AS COURSEWORK REFLECTION

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 Ways in which my group and I used media technologies in the construction and research of my planning and evaluation stages, was by using blogger on the Internet to create a blog to keep progress of my research and planning, which also allowed me to use the internet to find out more information about opening sequences to films. I found this media technology useful in which it helped keep me up to date and I was able to access the work at home and at school. This gave me a balance of how much work i was able to put in at home and at school which I feel I managed to achieve successfully.

For the construction part of digital technology my group and I used cameras, tripods and the computer software Adobe Premiere Elements, which enabled us to complete the opening sequence of our films and also to produce story boards. On Adobe Premiere Elements we edited together our film footage, this gave us the option to cut scenes together, take parts of footage that were not neeeded out, put in different effects, speed up/slow down footage, reverse footage and enter in inter-titles.

How did you use media forms to come up with something new and original? My group and I used media forms to come up with something new and original by researching into other horror films on Youtube to get inspiration and ideas for our own film. We were inspired by the films 'Halloween' and 'The Strangers', inwhich both films followed a similar meaning and story line to our own film. After researching into what is used in the opening sequences to horror films, my group and I chose parts that we thought worked well from other films e.g Halloween, which helped create our own opening sequence to our film.

How effective was the research and planning that you undertook in helping you to create your media product?
The research and planning that my group and I undertook, in helping to create our own media product became very affective and helpful throughout the proccess of creating our media product. The research and planning was affective as we looked at many different films to get different ideas of what to base the media product on, by looking at different aspects of horror films i.e the type of characters, settings, times of days, different types of music, costumes and props etc. This gave us an idea as to where it was best to place different types of music depending on the type of mood at the time in the film, especially when we wanted to show tension starting to build up.
Looking at different films helped with choosing the fonts, Names for horror films, texts and colourings to show clearly to the audience the genre of our film i.e, red to represent danger. Research and planning also helped with representing how vulnerablle characters in a horror film should be portrayed for example, timid and scared, this can be compared with Shannon Sossamon who plays the main part in One Missed Call. My group and I feel that what we used worked well as it was stereotypical ideas of a horror film for example, we decided the name 'paranoid' for our film which shows clearly to the audience what type of genre the film is and also by the use of black and red that are used which are stereotypical colours that are used in horror films.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After completing our final media product and having to show the opening of our film to an audience, we were given audience feedback. Hearing other people's opinions helped us to see the positives and negatives of our work and what could be done differently in this years A2 media product.

The negative feedback such as, in most horror films they manage to show the scene whereby they show the victim in the mirror and the killer standing behind them, and maybe we could have worked a way of trying to do that to make it look more effective or not. Also the effect that we used throughout the film might be quite off putting towards other audiences and may not be so popular. We have learnt from this negative feedback that on our next media task we will plan carefully the type of effect we will use, so that it attracts all audiences. These negative feedbacks my group and I have taken into consideration and will reflect on what we choose to do in our next media task.

The positive feedback that we recieved such as, people thought the non - diegetic sound had a good theme to the genre of the film, by how the music managed to build suspense and tension and also how the setting and genre builds up suspense  too which all worked well together. One other positive that we recieved was the use of editing techniques and how the contrast in the colours makes it look like something in a dream by making it look affective. My group and I were pleased with our audience feedback and have taken all our feedback onboard.

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

Ways in which my media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products is used in many different ways. The use of dialogue and music which is used in all films. My media product also uses different techniques of shots and angles to make it seem more like a real media product for example, close ups on significant objects and characters for the storyline.
By only having the one character in the film this challenges conventions of a real horror film, as it suggests the vulnerable female character has to try and survive throughout the whole film, and how they challenge what is coming at them. We also used titles which are used in real media products, they are used to show the title, credits, actors, directors and producers in the film. We used a similar location to other horror films such as woods and abandoned house, which is more realistic. We also used similar costumes and props which you would find in most horror films i.e a knife which most characters would use as a weapon and also for the 'killer' to be dressed in all black which is stereotypical for a killer in this type of genre.
Most importantly the story had to seem realistic to the genre, which was horror so we included a vibe of suspense and tension towards the audience.