that would publish our films.
Below is our voiceover and script:

Craig: Our film company was called “Bloodthirsty Productions” and the logo shows a corpse emerging from the ground. This creates an atmosphere for our movie, as it is a horror film and as of such, will contain gore and other similar themes of horror.
Michael: Our movie is a common type of horror film, it features a slasher type villain, and unsuspecting teens. They share similar conventions to large, well known films such as Scream and Friday 13^th and as a result we believe there are many companies who would publish our film.
Craig: Many of these companies can be found on the internet, or at independent film festivals. Websites such as Dead4movie.com – a website for independent films to be published on for free – can be a hot spot for agents to spot raw talent and potential.
Michael: Production companies are large businesses like any other, they seek talent and in return want a share on the profits. These companies provide distributors and they market and, as the title suggests, distribute the film once it is finished.
Michael: Film roles are important regarding their position as the director takes the helm of the product but without editors, actors, and cameramen, there is no way the director can produce a film. This is why teamwork and organization is very important in a film making process.
Michael: There are many things in our film that are common amongst other independent films, and big budget films alike. Here in this scene you can see Craig falling over and crawling away as the villain approaches. This is a very common stereotype in horror films, and while these conventions are commonly parodied and mocked, people do like stereotypical scenes, this is why we used it.
 Craig: When people make independent films they take a gamble, as nothing is free to produce and there is no guarantee they’ll make their money back. This is a small price to pay for those determined enough to try to get into the industry, but if it pays off there are many, many opportunities to become successful.
Craig: Thank you for watching our movie.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our movie, our teens are rather generic naive people who don't suspect anything until it is too late, this is a convention used in other movies following the teen slasher genre of horror.
Our main character, plaid by Craig is a gamer who is talking with his friend, played by Ed, until he parts ways with Ed. Now alone, Craig takes a shortcut through some woods, where he is stalked, pursued and finally stabbed to death by his chaser, who is dressed in casuals with a white mask.
Craig, as the main character, follows the conventions of the initial murder character who is unsuspecting and naive, and as a result this ends in Craig getting murdered by a psychopath.
This bears resemblence to Hostel's Josh, who through his naivity gets dragged into a hostile situation and murdered.

You can notice some similarities between these characters, most noticeably in the age of the characters. Both of the characters (Josh and Craig) wear informal clothing and stand in a slouching manner. They also both get killed in the movie introduction of the film through their naivity, another convention used in many films. Both characters are portrayed as stereotypical teenagers as they both look for fun in life and act in a naive fashion, as of such they both fall into a hostile situation.

During the planning I told Craig to dress in normal every day clothes (old ones as they'd get torn and dirty) and come down to navigation wharf where we filmed the intro, this is because he needed to look like an average teenager, and I believe this worked well.

As a finished product, I'd say Craig represents the teenage social group well, as he dresses in informal clothing, he is naive and he also talks about casual everyday topics such as the internet, this worked to our advantage in the films I believe as they are both common topics for teenagers that wouldn't normally apply to older adults.

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

From our introduction to this unit of work we studied horror movie intros from Dracula movies, Link here, and the one thing above all that stuck out about these intros is the lighting and other various methods including titles, settings and other scenery.
Film makers use these conventions to key into our subconscience and make us feel the fears the characters are feeling, and as of such, we used them in our key scenes to replicate this emotion.
Below are 9 scenes which used the convention in this way:

Frames (From left to right):

1. Title

2. Setting and location

3. Costumes and props

4. Camerawork and editing

5. Title font and style

6. story opening

7. Genre conventions

8. Characters

9. Special effects

Screenshot 1 immediately implicates a horror movie directly from the name alone, it is a solitary title and connotes an underlying sense of dread and terror, creating a foreboding atmosphere. Other movies that use this title are The Uninvited, The Blair Witch Project and The hills have eyes. The lighting is low key also, once again this adds a foreboding atmosphere that will key into the subconscience of the viewer to automatically register it as a horror movie.

Speaking from an audio perspective it also stays true to the conventions in that it uses low tone music and a swift breeze of wind to make it sound foreboding and uninviting.

The camerawork is also typical for the horror movie intro as the camera slowly moves into the sky where the title appears.

Screenshot 2 is the summarisation of the location, as you can see, it is a lowly lit forest, which is incredibly isolated. This setting is quite typical in horror movies, as it plays on our fears as an audience member, the fear of getting lost in the woods. The most evident example of a setting such as this is the blair witch project, in which a group of teens venture into a forest to shoot a documentary, and were never found again.

The forest is conveniently located just east from Navigation Wharf, the location of our intro, just outside of town.

This location follows the old isolation convention of horror movies, and thanks to that, we could expand on it, where Craig doesn't know just what he's getting into until it's too late. This in itself is a convention of teen slashers, as teens are often portrayed as being naive.

Screenshot 3 shows some costumes and props used in our film, especially toward the ending. As Craig is just a teen he is only wearing casual wear, much like all other teen portrayals in movies. This is a convention as it can add a fear that it could happen to anyone, and sometimes it does.

The other props we used were the shard of wood seen in the image, this was pulled off a broken fence somebody had discarded near the forest, as a result it looks very painful and thanks to this we could also tear a hole in an old pair of jeans that Craig was wearing.

We also used a fake knife, this made it easier for the illusion that Craig was being stabbed as it was retractable so it looked as if it had been plunged into his skin, thus adding realism.

Screenshot 4 showed some editing we used, as we used a fade transition at that point, and also we placed Ed's name for the opening credits.

We also used other various shots, including the shot reverse shot, and also a Dutch Tilt.

Screenshot 5 is our title sequence, in the film the name appears and briskly blows out of shot and fades out. This allowed us to make the title sequence look more authentic. We also used a rigid font style in keeping with other various conventions of movie openings.

Screenshot 6 shows the story opening, in this opening, Craig and Ed are walking towards the camera, talking about a game that was released recently. As we can see, this is typical teen behaviour, they then conclude their sentence by saying I'll see you online. These are typical everyday conversations for most teenagers and so it adds that convention that is shown at every intro to a horror movie, where everything seems alright until they are isolated and suddenly everything starts going crazy.

Screenshot 7 is the genre conventions. In this shot Craig is alone in a forest, this happens just after I run through the shot behind him. These are typical in a horror movie as it shows that he is a vulnerable target and it also adds a foreboding sense to the film, thus creating suspense.

Screenshot 8 shows two of our 3 characters; Ed and Craig. These characters are typical teenagers and are portrayed as such. They follow the typical conventions of teenager characters in horror movies, as they are naive, and they talk about stereotypical things for teenagers such as video games.

Screenshot 9 shows our special effects, in this screenshot we see Craig get stabbed with blood coming from his mouth. This was our most noticeable special effect and it was also easy to make, food dye and water.

We also used transitions and slow motion blurring in our movie to add to the feeling of the atmosphere.