Final Cut!

Hello and welcome to my blog, i hope you enjoy it!

Here is the final cut of our production 'Full Moon'




Please note that anywhere it says 'Roadside' this was the working title of our production until a very late change.

HK Prelim

Preliminary Exercise:  Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Inside our production though only lasting just more than 2minutes we have included many codes and conventions of our genre, slasher.

For the production name we chose a short, sharp, snappy title 'Roadside' which is similar to many other slasher films have short titles, such as the film that really defines the slasher genre, Halloween also Scream, Physco and Candyman

From the start we know that our production is going to be horror the idents shown at the very start instantaneously set the mood as we can see with our Flatline Films ident for our production company.

For this we wanted a heart beat sound this made the ident sound very intense and worked really nicely with the two F icons dropping down, then after the heartbeats  Included a Flatline sound which signifys the heart stopping, this foreshadows whats to come in the production, death.

The way we have managed to include so many conventions is that the group did much research into other film openings, this involved deconstruction many openings into great detail, openings we looked at examples are American Werewolf in London, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

In our filming the first shot we included was a establishing shot, revealing the house and the location of the film establishing shots are very common for an opening sequence a similar shot has been used in Halloween.

We have included Todorovs rule of equilibrium, for example when the girl is with her boyfriend this is the equilibrium and for the audience this seems like a safe place to be and lulls them into a false sense of security and then the disequilibrium is set when the car crash takes place and the equilibrium is disrupted and our character 'Casey' is no longer safe.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


There are many stereotypes in films, and particularly the slasher genre.

   

A prime example would be our female character 'Casey' 

Our girl is conventional character that is known as a 'scream queen'

The term "scream queen" is more specifically used to refer to the "attractive young damsels-in-distress" characters that have appeared in a number of films in the horror genre.

One of the prime examples of a scream queen would be the actor Drew Barrymore playing Casey in the 1996 slasher Scream. 

Scream Queens are always, young, attractive females that are represented as sexually active and because she is sexually active she must be punished (murdered). Scream Queens comply to Laura Mulveys 'Male Gaze' theory

Our male character Sam is also another common architype in horror movies The Killer—With notable exceptions, The killer in the slasher film is usually male. His identity is often, but not always, unknown and/or concealed either by a mask or by creative lighting and camera work. He is often mute and seemingly unstoppable, able to withstand stabbings, falls and shootings by his victims. His background sometimes includes a childhood trauma that explains his choice of victim, weapon and location (the killer can be made out to be pitiable or understood). Slasher villains tend to prefer hand held weapons such as knives, axes, matchetes, and chainsaws as opposed to bombs or guns. As the sub-genre developed, some argue that the real star of a slasher is the killer, not the victims or Final Girl. Throughout most of the franchises, the killer is constant. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are notable examples of this phenomenon.

Evaluation Question 3

What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your

Media Product and why?

For our film, we are on an incredibly low budget, touching on not even spending a penny. With the whole film costing us less than a tenner to make we really are what is known as 'Indie Filmmakers'  

 'An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced mostly outside of a major film studio. The term also refers to art films which differ noticeably from most mass marketed films. In addition to being produced by independent production companies, independent films are often produced and/or distributed by subsidiaries of major studios'

So because of our extremley low budget we would never be distrubuted by such big names as Working Title and Studio Canal. 

Also some companys would never distribute slasher films as it wouldn't fit their image such as you would never see a Disney, Slasher film

Evaluation Question 4

Who Would Be The Audience For Your 

Media Product?

 Our production would be given a BBFC rating of 15+ and the core age range for our target audience would be approximatley 15- 24 as is with most slasher films this is the target audience. As even if the film is an 18 rating it is certain that under 18's will watch the film. Also people older than 24 out of the target audience will watch the film too, but it would be uncommon for anyone older than 35 at least to be interested in a slasher movie.

Gender.

Men are definatley the main audience of slashers, for men reason's such as the sexual themes and the gore.

Men love slashers because of the scream queens that can be just pure eye candy, with there busty physique and lack of clothing gives a reason to watch. We have included a Scream Queen in our production so this is one example of reaching out to our target audience.

Sexuality

For straight men the scream queens appeal to them as above ^ These may also appeal to lesbians aswell.

For straight women and gay men there is not much that is represented for them, an example that may appeal to straight women, and homosexual males in a scene in 'Roadside' is our male actor in the Dressing Gown, the dressing gown is low cropped and reveals alot of actor Ollies chest.

The final girl character would also appeal to lesbians as becuase it makes women look stronger rather than just bimbo's who are just going to be slain.

 The final girl in a slasher film refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer. A few examples of films where the final girl has appeared could be Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween. 

The final girl is typically sexually unavailablevirginal. Because our production is only the opening of a film we don't see if there is a 'final girl' at the end of our production. But we have set the opening up so it can easily lead to there being one.

Social Class

The film would be aimed at more of a lower class audience looking for cheap thrills like the gore aand the sex scenes with not much to think about whereas it wouldnt as much appeal to a higher class audience who would be into more complex films.

Evaluation Question 5

                      
                       How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

The boy and girl leaving the bedroom signifies the sexual themes and scenes that will be in the film. This attracts our teenage audience and also the male audience.










Our half naked handsome male character will appeal to females and especially teenage girls between the ages 15- 24 ( our target audience).






The modern technology presented here a Blackberry Smartphone is an example of verisimilitude, which means our younger audience would be able to relate to it.






The soundtrack is very tense and was created to influence the heart rate of our audience.


''The human body responds to real or perceived danger with a 'fight or flight response'-

The brain and body coordinate by releasing large amounts of hormones and biochemicals resulting in an increase in adrenaline (epinephrine) which is a vasoconstrictor that raises blood pressure, and also by releasing another hormone, 
noradrealine (norepinephrine), which keeps your blood pressure up and makes your heart beat faster''

This basically means that the soundtrack is a big factor in any horror films, and how this attracts our audience is that the scary the film, the more it will appeal to horror fans.