When I started the preliminary task I felt that I was limited to how much I could make it mine and how in control I was. This was due to the fact that we were given our story board and script, and had no decision in them. The only factors of the preliminary task that we were in control of were the location and the mise-en-scene. But after we had filmed I was introduced to final cut editing this was completely new to me but I picked it up quite easily so that when I came to my main task I was very confident on the program But I found that when it came to the main task I had to learn how to use a variety of new skills. Firstly I had to learn to create a storyboard this was not as hard as it could have been as a lot of the script was improvisation and the shots were mostly basic medium close ups as the majority of it was filmed to look as if it was a video blog which meant the shots were the same but we still had to story board the shots of the killer as they were not done in this video blog format and we used a variety of shots. Although our story board was relatively simple for the shots where we were filming the killer I did find it difficult to get the correct mix of different shots because I only had the knowledge of shots that we had learned in = class and had never experimented with different ones before as in the preliminary the shots were not very varied and consisted of close ups, medium close up and wide shots for example the POV shot in the main task was new to me but I found that it worked very well.
For the preliminary task we told the story through the use of dialogue this was very basic and common so we wanted to do something different in our main task. This is where I was introduced to after effects. After effects would help us to tell and visually communicate a story to our audience. We needed this because the majority of the dialogue was irrelevant to the story, for example; the audience do not need to know what Angel3323 did last summer but they need to know that she is blogging and that someone is watching and stalking her and we did this buy showing her webpage with her video blog and tracking out onto the green matrix which was supposed to represent the virtual world and the way it links to another computer. The after effects were also used to use to show text being typed on the computer and when the audience read the text and picks up on the fact that it is being typed by the characters being shown they will know the killers intentions.
I also learnt about lighting and how important this was to create the effect we want. In the preliminary task we did not change the lighting and just used the light that happened to be in the room at the time but in the main task we spent a lot of time thinking about the light. We had to improvise methods of getting the lighting effect we desired with the blogging shots of Angell3323 we used some blue florescent strip lighting to give the effect that she was being lit up by the light of her computer screen and with lester727 we used clear colored plastic sheets and put them over a single bulb which we positioned in a certain place in the room to give a shadowy effect over the objects in the room and on his face.
The sound aspect of the main task was very different to the preliminary task we used Foley work for the typing sound and we used sound effects for when we reduce the sound from the video blog and introduce an electronic sound. This was not necessary in the preliminary task we did not need to add any sound and only used sound recorded on the set.
28 Mar 2010
Task 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
This is an annotated version of the main Task
Task 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
Adressing the audience was a very importat factor in Angeldust. This is because the story is made to be very relevent to todays life in a way of adressing and to scare the audience even more as it is a story about someone who is a bit like them and does the same things which is justn using social networking websites. but who is watching them on the internet. below is a powerpoint presentation on this
This is a video report in the news that was released after we had the idea of a story about social networking websites. this video helps highlight the dangers of the internet and also shows us just how relevent this topic is right now and the more relevent the story is to the audience tthe better.
This is a video report in the news that was released after we had the idea of a story about social networking websites. this video helps highlight the dangers of the internet and also shows us just how relevent this topic is right now and the more relevent the story is to the audience tthe better.
Task 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
This is an image of the cast from the popular TV series skins, I have chosen this picture because I think that is depicts the target audience for my film very well. I think that this target audience will make this particular film a great success due to the link between cinema, facebook and age this is because Young people aged 15 to 24 are the most likely age group to go to the cinema. In 2002, 50 per cent of this age group reported that they went to the cinema once a month or more in Great Britain, compared with 17 per cent of those aged 35 and over. When you consider those statistics and the fact that the age range that uses facebook this most is 18 – 25 which is very similar to the largest group of cinema customers at the age of 15-24 and the age group that visits the cinema the second most is also the age group that uses facebook the second most, you can begin to see why I believe that this film can be very profitable.
I think people who use facebook would be more likely to come and see this film then people who don’t this is because although our film is not entirely about social networking it does centralise its plot over them and as social networking sites are very popular there is an element of “angel dust” being a pre-sold film, but in this modern generation we live in the film is not pre- sold in the form of a book or a comic or a theatre production but instead a massively popular website this makes our film very unique and i think that as technowlogy and the world wide web advances and become more popular we will begin to see many other films with that same element of the main concept being pre-sold. I think that the audience will be primarily men because generally genre horror is more popular amongst men than women.
I think people who use facebook would be more likely to come and see this film then people who don’t this is because although our film is not entirely about social networking it does centralise its plot over them and as social networking sites are very popular there is an element of “angel dust” being a pre-sold film, but in this modern generation we live in the film is not pre- sold in the form of a book or a comic or a theatre production but instead a massively popular website this makes our film very unique and i think that as technowlogy and the world wide web advances and become more popular we will begin to see many other films with that same element of the main concept being pre-sold. I think that the audience will be primarily men because generally genre horror is more popular amongst men than women.
this graph shows the ages of people who visit the cinema it can be usefull for helping us to predict how much money angeldust will make and help the film make more money by making the target more suitable and aiming the film at the largest market acording to
the graph wich is 15-24.
this pie chart shows us the age of facebook users, as we can see the largest age for them is 18- 25 so it makes perfect sense to make a film centralised on the idea of facebook as it will atract the 18-25 year olds and seeing as that group is the age where people go to the cinema the most the film has the potentiol for sucess.
Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After researching horror film production companies the biggest ones that were specific to the horror genre that I could find was braindamage films having produced titles such as Death Factory, Slaughtered, The Forever Dead and Silent Bloodnight, brain damage films has made a name for itself in the horror genre but after then researching the films listed on the branidamage website i found that nearly all of their films are low budget and with poor acting, reviews of the films were nearly all negative and they all seemed to revolve around two main things sex and gore and I did not want my film to revolve around only two things like that instead I wanted to the film to have more substance and a deeper plot I think that this can be far easier to mass market a film with a more intelligent story and less pointless gore and sex because often this content can be frowned upon . so I had to consider another production company because going down the path of Braindamage productions might mean my film does not turn out how I want it to firstly because if I was seen to be connected with a production company like theirs it may damage the image of my film prior to the films release and secondly because the production company might get involved in the film and change it from what I wanted it to.
I next looked at the production company Lionsgate. Lionsgate is the primary next generation studio with a key presence in the production and distribution of films and television programs. With films like their largest ever opening weekend grossing film “tyler perrys madea goes to jail” (which made $41 million in the opening), Forbidden Kingdom, Rambo, and the Bank Job these are all respected films that have grossed well, with more to them then only sex and gore, the acting is good compared to films by Braindamage productions but the films are still mass-market so they are not centralized around character and story. This is the sort of category I want my film to meet so I continued to do more research into Lionsgate and I tried to find any horror films that they had made eventually I came across horror films made by Lionsgate such as: My Bloody valentine 3D, and the very successful Saw franchise this was very encouraging so I decided to research more specific aspects of Lionsgate I wanted to know things about their market share, their influence in the horror industry and any sister companys to Lionsgate that could invest in my film.
I discovered that Lionsgate entertainment sister company was 20th Television who owns a huge number of American channels including FX which is a channel for male audience and often shows horror so a lot of the viewers would be interested in a film like Angeldust. 20th television owning channel FX means advertising costs can be reduced if we use Lionsgate to produce as Lionsgates sister company is 20th Television. I also discovered that Lionsgate Entertainment has recently acquired TV Guide Network which one of the 25 most widely distributed cable networks this will also probable reduce our advertising costs and it also means that the film once it has shown at the cinema and reduced on DVD can begin showing on TV guide Network. Lionsgate is also a partnership in FEARnet, FEARnet is a website for reviewing and showing movies and even better it specialises in horror movies! This resourse means that we can probably receive higher reviews through the website and we can also advertise Angeldust on FEARnet this will be very cost effective advertising because all people who are using the website will be interested in horror films
I next looked at the production company Lionsgate. Lionsgate is the primary next generation studio with a key presence in the production and distribution of films and television programs. With films like their largest ever opening weekend grossing film “tyler perrys madea goes to jail” (which made $41 million in the opening), Forbidden Kingdom, Rambo, and the Bank Job these are all respected films that have grossed well, with more to them then only sex and gore, the acting is good compared to films by Braindamage productions but the films are still mass-market so they are not centralized around character and story. This is the sort of category I want my film to meet so I continued to do more research into Lionsgate and I tried to find any horror films that they had made eventually I came across horror films made by Lionsgate such as: My Bloody valentine 3D, and the very successful Saw franchise this was very encouraging so I decided to research more specific aspects of Lionsgate I wanted to know things about their market share, their influence in the horror industry and any sister companys to Lionsgate that could invest in my film.
I discovered that Lionsgate entertainment sister company was 20th Television who owns a huge number of American channels including FX which is a channel for male audience and often shows horror so a lot of the viewers would be interested in a film like Angeldust. 20th television owning channel FX means advertising costs can be reduced if we use Lionsgate to produce as Lionsgates sister company is 20th Television. I also discovered that Lionsgate Entertainment has recently acquired TV Guide Network which one of the 25 most widely distributed cable networks this will also probable reduce our advertising costs and it also means that the film once it has shown at the cinema and reduced on DVD can begin showing on TV guide Network. Lionsgate is also a partnership in FEARnet, FEARnet is a website for reviewing and showing movies and even better it specialises in horror movies! This resourse means that we can probably receive higher reviews through the website and we can also advertise Angeldust on FEARnet this will be very cost effective advertising because all people who are using the website will be interested in horror films
Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?
Angel dust represents the young adults of today particularly the social networking websites and many teenagers who all use social networking . A horror film which uses facebook to draw and find victims for a murder is very relevant and current today when young people are often in the newspaper, having been killed after being groomed or lured to meet strangers on the internet. We are all unaware at who is watching or looking at our at our blog and Internet pages so we can feel like is a very venerable place to be and this fear is a very new one particularly to the users of the Internet who are the majority and can come from all social background as the Internet is so widely available these days, and can also come from all age ranges though the younger the more vulnerable usually as these people are the most naive to the dangers of the world wide web. This young adult age range is what my film trys to convey as being at risk and that it is not really to do with race, social standing or location but the naivety of these young people. The victim (angel323) is the epitome of the factors that make some one more vulnerable on the Internet she was attractive on purpose (not only was this to attract the male audience but also to show just how exposed she really is). She is young and broadcasts information that anyone can read or watch and then is willing to meet up with people that she has never meet before and only knows by their screen name on the Internet (Lester727). This vulnerability factor in attractive young girls can be compared to many other horror films is a common feature in a huge percentage of them as shown below.
Task 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
With Angeldust we wanted the audience to be intrigued by the way we were changing some conventions of our film whilest keeping others in place. there are many examples of conventions that we changed and where we used the conventions of most horror films as they are. A example of this is the placing of the production company, we conventionaly put this first before any film it is very irregular to show to production company after the opening credits.
Our title of our film is very unintresting and this breaks the trend of using intresting text for the title and relating the text to the film in some way for example having a blood title in a horror movie. but ours was just plain text, this is intresting to the audience because nothing is given away about the film and they may want to find out more. Although our title may seem to not relate to our film in anyway to someone who is watching the film for the first time it actualy does relate because the text is very standard computer text and also a bit like the facespace title so it does actualy link to the film although this may not be obvious to some people.
We used the gursian blur to blur of Angel3323 when we were introducing a credit. This was to force the audience to concertrate on the credit, we pull in and out a few times to vary where to audince should focus. The animated text is typed across the screen to look as if a character is typing it this is effective and is new to film conventions i think it helps the credits flow much better as they seem to be more then irelevent to the audience as they are on the computer in the story.
One of these photos shows as we pull out of chloe and blur her to show the text being typed across the screen it is very effective and although i have seen blurs in films during credits to draw attention to the credits i have never seen blurs to draw atention to a text that is actualy present and part of the film like a diagetic text whereas credits would be non-diagetic. The other shows as we blur the text and chloe so we can bring a credit and the audience can focus on the credit so we are using blur on diffrent objects to get the audience to focus on diffrent aspects and break down what is on screen.
The green was supposed to be a matrics and show the communication beetween the information she is sharing we tracked back into this and the sound fades as if she is shareing her information with a huge connection of people. then we come out of it on to artbox as if the information is being shared onto that website. We did this to draw attention to the world inside the internet and show how thier was a hige network this is completly against horror film conventions. below i will show an example of the order tracking out at all times from the facespace page through the matrics onto the art box page.
Angeldust goes against the convention of horror films by having the female Actress (Angel3323) look directly into the camera the entire time. films will usually not do this because it ruins the illusion that the film and actors are real and separated from the audience but we intentionally did this in Angeldust because we wanted to create the sense that Angel3323 was talking to the camera because she was supposed to be blogging about herself and this was supposed to be footage from her blog and we thought that her staring into the camera would create a connection between her and the audience so her death would have more of an impact on the audience. Shots of the killer (lester727) folowed the convention of horror though as often in horror films the killer will have some of his shots done as a pov as this can create more tension. We did point of view shot from lester727 as he typed.
I also recognized a large convention in horror films was the characters image depending on their role. In most horror films the female victim will be a very attractive and innocent girl this is to make the audience feel closer to her and feel more impacted by her death. we followed this convention in Angeldust as we wanted the impact of Angel3323 to impact the audience as much as possible. Although we did break convention with lester727 (the killer) as it is a TV form to have all child molesters portrayed as beardy wierdy older men this is so the audience feels less remorse for that character. In our film we used a young man to play the killer this is because we wanted to challenge the convention and also because we were dealing with technology being used to stalk the victims so we thought it would be appropriate to use a younger man as they are the biggest users of these websites. Finaly we followed TV convention by using an enigma code this is having a mystery to the story and nto giving evreything away to the audience. In Angeldust we film the killer in a drak room where you cannot make out the full face of the killer also we did not show any motives for the killers actions, this way we would keep the audience intruiged, stop them losing intrest and encorage them to continue watching.
Our title of our film is very unintresting and this breaks the trend of using intresting text for the title and relating the text to the film in some way for example having a blood title in a horror movie. but ours was just plain text, this is intresting to the audience because nothing is given away about the film and they may want to find out more. Although our title may seem to not relate to our film in anyway to someone who is watching the film for the first time it actualy does relate because the text is very standard computer text and also a bit like the facespace title so it does actualy link to the film although this may not be obvious to some people.
We used the gursian blur to blur of Angel3323 when we were introducing a credit. This was to force the audience to concertrate on the credit, we pull in and out a few times to vary where to audince should focus. The animated text is typed across the screen to look as if a character is typing it this is effective and is new to film conventions i think it helps the credits flow much better as they seem to be more then irelevent to the audience as they are on the computer in the story.
One of these photos shows as we pull out of chloe and blur her to show the text being typed across the screen it is very effective and although i have seen blurs in films during credits to draw attention to the credits i have never seen blurs to draw atention to a text that is actualy present and part of the film like a diagetic text whereas credits would be non-diagetic. The other shows as we blur the text and chloe so we can bring a credit and the audience can focus on the credit so we are using blur on diffrent objects to get the audience to focus on diffrent aspects and break down what is on screen.
The green was supposed to be a matrics and show the communication beetween the information she is sharing we tracked back into this and the sound fades as if she is shareing her information with a huge connection of people. then we come out of it on to artbox as if the information is being shared onto that website. We did this to draw attention to the world inside the internet and show how thier was a hige network this is completly against horror film conventions. below i will show an example of the order tracking out at all times from the facespace page through the matrics onto the art box page.
Angeldust goes against the convention of horror films by having the female Actress (Angel3323) look directly into the camera the entire time. films will usually not do this because it ruins the illusion that the film and actors are real and separated from the audience but we intentionally did this in Angeldust because we wanted to create the sense that Angel3323 was talking to the camera because she was supposed to be blogging about herself and this was supposed to be footage from her blog and we thought that her staring into the camera would create a connection between her and the audience so her death would have more of an impact on the audience. Shots of the killer (lester727) folowed the convention of horror though as often in horror films the killer will have some of his shots done as a pov as this can create more tension. We did point of view shot from lester727 as he typed.
I also recognized a large convention in horror films was the characters image depending on their role. In most horror films the female victim will be a very attractive and innocent girl this is to make the audience feel closer to her and feel more impacted by her death. we followed this convention in Angeldust as we wanted the impact of Angel3323 to impact the audience as much as possible. Although we did break convention with lester727 (the killer) as it is a TV form to have all child molesters portrayed as beardy wierdy older men this is so the audience feels less remorse for that character. In our film we used a young man to play the killer this is because we wanted to challenge the convention and also because we were dealing with technology being used to stalk the victims so we thought it would be appropriate to use a younger man as they are the biggest users of these websites. Finaly we followed TV convention by using an enigma code this is having a mystery to the story and nto giving evreything away to the audience. In Angeldust we film the killer in a drak room where you cannot make out the full face of the killer also we did not show any motives for the killers actions, this way we would keep the audience intruiged, stop them losing intrest and encorage them to continue watching.
Analysis
1)in our preliminary task we learnt the basic skills of post production this helped us when it came to the editing process of our main task in our preliminary task we were told how to edit thing together to make it into a coherent whole piece and we were shown the basics of aftereffects and the narrative to have meaning however in the main task we had to learn for ourselves how to edit to make our narrative cohesive and how to use after effects more extensively.
2) Our product centralizes on editing and after effects so they played a big part in creating the final piece, using the program final cut pro which I had established some experience with in the preliminary task but I had not yet mastered. Our plan was to cut quickly and switch between the video blogging and the close ups and POV of the killer because we wanted to show the virtual communication from person to person and make it clear to our audience that that was what was happening. We set up a new camera layer witch meant we could move freely around the image and then We cut up the 2d image into layers and positioned them at different distances from the camera witch meant when we moved the camera around we could create a 3d effect. Using the mask tool on AFX to cut out parts of the page and make 3D proved to be very effective in the final product. Identifying lester727 as a killer would prove difficult as there was a lack of verbal communication in our footage (this was of course intentional). We thought that it break convention to do an introduction to a horror film in this manner as I have never seen in done before usually the basic story line in established entirely verbally in a horror, but I have seen similar visual communication in more intelligent films my favorite example of this a scene in fight club the video is attempting to visually communicate the how soulless, heartless and empty his life is because everything comes from ikea and he lives a tasteless Ikea life style.
The simpler part of the editing was done on photoshop we designed our web pages for “art box” and “facespace” and the awkward turtle production company logo (shown at the start) I had already had practice with photo shop so this was quite simple but we needed to design them to look like their counterpart websites the font was done in facebooks image and the colors were carefully chosen. We took photos from the internet for both websites using dark and sinister photos for “art box” I think that the photo shopped pages worked very well in the final product and the color schemes were effective.
3) The sound played a big part in Angeldust, we wanted to have mostly non-diagetic sound and the only diagetic sound would be “angel3323” ubt we wanted to shape the non-giagetic sound aroung her talking and editing her voice for example when we pull out of the face space page and using AFX go through the green matrix we distort her voice then fade it out and using soundtrack pro we introduced an electronic sound to this was trying to show the
2) Our product centralizes on editing and after effects so they played a big part in creating the final piece, using the program final cut pro which I had established some experience with in the preliminary task but I had not yet mastered. Our plan was to cut quickly and switch between the video blogging and the close ups and POV of the killer because we wanted to show the virtual communication from person to person and make it clear to our audience that that was what was happening. We set up a new camera layer witch meant we could move freely around the image and then We cut up the 2d image into layers and positioned them at different distances from the camera witch meant when we moved the camera around we could create a 3d effect. Using the mask tool on AFX to cut out parts of the page and make 3D proved to be very effective in the final product. Identifying lester727 as a killer would prove difficult as there was a lack of verbal communication in our footage (this was of course intentional). We thought that it break convention to do an introduction to a horror film in this manner as I have never seen in done before usually the basic story line in established entirely verbally in a horror, but I have seen similar visual communication in more intelligent films my favorite example of this a scene in fight club the video is attempting to visually communicate the how soulless, heartless and empty his life is because everything comes from ikea and he lives a tasteless Ikea life style.
The simpler part of the editing was done on photoshop we designed our web pages for “art box” and “facespace” and the awkward turtle production company logo (shown at the start) I had already had practice with photo shop so this was quite simple but we needed to design them to look like their counterpart websites the font was done in facebooks image and the colors were carefully chosen. We took photos from the internet for both websites using dark and sinister photos for “art box” I think that the photo shopped pages worked very well in the final product and the color schemes were effective.
3) The sound played a big part in Angeldust, we wanted to have mostly non-diagetic sound and the only diagetic sound would be “angel3323” ubt we wanted to shape the non-giagetic sound aroung her talking and editing her voice for example when we pull out of the face space page and using AFX go through the green matrix we distort her voice then fade it out and using soundtrack pro we introduced an electronic sound to this was trying to show the
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