Evaluation

On the whole as a group we are generally pleased with the end result however we feel that there could of been many chances to improve our film opening.
Our media product uses, develops and challenges forms of conventions of real media products. It does this by using intertextual references to such films as Scream (1996) and The Ring. It starts off on a Dutch angle to represent that something’s not right, a knife is visibly seen which is a common signifier of danger and this has intertextual references to Scream. We develop forms and conventions of media products by starting off with a slow scene but then cuts into fast pace clips whereas typically horror films tend to have a long slow start. However we also challenge the norms of horror films, as it doesn't feature a stereotypical blonde haired character instead has two brunettes. We also took an intertextual reference to Bride of Chucky as a heartbeat is played in this; the heartbeat is done at the end of ours to ensure narrative enigma is present. Our media is different from other film openings as until the night vision scenes which are set slightly blurred, it looks like its happening in real life then later on she wakes up from the dream, this is a nice twist to the film opening and has been mentioned from our audience feedback.
My media product represents different social groups such as lower middle class and working class (C2DE), this is done by using cast which are of this social grouping and therefore the audience can relate to this. However regional accents could suggest it represents Yorkshire social groups more than others. The kind of media institutions that might distribute our media product are such company's as WarpX, working title 2 and film 4.These institutions would fit our product as they deal with low budget films such as ours is, they are also funded by the UK film council. As our product is a Yorkshire based film it can be used by screen Yorkshire for publicising and the film festival as well. As many of these films are produced by the above company's they get known about through the Internet as its a cheaper way of getting to their target audience therefore to promote our film I would use Internet websites such as Myspace and Youtube.
The audience for our film are both genders, our film features the 'male gaze theory' therefore the final girl will attract men and women will also see the strong female headed final girl as an inspiration. The target audience age is around 15-24, we tried to attract our audience by using a scenario which these aged people will do often; watch films with their mates. We also dressed the actress's in 'up to date' fashion and used moderate language therefore the BBFC rating had to be a 15.Although our film opening only involves white Caucasian characters if we were to carry on the film we would bring in different ethnic minority groupings which would attract a wider range of ethnic audiences.
I have learnt a lot about technologies from the process of constructing this product. Apart from the preliminary task and earlier micro drama I was new to Mac computers and such things as Imovie player and Garageband.Therefore everything that has been done in the product I have had to learn from scratch, however our strength was the different range of abilities within our group which we were able to help each other out at different parts of the film making stages. I feel I have learnt that when working in the film industry everything has to be planned and our production schedule needed to be in a lot more detail than it was in. I have learnt how to add transitions, cut and add music to our media product although the preliminary task did do this.
I think what worked well for our product was the blurry night vision of the outside shoots, this fitted in to our narrative, as it is a dream to which the audience later find out. I also feel the music fit in well with the genre and idea of the film and the framing of characters on screen were quite central. We also worked well in a group and took time to discuss everyone's ideas, as we are all friends before we didn't have any problems discussing things that we felt needed to be changed by it.
However I think we could improve our product by having a better production schedule therefore we needed to be more organised. We could of also taken into account how to attract wider audiences such as different ethnicity's or the pink pound, which we would have done if carried on the film. I feel the heartbeat could of been played for a bit longer on the clip its played on however the way the clip needed to be cut it wasn't possible. Overall me and my group and proud and relieved with our final product.