In our media production we have decided to focus on a young girl who is really a crazed killer with a vendetta to settle so she uses toy babies as voodoo dolls in order to inflict the pain upon her victims which are depicted in red clothes in a black and white scene.
In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms of conventions of real media products?
For our horror film we want away to show who the victims were without dialogue so to do this we decided to use the colour red which is with normal for the genre of horror as it represents blood and evil. to show who the victims are we got inspiration from Schindler's list with the scene of the little girl in red an developed that. What we did was to put the main character, who is the murderer, in red and all the other victims in red also and to emphasise the point we made the rest of the scene black and white by using adobe after effects. This worked well and gave us the effect we wanted for the opening scene
Our 2nd main idea for the story was to have voodoo dolls however we couldn’t get them so we used children’s dolls instead and applied over the top make up with exaggerated red lips inspired by the joker In batman and then blusher on the cheeks plus brown tape on their eye lids to keep their eyes open to add to the horror you’d get with a voodoo doll. In addition to the voodoo doll we had a quick cut for a low angle shot of a knife coming down as if it was a point of view shot from one of the dolls that she was using to inflict pain on one of her victims. This is what we used from the horror genre as we used a 2 pronged fork which looked really good in shot as you could see it better than a knife from below.
Another key aspect to the film was the characters which challenged the normal convention of horror films having a young cast of people and having the main killer as a young teenage girl. This may be challenged however it’s becoming more common place in films to have a young female as the main character for a horror film e.g. the possession , Mama and sinister. The reason why we used jess as the main character is because she was shorter than everyone else to give the sense that she didn’t need to physically over power her victims as we show this in the opening scene where the height difference is clear. In the opening scene we also used dramatic non diagetic music for a stereotypical build-up of horror genre style. After this for the film title VENDETTA we used a horror style text form a text website generator to get the scary look . as the title appears we also decided to have a loud thunder noise come in as a non diagetic to sound to add tension and add emphasis to the title and then do a cross fade to a different, but equally as dramatic ,non diagetic soundtrack that’s build up in pitch corresponded with what was happening on screen.
Other things that were challenged were the logo as it was based around a pun on words with the representation of a fish tank with a turret which seems comical for a horror movie but we added the colour scheme of black, white and red to keep with the opening scene. Also for the titles we put them in a gothic style to closely match our title and we had the font colour as red to ,again match the colour scheme for the main colours of the horror genre.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product represents an un stereotypical antagonist as it’s a teenage girl. This challenges the horror genre as not many films have a young girl as the main character because its seen that men should be the killer because of their physical strength and their age as they normally have a considerable age gap between the killer and their victims. So our film has challenged the genre and successfully as we wanted a social representation you wouldn’t expect as the main antagonist. The reason it works in our film is because the antagonist doesn’t need to be physically over powering to use the voodoo dolls therefore the social representation we depicted was the opposite from traditional genre representation as it made it more interesting.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
I believe that the kind of institution that would distribute this film would be the Lionsgate subsidiary ,summit entertainment. The reason for this is because of the many horror films they have distributed with the majority of them linked to the supernatural e.g. sinister , Sorority Row and the twilight saga. All these films have the makings of a typical horror movie, all including blood gore , supernatural. 2 films that had inspired us were Schindler's list and “Sinister”. The reasons behind Schindler's list were because of the little girl in a red coat in the black and white however in comparison to sinister we decided to focus towards because of it is a horror genre film and the main antagonists are 6 children that kill off all their families in addition the characters are a 50/50 split between boys and girls having 3 of each. Therefore this fits with our idea of a young girl as the killer. Another factor in the film sinister was that the children didn’t need to physically over power their victims because of the methods of execution they used which started by drugging the victim then using different ways to kill them e.g. drowning ,stabbing and burning. This was where the idea of voodoo dolls came in and this is why we headed towards the company summit entertainment because they have produced many of these genre films and know how to achieve it to a high standard in comparison to Amblin entertainment the subsidiary of universal pictures who distributed Schindler's list. Amblin entertainment haven’t done any big scale horror films so that’s another reason why we went for summit entertainment
Who would be the audience for your media product ?
The target audience for my media production is teenagers and young adults range from 15-21+ as the age certificate for the film will be rated 15 as from the start it portrays the supernatural with voodoo dolls and also includes a weapon. However for Ireland it would have to be an 18 because of the witch craft and supernatural acts in the film as Ireland is highly religious and takes a higher approach to anything related to religion e.g. demons , witch craft and exorcisms . we imagine the rest of the film to have some violence and blood which attracts younger audiences as they prefer to be scared and shocked which is why we have targeted the younger audience range because they are more engaged with horror movies as roughly 75% of people that go to horror films are within 15-21 age range.
How did you attract/address you audience ?
To attract the audience we used the black, white and red to interest the audience and give it a twist to be different from other horror films that are stereotypical of the genre. The idea of voodoo dolls was developed from the questionnaire that showed most people were more preferred chucky which is a doll that is alive. Even though our dolls don’t move the idea that freaky dolls preferred people helped us come up with the
In addition to what happens on screen we chose the non diagetic sounds to build up throughout the film. At the start of the film we used a track that subtly built up as we didn’t want it to escalate too much before anything had happened. Then for the title we used a non diagetic thunder noise to add a sense of fear to the title and make people notice it more before it disappears. The 3rd non diagetic track goes well with what happens on screen because the high and low point correspond with what happens on the screen and gives a better sense of tension and helps the story flow better which helps the address the significant moment to the audience such as when the pitch rises.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The process form this product have been spread over 3 main software programs, adobe premiere pro , adobe after effects and adobe photo shop
The main software we used was adobe premiere pro to create our film. With the software it allowed us to layer the video and change the contrast on the clips to add more depth to the clips and darken the clips when they were too bright when we filmed it. the software also allowed use to add fades to black and to white between the clips allowing a smooth transition or change the speed for a quick transitions to add a faster pace. Another key thing this software allowed us to do was to use a green screen in filming then by using the ultra-key to pick out the tone of green on the sheet so that then it can be replaced with the image of a newsroom for our film however this could be improved because on the footage there is some grainy areas on the newsroom clip.
For the audio we imported soundtracks to suit the film and its style. So with premiere pro we were able to trim and change the audio levels for where we need the pitch to rise and fall plus being able to fade the audio helped because where we had dialogue we didn’t want the non diagetic soundtrack to play over it too loud therefore the fading effects helped with to clear up the dialogue underneath the soundtrack.
For the opening scene that is black, white and red we used adobe after effects to achieve the process of leaving behind the colour red. The tool we used was called leave colour and this enabled us to select a colour within our clip and turn everything but that colour to black and white therefore we managed to have the effect and emphasis on the people in red which we wanted.
With Photoshop we used this to help aid in the logo and the title for the film. For the logo we drew it first then used Photoshop to refine it and add the colour red. For our title we used it to enlarge the words and clean up the title from any pixilation.
Mini HD camera we use to film the project with was helpful to use because it was hand held it was easy to carry , transport and film with therefore making it easier to do a low angle shot from the floor looking up towards the fork . another key factor was the zooming in as for many of our shots we required to zoom so having to master the zoom button was difficult as its really sensitive and hard to keep a steady constant speed without losing focus although we did get the shots to focus and in the end it did work.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back on the preliminary I feel I have learnt better camera control and how to set up the shot better including using the green screen in the setup.
In the preliminary task the communication between the team was poor because everyone was trying to get their opinion and ideas across at the same time therefore we didn’t have a clear idea or plan on what to do for the task. In addition to the bad camera control as every time we tried to film another shot we would end moving the camera too quick and missing the action in shot or losing focus on the person. We also needed to improve our knowledge and skills with adobe premiere because our clip wasn’t the best or smoothly edited which is what we had to improve from .
For out film we have improved on all the areas stated above. Our communication as a team was better and we were able to plan when to meet up and film and also if we had any concerns to address. Better communication helped us knowing what we had to do and which of was doing which section or part for the film. Another thing was that we listened o each other and combine our ideas but we had a clear idea of what we’re heading for so we knew which ideas not to include in the final product. We also had developed our skills on adobe premiere pro and knew how to work most of the software and this helped us get the film done more independently allowing us to get on with the film editing quick without many issues. One issue we had was organising the date that we needed to film in town because we had problems to organise a time when we were both free. This problem was sorted and we managed to finish filming in the week that was allowed. For the filming we developed many skills and learnt many new one like using the green screen which was tricky as we required 2 rails when there was only one so we had to improvise by holding the other end up with a metre stick. Another thing we learnt was how to leave the colour behind on the clip because we need the red to stay on the clip so we had to figure this out ourselves and then try out different ways of achieving the same effect but this tuned out to be the best method of keeping the red in shot.
Overall I think we have improved our skills significantly and by doing so it has shown in our film compared to the preliminary task even though it’s just one clip. Also I believe our team communication has improved and as a team we came up with good ideas which we were able to produce without having to go majorly out of our way considering the time we had.
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