Evaluation.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our opening titles, we used blood red font, to symbolize death / murder etc, this is a common convention of a horror film. We also used an eerie soundtrack for the beginning of the film and some of the dialogue scenes which consisted of almost pan pipe sounding instruments, to add tension and an uneasy feeling to the scenes building up to the climax, typical of horrors. For the dramatic possession scene we also used a loud, thumping, grinding, screeching soundtrack to add a sense of horror and panic to the climatic sequence, typical of a horror. Our production also has a series of sped up, hectic jump cuts to add to the climax and cause the audience to be caught in a deranged sequence so they feel panicked. I darkened most of our filming to add the horror convention that horrors are set in dark, spooky settings. In most horror films, teenagers are seen as vulnerable or easily led, for example, teenagers walking into a supposedly haunted house on Halloween for a joke, but in our production, Jag and Sam do not give into the peer pressure of Emma, asserting their own authority and deciding what will happen to them, so we challenge this convention.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
As all of our cast are teenagers, age isn't represented in a particular way as every character is different. Emma represents teenagers as being care-free and slightly reckless whereas Jag represents teenagers as being traditional and going by their morals. Jag is our only ethnic character other than Caucasian, making her the minority in the sequence, she represents her ethnicity as going by traditions and what your parents tell you and not being influenced by others due to what shes been taught. In terms of gender, the females take the leading roles in our production, Emma is the bossy female leader and Jag also strongly voices her opinions, whereas our male character Sam doesn't really stand up for what he believes other than to stop the two females arguing, hes the less vocal character. Emma is of a lower social class to the others, this can be seen by her cheap costume and making fun of the others, "Oh are you scared?" she says, suggesting shes come from a background where you have to do certain things to earn group respect like shes trying to peer pressure the others. Bur otherwise, the others are of a working class status, where stereotypically, students socialize instead of studying etc.
 
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe our product is low budget, due to the lack of special effects and the fact we created everything ourselves, financing makeup etc. A media institution such as Hammer Film Studios would distribute our media production, as they're very well known for distributing horrors. Hammer have shown their interest in teenage horrors, with productions such as 'Beyond the Rave' which is based around a group of teenagers, this was broadcast over the internet in a series, also Channel 4 created a series called Dead Set based around a horror storyline, our production would work like this as our product leaves the sequence on a cliff hanger, so other episodes could be made to complete and carry on the storyline, so also a TV Channel / Company could distribute our product as a series or a mini film, such as the channel Film 4 often does.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience would have to comply to our film rating, of 15 upwards, so age range wise, our target audience would be around 15-25 years of age, as the film is based around a group of teenagers, our target audience can relate to it because they're around the same age. I believe both male and female genders would watch our product as there's the same amount of male to female characters so there's no real bias towards one gender. Our social class is aiming towards the working class, as this is the class we tried to convey in our product where teenagers 'typically' go to college and act like the stereotypical students that just socialize with friends.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?To begin with, the audience follows Sam around the house, wondering who he is or where hes going and this makes the audience curious and want to watch what he's doing, when he finds the Ouija board the audience will be more curious as to what it's doing there and what it does etc. Our titles also have a 'ghostly' glow around them, to tell the audience that the film was a paranormal theme throughout, giving them possible clues to the storyline. When the storyline unfolds the audience will be interested in what happens to Emma as she decides to use the Ouija board on her own, and soon get impacted by her deranged possession scene, the audience then will be gripped and wonder why and how this has happened to Emma and what she will do next. When the sequence ends, the audience are shocked by the appearance of the dead brother, Jay and will soon be wondering what will happen next and how he even got there, but the sequence ends on a cliffhanger to keep the audience guessing, making them imagine and ending for themselves. We used eerie, pan pipe music throughout to build tension to let the audience know it's building up to something to keep their interest and another screeching, thumping soundtrack to add chaos to the possession scene, to make the audience feel the impact. I would advertise our product virally, using sidebar adverts on websites, pop-up adverts on websites, create a website for the production and link our website to the company that was producing it, for example, linking our website to the Channel 4 website if they were producing it as a series, to hopefully attract our teenage target audience who are often exposed to viral marketing. I would also release teaser trailers and trailers on websites such as Youtube where it could be viewed often at any time of the day to anyone and wouldn't be just limited to a certain time on TV.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
At the start of the coursework I did not know how to use / set up a camera for filming, now I can set up a tripod myself, set up the camera for filming by connecting it onto the tripod, insert the Mini DV tape safely, then record. I can also pause, rewind, fast forward the tape using the camera etc. I also know how to correct the spirit level in a tripod and use the tripod for panning / tilting. I now also know how to create multiple soundtracks using the programmes Soundtrack Pro and Garage Band, I can also export these soundtracks and place them onto our production. I also know how to use the programme Final Cut Pro to capture sections of footage off of the Mini DV tape, I can also use these pieces of footage on Final Cut Pro by piecing them all together, adding effects to them and transitions in between them to create a time-line of our production. I can also create text on Final Cut Pro for the credits and place these over the footage, along with adding effects to the text. I can now also use Photoshop, which we used to create our film logo and our production title, I know now how to make different layers in Photoshop, how to add effects to the image, how to scale the image and how to add text over images, then export them by making them into a different file format so they're able to be placed on our Final Cut Pro time-line. I now also know how to create a blog on Blogspot, design the appearance of this blog and edit this blog, how to create posts and change features about the post and how to embed video footage into a blog post, aswell as adding photos like screen-caps to a blog post.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel that throughout filming I always had the 180 degree rule in mind and kept to this rule, showing the camera actually moving across the room instead of breaking the 180 degree rule, this can be seen in Emma's possession scene. I also wanted to incorporate Match on Action into our product, so i filmed Sam opening Jays bedroom door, then filmed Sam appearing on the other side of the door, to show his transition. I also learnt from the tasks how to work in a team and became used with our group dynamic of me, Emma and Jag and got used to how they acted and responded to each other on camera, this made the actual filming much easier as they were used to being on camera by then and used to me giving them directions.