Friday, 14 May 2010
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Media Evaluation
By Rachael Booth
Media Evaluation
Our film incorporates generic conventions in the scene where Amelia and Alexis are sat doing work and the killer try’s to strangle Amelia and Alexis pushers the killer to the side in Amelia’s defense. Amelia then only cares about herself and her own safety and runs for the door leaving Alexis alone with the killer. Our film challengers these conventions because the female characters Amelia and Alexis have more personality rather than conforming to the usual stereotypical characteristics of female characters in horror/ thriller films. Our film is similar to the film Paranormal Activity as we decided our film would have multiple endings just like Paranormal Activity has multiple endings. I am going to compare and contrast our opening sequence to the opening sequence of the film Scream. The film Scream starts off with an image of a phone which becomes significant to the story line later on in the film, whereas our opening sequence starts with Stacey’s character Alexis walking down a dark path alone, both opening sequences start with girls being alone in either a house or on there way to college. The location of the film’s opening sequence is also different as in Scream they are indoors and on our film we are outdoors, however they are both dark so this is a similarity. They are also similar in the way that both films are aimed at teenagers and include teenage actors/actresses. Another similarity is the main location is their college.
In our film there is an equal amount of male and female characters who are all in their teenage years and come from similar middle class white British families. Gender is represented in a stereotypical way throughout most of our film, however the scene stated above shows that for a short period of time Stacey’s character Alexis breaks the stereotype.
Our product could be produced by a major Hollywood studio because a major Hollywood studio would be able to afford the equipment and resources needed to make our film look more realistic. Our film is similar to the film Scream, as both our film and Scream’s main story line involves teenagers being stalked in college.
I don’t think our film would be an art house film because I think our film would appeal to a large number of people. I think our film would be shown in the cinema first then released onto DVD, then later released onto blue ray and then finally shown on analogue TV. As our film has multiple endings it gives the audience the opportunity to see the film on more than one occasion, which would result in us making more money.
I think our film target audience is anyone who is over 18 years old, but mainly between the ages 18 to 25. I think this because some of the scenes are inappropriate for under 18 year olds and also the characters in the film are in this age range so it would be easier for an audience with an age range of 18 to 25 to relate to the characters situations. I think our film would appeal to equal numbers of males and females because I think females could relate to Stacey’s character breaking the stereotype and defending my character, Amelia. Whereas the male audience could relate better to a simpler character like Amelia, who lives up to the stereotype by being very stereotypical and running away screaming. I think the most appropriate classification for our film would be an 18 because the weapons we use are quite easy to get hold of, bad language is use throughout the film and there are various violent fight scenes. www.bbfc.co.uk
As I have previously stated the target audience for our film is people aged from 18 to 25. Many people in this age group will still be at college, the characters in our film are hunted and attacked in college so therefore the audience will be able to put themselves in the characters shoes and realize that this could happen to them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaraRs35PyY We asked a small group of people what they thought of our film, the hyper link is above. One negative comment we got was that our title sequence was all white text on a black background and they found this a little boring and not very interesting.This would be something we would look at if we were given this assignment to do again. On a positive note one of the people we interviewed said that they liked the music we put over our film as it fitted in well with what was happening on screen.
For internal shots we used a Sony HDV 1000 camera as we have not used this type of camera before we had a few problems with it to start with, one of these problems was we managed to successfully assemble the equipment, however when it came to taking the tripod down we had a bit of difficulty, we overcame this problem quickly and easily by asking for help. As we hadn’t used this type of camera before we have developed new skills that will help us in the future. For external shots we used a JVC DV camcorder we had used this type of camera before in our previous preliminary task, so therefore our entire group felt confident using this equipment. To edit our film we used finale cut express, as we had not used this software before we had to learn how to use it. I personally found it quite difficult to use to start with however with more practice I feel more confident using this software.
For our film we had to do research into the genre and understand the classification of films doing this research helped us develop a better understanding of what kind of things we needed to include in our film. Also doing this research made it a lot easier for us to produce our film, as we already knew what shots we needed, where they needed to be shot, who was going to be on the shot and who was going to be behind the camera etc. from our preliminary task we gained a better understanding of continuity this was because in our preliminary task we thought we had shot everything fine but then when we came to edit it, it wouldn’t edit together properly because in some of shots we had a door open then in other shots the door was closed. I have improved my understand of shot types and where they should be used because on our preliminary I was mainly on screen so therefore I didn’t really get much opportunity to film. Whereas on this film I am not on screen as much which gave me the opportunity develop my camera skills.
Analysis of Scream
BY Rachael Booth
Analysis of Scream
The title sequence starts with an advertisement of Miramax Home Entertainment then another one for Dimension films. The word Scream then appears in white capital letters on a black background, firstly the letters fill the screen then they close into the centre of the screen in a moderately sized text as they do close together you hear a banging noise. Then the text goes red and you hear a screaming noise and another bang and the text then vanishes. The first shot that appears on screen is a close up shot of telephone. The first character to appear is a female character dressed in a feminine jumper and white tracksuit bottoms in a medium close up shot. The female character then answers the phone and has a very feminine sounding voice in contrast to the voice on the other end of the phone which is deeper and masculine sounding. The voice on the other end of the phone then asks who their speaking to then the female character presumes that it’s a wrong number and puts the phone down. She then turns and walks away from the phone, the phone then starts to ring the female character then turns back round looks at the phone, then we get a close up shot of the telephone, then the camera cuts back to the female character. This is an example of an eye line match which is used to help the audience see what the actors on screen are seeing. The lighting is artificial and mainly background lighting. The camera then moves to a low angle shot looking up at some trees outside the house. Outside the house it’s night time. The camera then shows a close up of a gas hob being lit. The phone then rings again and it’s the same deep, masculine voice as before. The female character then walks round the house and picks some books up from the kitchen table and walks to the front room while she’s still on the phone. Things then get a little bit creepy when the voice says “I want to know who I’m looking at” the females voice then gets quieter she then looks outside and hangs up the phone. She then walks away from the window, the phone rings again however the female character quickly puts down the phone. The female character then answers the phone again and shouts at the voice on the other end, but the voice on the other end sounds angry and threatens the female character, the music then comes in and gets gradually more intense. The female character then runs to the door and locks it, she then looks out of a glass pain on the door and we (the audience) see the path (eye line match). She then hangs up the phone and begins to cry and scream. There is then a knock at door. The phone rings again and the voice on the other end shows tells the female character to look on to the patio she then sees her boyfriend tied to a chair bleeding, with a head wound. We see her boyfriends face in close up shot which then zooms out into a medium shot. She then turns the patio lights off and crouches down. The voice on the phone then tells her to play a game is she answers the questions correctly her and her boyfriend will live however is she answers incorrectly they will die. Her voice quite and tear full. She pleads with the voice on the phone to stop. She answers the first question correctly however this was a warm up question, she then gets the next question wrong and begins to scream and shout down the phone. The camera then cuts to her boyfriend out on the patio there’s very little lighting except some background lighting. The female character then turns the patio lights on and we get a medium shot of her boyfriend bleeding to death. She then crouches down again and listens to the next question, then a chair gets thrown through the patio window and she runs to the kitchen and picks up a knife and hides outside the house. The camera cuts to inside the house and we see a human like figure in the house in black clothing wearing a mask. Then the camera cuts to a car in the distance in a long shot. The music is getting gradually more intense. The female character then turns round and sees the figure behind her they struggle for a while then the figure starts chasing her as she heads for the car. The figure catchers her and stabs her once then the knife comes up and we get a close up of it showing it to the audience covered in blood. She then gets stabbed again as we see too people entering the house. The camera then cuts to the people in the house and there shouting for “Casey” there searching gets more and more frantic, and the female character trys crawling to the house however the figure grabs her and drags her away. The camera then cuts to the people in to house holding on to a phone and they can hear a breathing noise like there’s someone on the other end the camera then cuts back to female character being dragged away with the phone in her hand.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
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