Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We chose the film institution ‘Warner Bros.’ because we knew they were a very well-known and quite popular film company, which means that our film would have had a lot of promotion. ‘Warner Bros.’ is an American company which means that they produce Hollywood films, but they also produce British films. This meant that our film could be seen as a British film even with an American film company. As a group we didn’t really think about whether we wanted this film to be made for TV or whether we just wanted it to be made for the cinema. I think our film is suitable for TV, so it could be shown on horror/thriller film channels or it could be shown on a special event such as Halloween.

‘Warner Bros.’ have produced many horror films that are comparable to ours, but one that stands out against others is the ‘Harry Potter’ film series as it is a British film produced by ‘Warner Bros.’. There are many differences and a few similarities between our film and ‘Harry Potter’.

Differences:

·      Our film is based around the horror genre whereas ‘Harry Potter’ is based around the fantasy and adventure genre.

·      They use lots of special effects and CGI throughout all of the ‘Harry Potter’ films; however in our film we didn’t use any special effects or any CGI. We did use fake blood which comes under special effects, but it’s nothing compared to what special effects they use in ‘Harry Potter’.

·      In ‘Harry Potter’ they use very special costumes and they make the outfits especially for the film. Unlike our film where we just put the characters in normal casual everyday outfits.

·      The music used in ‘Harry Potter’ is based around the fantasy genre and a lot of sound effects are used. On the other hand our film music is mainly based around horror and we didn’t use any sound effects.

·      ‘Harry Potter’ was filmed on a set that was created just for the ‘Harry Potter’ trilogy. Unlike our film where we filmed outside and didn’t make and create anything that we could have filmed.

·      ‘Harry Potter’ has a mix of genders where as our film is mainly female characters which wasn’t intentional.

Similarities:

·      Both ‘Harry Potter’ and our film were filmed in the UK.

·      They are both known as British films produced by ‘Warner Bros’.

·      Both films create mystery and build tension with the music used.

·      They have similar characters as there are three friends and one villain.

Film Titles | Horror

When doing research into horror films, I found that they use different types of fonts to make the film title more effective.

'The Amityville Horror'

The first film title I looked at was from a film called 'The Amityville Horror', which is a film from 2005.

From this film title we can see that the font is quite long and it has a mix of bigger and smaller font sizes. Also we can see that the font of the title if in the colour red. The colour of the title could suggest danger and blood. This would then make the viewer think about what the film is going to be about and whether danger and/or blood is involved in the movie.

The different range of font sizes in the title makes the title more effective because it highlights the main setting in the film which is 'Amityville'. I also like the fact that they have dragged out the end of the 'Y'. I think they have done this to emphasis the fact that blood may be involved in the film, as it looks like blood dripping down.

Or it could emphasis the fact that something has been happening for a long amount of time. The viewer can think this as the line is quite long, the viewer can also think that this film may be about ghost like features as the line is being pointed down to the bottom of the title. Many people say that heaven is found at the top of the world and hell is found at the bottom of the world. This then backs up the point that it may be something to do with ghosts, as it's being pointed in the direction of hell.

'You're Next'

The second film title I looked at was from a film called 'You're Next', which is a film from 2011.

From this film title we can see that the font is quite long and the font size is quite large. Also the colour of the font is red. This could suggest danger which could then fear the viewer and make them want to watch the film to see what the danger in the film is.

The long writing and large font size is effective because it makes the title stand out against the black background which is also quite effective. I like that the creators of the font have dragged out to end of someone of the letters to make it look like the whole title has been painted on a wall and to make it look like the blood is dripping down. I like this effect as it makes the viewer quite scared as to why the title looks like dripping blood.

Storyboard

This is the storyboard of our opening scene. We used quite a lot of shots and we wanted to show them all in the storyboard which is why there is a lot to be shown. When filming the opening scene we used the storyboard to help us and also when editing we used the storyboard to help. However, we did change a few things in the storyboard when editing because we found that some shots looked good with an effect put on it and we also just wanted to experiment with the speed of some shots.

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group of the three girls together that you see at the beginning of the movie resemble many stereotypical teenage girl friendship groups. I think this because the friends are shown talking and discussing certain topics that girls usually talk about. Also, one of the friends has their phones out which is effective when showing that they are teenagers, as teens are usually on their phone.

The friendship group in our opening scene can be slightly compared to the friendship group in the film 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging'. 

These girls are shown as typical teenage girls who go to school, likes boys, wants to go parties, etc. This group compared to the friendship shown in our opening scene are definitely shown as stereotypical teenage girls, where as the friendship group in our opening scene aren't really shown as that. There are quite a lot of differences between our friendship group and this friendship group, but there are a few similarities as well. This friendship group has a lot to talk about like our friendship group. This friendship group are shown going to and from school or to and from each others houses, likewise, our friendship group is shown coming from school or one of their friends houses.

The main character that gets stabbed in our opening scene could be compared to with the guy from 'The Phone Booth'.

This man is shown as a typical working man in New York City. In the film we see him take life in his stride at first, but then his life becomes endangered. Like the main character in our film, she was walking home like normal but then she gets in danger and she gets stabbed. This character doesn't get killed but he does get threatened and he almost gets shot. Even though this character has similarities to our character, there are also some differences. For example; this character is a male, but ours is a female. Stereotypically the male character is shown as strong and clever so he manages to get away from death, whereas stereotypically the female character is shown as weak and quite dumb so she ends up getting stabbed.

Our aim for the characters in our opening scene was to make them quite stereotypical so the viewer will know what character is what. We wanted the main character to be a stereotypical female, so she would come across weak and innocent and not able to save herself. The friends are quite stereotypical girls as well and we planned that because we wanted the viewer to identify that they are typical teenage girls. We made the murderer stereotypical as well because we wanted the character to be easily identified. We dressed the murderer in black clothing and a black jumper with the hood up so it was hard to see the characters face. We wanted that to add to the mystery and to also build tension. The stereotypical murderer is quiet and not seen that much, which adds to the mystery of the film. We wanted mystery to come across in our film so we made sure that we didn't show too much of our murderer. 

Having stereotypical characters in our opening scene means that our target audience would probably enjoy the film more as they know what the characters are going to be like. Our target audience was based around teenagers and young adults, which is why we used stereotypical characters as they would be able to relate to the characters more.

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 1

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

To start off the opening scene we had to use an institutional company, and the company we chose to use was 'Warner Bros.'. We chose this institutional company because as a group we felt that the 'Warner Bros.' company would fit in well with our horror genre. We researched what genre movies 'Warner Bros.' usually produce and we found that they produce quite a lot of horror movies that were quite similar to our opening scene.

Throughout the opening scene we used a lot of close up shots to show the different expressions on the two characters faces. Using close up shots in a horror movie is quite normal as they are used to exaggerate the shocked or scared expressions on the characters face. We decided to use a mix of different camera angles when filming this opening scene to build tension throughout the scene, and to make the viewer wonder what is going to happen. Using close up shots helps to build the tension as we are showing the viewers a close up of the characters facial expression. With the close up shots, we made sure that all the shots change quite quickly to build the tension and the make a sort of mystery in the scene. 

For our movie title we decided to make the colours red as we thought it would show danger and death. Also we thought the colour red would make it stand out amongst other colours. We had a bit of trouble filming the movie title as we original made it on powerpoint. We weren't sure how to add the title to the editing program that we used, Final Cut Express, so we decided to film the powerpoint presentation. This was hard because we had to get the right angle on the camera so you couldn't see the reflections of everything in the background. If there was one thing that we could improve in our opening scene it would be this as it doesn't look very professional.

The music isn't played throughout the whole opening scene as we felt that it would look better if it started just after the start so it would build tension. For the music we made two different soundtracks. One to start off the music and the other to build a lot of tension. We created these pieces of music through 'GarageBand' and we uploaded them onto sound-cloud. If we were to improve the soundtrack slightly we could increase the volume for the instruments that we used, as I felt that some of the instruments were a little quiet. When making the soundtracks we wanted quite loud instruments like a drum. We used this to build tension throughout the scene and to make the viewer scared and feel very tense. Overall, I think that the soundtrack did it's job and made the scene tense.

Lastly, we filmed the credits. For the credits we wanted to be quite artistic and adventurous because we didn't want the credits to be boring and dull like credits in other films. We thought a lot about what we could do for the credits and we came up with an idea. We filmed the actress who played the murderer, Nadine Head, typing in the names of the people starring in the film and the people who created the film. We had to re film it a couple of times because you couldn't see the text very well with the lighting and also some of the words were spelt wrong. I really like this idea, however I think that it makes the opening scene look more like a short film. If we were to place this shot at the start of the opening scene it wouldn't really make any sense to the viewer, so when improving the opening scene we might have to show the credits in a different way. Although, with that being said, we have had quite a lot of feedback saying that people like the credits at the end and the way we did it, so we might have to think about either keeping it the way it is or showing the credits a little differently.

Opening Scene | Never Look Back

This is the opening scene that me and my media group created. The title of the film is 'Never Look Back' and we used 'Warner Bros.' as the institutional company.

Film Institutions | Warner Bros.

When researching different film institutions, I decided to look at 'Warner Bros.'. I chose to look at this because I love all of the films 'Warner Bros.' made and I thought it would be an interesting institution to look at.

The founders of 'Warner Bros.' are Albert Warner, Harry Warner, Sam Warner and Jack Warner. 'Warner Bros.' is a fully coordinated, broad-based entertainment company and a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment and their related businesses. 'Warner Bros' creates feature films to television, home entertainment/DVD, animation, product and brand licensing and interactive entertainment. The company's vast contains more than 61,000 hours of programming, including nearly 6,500 feature films and 3,000 television programs.

'Warner Bros' have created many popular and very well-known movies such as:

The Hobbit, The Hangover, Inception, Harry Potter, Argo, Cats & Dogs, New York Minute, A Cinderella Story, The Polar Express, Slumdog Millionaire, Yogi Bear, Horrible Bosses, Crazy Stupid Love, New Year's Eve, Wizard of Oz, Batman, Superman and many more.