Evaluation - Part 4

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

The audience for my media product would be aimed at the age of 18 and above due to the plot of the film as it's more of a psychological thrill rather than it is a jumpy, blood and gore type horror. For example this would be the audience that I would aim my media product at:

A young male over the age of 18 would be my first audience. He would be interested in programmes such as CSI 

and silent witness which would make this film perfect for his taste in media. This person would watch my film because he is into psychological thrillers and likes the historical aspect to it, he would warm to the opening sequence as it has an element of mystery, and the letters and photographs is something that he may be familiar with in terms of seeing it on other programmes in the past such as CSI or Silent Witness etc. 

The reason why I aimed this product at males first is because I think that a majority of men are drawn to these types of films due to the psychological aspect of it, this doesn't mean that I am ignoring women as I do know that some women do go for psychological thrillers (like i do) but I think that women go for films that are more rom com than thrillers. On the other hand this could appeal to a woman as much as it could to a man as the opening sequence features womens hands so a woman might see this as a feminist approach. 

I also need to consider who this media product might not be suitable for, for e.g. a young girl or boy under the age of 18: 

The reason why this would not appeal to someone of this age group is because they firstly wouldn't understand the film as their knowledge of the outside world is limited due to their age and immaturity, also the thriller aspect may scare them (for e.g. in the opening sequence the sound effects of the hearbeat and the logo would not appeal to somebody of this age group - see link at bottom) which is why I've put such a high age on my audience as aiming it at this audience would be completely wrong and I would receive very bad feedback. 

Evaluation Q3

"what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"

Key features of my opening sequence


I'd say that the key features of my opening sequence were definitely the letters and photographs and also my titles as the titles were one of my main focuses as it took up a lot of time and there were more titles in comparison to actual footage in my opening sequence.

My logo was also a key feature as that was there to "set the scene" for my opening sequence and I decided to go for a more gothic approach to the logo to stress the fact that my film IS a scary film so it would be wrong to place a picture that wasn't relevant to my genre of film.

Looking at media institutions in the past such as warner bros, warp x and working title I had to think about what kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why.

First, I looked at Warner Bros which mainly specializes in family films - this doesn't mean that they don't distribute scary films, films such as the Harry Potter franchise were distributed by Warner Bros but in comparison to what my film is about, HP was more suitable for families whereas my film wouldn't be as I have already put an age boundary of 18+ , this is because I think that anybody under this age may not understand my film or they may find it too scary etc.

I then looked at warp X and working title which would be more likely candidates to distribute my media product, and this is because they are smaller and sometimes distribute films that may not be suitable for all, for e.g. warp X distributed a film called rubber johnny - this is the trailer :



as you can see, this is very bizarre and not something that would be suitable for all, Warp X tend to focus on distributing films that may be unsuitable for many but there is a place in the market for them as there are people out there who like a more quirky type of film such as this one.

After briefly looking at these companies and then re evaluating my opening sequence I can safely say that my film would not be something that would be distributed by a mainstream company due to the storyline, age range and the fact that it isn't very similar to other films that have been distributed on a high scale in the past.

Seeing as se7en has been my main inspiration for my opening sequence, I did some research into what company produced this film and found this interesting quote ;

"Fincher approached making Seven like a tiny genre movie" I think that this is a key quote as se7en was also seen as a film that would be produced by a smaller company due to the controversy that it may have caused if released on a bigger scale - I have personally not seen the film but I'm aware that it's not a film that would be appreciated by those under a certain age due to the content and storyline.

New Line Cinema was the company that distributed se7en and also distributed a film which is quite well known-Alien. So if i was to look at an institution that would distribute my product it may be a company such as NLC as they have distributed films like this in the past.

Evaluation Q2

Evaluation Activity 2 on Prezi

Evaluation - Part 1

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


One of the media products that I focused on the most during the planning and creation of my opening sequence was the movie "Se7en" and its opening sequence.

I focused on the unconventional approach that it had in comparison to other opening sequences that we had studied within class and sequences that I had watched in my free time. This unconventional approach caught my eye as the opening sequence uses a series of documents and actions, but the only thing that is given away is the characters hands (this is what we assume) and it was mainly focused on titles, which is something that wasn't as prominent in other opening sequences. I decided to apply this to my opening sequence as I was working on my own therefore I didn't want to have to rely on other people to make my piece successful - so I decided to challenge myself and try and attempt something similar to that of Se7en's opening sequence. I first went onto www.artofthetitle.com and searched for Se7en and also for Alfred Hitchcocks film "Psycho" as it was an openings sequence that I felt could help me with my titles as the opening sequence is pure titles and cartoon figures - which is also similar to another sequence that I watched from "Catch Me If You Can". After watching these opening sequences (and also others that we had been given on a list by Mr Go) I made a list of things that I liked from each one that I watched and tried to apply this when planning and filming for my opening sequence. I did this not because I wanted mine to be the exact copy of the opening sequence that I favored (Se7en) but I wanted to use a similar style and apply the same attributes to my opening sequence to make it look as professional as possible but also as original and unique as I could make it.

The main convention that I decided to challenge as mentioned earlier, was the use of just photographs and letters (also my titles) instead of using people for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. In addition to this I wanted to mainly use these attributes to give my audience a feel for my film without having to use people as I think that is the usual media convention, and after a while this can become boring despite the amount of useful resources we have at the media department, I didn't feel that I would be able to create enough of an impact if I used people. In addition to this, my story line is something that has historical aspects to it, so I used the old photographs, letters and candles and the dim lighting to set the mood and scene -  but without giving too much of the story line away, and I got my inspiration for this from Catch Me If You Can's opening sequence as you can tell from the opening sequence that there is some sort of chase going on due to the way the cartoon like characters are moving, but you don't see the faces of the characters and the story line isn't given away.

My media product also challenged the conventions of titles in some aspects as some of my titles weren't made on LiveType but were instead written by me and then filmed and put onto iMovie which is something that I didn't see that much on other titles apart from a few that we were showed by Mr Go in class which were done by other schools but nothing of a professional nature

Thoughts after finishing everything

Last Friday was our official deadline for our opening sequences and after editing everything together and doing the finishing touches for the last time I am satisfied with my opening sequence as i put a lot of hard work into making it how I wanted it to be. Now we are starting our evaluation which I'm looking forward to doing as I'm able to show all the work that I put into making my opening sequence.

Also

I will be working on my music that will be played alongside my opening sequence on garageband during this week. Will post clips of progress later on.

Another Titles Update

I've almost finished all of my titles which is really good news as I'm happy with the final result, i might just tweak a few things such as font size depending on how it looks when i put it all together.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be doing some more filming so by wednesday's lesson / fridays lesson ill be able to put it all together and then the week after next I will be able to do final tweaking and making it look as best as possible.