Evaluation - Question 1 - 5

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

Generally our media production uses the standard continuity technique of a real media production for example techniques such as: close up’s, extreme close ups, medium shots, shot-reverse-shot pattern, etc. The cameras that we used to film our media production, due to their lack of high quality imagery, cannot really develop the real media industry we also can't really challenge their levels, however, we definitely do experiment with their techniques. We did this by trying to develop our skills in certain areas; such areas consist of the uses of zoom-in, we did this as a way of pacing our film, creating a fast pace environment to build up to an event; for instance, a confrontation, like the one that we used in our product. We also used body-mount, handheld and steady cam shots. This creates the stalker feel to our product, and makes the audience think that she is being watched and followed.

2 - How does your media production represent particular social groups?

The female character represents women as very innocent and that are very vulnerable of being targeted, its a very conventional view upon the female, this stereotype has been developed from the early film or movie days, especially in horror films; an example of this would be the 1960’s horror film Psycho. Some could argue saying it makes them appear quite weak and unable to protect themselves or even to be independent. The male character could represent the stereotype of people who wear black clothing all the time or even hoods, who in this day and age are called 'Goths', he represents what people think as soon as they notice a young person in a hoody or black clothing...'violence' or 'danger'; it could also represent women to be less powerful to men, which we know is wrong but we use these elements, and what society is doing wrong to build the foundations of this story line. However both of these characters represent different views of not just a variety of groups in the young people of this generation but also they represent what some teenagers show in their behaviour, because of the characters portrayed. The male character represents the stereotype placed upon young teenage boys, as a violent, psychopathic person, triggered by harsh family life or a form of bullying or isolation; which may be, because of a personality disorder or a trait of their personality that people don’t care about or exploit to a dangerous level. A film that represents this stereotype is the 2009 horror film, Tormented; where a group or society exploit and ridicule a young boy with asthma and a weight problem causing his death, in which he returns from the grave to punish those who tormented him.

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

Media institutions are the companies that deal with production and distribution of me

dia products; this can involve advertising, printing. A large number of media institutions have the right to produce and distribute their products like Dimension films, New line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, also, these companies tend to deal with a lot of mainstream horror movies; our chosen genre. The reason as to why they can afford to produce and distribute their own products is because they’re either a conglomerate (parent) company or have financial backing by a conglomerate company. For instance, Dimension Films would receive financial backing from its parent company the Weinstein Company; these two companies are responsible for bringing us films like Scream, Halloween and Scary Movie. Dimensions Films and New line Cinema are two companies that have produced a lot of popular horror films like 'Scream' and 'Halloween' both these films are similar to our product and have very similar elements, because these companies are both mainstream companies and that they produce a lot of horror, Hollywood

blockbuster, films; we will look to small British companies that might be interested in distributing our media product as they will probably prefer to distribute our product. A reason for this would be because the two blockbuster companies wouldn't spend money on a product that might not give them the profit they need. Two companies, we think would be interested in distributing our product would be General Film Distribution and Momentum Pictures; both are low budget film distributers and they are both local as they are based in London. The reason for this, is because we would only require a small P&A budget and exhibition would be restricted to the UK to save money. Also these companies aren’t under ownership of conglomerates so these production companies would receive financial backing from the British Government, or UK Film Council, which is a very limited and small fund. This would affect the advertising and distribution of our product. Momentum Picture, like other small distribution companies, would form a synergy to improve profits of their products such success can be seen from the Oscar-Winning Film the King’s Speech, distributed in the UK by Momentum Pictures with its USA partner the

Weinstein Company.

4 - Who would be the audience for your media production?

The audience that this group was considering or was mainly aimed for are for men around a young age of 15- 24 and considering that there are women who also have a thrill for horror films, so we also added some aspects which will appeal to their taste. We also know that there are teenagers who would enjoy this nut we also knew that the age limit we have chosen might be very tricky but we chose that understanding that young people start from the age of 15 to begin to discover what they like and don’t.

5 - How did you attract or address your audience?

Knowing and acknowledging that a member of our group has a taste for horror, we thought it would be a good idea for us to ask him about how he was drawn to horror films. The answers that we received from him helped use figure out that the audience aimed would enjoy this production more if it had some traditional and classic traits of an original horror film. But to bring the new generation of horror into the product as well for instance the idea of playing mind games with the audience to create a psychological feel. We noticed one of the female members also had a strange attraction for horror however she isn’t a big fan, she enjoyed old films mainly black and white horror films because she finds them very hilarious because they are very predictable and classical; this might not attract such a young target audience.