1. Who would be the audience for your media product?

With the modern cinema audience, I felt that the ideal target audience for a small budget horror movie like Solemn Silence should be aimed at teenagers between 13-17 who are looking to get their friends together and go have fun at a movie. This is a common trend in the Horror movie experience which has shown a huge increase over the last 7 years with the Paranormal Activity series. In the majority of promotional trailers for the movie, audience members would be asked questions after seeing the movie, a lot of the people asked were seen to be with 3-5 of their friends/family looking to be scared together and have fun. Another idea that I thought would appeal to the younger audience is the "normal" day to day teenage protagonist. The aim would be to have the character make popular culture references which the audience would understand and connect with, making him likable. In a sense the audience would be able to live through the character on screen and imagine themselves in his situation as the movie unfolds, allowing him to be easily sympathised with, which is another element to his character.

2. How did you attract/address your audience?

 feel I was able to attract the audience well by using vivid imagery within the media product which would draw them in because they’d have to carry on watching to figure out what they were watching meant. The idea behind this would have been to put the protagonist and the audience in the same position so that they each figure out where the story is going together and it becomes a more active experience, rather than just watching the characters on screen painstakingly explain every detail just so the audience understands.

Another way I attracted the audience is by the use of the Gothic, Supernatural genre in the movie. Movies such as Paranormal Activity, Sinister and Donnie Darko have proved that this type of genre and typical conventions such as a sacred cult, supernatural beings or a dark mythology will attract a wide audience because they want to see more movies that follows these conventions, due to their previous preferences in horror movies. 

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents any type of social group varying between the ages of 13 and 17. This is because of the majority of teenage characters that would be in the movie, as well as a lot of the ‘inside jokes’ that only young adults would appeal to, unlike that of adults. As I’m a teenager myself I can find it a lot easier to create characters that are of a similar age and make them feel believable as we’re going through similar struggles in school, family, friends, relationships and the future – things every teenager worries about. I feel this is the most important aspect of teenage life to engage with as this is where the most emotion is and if I’d decided to focus on representing only the clothing of today’s teenage social group then I feel that would be too broad to even attempt to focus on. I do feel that the project better represents the male audience more than the female audience on the purpose that not only are the majority of people going to the cinema are boys, but I also know how boys think and how they’d react to certain things and situations.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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

In our movie, we tried to use the existing conventions of horror movies to pull audiences in with elements they were familiar with, but then change those elements as the movie goes on so the audience essentially gets a richer movie that isn't worried about scaring off potential viewers with its changes. Conducting research into already existing movies and products helped us to realise what typical audiences go out to see and what’s popular at the current time. Cabin in the Woods is a movie we closely looked into as it challengers many conventions, such as having the stereotypical strong and athletic male as a smart character. We idolise this as a good example of conventions being challenged as it’s the first movie in years that dared to be unique and change the gender roles in order to create a more interesting movie. 

Our movie opening follows similar patterns and structures to that of the opening of Seven. The disjointed symbolism and setting up of the antagonist is heavily present in our opening as we realised that the movie, being a supernatural horror classic, creates a very eerie and suitable atmosphere for the movie, factors we tried to replicate.  What we have created here we feel is very up to date on the style and conventions of horror due to the various symbolic imagery and effects used. Initially, we aimed to have no background music and to have the entire opening filled with dialogue, filled with foreboding phrases that would set up the movie. We eventually decided against this as we wanted people not to have much of an idea as to where the movie would be going. As our target audience is a mix of both male and female and a good age range, we hope that everyone attracted to the movie feels as though they are all going into the movie without knowing too much about it, which essentially stops the audience from spoiling the movie for themselves. We feel this is very important as a movie such as The Amazing Spider-man 2, owned by Sony, showed too much of their movie prior to its initial release and so may have resulted in its “unsuccessful” time at the box office and we worked hard to make sure this was stayed well away from. 

The background music was intentional to unnerve the audience so they would feel as though what they are watching is having a real psychological effect on them, as Horror movies are made to achieve. We initially wanted to create our own background music and structure it in such a way that we felt it would add to the atmosphere of the opening. But due to lack of time we decided against this, and find a safer route to take, which we feel is just effective in adding to the atmosphere. The choice to have no dialogue is inspired by the opening of Under The Skin. Here the movie opened with a series of shots to establish a character and the overall tone/premise of the movie, without any/little use of dialogue. We felt this was a very effective idea as the images themselves tell the audience what is going on and how the story will progress, which is what we feel we accomplished. 

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

I feel that I have improved massively on my knowledge of how to edit the product. Before starting to movie opening I had previous experience with the Sony Vegas editing software and so was already aware of how to cut and split clips, add titles, effects and import music to be included in the background. Although Sony Vegas and Premiere Pro are not the same tools to use to edit videos, it was very helpful because I didn't mean I had to start from scratch. I aimed to capture the tone of the product through the effects, transitions and music used during the editing process as if it was done wrong then it may have set off the wrong tone that the movie was initially set up to portray. This resulted in a lot of trial and error stages of testing which transition worked where and what it could tell about the shot, but prior to this level of thinking I had perhaps picked a transition based on what was easier to do and what would take the least amount of time. The trial and error stages helped to teach me that everything in the editing stage is crucial to create the product I wanted to create and to ensure it didn't become something that I wasn't proud of. Leading up to the final product, there were several different versions of the opening all of which told varying stories and would give off different tones to the viewer. Having the option of choosing different tones surrounding the product was very beneficial as it would allow me to have more options when looking at other production surrounding the movie; Promotion, storyboard, distribution and exhibition. It was also very difficult to learn how to use an Apple Mac computer as although they are in some ways similar to any ordinary PC, it is a very difficult change to make from one to another. This slowed down production a lot as it was very frustrating trying to find where all the programs where and the keyboard commands, however after 2-3 weeks of using it almost every day I become well- adjusted to the Mac and it’s specifically designed software such as Premiere Pro and Photoshop.

My knowledge of camera has certainly improved since starting this project. Having to learn as we go along has really helped with being actively involved in the creation of the project, making sure everything is how it should be shown on the storyboard, making sure continuity flows through each cut and as simply as making sure everything is in frame and is focused correctly. A small problem I had found when filming was the simple fact that I could be recording for 2-3 hours and would only have 30 seconds of footage, which was a result of sometimes not entirely sticking to the storyboard and also spending a lot of time setting up the shot, making sure everything looks good before actually filming and often re-shooting a lot of cuts. However the self-scrutiny and that from the teachers really helped to make sure the best looking shots were in the opening and there wasn't a clip that redundant or technically wrong (out of focus, low lighting etc.) The internet also helped majorly in receiving criticisms from not only peers but from friends too that I decided could point out things for me to improve on that I couldn't. An example of this would have been in its earlier stages, the product looked very cheap and cheesy and didn't look like a serious horror movie at all. Under much consideration, I resorted to a darker and solemn tone with darker effects over the clips to hopefully convey a much darker mood than the previous showing and upon re-showing my friends the new product they said it had improved a lot. This also prepared me for rendering and uploading the opening onto sites such as YouTube and Blogger, which both showed on much simpler scale how the process of distribution works in the wider film industry and gave me a better understanding of how a movie is produced and distributed, going as far as some movie producers releasing their movies onto social media sites and not in the cinema, a trend that has recently an up rise in the last 2-3 years.

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

We feel that since our preliminary task, we have achieved a lot in terms of knowing how small productions work, the time and the patience, and how our own inspiration is key in being able to make our product as good as it can be. I feel like we understood the skills of creating an opening well and took what we initially did in our preliminary task and as we started our main task, we quickly built on those skills and knew what would make an interesting movie opening. In the beginning we found the editing software very hard to use as we had never used it before, but after we have learnt new things such as creating a movie logo to be at the start of our opening. However, we did have experience we other editing software before the task and we found that we knew some of the basics of editing individual cuts together and importing/exporting video. Looking back I feel the opening could have had better background music and a little more time could have been better spent on creating more of a narrative and giving more of an idea where the movie would be going. I do feel however, our knowledge of using the editing software has improved well.

I feel that our final product was way better than our preliminary task because it was better planned out. We planned the shots in the storyboard in more depth, talked about each shot in length to make sure we knew what we wanted to say and show in each new frame. We also got into the habit of analysing as we went along filming so we could make sure that we weren't just filming what we thought would look cool, but what made sense analytically. This also helped us if evaluating our movie after it was finished. During our filming of the preliminary task, not much care was given for why each shot was filmed or what it might be saying about the rest of the movie, we just filmed what we thought would look good and it ended up looking too rushed and not enough care was give for each shot than it was in our final product.

More transitions and camera angles were used in filming and that variety motivated us to visual show how we've improved since the preliminary task. For example, we used extreme close ups on various objects and fading transitions whereas our preliminary didn't have these. The complexity of the opening is very clearly there and is very lacking in our preliminary task and we feel that the progression between the two is very clear. 

Feedback

Ensure all posts are published and that the evaluation is complete upon your return from half-term.

Update research and planning

Answer evaluation questions thoroughly

Organise your web-log

Coursework feedback

Research and Planning – 9

The research and planning is partially incomplete, and does not reflect many elements of planning that I would expect for this task. There is a proficient level of research into similar products, film genre conventions and representation. However there is no work on identifying potential target audiences. I would have liked to see some work on demographics /exploring the potential audience for this film to bring this work up to a proficient level. There is little work on organising the film itself, no mind maps, storyboard, etc, but there is a small amount of thought that went into a filming schedule etc. However overall this feels like an unfinished blog. 

Main Task – 37

The titles follow the conventions of film openings, this is especially reminiscent of Se7en. The style of font and the red and white is especially effective. There is a good use of layers within the film opening, and some variety in shot types and camera movement. Close attention has been paid to framing. There is also a careful and close attention paid to props and a controlled use of the camera. However the film opening is limited and there is no sense of setting up the film with any narrative or layering of sound. This would have benefitted from a voice over, and the introduction of a character.   

"Solemn Silence" Analysis

We thought the slow pan out of the desk and all the equipment there would be a good idea as the more it would slowly zoom out, the more it would reveal of the character. The blood red titles over the dark video attracts the viewer only slightly to the conventional bloody horror titles, but not to distract too much that they lose concentration from the opening sequence which is most important as it is establishing the character. The individual white letter amongst all the red will be a reoccurring theme throughout all of the titles, to demonstrate the situation of the protagonist within the movie who is amongst all this evil but doesn't become fully evil himself. However, the reason it isn't pure white, and that it's a little dirty and grey,  is because he doesn't always make the right choices and is seen more as an anti-hero in the early stages of the movie, but has chances to redeem himself as the movie progresses.

The choice of book gives the audience a hint towards the narrative and what the characters intentions are. The idea behind it being 'weird tales' suggests that the character sort of grew up on these fairy tales and became a fantasy to live by and that develops the character into creating this half daemon, half human. This also adds a bit of humanity to this character as it shows they were once a child and were once vulnerable, and as the movie progresses the character has moments of remorse which sets him about of the usual villain in movies as the audience can relate to them and see what's made them this way. 

For the close ups on the book, we took inspiration from Se7en and thought the character reading the spells out of these books almost made it seem more ceremonial and followed along with the Horror convention to use these dark Supernatural and Gothic themes in the opening scenes to establish what the rest of the movie would be like. Having the spells on the page without a title and the finger leading the audience across the words, would hopefully draw the audience in so that they want to find out what this character was reading and what he was doing it for. 

Here we tried to use video effects and editing to set up a strange metaphor within the opening sequence. We mixed white chess pieces with darker chess pieces to establish a good and a bad side within the movie to set up the idea of conflict between two forces. The reasoning for them being mixed together is that although there are two sides they've both been literally dropped into a mess of confusion and chaos which our protagonist is the cause of. 

The over the shoulder shot brings the audience uncomfortably close to the antagonist and after this point the camera is always close to the protagonist which will make the audience feel as though they can't escape this character's presence. This immediately sets a stigma against this character that he can't be trusted and that he's supposed to make the audience feel uncomfortable. An example of this is the character of Martin in The Human Centipede 2. From the very beginning of the movie, he's introduced by watching the first movie, which for the audience is an uncomprehending task, as the movie has since gained worldwide popularity with shock and disgust horror, one of the first horror movies to push the boundaries and see how far a movie can go.






















The aim in this shot was to raise ambiguity around the character's motivation and who they are. Why are they doing it? What do they aim to achieve? Is this a tradition? What is the method behind what they are doing? We hoped that these were the kinds of questions that would be raised during the opening of this movie within the audience as looking back at movies such as Blair Witch Project or The One I Love.

Target Audience

Our target audience for this movie is primarily males and a minority of females aged between 16-25. We feel this is a good audience to reach for as teenagers look for a good horror movie they can go and be scared by with their friends. We also feel that targeting a wide group of adults would be a good idea as the movie deals with a lot of adult issues that are exaggerated and twisted with supernatural elements. The kind of people we hope would be attracted to our movie would be people that like the Gothic genre in movies. We know this because popular horror movies targeted towards a young audience such as Paranormal Activity and Cabin In The Woods have shown that a young audience like to be scared with their friends and that is a safe audience to aim for. We put a cap on the age as our aim for the movie is to have a comedic protagonist which provides the narrative, a strong lead for the movie to follow and for comedic relief among the intense story line. Creating this strong protagonist role will hopefully be popular enough among the teenage audiences as we hope they could relate to his humor and young adult problems, and in doing so we would hope that it would allow a sequel to the movie.We hope that as the protagonist is a middle class teenage boy, it would attract a large male audience as young males can relate to his immature and reckless behavior more than girls would be able to, which tends to be very stereotypical but is very true in most movie productions. This is the target audience we aim to reach as they have shown through various franchises that, young teenagers especially, will get their friends together and will go and see these kids of horror movies that they can all be scared by. Working Title Films, a production company that produce typically low budget British movies, would be an ideal movie production company for our movie as although their movies are on a lower scale of big Hollywood movies, they are able to safely make a low budget movie which is guaranteed to earn back it's budget and earn profit in the box office.