Evaluation Meggie Watkins 12SK

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product, we have decided that the target
audience will be teenagers from the age of 12+. This is because
teenagers are most likely to be interested in the genre of horror and
therefore we decided to target them. This is because films such as The
Woman in Black and Insidious were very popular with this age group and
so we thought this age rating would be appropriate.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We addressed our audience by thinking of a creative name that would tell
the audience that our film was about a haunting. Therefore we named our
media product The Lockwood Haunting so the audience are fully aware
that this is a horror film. This will hopefully therefore attract teenagers
who like this genre of film.
Another way in which we have been able to address the audience is by
using effective music creating suspense and tension. We have a piece of
music running throughout or opening which gets louder and quieter in
certain parts of the opening. Voices can also be heard especially when the
shots are being changed. The presence of tension is emphasized further at
the end of the opening as we have used the music of a childrens lullaby.
This is the only music featured in this part of our opening and therefore
the audience have to focus on the lyrics of the lullaby which are very
haunting, using this piece of music at the end of the opening means that
the words stick in the audiences minds after the opening has ended.
As well as this we have used jump cuts which also further helps to create
this atmosphere. We used jump cuts to flick between different parts of the
house, therefore setting the scene. Most of the shots we have used are in
very dark lighting, we did this because we thought this would help to
create the mood and atmosphere of the opening. A shot which we also
thought was quite effective was a shot of the window and the face in the
window, although the face is not immediately obvious if the audience pick
up on it could hopefully leave them feeling quite scared and curious. We
didnt want to make the shot of the face too obvious as we wanted to
leave some of this to the imagination. We also included a shot of the time
lapse of the house getting darker; showing the comfort of the everyday
sunlight is slowly disappearing and all that is now left is darkness.
We also shot some of the shots with a shaky effect, almost as if the person
holding the camera is scared by what they may find. We thought this

would be a good effect as it would make the opening seem more personal
to the audience as it is as if they themselves are behind the camera.
Another feature that we used in our horror opening was the use of slow
motion on some of our shots; this was effective for the use of creating
tension. The slow motion was particularly effective with the shot of
candles that we used near the end of our film opening as you are then
able to see the candles being blown out and the smoke going across the
screen. This was also effective as when this clip ended, the music then
faded out at the same time the candles were being blown out.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
One of the main things we learnt about technology when creating our
product was how to effectively use iMovie. Some of the things that we
learnt for example were adjusting the brightness and contrast of our
shots, to make sure that the colours stood out and as we filmed most of
our clips in the dark, we had to make sure that the shots were bright
enough for the audience to fully see what was going on. As well as this
we also used slow motion and fast forward to create a more eerie effect.
This was most effectively used when we had taken a time lapse of the
house when it was getting darker , after we had the time lapse we then
decided we wanted to speed it up a bit more and so therefore we used
this tool. We also used slow motion and the particular shot where this
worked well in was the shot with the candles being blown out.
We also used a feature that enabled us to stabilize our shots; this was
effect as though however we did want some of our shots to have a shaky
effect, we also wanted other shots to not have this effect as we wanted a
contrast between stabilized panning shots and shaky effect shots. Music
also played an important part to our final product, and so the way we
were able to add in music to our opening was to import the music that we
wanted from the internet. We were able to find royalty free websites from
the internet and then download the MP3 files onto iTunes; from here we
were then able to add the music from iTunes into iMovie. As our music was
going over the top of our clips, we therefore didnt want any background
noise interfering with the music and so we then changed the audio of our
clips to mute so the noise was taken away completely, only leaving the
music we had imported.
A tool that we used the most was the cropping tool to crop most of our
clips as the majority of our clips were very long and so we therefore had to
cut the clips to get the bits that most important bits that we needed. As
well as cropping, we also used a tool which enabled us to split the clips.

This was particularly effective as we used this to create an effect that

looked as if the shot was jumping between certain parts of the shot which
further helped to create a greater mood and atmosphere of our opening.
4urthermore, another important tool that we used was the tool that
enabled us to add in text, this was very important as we needed to add
text to ensure we mentioned the producers name, directors name etc.
This tool was also useful for changing the font of the text; it enabled us to
add a spooky effect font, which fitted in with the theme of our opening.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?
Firstly our horror sub-genre is a supernatural horror; this is because the
plot is based around the presence of a ghost who inhabits the house in
which our film is set in and the types of things and dangers the characters
experience in that house.
Our horror opening was mainly about setting the scene and creating an
appropriate atmosphere for our audience. We gradually showed various
parts of the house, leaving the audience aware something may be living
within the house. We were able to create this impression by using different
types of sound and quick sharp shots, to make the audience curious
however at the same time not giving anything away. As well as this we
also filmed a lot of our shots by holding the camera in our hands, thus
creating a shaky effect adding to the atmosphere and mystery. When
looking at the conventions of a film opening, we can see that our product
follows these common conventions as it includes certain things such as
titling amongst our shots which is essential when looking at any film
opening. To help support the theme of our product, we made sure that our
titles were written with a spooky effect added to them to indicate the
genre, as well as this we used different editing techniques such as reverse
shot at the end to create suspense, as well as slow motion and various
jump cuts to further emphasize this.
Many film openings often raise questions and curiosity, a particular shot
where we were able to create this was the shot where there was a face
appearing in the window, the face is not at first obvious and is not clear
exactly if it is a face or not, this is effective as the audience are not fully
aware what it may be and therefore this raises many enigmas. The sound
is also particularly effective. As with many film opening especially horror

openings there is almost always a piece of eerie music to accompany the

shots, therefore we decided that is was essential to incorporate this into
our product.
Mise-en scene is also one of the most crucial factors in many horror
openings as it helps to set the scene for the rest of the movie. We decided
that the mise-en scene for our film was going to be a haunted house; this
was particularly essential for our product as we mainly focused on
introducing this setting throughout the entire opening. We focused on
different parts of the house, such as the door, smashed windows, etc. We
also used props to help set the scene and atmosphere. For this we used a
set of candles placed onto a windowsill, these candles were then blown
out in series in slow motion, which created a sinister effect.

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have
learnt in progression from it to the full product?
From looking at the preliminary task, we can see that a lot more planning
in depth was put into our final product as opposed to this first task. When
planning our final product, some of the most essential things which we
considered were the location (mise-en scene) as this was crucial to the
making of our final product however when we were directing our
preliminary task we were very limited as to where we could film and
therefore did not have the freedom which we had with our final product
and so we did not really consider the location as our main priority.
One of the most significant aspects when planning our preliminary task
was the discussion of our characters. This was essential for this particular
task as we were given a specific brief which therefore included characters
and so this was therefore a necessity. However when we were planning
our final product we discussed characters and from the start wanted to
ensure that we included these characters, however as we begun to think
of what we were filming more and as we started filming, we decided that
it would be best to not include characters. We came to this decision
because we felt that it would benefit our piece more as we felt by not
having characters it would help to set the create atmosphere more
efficiently.

In the first stages of planning our final product, we drafted the shots we
were going to use in the form of a storyboard. However as we made a last
minute decision to change and discard the characters within our product,
we then had to think about different shots to use that did not include or
focus on characters. Therefore we looked at shots that would enable us to
help create the mood and atmosphere. The final shots we used were shot
such as panning shots, close ups, high angle shots, long shots and midshots. As well as a time-lapse. Shots that were particularly effective for
our product were the close up shots of the house and the time-lapse, this
was because the time-lapse represented night fall approaching which then
added to the mystery and eerie feel of the piece. Close ups were also very
effective, especially when looking at the smashed window, therefore the
audience were clearly able to see that something had been in the house
and something had happened as it had been left in such a poor state.
We also looked more at the presence of sound, we learnt from our
preliminary task that sound was very effective in creating tension and
therefore we knew that this would be a key feature in our film opening. In
our preliminary task we mainly used sound effects, however in our film
opening; we combined the use of sound effects and music which was
particularly effective. We decided that our opening looked more effective
with the presence of music and therefore we decided that we wanted the
music to run through the whole of our film opening through to the end.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our media product is solely based around creating atmosphere and
setting, for this question I am going to focus on the plot and our film
synopsis. One of the first major ways in which our plot helps to represent
particular social groups is that the characters that will be featured in our
film are teenagers; these characters are therefore relatable to the
audience as our target audience is people of this age group.
We have also portrayed teenagers as being very reckless; this is because
in our plot they have broken into the house. As well as this I have also
represented class through my protagonist as she can be seen throughout
the film as being middle class, this is represented through the way she is
dressed, speaks, the narrative and so on.
My film opening also supports the idea that younger children are stronger
and more headstrong than older people as the teenagers and the
protagonist are strong enough to withstand some of the things happening
in the house. This film opening also challenges the stereotype that men

are stronger than women as the main protagonist within our film opening
is women. Her character within the film is very strong-willed and
determined eliminating the idea that women are weaker.
As we have conformed to this social group, we used elements of mise en
scene such as we chose their costumes based on what teenagers usually
wear such as jeans, t-shirts, jackets etc, portraying them as being relaxed
and unswayed by what may be going and what may be about to happen
which could therefore appeal to our target audience who are of a similar
age.
What kind of media institution/s would distribute your product
and why?
An institution is a company that disperses a media product for audience
consumption. I have decided that I want to have a big media
conglomerate to distribute my film such as Warner Brothers which is an
American producer of film, television and music entertainment. This is
because they have been very successful at producing and distributing
films such as Inception and The Dark Knight which topped the box
office. I feel that the benefits of choosing a large media conglomerate
would be that there is a much larger audience and therefore my film will
get a lot more recognition.
I feel that by choosing this media conglomerate my film will be marketed
successfully. I feel this way because Warner Bros have a very large
marketing department as well as subsidiary companies which would work
together to provide synergy and therefore this will create a much more
successful outcome.
As well as this, previous marketing campaigns that Warner Bros are
responsible for lead me to believe that my film will be successful. An
example of this is the campaign for the movie The Dark Knight. In order
to promote this film and create a buzz, Warner Bros created a viral
marketing campaign by setting up a fake newspaper named The Gotham
Times. This was an interactive document online; the fans were then able
to send emails that removed pixels which then eventually revealed the
official image of the joker. This therefore shows me that Warner Bros is
very successful when promoting and marketing their films therefore I feel
that my film would highly benefit from this and this would therefore
guarantee that my film gets the best possible promotion and marketing.
As well as this, if my media product was handed over to big media
conglomerates, it then has the opportunity to be distributed all around the
world which would therefore generate a significant profit and would reach

a mass target audience. They also use multiple marketing strategies such
as social media, YouTube trailers, etc. This therefore helps to generate an
audience of many different ages.