Throughout the Media course we have working towards a short opening film that we will be marked on; our film is a Comedy Thriller and is for the ages of 12 and above.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our goal was to create a short opening to a film that showed what the film is about and hopefully make the viewers want to see more of the film. We are going to create an opening to a comedy thriller. We was inspired by the film Red Dragon and Scary movie, Red dragon Is a thriller and Scary movie is a comedy thriller, both films are similar to ours and we can look at the films a get some ideas for our own film.
In our film we used many different camera angles and techniques to improve the viewing quality and enjoyment, some camera angles that we used were close up, wide shot, POV and Two shot. We used different camera angles in our film to make it more interesting and enjoyable to watch, different camera angles also makes the film suit it genre in some ways for example if you use low angle shots then it creates different feelings than when you use high angle shots.
We used fire as the main phobia/fear in our film, fire causes damage and many people are scared of it. Fire is also red/orange which can create different emotions and feelings, red is the colour of danger and love and orange is the colour of heat. The antagonist in the film revolves around fire; he burns his victims and strikes when the victim is vulnerable and unaware. The name of our film is Pyrophobia; Pyrophobia is the phobia of fire. The characters in our film are all in the wrong in some way, Pryo (the antagonist) only targets people that have done something wrong from example James (Ryan) is an alcoholic and Dave (Tony) is a thief.
Mise en scene helps to create different feelings and atmosphere in films, in our opening we used Mise en scene to create tension and emotion for example we used a darker light in the chase to create a mood for that scene. The costumes for our film suits the characters, Dave wears a shirt and trousers that he stole from another person and James wears casual worn down clothes, these suit because Dave is a thief and wears what he has stolen and James is a alcoholic and he doesn’t care about what he looks like.
Sound is a big part in thrillers and horrors mainly because it creates emotion and atmosphere, we used sounds that build suspense and that create atmosphere to make the viewers feel uncomfortable and aware.
Fire was used in the opening of our film but the fire was edited in, the logo at the beginning of the film has fire along with it and this is used because it suits the theme of the film and it also gets the viewers in the mood for the film and it gives them and idea of what the film is going to be like. We also used static along with noise to create mood, static would flash onto the screen every now and again.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product will defiantly suit our social groups, our social group is aimed more at the teenage age range, this is because the characters in the film are actually teenagers and the teenage viewers may be able to connect to the characters in the film in some way. The characters Dave and James are average teenagers that joke around and act silly; they have a laugh but do have a bad side to them. They are best mates and get on with each other really well. The title and villain of the film will suit social groups that are interested in Horrors and thrillers, young adults and teenagers are most popular in Horrors and thrillers so this age range is suitable for our film. The title will draw audiences who are interested in Horrors in because as soon as you read the name of the film you have an idea and you can make a guess that the film is a horror and then people may want to know more about it and watch the trailer or search about it.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our media product ‘Pyrophobia’ is a small film which means it has a low budget, this means that it would be unsuitable to be distributed by a conglomerate like Warner Brothers because they distribute big blockbuster films with large budgets and Stars, even their lower budget films have a high budget but they just don’t have the same publicity and popularity. After doing some research we thought that Lions Gate would be an ideal distributer because they have distributed other horror films such as “Alone in the dark”, “The Last Exorcism” And “Saw”. Lions Gate would be an ideal distributor because I think that it would fit in with their other films well, Pyrophobia won’t be a big hit with lots of publicity but it could still be a film that can be enjoyed by an audience. Pyrophobia would be a cheap film that can be enjoyed still, but it would be underrated.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our media product would be for people who are interested in comedy and thriller films. This is because as stated previously in question 2 the characters in the film are young teenagers that are lively, silly and even stupid; this would mean that they would be more suited for younger people that could relate to them in some way. The age restriction for our film would be below the age of 15 this would be because of bad language in the film. The film would be more suitable for younger people as the characters in the film are young and the viewers may be able to relate to them in some way. The fire in the film would suit teenagers because they may enjoy and think that fire is cool etc. The antagonist in our film would probably suit adults and young adults more than teenagers because he is suspicious and mysterious and some teenagers may not understand him that well they are more interested in action etc.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience to our film my making the film suit the style of comedy and thriller we did our best to try and make the film suit both genres which would then mean the film would appeal to people who like at least one of them genres. Before we started to think of initial ideas we created some questionnaires that would ask people what phobias they have and other thing that would help us create a horror. We also asked what colours would be preferred in a horror and what type of setting would be best to film in, we couldn’t use all popular options when filming due to finding and getting to locations etc. We used sound, editing, mise en scene and Camera angles to attract these audiences. We edited fire into the film because of safety and other factors that were stopping us using real fire, we placed a fire filter over the clip that was in the antagonist POV showing Dave getting attacked. We also edited the sound where Dave was waking up James after he was knocked out in his dream where he was being chased by Pyro; we changed the pitch and speed of the sound to create this effect. We tried to come up with a name for the film that suited the genre and we decided to go with Pyrophobia because most people don’t know what it means and we though that we could use the meaning of it which is the fear of fire in our film. We used fire as the main fear and created the character ‘Pyro’ from the name of the film; ‘Pyro’ from ‘Pyrophobia’ so the name of the film matched the antagonist in the film, the characters had a fear of Pyro.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?
During this product I have learnt a lot of things from using a camera in different ways to editing techniques both have been helpful and will help me in the future. To film our product we used a Nikon D3100 with an 18-55 VR (Vibration Reduction) lens which is a suitable standard lens for close to medium shots. We attached a fisheye lens to the camera when we wanted to create a different effect, this lens creates a wide shot and allows the camera to see all around the room. We filmed in HD at 30fps, this was helpful when we was editing as we could slow down the clip a little and the quality and smoothness of the clip still stays but when it goes too low it starts to jump and become lower quality. From filming I have learnt how to use a camera in interesting ways to make the viewing more interesting and also that it is always better to use a tripod when filming. From editing the film I have learnt different techniques and also I now have a little understanding on how to use the software because before the making of this product I have never used this software before and I didn’t really have an understanding on different ways that you can edit footage. We used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our film, this software allowed us to edit in different ways and we could experiment using different filters, lighting etc. I also learnt how to use Mac’s more because we was using them quite often and you learnt more about the different things that you can do on them during this process.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progress from it to the full product?
When creating our preliminary task we didn’t really have that much knowledge of what we could do in terms of camera angles and techniques and especially editing, we didn’t have that much skill in the editing side but as the product evolved we become more familiar with the software and our skills improved and expanded. After completing the end product we realised how long it actually takes to prepare, film, edit and then produce a product, it takes a lot longer than you would think and hours of work turns into minuets of footage. From doing the preliminary task I learnt about the 180 degree rule, the 180 degree rule is when the camera has to stay on a 180 degree line. The 180 degree rule is usually used in dialogue scenes showing a conversation between two people.
