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

‘The Chain Mail’ is a mix of the openings of horror films over time: Halloween II and Saw VI. The conventions of both films are different in the opening sequence with Halloween II creating suspense and a supernatural feel with the shooting of a man who then disappears after falling from a balcony. Saw IV attempts to satisfy modern conventions of a horror with gore. We also researched some thrillers such as What Lies Beneath. The opening minutes of this film contain a task from Jigsaw, which leads to two people cutting off their flesh in order to survive.
At first we wanted to challenge the modern convention of gore and stick to the suspense and supernatural element of Halloween II. We therefore created the clown character and discussed him being a supernatural figure rather than a conventional thriller serial killer. This was our aim throughout principle photography, however when we reviewed our footage it looked more like a thriller as it was lacking the gore modern audiences associate with a horror.
On our second shoot we succeeded in adding the gore element using red paint as blood. Using this modern convention helped us to create a sense of horror rather than a thriller. We then developed them in post-production editing, mixing the two different conventions from the two films to create a new horror.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the opening minutes of ‘The Chain Mail’ it is clear the target within the film is teenage girls. Although class is not particularly denoted in the film, social networking is. Social networking is a modern phenomenon, with 250 million people using sites like Facebook.
‘The Chain Mail’ keeps a modern feel to it with the messages appearing on phones and laptops. The phone message is received on BBM or Blackberry Messenger which is available to anyone who has a Blackberry as a way of free messaging. The message on the laptop was originally filmed on a Facebook page. However we felt we needed a closer shot of the writing so this part was cut out. The use of networking in the film represents the modern dependence on social networks.

The use of social networks and modern communication can also connote how dangerous certain sites can be, especially with media coverage. Everyone takes the risk when using a social network, obviously there are going to be unpleasant people, it is the responsibility of the user to keep themselves safe. The danger of social networks is aimed at teenagers when in the media spotlight. This directly links with the convention of teenage suffering in horror films as many main characters in horrors are in a younger age group.

Teenagers are stereotyped as spending all their time on social networking sites and using their phone to communicate with friends. This, for us, created a perfect narrative, using the media’s negative spotlight on social networking and the lack of control people have from keeping their children safe from unknown dangers, linking with the supernatural convention of a horror.

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

Twisted Pictures - A production company well known for its horror films, especially the Saw films.

Why would they be good for our film?

Lionsgate is an independent company, like our independent film. Both companies are well known for the genre of horror, especially the Saw films, which were successful with the horror audience.

Lionsgate - An American/Canadian entertainment company, most successful in North America and associated with the Saw films.

Here you can see their most recent films:

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The success of a film depends on many aspects of release strategies, which, along with the cost of production can be very expensive. Every film wants to be the one in ten that makes a profit; therefore it is crucial that the film makes enough money to pay the financers, cast, crew and any other funding and labour. A film is also looking to make extra money to invest into potential projects in the future.

The important part of a film’s success is ‘has it reached its target audience’? The first graph is from a film website, giving the percentages of audiences that go to see certain genres. The first graph clearly shows:
More men go to see horror films than women.
The two age groups that go to see horror films are 18-34 and 35-49.
After uploading my film to Youtube for research it is clear that the gender that watched The Chain Mail the most is male and the age is 13-17.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Here we have compared stills from our film with other media products. It is clear that we have developed conventions to create a wider audience, using conventions from newer and older horror films. Suspense and gore have been mixed together from our research of Saw and Halloween II. Having a balance of conventions means our film is not too extreme, not too old, not too new, so more people may enjoy the narrative.

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

From the preliminary task especially, I have learnt how to adjust sound levels so that they are effective and fit with the narrative. When I first used Final Cut I dipped the sound completely in the last seconds of the footage, creating a strange gap between sound and no sound. When I returned to Final Cut for my coursework I focused on using the pen to gently alter sound levels to balance diegetic and non-diegetic sound. In the early stages when we were looking at sound in terms of our coursework, we decided to have no dialogue and include music to add to the suspense.

One part of the construct I am pleased with is the titles. In the preliminary task I had no need for titles, whereas the opening of a film does. Learning how to add these effectively to fit with the action on screen proved to be a challenge. The text had to be right, as did the font, size and time it appeared on screen. We used AppleGothic as it suited our genre best and put the titles in before the action came to a climax so they didn't distract the audience.

Another aspect we had to alter in post-production was lighting. When we reviewed our footage it was a little dark. We also wanted to enhance the features of the mask. Using colour corrector helps us achieve this. Looking back, if I had explored this option when editing my preliminary task, it would have made that footage a little darker and easier to see with the sun in shot.

Overall I believe I have explored and progressed with the technology side of the course, learning how to use software such as Final Cut to enhance a film, rather than simply cut it up and put it together. Using more features of Final Cut helped to improve the on screen atmosphere and, hopefully, improve the quality of viewing.

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

I believe I have progressed from preliminary task to coursework successfully. The main areas I feel I have improved in are: editing in terms of sound and narrative, principle photography framing and time management.
When producing my preliminary task, time management was not a key issue. The filming was completed in lesson time and editing in an afterschool session. When it came to coursework, a lot more planning was needed as well as time to film and edit. Research into genre and audience was needed before any storyboarding and filming could be done. Therefore we needed to focus on our work and have a time limit for each area. In total we had 9 weeks to complete the pre production (research and planning), production (principle photography) and post production (editing).
I followed the pattern of the preliminary task, allowing myself the most amount of time for editing. This would only work if I kept within the time limit for research and filming. In the preliminary task, principle photography took longer than expected as our planning, particularly script work and storyboarding, did not work out as planned, leading to a change in camera angles and many takes due to the script.
I am particularly pleased with the framing of the coursework. When filming the preliminary task we went for basic camera angles and shots. Over the time period between the tasks we picked up various shots and techniques that enabled us to vary our shots and frames to create different angles of viewing the film.
Overall I believe I have learnt from the preliminary task and developed skills into the coursework.