Evaluation

Our media product develops forms and conventions of real media products such as the scene of the stabbing, when one characters (Micheal) stabs another character (Wayne) the stabbing involves some quite graphic detail e.g coughing up blood, this could be seen as forms and conventions of real media products such as the film ' Dressed to Kill' or other slashers such as 'Scream' and 'Halloween'. Our film was a sort of 'social realism' meets 'american slasher', we created a slasher movie with similar forms and conventions to a typical American slasher film and gave it a working class, British feel to it. A major form and convention to a film in our production is 'Donkey Punch' as the scene when 'Sharron' cuts her hand is similar to a scene in 'Donkey Punch' when a characters cuts her armpit whilst shaving, this connotes to the audience that theres going to be some violence.

In our media product we have represented the 'working class' social group(C2DE), we have done this by using costume, as we are representing the stereotypical working class, we want to represent the 'chav' so we gave are characters the 'chav' look aswell as having them put on a posh English voice but a Yorkshire accent. We have also used props such as alcohol to show that these teenagers have been boozing and also the first scene is located on a bed and the dialogue in the seen suggests to the audience that the two teenagers have been having intercourse.

The type of media institution that would distribute our media product would be a small indie company because of course we ourselves are just beginners and could not afford to even try and attract one of the big 5 conglomerates, our best and cheapest option would be to go to an indie company e.g Icon Film Productions. Our production would unlikely gain funding to gain national distribution because of it characteristics, we havent got the best equipment, we havent got enough experience and also the way the film is set, it reflects the North of Englands working class and so only would really interest people from Yorkshire and the rest of the Nort

h of England. Altough films such as 'Donkey Punch' a low budget slasher, by the company WarpX, which our film develops forms and conventions on did have relative national success, shows us that there may possibly be light at the end of the tunnel for our production. The chances become more likely to our production being distributed by WarpX as it makes similar films to ours also it is regional, based in the North East of England.

The audience for our media product would be people aged from 15 to 24. We attracted our audience by the content of the film, although 'illegal' until 18 alcohol is praised upon by the youth, aswell as sex and violence, these things attract the attention of the audience and keep them drawn in. Also attracting our audience is made easier as we have used similar aged characters to our target audience. We have also attracted our audience by using an attractive and 'slutty' looking blonde aswell as a 'jock'. The mise-en-scene we used specifically interests the audience. The BBFC rating I would give our production would be 18, as we have frequent reference to sex, drugs and alcohol and also use of graphic gory violence.

The things I have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product would be that I know alot more of how to use the camera and mainly how to use Imovie, throughout the project I became more and more confident at using it, although it is not the best piece of editing software to use. We used the Mac computers to edit our production which took

some getting used to as we usually use windows, but once we got used to them we could see they were actually more efficient than PC's. The SONY DV camera we used, isn't a professional piece of equipment, but as we are amateurs it was suitable and straight forward to use. For the background, non-digetic music we used garageband to create music to give the audience the feeling we wanted to create. I searched online for music we could freely use, we hardly found any we could use that legal and free, this was the reason we decided to use garageband, also this meant are music was completely unique and our own.

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have become a better film maker in general, the editing was smoother, the shots had more variety and the framing was much better, the costume, the props and the dialogue was much better. Our preliminary task was poor compared to our final production.

I am very happy with with my overall product, I have put a lot of time and effort into it and it has been an enjoyable experience.

If we were to make the entire film, the storyline after the first to minutes would be, Micheal continues to target Sharrons ex-boyfriends, using the same style of attack 'stabbing' this continues the theme throughout the film which is 'slasher'. One by one people in Sharrons life keep disappearing, Sharrons inability to recognise the relativety and similarity between the kills means more and more people begin to be stabbed, then she realises when her little brother fails to return home from school and is found dead slashed and hanging from a bridge. She calls the police right away when a polaroid picture of her brother hanging is posted through her letter box, her parents are rushing home as they were away for the week on a break, she hears a smash, she runs upstairs, footsteps can heard on the wooden kitchen floor, and then the stairs, her parents run in, but there to late, she has already been killed, slashed on the stairs.

The feedback we have recieved was from our class, we sat down and watched each others productions, after each production we comment on what points we thought were good and what points we thought were bad.

Feedback :

'You know its a slasher straight away'

'Red signifies to me its a horror'

'Blue tint in the window'

'Beep of camera should have been edited out'

'Prefered reading not followed'

'You seem to have fused comedy with horror'

'I couldnt see how she cut herself'

'Its obviously an 18+'

'Complex story line'

'Seems to have a sexual feel to it, like its going to carry on throughout the film'

Semiotic Analysis : We used many different shot types to give the each shot what it needed to give the audience the feeling we wanted to. So for example, one Micheal is in the garden and first speaks we have a low angle shot of him, to show the audience he is in power as he is about to stab Wayne.

We had to re-film a few shots, especially the violence seen, this was because as it is action packed and violent, we decided we needed to shoot it again a few times because we needed shot reaction shots, high angle shots, sticking also to the 180 degree rule, as watching the first shots of the stabbing seen we needed to give it more of a feel, rather than just one long continuous over the shoulder shot. Using more types of shots we created a much better product, adding more shots made our product more dynamic.

We used shot reaction shots in the violence seen to help show the characters reactions to each other and we stuck to the 180 degree rule. We also used a high angle shot on Wayne as he comes out the door to show the audience at that point he is the one in power, in control of the situation, but as he walks towards Micheal, Micheal gains the power of the situation as he has the knife and then it goes to a two shot two connote to the audience that they are now on the same leel, this is also a good shot to show conversation and it captured the stabbing action. Also toward the beginning of our production we have two shots to show clearly the conversation on actions of the characters. We also have a tracking over the shoulder shot of Micheal walking towards the house, this along with the music connote to the audience that there is something mysterious about this character and the tracking conventionally connotes to the audience that he is after somebody.

The white t-shirt signifies to the audience once the blood shows up, the red really shows, this makes it clear to the audience that there is graphic detail and the blood on white signifies it is a slasher.

The blue blind in the window signifies to the audience it is going to be a conventional horror film.

The clothes of Sharron signifie to the audience that she is a 'promiscious' girl and sexually active.

The colour of the door which is black signifies 'death' and the style of the knock signifies the creepy knock of the 'Grim Reaper'.

The dark clothes of Micheal signifies to the audience that he is the 'antagonist' and that he is about to do something bad and Wayne's clothes his top, is white which signifies he is innocent and clearly about to be the victim.

The shot of Sharrons legs connotes to the audience that intercourse has been going on, aswell as the shot of pants on the floor along with bottles of alcohol.

Final Cut

Here is our final piece, our film is called 'Rough Cut'.

Directed by Toby Hampson and Tom Copland.

Edited by Toby Hampson and Tom Copland

Starring Eirian Burke, Toby Hampson and Tom Copland

Hardware

We used 2 Sony camcorders and tripods to film our production. We got to grips with using the camcorders almost straight away, also we had used them for our prelimary task so we have had some experience with them. On a few occasions when importing our clips using the cable onto the imacs, a few clips seemed to jump a bit, meaning we had to re-import certain clips a few times until it just played what we had filmed which slowed down the editing process and became quite frustrating.
Using the cameras was quite simple, we knew there the cable sockets were, we know how to zoom and playback or footage. If we were to film something else we could use things such as a dolly or boom mike.

target audience and bbfc

Our production represents quite a well known and recognisable social group, teenagers, working class and we presented them in a sort of typical american movie style way a 'nerd', a 'jock' and a typical blonde haired sexually active female, but we gave them a very British touch.
The audience for our production would be people aged 13 to 21, as they will find the characters will appeal to them as they our of a similar age to them.

BBFC : We attract our audience by using characters of whom will appeal to them and also the content of our production, violence, sex, alcohol abuse are all common ways of attracting a young audience.
Our target age range would be people of 13 to 21 but we have one refernce of the word ' f***' and a stabbing scene so chances are that it would be given a certificate of 15, but because its a 15 people who are 13 to 14 will want to see it more as it would be 'cool' to watch a film that really you are not supposed to be.

Ethnicity : We used only caucasian characters, which in the eyes of some could be seen as a disadvantage as we lose a multi-ethnic audience. But we are reflecting Britain and we have used traditional British characters.

Gender : We have appealed to both males and females in our production, as we have used a A 'jock' and a 'slut', it is easy to pull in males and females. Also the type of violence we have used ' slashing' is not hardcore violence e.g a long scene showing someone getting beaten up wouldnt really appeal to females. But we have cleverly used slashing, which is quick but effective and doesnt necesserily cause offence or cause distress.

Socio-economic groupings : Class terms AB = upper class, C1 = upper-middle class, C2 = lower-middle class and DE = Working class. Our production in these terms would target C1C2DE. As our characters are of working class it would appeal to most classes as of the type of film it is, a 'slasher'.

Nationality/Region : Our characters have Yorkshire accents, which would give us a good audience in Yorkshire, but moving out of Yorkshire, I doubt it would appeal widely to many of the other regions of the UK. We havent used stereotypes of Yorkshire e.g the moors and basically the working class region of England, we have just used Yorkshire for what it is and therefore I believe we would have great success in Yorkshire, which is a big place! Also we are an 'Indie' production company, so have limited international appeal.

We could realate our film to a few other slasher movies e.g Cyco, halloween and dressed to kill. As we have a few similar shots. e.g the beginning of halloween zooming into the house is similar to us zooming into the window.

Sexuality : We have only heterosexual characters in our film, so we have limited appeal towards the pink pound. We are also appealling to an working class, middle class and lower middle class audience in Britain and mostly the Yorkshire region, where homosexuality is accepted but again not shouted about.

Psychographic profile : A typical person to watch our production would be a 16 year old boy, into his x box and into slasher movies, aswell as many other types of teenager such as it is a film to be watched at a gathering at someones house or students at university in their halls of residence or housing etc.

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Feedback

Most of the feedback we have recieved is mainly positive, people have commented on the variety of shots we have used, the positioning and timing of the titles, the use of non-digetic music, the realism of the stabbing scene. Negatives we have recieved are of the volume of the dialogue as at some stages of the production it becomes quite hard to hear a character, also the camera beeping noise at the begining of a couple of scenes and once when a character accidently smiles at the end of a scene.

The Group

My group consists of me Toby Hampson and my friend Tom Copland. Me and Tom decided to work together because we have been good friends for around 12 years, we also work well as a team without falling out, we co-operate very well, we can not agree with each other without falling out, we also had a similar idea to what we wanted to create.