Different genre have different codes and conventions, each genre uses its own codes and convention to create its meaning. In every movie, there should always be protagonist and antagonist which an audience can clearly distinguish. The audience can distinguish the characters with their characteristic behaviour, costumes and make up.
I have used codes and conventions in my product which fits within the horror genre. Within a horror film we expect to see spirit, ghost as antagonist who is always chasing after the protagonist and killing people who comes in her corridor.
In this product the character Jennifer is introduced as a geek and loner who is locked up by her mates in radio room whereas Sakura is introduced as Ghost, the antagonist haunting innocent people who crosses her space. Sakura is a ghost who disappeared from Havering College few years ago.
This is the print screen of the title of our 2 min opening sequence. I have chosen "Cherry Blossom" as a title of my product as it is the English name of "Sakura" and I am mainly focusing on the character Sakura. I chose red colour in the text of the title as it connotes danger, blood. "Cherry Blossom" is a mixture of red and white, red connotes danger whereas white connote peace which means Sakura is both innocent and danger.
This is the print screen of the characters in the radio room; it introduces the characters of opening sequence. The protagonist Jennifer is introduced as a geek and loner who is locked up in a radio room where as Sakura is introduced as antagonist haunting Jennifer. Sakura is a ghost who disappeared from Havering few years ago.
I chose this location for our opening sequence as this sequence is based on students. Radio room was a perfect place for us as it was perfect place for the development of situation where important events would take place. As our character goes with the stereotype of being geek and media students, both has association with Jennifer. It also has a suitable place to hide, as it is easy to access and spacious with the connotation of being mysterious. The corridor gives a feeling of being trapped.
I have used different angle, shots and movement while shooting this sequence, to create enigma, dominance. Two shot was used to show the relationship between two characters. Close up shot is used to show the expression of the characters and focus on the props, medium shot was used to show both expression and body language of the character. Long shot is used to show the body language of the character and also to show the location. Tracking movement is used to track the movement of Jennifer.
I have used high buttoned shirt and pencil skirt for Jennifer to stereotype Jennifer as a geek and nerdy character whereas white dress for Sakura to show her character as spirited ghost. I also used white dress as it is used in most of Japanese Horror to create enigmatic appearance of antagonist. The prop used in this sequence is phone. It is used in this sequence to create tension and fear to audience.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I have chosen a key character Sakura to compare with Kayako of "The Grudge". Although the story lines are different they have some similarities in their character at certain points but also have some dissimilarities.
Sakura is a stepsister of Kate Miyazaki. She was a student of Havering College who was studying GCSE. One day she suddenly disappeared from her college, nobody knew what happened to her or where she was. After some months, few students disappeared. Sakura was the one who killed all of those students as they were found to be strangled by the corridor neart to the radio room. Sakura also kills Jennifer who was locked up by her classmate in radio room. At that point we realise that Sakura is a ghost.
Similarly, they both share fate. They both were murdered and hold a strong grudge against someone. Kayako is a ghost who kills every person who comes in her house. All people who steps in her house are cursed by her. They both rule a particular area- Sakura rules her corridor whereas Kayako rules her house. They both wear white dress and have long hair which hides their faces most of the time.
There are also vast differences between these characters as they are of different ages. Sakura is a student where as Kayako is a mid wife who have a son. Other differences are that Kayako was murdered by her husband after she fell in love with a professor. Sakura is just a 15 year old girl who doesn't have any knowledge about love. Sakura kills all her victim within her territory whereas Kayako kills her victim in places other than the house, Kayako's curse follows the victim and spreads curses even in that areas. In full length of my movie Sakura enters in her sister's body where as Kayako is accompanied by her son.
Overall both the characters are female ghost, which is common in most of the horror movies. Both character holds grudges against someone and spreads curse. The target audience could relate these two characters easily as they represent similar characteristics and images.
3)What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The production name of our opening sequence is 'Lightning' with a picture of an animated eye. I chose this name as a production name as it sounds strong and effective to the horror production. I chose animated eye as I was inspired by Japanese Anime, our target audience are mostly European and Asian. I also chose the production name Lightning as it fits with the image.
This production company produces films, Tv programs, adverts etc. and distributes it in different media. They also get funds by producing their product. Dreamworks has produced many films, records and Tv programs. This studio has also won three Best Pictures Oscar. This company has produced films like Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind. This production also produces animation; it has produced animation like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda etc.
A distributer is someone who distributes films in different media and supports it fully. Dreamworks would be the most reliable as it has been existing since mid 1990s and have distributed Horror film 'The Ring' which was a very big hit within horror genre.
We could also distribute our movie online because this is the 21st century, year of technologies and it is easily accessible. Youtube is the easiest way to distribute our product as it is very advanced and easy to access. Audience would prefer to watch it online as it is free of cost.
The production name is shown in the beginning of the movie following with the name of association and two actors. The other cast are shown as the movie begins. Our film is influenced by Horror movies like The Ring, Grudge and the Thai movie called'Shutter'.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
We produced our product for several audience group,15+ of both gender. From all of this target audience, I chose a female audience named Anu for analysing on our product.
This is Anu Tamang. She is 20 years old and lives in Essex. She is curently working in restuarant as a waitress. She have passed her A-level with good grades. She wears a casual dress Jeans, T-shirt and Jacket. She enjoys shopping with her friends. She shops in places like Zara, H&M and River Island.
She enjoys watching all genre movie especially horror, sci-fi and comedy. She enjoys watching horror movies like The Ring, The Grudge, The Witchboard, Shutter and many more although she is scared to watch it. She also loves scaring people and throwing on people as she gets all these ideas from Youtube. She watches movies a lot and goes to cinema hall once a week. Most of the time,she watches movies online. She needs popcorn by her side even if she watches at home. She also recommends a movie to her friends which is very helpful for us at it is also a source of distribution.
She listens to classical music which she buys from HMV. She has lots of CD piles in her house which is her hobby and token from friends.
I think our film would appeal to this girl as she is a horror freak. If this film is to be screened in her local cinema, this may appeal to her. As it is similar to other films such as The Ring, Shutter and The Grudge.
5) How do you attract/address your audience?
We handed our questionnaire to the audience to know what codes and conventions in particular are they attracted in horror movies. From the feedback of audience, we realized that the most of audience would like to see death, chilling drama and taste their nerves in horror movies which seems more real and conveying than fake bloods which was filled mostly by male of ages 18 - 22. We used this survey for our benefit through stereotype of representation of male. We used female characters in this opening sequence to create sympathy towards this characters. This is supported by technical aspects like mise-en-scene and cinematography.
We also attracted our audience through the engaging story line. For example:- we made Sakura disappear and reappear by editing different shots which was placed together at last. The opening sequence starts with Jennifer shouting from room. It creates the sense of being trapped and helplessness. The enigma created throughout the opening sequence was to create a question in audience's mind about why is Sakura haunting Jennifer? Is there any relation between Sakura and Jennifer?
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We have learnt many stuffs about technology, we learnt to use camera equipment and other softwares like finalcut pro, soundtrack pro and many more. It was fascinating using this equipments. I was fine with using camera equipments as it was easy to set up camera and tripod.
For our shooting we used
i) NP-F970 Battery
ii) MiniDV Tape
iii) Shotgun Mic with Fluffy
iv) Tripod
v) DT 100 Headphones
We had a smooth shooting for two days. Though the 1st day of our shooting was a bit difficult as I had to shoot by crawling under the table as there wasn't enough space. The software we used are -
Blogger: We used blogger to create our blog and to post our work on a blog. By using blog,I realised that we can post anything on our blog and there are so many blogs about fashion, filming and personal blogger.
Youtube: We used youtube to upload our prelimainary task, opening sequence and audience feedback. We also used youtube to learn elements of cinematography like shots and angle. We also learnt how to use blogger in youtube.
Finalcut pro: We used finalcut pro to edit our preliminary task and opening sequence. We added sounds, title sequence through Finalcut pro
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
This is the print screen from our preliminary task.From Preliminary Task,I have learnt a lot of stuffs. It was my first time using camera equipments on my ow. It was college property so I was little scared that I might not handle it properly. For this task I have used 3 of the most important elements of editing while filming which are Match-on-actoin, 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot. I also used these elements for my final piece which was very helpful.
From the preliminary task I have learnt how to set up the camera equipment
The cuts from one shot to another shot that matches the first shot action is called match on action.The two characters in the same scene should always have same left-right relationship to each other which is called 180 degree rule. We should always use 180 degree rule otherwise it confuses the audience.An editing where 1st shot is cut to 2nd shot and again cut back to 1st shot is called Shot reverse shot. We have used shot reverse shot in our final product while Jennifer looks at Sakura and again cuts back to Jennifer. This helped us to understand the importance of Shot reverse shot. We also tried to use 180 degree rule but there was not many scenes where we could use it.
This is the print screen of our preliminary task which clearly shows that we have the knowledge of 180 degree rule.
The preliminary task taught us the elements of technical aspects. Our preliminary task didn't ran smoothly. We shot it twice as it was our 1st time and we didn't had understanding of all these elements. Preliminary task was short so it was easy to apply the rules.
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