EssayQuestion

In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

Whilst creating our film opening I developped my creativity skills by using digital technology. When starting the project,I didn’t know how to use the majority of equipment and when I did, it was not in a creative way and was basic.
One area which my creativity really improved was while I was editing my film. For example, before I would use the same transitions and the same effects on the clips, but because iMovie allowed me to explore, I could see what other effects and transitions worked. This kept my film inteseresting because it wasn’t just the same thing after each other.
Another area in which my creativity improved was on my blog.When I started my blog it was boring and standard. I spent some time looking at other people in my class’s blog, and looked what they had done. Many of them had pictures, different colour schemes. After seeing this I realised that mine was ‘boring’ and had nothing on it which was different. After doing this I incorporated a bit of my personailty, and put on a ‘glee’ header. Blogger also allowed me to change the font and colour schemes. This was an easy and quick way to make my blog more interesting.
In all, I was very happy with my project.My creativity skills have progressed by using different programs such as iMovie,Garageband and Blogger.

Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)




The Title of the Film
The title of our film is the most important part. When people are browsing the dvd rails or standing in the cinema waiting to see which film they would like to watch, the part which firstly grabs their attention is the title. From the start, we had decided that we wanted a short and snappy title. 'Isolation'. Short. To the point. For the horror/thriller genre, titles of the most well known and popular films are short; Scream, Saw, Hostel and Halloween. These are all titles which inspired us to create a title like the one we used.

We placed the title at the end of the opening two minutes. We did this because we wanted the audience to get a feel for the film to start with. The best example for this is the Scream Movies. Below is a link to the scream opening, although the person who uploaded these clips have changed the title, it is still in the same palce as where it is, in the film. Allowing the audience to have an insight into the film to begin with lets them begin the journey of escapism. It also allows the audience guess what is to come later on in the film, which is what we wanted because we want them to make up their own minds to what is going on, and why our main protagonist has been kidnapped.

Scream 2, Opening, Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=Gu00Nu_5_CM&feature=related

Scream 2, Opening, Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAj76SQbDT0

The Use of the Black Screen; This is a technique which I think is very effective in a way in which an audience member may not think. Putting the title on a black screen, like we did, allows the audience to justr focus on the writing. The words on the screen need to be powerful and draw the audience in, because is the only tim in the film where you can have the audience's full attention on what the film is called. This is the reason why we did this. The title 'Isolation', I think is powerful and does draw the audience into the film, adding to their experience of escapism, which is the reason someone would watch our film.

The title was created on the programme I edited my film on, this was iMovie. We could of done a lot more for the title and made it more effective using techniques such as a big zoom which is what is used in 'Scream'. The reason we didn't is that in the horror genre, titles are kept more simple to create a sense of realism.

Setting/Location
The setting of the opening of our film could be the downfall in the film because it is such an ordinary place and somewhere where every person can relate to, a home. I think this allows the audience to relate themselves to the film which creates a whole new sense of fear in what thy are feeling. We did this because this is an ordinary girl who has been kidnapped, who lived an ordinary life. The bottom line is that it could of been anyone, it could of been you. It is a big message to portray in just the setting and it has a huge impact on the audience.

Here is a powerpoint which shows moodboards of settings and costumes.

Costumes & Props

The costume for the kidnapper in the film is, again, completelt ordinary. We didn't even ask our actor to wear a certain thing, we told him to wear anything. This is because we wanted to reinforce the message that it could be anyone. The kidnapper could be anyone! It could be the man who lives opposite you in the street, or your next door neighbour. The costume for the girl was ripped and dirty clothes, to show that she is going through hell. These pictures can be seen in the powerpoint above. Props were kept to the minimum and the ones we used were ordinary things that you would find in a house, again to keep the whole idea of just an 'ordinary' setting.

Camera Work & Editing
The editing in our film was all done on iMovie and kept a simple feel on the film. Filming our film, Me and Abbi took it in turns to film parts of our film so we both got equalk chances, even though we had the same vision and some of it was done together.

Story & How it is set up
The story of our film is about a girl who gets kidnapped by a neighbour. It is set up so we meet the kidnapper and see him in an ordinary life, and see him looking at a missing poster of a girl, and then we see him walk into the garage of his girl and see the girl tied up and then some flashbacks of him tieing the girl up and actually kidnapping her. This is done to reinforce the fact that is ordinary and that it could be anyone.

Genre & How it is represented
The genre to our film is horror/thriller and we are so pleased with the way we have portrayed this. We did this by using the music we did, created on garage band, making it creepy and weird and suttle, and then changing the past into something completely different to create suspence. We also portrayed this genre by the characters we used and the title. We tried to create a simple horror/thriller film.

Evaluation - Question 2

2. How does your media project represent particular social groups?

There is only 2 characters in our film opening. Sam Parker (A 17 year old girl who has been kidnapped) and The kidnapper who's face is unknown to the character.

Our main character, Sam, fits the sterotype for horror films perfectly. This sterotype, is young female. In most horror films this is the type of character who is seen as the victim.




Above Top: Neve Campbell in Scream
Above Bottom: Britanny Snow in Prom Night

A female role as the main victim is very common. It allows the director to use what is called 'The Male Gaze', and to some extent could portray a woman as part of an inferior sex. Which is very sterotypical.
By having our victim as a young girl we are following the stereotypes seen in other films of this genre.

Evaluation - Question 3

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

The type of institution that might distribute out project is "Twisted Pictures". We have had this in our minds from word go, hence the name of our own company, "Twisted Motion". Twisted Pictures most famous films are the Saw trilogy which inspired alot of our work. Even our logo has some qualities that the Twisted Pictures one has, for example the font.


I think that also if this film was distributed by Twisted Pictures it would also bring in audiences who enjoy other films done by Twisted Pictures. I think that this company would be very suited for our film.

Evaluation - Questions 4 & 5

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



When directing, producing or writing a film, there is one thing you must always keep in mind. Your Audience. Our target audience for our film was an easy decision to decide upon.

Being a film in the horror/thriller genre it would have to be a 15. This is the most common age certificate for this genre. We also decided that it would be for both men and women because it is a storyline women would be more interested in, but the fact we used a female lead, could attract men to watch the film, using techinques such as the male gaze. Although people at ages up to around 50 might enjoy this film we said that we would focus in mostly on 15 - 25 year olds. These are the ages which tend to watch films of this genre.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

As I mentioned before, we used the a female lead to attract men to our film because this allowed us to use the male gaze. We used a young girl to attract teenagers because, to most people who watch this genre of film, the reason they find it so scary and entertaining is because this could happen to them. A film needs a sense of realism, so using characters in the same age group and social group would bring people of that age to watch the film. As for women, we think that the storyline would appeal to them more than what it would to men. Me and Abbi are both teenagers of different sexes and we would both be interested in watching this film. Also, when we did class feedback, the majority of the people who gave us feedback all said that they would watch this film because the storyline, characters and setting seems to draw them in.

Evaluation - Question 6 & 7

Exclusive Interview with Director and Producers, Luke Denny and Abigail Stilgoe of new upcoming blockbuster "Isolation!"


Q - Hi Guys, Welcome to the studio. Let's get straight to the point, We all know what this new film is about but what strikes the film market is the equipment you guys used. Why did you chose the use this equipment?



L - Well, We used a couple of differnt peices of equipment. This consisted of a mac computer, photoshop, garageband, video and still cameras. We chose to use all of this so we got a variation of different editing technigques and widened our experience with using different types of programme. For instance, we used imovie for the editing, and a video camera to film the shots. We then also used a still camera and photoshop for the film logo. For things like the titles in the film, were also done on imovie. Imovie also allowed us to change our font and titles and make them more interesting to the audience.

A - We used the equipment because we felt that it would really help us in finalising our piece and help us to create the clean finish, even though it may not have been the most expensive or high quality.

Q – What were the advantages of using these?

L- As i said before, all of these pieces of equipment we used allowed us to do so many things making our film better in many ways. While filming we used a tripod which created much smoother shots and allowed us to create a professional looking film.

A - Using the tripod really helped us to achieve steady shots so that it looked as professional as possible rather than having a shaky picture on screen. Using iMovie on the macs, gave us a lot of varied effects, transitions, sounds etc. that we could incorporate into our film to improve the final product.

Q – Do you feel you have learnt much from using these piece of equipment?

L- I feel that I have learnt much more than I ever thought I would. I knew to some extent I would learn about the programme, but to no standard as what I have. I feel that now I could start all again, with the feeling, and the editing, and know exactly what I am doing.

A - Definitely, I feel that I've really progressed with my skills after using them as now I'm more confident with what I'm doing and I know how to edit and polish clips so they look as best as possible.

Q – Looking back at a prelimary example of a film, How much do you think you have improved?

L - Looking back at our prelimary, I can't even believe we were so bad! One of the main rules in filming is the 180 degree rule, and we even messed that up. I am glad we did though, because through the whole process of creating our film, we were so careuful not to make silly mistakes like that, and without making that mistake early on in the process I think we would be less immune to the silly things that could go wrong.

A - A lot! During our preliminary we didn't even do the 180 degree rule! Now I think that we aren't making small mistakes like that and we know how to make things like the continuity of the film much slicker and look realistic whereas our preliminary wasn't a good example of that.

Final Film