Evaluation Part Four (Post-Production)

Evaluation Part Four
Our film is conventional of horrors, and therefore we expect it to be popular with a mainstream audience. Although our films would essentially be categorized as a British Film, it follows many more conventions of those of an American one. British Horror Films are never as successful with audiences, and tend to exaggerate the British Culture within them. I have looked at two successful British Horror/Thriller Films: The Awakening and The Woman In Black. The Awakening is  2011 films, produced and distributed by BBC Films, Studio Canal UK  and Creative Scotland.With a budget of around £3 million and The Woman In Black was the more successful film, with a bigger budget of £15 million, distributed by Momentum Pictures. Both play on the stereotypical wealthy culture of Britain and that is why I do not think any of these distributors would be supportive of our film, neither suited.
 
It would be more suited if our film was distributed by a company such a Lionsgate, which has produced many major films such as A Cabin in The Woods, The Hunger Games and American Psycho.
We wanted our film to have a big cinematic release, as that appeals more to our mainstream audience. With a bigger budget we would be able to advertise the film more, making the audience more aware of it. Our target audience are a more passive audience, and therefore would potentially watch a lot of television already, and this is why we would advertise it on mainstream channels.

Overall I think it would be best suited for our distributors to be American, or Co with american production companies. This would really help to address our targeted audience, as we know they have successfully distributed our competitors. However, Momentum Pictures co distributed with the american company CBS films, which could have led to the $127,730,736 box office success of the film. Even though our film does not have much British Culture in it, a company such as Momnemtum Pictures could still be suited to out film. It has also distributed films such as Insidious Chapter 2 and Sinister which are both competiton to our film. The difference between these types of vompetition is the supernatural beings which they have in their films. This could mean our intended s=target audience are less interested because the 'killer' is a deluded human being, or it could possibly intrigue them more, as it makes it moire realistic and frightening.

Evaluation Part Three (Post-Production)

 Once we started editing we realised that we actually needed more shots than we had expected. Although we felt that we had done a lot of filming, and had plenty of footage, once we started trimming, matching on action and putting the shots together we realised that our title sequence was nowhere near as long as we had expected or planned. Throughout the construction of our media product we had to keep filming more and more footage and not one shot was completed in one go.
When using AVID to put and piece together our final product we had to figure out new things and try and find new tools to develop it. I have learnt a lot about the programme AVID and the different things it can do. Although we had lessons on the basics of it, we started exploring the programme and found different uses for ourselves. We filmed the shots of different days at different times therefore many of the shots were different lighting, to make it flow we needed to change all the tones to make them look as if they were all filmed on the same day at the same time. We managed to find a tool which adjusted them to be the same ourselves.

In our preliminary task we filmed a simple conversation between two people; the two different shots we used were over the shoulder and match on action. The final product we made (the title sequence- Horreum) was a massive progression from the preliminary task as we had to do a lot more editing and try and use different camera angles and shots. I have learnt many things in this process as I got to do a lot of filming as well as editing. Some of the shots I found more difficult to do than others as we decided to do many shots handheld as we wanted to make it through the killers eyes and similar to that of a homemade film. I found panning shots quite difficult although we tried to include quite a few because when someone looks around an area it is similar to that of a panning shot. We used a wide pan shot of our victim, which was tricky to get the right speed as it wouldn’t be too slow because it wouldn’t be realistic through the killers perspective, however not to fast because the shot would become blurry. Many of the situations we overcame were trial and error as we had to try and figure out what was best for ourselves. I have learnt how to use AVID, although I am not fully confident with using it, I have a much greater understanding of it. Also in comparison to our preliminary production we used many different tools on the editing programme. Within the preliminary task we didn’t have to consider lighting as we were in a well lit room. When we started filming, as it was in autumn, we didn’t have much time during the day where the lighting was just how we wanted it. It couldn’t be too light as we wanted to create an eerie, creepy atmosphere, nevertheless it couldn’t be too dark otherwise the camera wouldn’t pick anything up and the audience wouldn’t be able to see what would be happening. On AVID however, we managed to find tools to change the lighting of a shot and make it darker or lighter to make all the shots match.
Another factor that had to have a lot of thought put into it was the setting. In our preliminary production we didn’t have to do any recking or find a set location as we just did it within the college, but when we were filming our final production this is something we had to carefully consider. We filmed in three separate locations, a house, a barn and the woods/park. The woods especially have a horror conventional feel about it and it instantly connected with the horror genre.
Another factor to consider is the title. We put a lot of thinking into our title and eventually decided upon ‘Horreum’ as we originally wanted to film the whole title sequence within the barn and ‘Horreum’ is ‘barn’ in Latin.
Overall the process has been successful and I am pleased with our final media product, I have learnt many things thought out the process and have developed different skills since filming and creating our preliminary product.

Evaluation Part Two - (Post-Production)

Our target audience is 15-30 year olds. We aim to have our certificate as a 15, similar to many other horrors. Paranormal activity is a horror/thriller which is a certificated 15 film; it is based on true events and situated in a house which makes the audience feel vulnerable as they think it could happen to them as the characters are nothing but ordinary. We tried to make our film have a similar feel as then the audience are affected more by what’s happening, and that’s why are audience are possibly younger than some horrors which are an 18 such as ‘saw’.

 We used young and ideally the same age characters as our target audience to attract them. This attracts them as they believe that it could happen to them and also they are able to relate better. We followed the codes and conventions of horror as the young female victim/ heroine and the male murderer/villain. We know audiences enjoy watching these conventions as horror films are still extremely popular among audiences and the uses and gratification theory suggests that audiences are only gratified when their expectations are met but also exceeded. Also we aim that our main male character appeals to the female audience by his appearance.                                                                                                      

We aim to have our media product produced in the cinema for audiences across the UK to watch. Cinema is aimed at all ages; however the youthful generation have more free leisure time so appear to be able to go there more frequently than adults. Therefore we will be showing and presenting it directly to our target audience. After Horror films have been released for a few months, popular Television channels have showings of them. Sky is a media institution which might distribute our media product on channels such as ‘channel four’ and ‘E4’ as we know our target audience watch shows on these channels. It would have to be broadcasted after 9pm as that’s when other shows that are addressed to our target audience are shown, also because it is a certificated 15.

Audience Review

This questionaire was given out to eleven people who watched out horror trailer. I have counted all the feedback and calculated the percentages of answers. 

We got really good feedback, but can also use this to see where other people think we need areas of improvement. 

Only 27% percent thought that we fully successfully followed the codes and conventions of our chosen genre or effectively challenge them, although we did get a high 45% of very well this could obviously be improved on. 

Question number 7 asks how effectively has diegetic and non-diegetic sound been used to create meaning, and 72% of our audience said very well, which shows we were successful in that area. 

Evaluation Part One (Post-Production)

Conventions:
Our title sequence doesn’t directly challenge the codes and conventions of horror, it  more complies with them. We wanted to stick to the traditional ideas of horror, as we now they are popular, especially with the younger audience.
We filmed most of the clips on two or three separate occasions, therefore some of the lighting in the clips is different. When on avid we found some tools which would allow us to change the effect on the clips to make them flow and transition better. We put the same effect over all the clips to make them the same tone. Having the setting as dark it makes it more eerie, scary and intrigues the audience. This is a subtle convention of horror, most opening sequences include it however when researching horrors myself I noticed that not all of them have it in the title sequence as they have the equilibrium in the beginning.
In almost any conventional horror film, where the murderer is a human, they will be male. The females are seen as the victims, more vulnerable, and this appears to be an extremely common but popular convention of horror.         
Breaking Christian Moral boundaries is included in our title sequence because again it is popular with our audience. Our main character Ainsley Moore has been brought up by a Christian family, however he commits crimes which are not accepted by the bible and are seen as unforgivable by God. Although Ainsley’s intentions are supposed to be good, he is troubled and confused as to what sins are and what aren’t.
Even though our film fits in with several conventions, it has a human serial killer, which is a slightly unpopular horror genre. Recently physiological horrors have been well-liked, or satanic stories with supernatural beings. This is one recent convention which our horror doesn’t follow along side with. Having a human and to the other people in the film appearing normal makes it more realistic to the audience watching as they could also be surrounded with people like the main character Ainsley, whereas supernatural beings are seen to be non-existent in many peoples eyes. 

Representation of social groups:
Our Horror is based around teenagers to young adults. We haven’t presented them as rebellious or people who constantly drink and are careless which many horrors do, as we have gone for a different approach. Our serial killer is mentally ill due to his horrific childhood: Ainsley witnessed his father murdering innocent young girls on their family farm, and therefore once his father dies he believes that he has to do the same.  Our title shows very little about the characters but instantly the audience know that the girl is in danger and is venerable.  We did discuss the whole story-line, and what we had planned what that one of his next victims has a chance of surviving because Ainsley develops a liking towards her, which is a representation of young people as being sexual. 

Our Final Production - Horreum, Title Sequence

Here is a link to our final production which we have worked on for several weeks. It took lots of planning, paperwork, editing and effort, so we are all pleased with the end result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZo-rSJfxR0

Title - HORREUM

We thought a lot about what to call out film, we needed and wanted  name which would instantly make the audience know what genre it was. Eventually we decided to call it 'Horreum' which is Latin for barn, as originally we were going to film the killer Ainsley, taking the victims back to an old isolated barn. The Barn was part of the farm in which Ainsley grew up on with his family, and where in fact his own father killed young girls too. Ironically and conveniently Horreum sounds like horror, so it makes it easier for audiences to establish that it is horror.

Other Horror's have symbolic title appearances. The Ring has childlike writing because the film is a physiological film with a child killer, the writing is also surrounded by a ring, similar to a moon.

 

Our Title is shown written in newspaper cuttings, which implies a mystery about the film, as the idea of a letter written from newspaper letters cut outs is recognized as hidden identity, threats and the unknown.