What distributor have we chosen?

The company I decided to chose was The independent film and TV company Warp Films based in Sheffield, United Kingdom and was established in 1999 by Rob Mitchell  and Steve Beckett and is the sister company to warp records which produces music in which was established in 1998. Warp films have produced a wide range of film and other media products and they tend to focus more on British problems and having niche and sometimes controversial story lines. So they tend to stay away from the typical mainstream narratives and genres.

They created films such as this is England which features a group of skinheads in the 90's and also produced films like submarine and Dead man's shoes.

This  would be good for us as our film features some controversial subjects and although it is horror features element that are not typically featured in horror films and our film is the sub genre of psychological horror so warp films audience would be suitable for our film as they are used to more controversial and nice story lines,

Evaluation Question-1

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

Narrative
The main narrative of our product is about a teenage girl (Lucy) who experiences voices and the struggles of a mental illness after being bullied to the point of killing 'an old school friend'. The plot is definitely one of a non-linear standard as we feature many flashbacks and flash forward emphasizing Lucy's mental state, with the flashbacks/forwards also recalling memory from each character throughout the film.
One example of this is that Lucy starts off on top of the roof of a building and is reminiscing on past events almost like her life is flashing before her, this then cuts to her walking to the bathrooms in where she sees a reflection which triggers her to remember past events, more specifically the event that started the problem.

Genre
The genre of our film is psychological horror which is a sub-genre of horror that relies on mental and emotional horror to unsettle the audience and make them think. This is seen in our film as our main character is being haunted by what sounds like whispers or someone who seems to be stalking her. But as the viewer we see this as she is going crazy.


camera, angle, shot movement and position
There are many types of shots in out film ranging from medium close ups to low level shots that help to create and set the situation and create an atmosphere that provides tense or the feeling of being followed. Many of the medium shots used were used to show the situation happening from a third person view showing the world around them and what is taking place almost assessing the what is occurring. There were also may instances of close ups that were used to convey emotional and facial expressions of our characters. This is also shown through our favored whip pan that imitates the movement of Lucy and hint that she feels that she is being followed.

continuity and editing
The editing in the film is probably one of its strong points. The films editing starts quite slow paced at first but as it gets toward the end it picks up pace to create a tense atmosphere especially when Lucy and Joe engage in knife combat, leading to the inevitable death of Joe. One important edit is the repetition of some dialogue from the perspective of a third person suggesting she is still being watched for her actions,
such as in The strangers, and the person that walks up to her in the beginning is thought to be the onlooking viewer creating the sense of stalking.Supporting the the psychological aspect of the genre.

Sound
Sound plays a key role in our film with the majority of scenes having eerie sounds which are the only things to give away that its a horror. It consists of a mixture of diegetic and non diegetic sounds that emphasise the story and how real it is meant to feel. Such as the diegetic dialogue and footsteps in man scenes. Where as non diegetic includes much of the soundtrack such as the building crescendo in the bathroom scene and the whispers that play a prominent part in our film. This is also used to support the fact that our film is a psychological horror as many of the sounds use infrared sounds to provoke a certain feeling in the viewer without them knowing.

Mise-en-scene
The locations we chose included a rooftop and bathroom these helped to set atmosphere and a sense of realism to the product. This also goes for the clothing of our characters as these were everyday outfits you may see teenagers wear which suggest they are regular normal people and anything can happen.This is contrasted to the use of bland clothing in horro films of either black, whites or greys. This is also shown as dark lighting is not used and suggests this is not eerie to begin with.

Typography
The few instances in which we use printed matter it is either in the title or as a name. The names are all in the same font 'Adobe Arabic' which is in a black colour hinting at its eerie intent. The other time text is used is in the logo for our group 'Limbo films' This is a white font contrasted on a black background with a unique logo on it. This as well as the film name is in a larger font size to allow them to stand out compared to the names later in the lip.

Iconography
The iconography used includes the use of the prop knife and fake blood to suggest that it is clearly a horror film. The elements that set this aside and emphasise its psychological nature include the use of music and the whispers that  create a unnerving atmosphere and mental unstableness to our main character

Evaluation question 5

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3 from JoeUsher123

The distributor We have chosen

For our film we have chosen to go with the independent distributor CreateSpace (An Amazon company) as they offer a more likely chance to accept our film than larger blockbuster conglomerates such as Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. They also allow for the digital distribution of films and offer the ability to provide online streaming platforms for out film to be viewed by more modern audiences who view media on newer platforms.
They allow a more accepted rate and allow us to have larger budgets than other companies through many ties with amazon and thus lead us into bigger things if we wish to progress.

The company are also experts in book publishing and offer the ability to publish our film as a book or convert it from book to film if we went down that route.
One major aspect that we like about the company is that they do provide collaborations with others in their community and and a wide support for DVD content such as full colour artwork and packaged in a professional Amaray case with wrap.

As said previously the strong point we liked about this company is that they have the ability to distribute our film online on Amazon.com and Amazon Instant video and even allow us to sell copies via an e-store. This proliferation of technologies will allow us to hit that target audience with younger audiences choosing to view the media through online streaming platforms.

Certification ratings

Film certifications from ThemSlater

Evaluation Question-7

Question 7 from ThemSlater

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1 from JoeUsher123

Evaluation Question-5

How did you attract your audience or address them?

I think we attracted our target audience via a unique story telling arch and no real certainty of 'plot armour ' by making the story seem unpredictable, I feel this was shown through the various types of shots and editing techniques we used which created this type of difference to our film. The shots also suggest the sense of unease and realism especially the acclaimed whip pan which was used for this purpose as the viewer would feel inclined to turn if they expected something to be behind them. this is also shown in the tension created in Lucy's character as she turned around to realise no one was behind her.

We received this feedback suggesting that there were different aspects that attracted the  target audience such as the multiple people suggesting that the range of shots were a key element and the progression of the story was critical to its 'build of suspense' and the use of 'two flashbacks in the same sequence' which suggest these played well to our story.

I also feel that the audience was addressed by creating Lucy's age to be that of around our target audience in the range of 16-18 to make the film seem more realistic toward our viewers.

Less successful elements were also given in feedback identifying key points to improve upon. The major aspects that our audience were begging for an improvement was that 'the acting seem put on' or 'acting looked stiff' suggesting this unfortunately dis-attracted our audience from the film. This suggested some significant improvements that we should reflect upon to create a successful product. Our audience told us that the acting would have also portrayed a more realistic atmosphere and make it seem more serious. It was also requested that if we could include more horror elements that would our genre more appealing and unfortunately reflects more of a thriller toward the end and not a horror as obviously as it could have.

Evaluation Question-4

The target audience for our film is a white teenage male as they were the most significant result in our questionnaire. The age range for these are around the 15-18 as this is the age for our certification. We believe that this is true as this is the typical type of age range many typical people watch the horror genre due to mild language and references to violence which would not appeal to younger audiences or may even be uninteresting toward older viewers especially 30+. We also believe that the target audiences age is around the same age as our min character Lucy in the age bracket of around 16-18.

The research we conducted was a survey we created using survey monkey, and online survey, which allowed us to ask questions about our film and the certification the respondants thought it would be. Other questions included asking what they thought about the plot and about themselves such as age and occupations. After 2 weeks the results were collected to produce many graphs that gave us an overall target audience that would be our main focus on promoting the film to. This defined the changes to the film we made and the choices of how the film was presented. The theme of the film was also suggested via the target audience as the majority chose the horror genre showing this has influenced our decisions from the start. This is also shown through our treatments and target audience posts that suggest that the teenage market between 15-18 is a significant and strong target range.

Evaluation Question-3

What kind of media institution might distribute your from ThemSlater

Evaluation Question-6

Evaluation Question-2

How does Your media product represent  particular social groups?

In our film, we have managed to portray the type of social group that references young females and how they are sometimes portrayed as weak and vulnerable to the attack of bullying and verbal abuse. We see this to conform to common ideologies of what younger females are seen as and this is supported by the common portrayal of women in psychological horrors.

In the film, we have very few characters with one main character being Lucy. Lucy is a young girl struggling with psychological issues and is represented as a mentally vulnerable and weak character. This weak and vulnerable is shown throughout our product such as the main bathroom scene in which we see her panic through her panic shown through a whip pan to convey her fear of panic and sense of someone stalking her. This conveys to the stereo types that Lucy is the damsel in distress. However, we see these stereotypes being subverted through the final scenes through her retaliation in the form of a murder urged by the voices in her head and the provoking of a violent grab.

In the final scene, we also see another character, Joe, who grabs Lucy in a violent manner after a the two have a dispute about previous occurring. Although this only happens toward the end of the product, we see that he conforms to a typical male stereotype as he is quite assertive and dominant of Lucy. This is shown through the dialogue ''I'm not the one who deserves to die you freak" this shows he is less empathetic toward Lucy and other people. As he grabs her we see that this is a violent motion and Joe is conforming to these stereotypes, however the retaliation through Lucy’s quick actions to stab him subvert all these views as Joe now becomes 'in distress'. This also contrasts the common tropes in which horror nfilms tend to depict females. This subversion of ideologies can also be predicted as later in the final scene Joe is shown to be level to Lucy showing her more empowering attributes compared to being shown in a high angle shot to make her seem powerless.

Evaluation question 7

Eval 7 from JoeUsher123

Evaluation - Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I think we did attract our target audience of 15 to 18 year olds. When planning our production we included a range of shots such as whip pans and low level shots to go with our genre of psychological horror. The whip pan was used to create a sense of tension as the main character Lucy could see someone stood behind her in the mirror but when she turned around (the whip pan was here) there was no-one there.

We received a range of different opinions on our film from our survey responding to our film. A number of people said that they enjoyed the range of shot types the most, specifically the whip pan. One person said that our media product 'builds up suspense' as well as saying they 'loved how there are two flashbacks in the sequence'.

However, the feedback we received also gave us some good pointers on what went wrong and also what we could have improved on. The two main things that our audience said they didn't enjoy about our film was that the 'acting looked too stiff' and also that there was 'not enough horror elements' to our film. 


The improvements we were advised to make reflected the feedback on what went wrong.People told us that we should make the acting much more realistic therefore if we re-filmed this again we would make the acting more serious. Also,we would add more horror elements to our media product as many people thought it didn't reflect our chosen genre as well as it could have.

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product conforms to the stereotypes that is represented with the particular social groups and is quite common in psychological horror as it makes the audience suspect that the characters are “normal” and helps to build the atmosphere and tension around those characters. However, the last scene of our film does not conform to these representations and so the characters subvert the stereotypes that are traditionally labelled onto them.

In our film the main protagonist is the character Lucy Smith and is a young girl that is struggling with mental health problems which represents her character as being weak and vulnerable however in the opening scene the audience do not find out that she has these mental health problems as we only hint at her having them. The way we represent her conforms to the stereotypes of females as they are often shown as being weak and inferior to males.  In the bathroom scene, many of the shots are from behind Lucy which implies that someone may be watching or stalking her and we used a whip pan to show her reaction to seeing something in the mirror and conveys her ill state of mind and thinking but also shows she is very on edge.  This supports the representation of women and younger characters as they are usually portrayed as being weak minded and being the damsel in distress, however in the last scene Lucy can be seen killing another character (Joe) as he bullied her over her mental illness. This subverts the representation of women as men are normally the ones seen doing violent acts in film.

Also in our film is the side character and antagonist Joe. He only appears in the final scene of the opening and he conforms to the stereotypes of males as he bullies Lucy in our narrative which typically is represented with young/teenage male characters which Joe is. He is also dominant and demeaning towards Lucy as he says, “I’m not the one who deserves to die you freak” which suggests that he is a cold and demeaning character. He also goes to grab Lucy which shows his aggressive nature and this in turn makes Lucy stab and kill him. This subverts the typical representation of males as he is being killed by a female character and he is represented as being weak and vulnerable. 

'Something in the Shadows' Finished Cut

1080p



1080p 60fps


4K

Evaluation - Question 7

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

The preliminary task was a task done to show if we could use and understand some of the basic rules of filming a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting in a chair opposite another character with whom they shall exchange a few lines of dialogue with. This task had to last up to a maximum of 1 minute. The preliminary task was hard to do at first due to having to get the editing correct so that the small clip runs smoothly as well as to abide by the continuity part of the task.

The main task was done to showcase our understanding of making a short film. Throughout this task we had to do many things to create our short film. For example, we made a script and shot-list so that we knew what we had to say and what type of shots to film when filming the main task.

During the preliminary task we learnt a lot of things that we could take on board and use in our main task, this included the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. We used these three things in our main task to ensure that continuity was not broken and the film did not look odd. We have got better at including many more shot types such as whip pans and low level shots, we decided to use these types of shots as they look more mysterious and build tension which is what our film is based on.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

The plot of our media product is around psychological tendencies of the main character, Lucy. Lucy is a teenager that is experiencing things ever since she killed one of her 'old school friends'.Our media product has a non-linear plot, this means the film is not in chronological order and if often used to recall a humans memory. The film starts where the main character Lucy is on the top of a building reflecting over previous events, it then cuts to Lucy walking to the bathroom and seeing someone in the mirror. Then a flashback occurs to the event that has been haunting Lucy.

The genre of our film is psychological horror. The definition of this genre is Psychological horror is a sub-genre of horror and psychological fiction, which relies on the mental, emotional and psychological status of characters to frighten or unsettle readers, viewers, or players.The film looks like our chosen genre as the main character Lucy is being haunted by someone. Lucy doesn’t understand why she is being haunted and who she is being haunted by.

In the film we use a range of different shot types such as medium and close up shots (the most common) as well as low level shots and a whip pan. The medium shots were used to assess the situation and close ups were used to show the facial expressions of the characters. Furthermore, the whip pan was used to imitate the movements of Lucy.

In our film we had two locations, one was a roof top and the other was a bathroom. The costumes were outfits that people would wear everyday as the characters are normal people. We used fake blood and a knife as the props for our film. These props were used in the last scene of the film when Lucy stabs Joe.

The editing in our film is quite slow paced but as the film gets towards the end the pace of the editing begins to increase and get faster as it is a very tense scene of Lucy and Joe arguing and eventually leads to the stabbing of Joe. This also helps to engage the audience as well as supporting the psychological horror aspects of our film. The sound used in the consists of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound mainly comes from Lucy as she talks to the person that is haunting her and the non-diegetic sound comes from the whispers. Non-diegetic music is also used to support the genre of our film, psychological horror.

The titles in our media product are placed throughout a range of shots in our film. Our logo for our film company is shown on a black background while the actual writing is in white, it fades out of one scene and into the logo so it is continuous. The film company logo and the name of the film are the larges to ensure they stand out whereas the name of the production company and the actors are in smaller black writing that appears on top of the scenes.

Evaluation - Question 6

Treatment #2: Opening Two minutes of the film

Treatment: 2

This treatment is used to depict many specifics of the opening sequence of our film. The duration of this will be around 2-2.30 minutes long. This will be referred to through filming to keep all information correct and limit any mistakes.

Title

Something In the Shadows

Film Length

The Film duration will be 2 minutes. This will be appropriate as the title sequence as it is only to interest the viewer and set the scene for an actual film. This would also include the title credits, actor’s names, and would provide enough time to allow for anything significant to take place that could set plot.

Audience

The target demographic will be 15+ years old for the main film, however the trailer could be suitable for 12+ audiences if there were only small areas of horror such as jump scares. This also means we are able to have our psychological themes that will still be able to be understood and still represent the film as a whole. The themes of the film can still be represented clearly whilst also adding an atmosphere of mystery to allow for the film to be able to progress. The target demographic is also toward females as the main character is a female, this also creates a more specific audience which allows for another level of relatability.

Certificate

We believe that the films certificate should be a 15 based upon the facts that it will include imitable actions and behaviour such as threatening behaviour, the actions will be almost realistic giving a portrayal to the actions that almost seems imitable. One key convention of a Cert. 15 film includes threats or horrors that a strong or focus on a sadistic threat. Due to the film being a psychological horror it will provide threats and horrors that could seem strong or intense or almost thriller like. Violence or stronger sadistic nature is less likely to be visible however this violence can include verbal in which the film may also be paired with language that is offensive or harmful. There will be visionaries of violence through blood each time something significant happens in the film. This evidence allows us to conclude that the film should belong to a certificate 15 level and be more appropriate for mature audiences. However due to the fine line between this and a Cert. 12 there could be leeway that could affect its certificate and maybe lower it however due to the target age range being 15-25 we can conclude that the Cert. 15 would be the most appropriate. We also believe that the films opening two minutes should be a 12A as its horror will be significantly reduced to what can be showed in a full film. This will also be suitable as a larger age range can then view and assess the horror/ plot of the story, if it is understandable to a 12 year old the plot should be fairly simple to follow and allow for and easier watch.

Distributors

Distributors are companies that will publish the film they seem suitable for commercial use. They are responsible for marketing the film and help provide a suitable response and audience to suit the film. They are normally third party to the production company and are an important piece for getting the film of the ground. For our film we have chosen to go with the independent distributor CreateSpace (An Amazon company) as they offer a more likely chance to accept our film than larger blockbuster conglomerates such as Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. They also allow for the digital distribution of films and offer the ability to provide online streaming platforms for out film to be viewed by more modern audiences who view media on newer platforms.

Synopsis

The opening sequence starts with Lucy our main character standing on top of a building looking of the edge. she is plagued by whispers that are telling her to jump, as she tries to ignore them, she notices an old friend. She is next seen in a public toilet and as she struggles to turn on the tap she is greeted by the sadistic whispers of her past mistakes. The flashback end as she is seen again back on the same building, her old friend accuses her of her mistakes and tries to urge her to jump. She is then the cause of another horrifying accident.

Suggested elements

The short ability of the clip has allowed for us to create tense moments and allows us to show some character development in a short amount of time but does not tell the audience too much of the plot and does not give away what is actually wrong with Lucy.

Evaluation question 6

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

In the pre-production of our film we used the website survey monkey to conduct research to find the target audience for our film so we could have an idea of what it was going to be like.  I think that using this website helped us to successfully find the audience in which we wanted to aim our film at but also made it easier for our audiences to answer the surveys we created as it was online so was easy to access. I also used YouTube to watch clips on films like our genre and make research on the codes and conventions of them so we could utilise them in our film. I think that the use of YouTube was successful as it gave me ideas on what our film could be like. Lastly, I used blogger to put my research and the results from the survey onto the blog and the use of blogger helped me to understand how to use to plan and set out my work. We also used Celtex to create our script and at first I struggled to use it as it is complicated however because of this it is also very in depth so allowed us to create a professional script.

In the production process of our film I learnt many new skills surrounding the use of the DV cameras that we used for filming as before I did not know how to function them properly but as the filming of our opening scene progressed I learnt how to use it. We also used tripods to use with the DV cameras as using them allowed us to get shots that we normally would not have been able to but also made it so that we did not have to film hand held which would of gave the film the wrong effect and style. These uses of both were successful as it allowed us to shoot our film and get the quality that we wanted for it.

In the post production of constructing our product I again used blogger and survey monkey. I used survey monkey again to create a survey for an audience response to our film and I think it went successful as we got many results back to show us the response.  We also used YouTube to uploaded our film onto it and onto our blog. Finally, we used Adobe premiere pro which we used to edit and cut our footage of our film together and this program is very in depth and I struggled at first to use and understand it but as our editing continued I learnt skills surrounding the use of premier pro and how to use it. This programme also allowed us to put certain effects on that other programmes do not have to allowed us to get the media product we wanted.

Evaluation question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product is 15+ as it is a psychological horror film that would not be suitable for people of a younger ages as it features both mild language and references to violence but also would not appeal to the over 30 age bracket as well as our character Lucy is a teenager so they could not relate to her as well as someone the same age as her. We also chose this as a target audience as the theme of the film can be relatable to the 15 to 18 age bracket as our main charter Lucy is of this age.  The gender that we will primarily aim as is Males as that had the majority in the results and this could be as the films narrative features some scenes of violence and the occupation was primarily students which is good as the character Lucy is also a student.

The pre-production research that we conducted was an online survey which asked our target audience questions about our film and the certification that they would give it but also what they thought of the plot and narrative of the film. After the surveys were completed we gathered the research to create result graphs so that we could look at the overall audience that we were targeting at.  We used the research that we gathered to create our film around this target as they would be our primary audience for the film and this also then made us think about the themes in the film and most the people who took the survey said horror was there favourite genre so we could then interpret this into our film but also meant that we knew our film would be successful as the treatment profile we created on target audience gave us an idea of what we can put into the film but also the genre of it as well.