Hanadi Afendi Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

http://1212group12012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/audience-research.html

For our audience research we have decided to make questionnaires asking the hobbies and interests of teens ages between 15-21 and the things they enjoy. As we are 3 members in the group we all had 10 questionnaires each and try go to as many different ages between them and different types of teens. From this research we have found out many results that have helped us create our final product. From this video we can show what the demographics of our results were as these were the most popular within the age range. The psychographics of the audience seemed to be very interesting as many of the people we have asked seemed to watch thriller movies on an occasional basis. This was very useful as we created our movie depending on the things they like and their attitudes towards such movies this then enabled us to make sure we keep the audience we was targeting interested.

An example of our audience would be this young 18 year old girl she lives in south west London and she dresses like a normal teenager just a pair of jeans or leggings and a nice top. She enjoys sleepovers with her friends, and shopping at the weekends. She shops in places like H&M and River Island, New Look. She also likes watching films with her friends such as St Trinians mean girls, sex and the city with some snacks. She also soaps such as Hollyoaks, Eastenders family guy, XFactor, Britain’s got talent. The main channels she would be watching is BBC, BBC3, channel 4, E4 and music channels. These include any songs that would be on the charts Rnb hip-hop and pop also a little rap in some cases depending on the artists. Our film would appeal to her because she seems like a stereotypical kind of girl and enjoys films and music that are similar to the style we have in our film.

Hanadi Afendi Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by making sure there is enough audience pleasure by making our thriller by using symbolic objects we could keep the audience on their toes feeling of suspense and they never know when something’s going to happen as it builds up suspense. An example of this would be looking at all the pictures hanging on the line. This makes the audience wonder who these people are or is it the actual character as we have hidden her identity.

Firstly we had to make sure that our film was along the guidelines of a rated 15 movie. From this link you can see the research we have done. This was to ensure we did not have anything inappropriate and goes against these strict rules.

http://1212group12012.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_01_archive.html

We could have improved our questionnaire by making sure we know what the audience would like to see in a thriller opening as this would make things easier and more appealing to the same audience.

The protagonist shown in our opening is a stereotypical attractive female teenager, this helps the target audience to feel and be able to understand the protagonist shown in the film. We have used one of our members in the group ‘Flora Clarke’ this is because she fits the criteria well and is also very reliable as we would be able to film when we are all available and during lesson times. We have also put up a timetable of when we are all free and available to film http://1212group12012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/free-periods.htmlto help achieve this. All the girls shown throughout the film (In the scrap book or in the racks or hanging up on the line) are all eye-catching teenagers who have this stereotypical look (long hair nice eyes petite figure) by this we were able to gain the male audience as well as gaining the female audience to be able to look at her and compare themselves to her.

From our audience research we have realised that our audience had quite similar things in common. Examples of these would be:

Genre: the majority of the answers we have collected from the questionnaires resulted that the females mostly liked going out shopping and buying new makeup products. This is then shown through the use of makeup on the character. This can appeal to the audience as these are the kind of things that keep them engaged

Sounds: As our theme is quite girlie and the character is effected by her past and her mother who she only remembers whilst she was young, due to killing her because she envied her beauty. The jewellery box can suggest and be a reminder as well as giving the audience a hint that there’s something about her past and that she holds on too. This gives a creepy feel especially including the sound of the gloves being put on which can give off the impression of a disturbed mind and that something is wrong this makes the audience intrigued.Through our target audience we can see that our audience like main stream music, so we have also used the music to help reach the target audience as most girls when they were younger had a jewellery box that had a similar instrumental to the one being played in our opening. Although this is  not very mainstream everyone has heard of such sounds as 

its very common.

Visual styles: Through our editing during post production we had changed the speed and flipped our clips in reverse so that we had no continuity problems.

Variety of shots used: The use of point of view shots can appeal to the audience as they are seeing things from the protagonist point of view. So they also have an insight of the life the character is living. The use of shots are not however lengthy as this could be quite boring and divert the attention of the audience away. Our aim is to keep them focused so they can feel the real tension and suspense throughout. However we have managed to keep the shots long enough for the audience to remember the objects shown and emphasise the detail and the importance of these objects. The other shots such as low angle high angle and midshot close ups and extreme close ups can keep the audience attention so that they see and are aware of everything that is going on.

Ethnicity: Again from our audience research we have found out that the demographic of the audience was mainly White/British females. So we have used pictures of white females throughout the opening on the racks, on the line hanging, as the character and in the scrap book.

Hanadi Afendi Question 6 -What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

Hanadi Afendi - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

From our preliminary task, I feel we’ve learned many different aspects of filming and what is required. The preliminary task was a way to showcase our knowledge on the continuity principles - match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule which helped us in the final product, and it was also the first time we'd used the cameras and editing software properly. 

From this picture you can see that we have used the 180 degree rule stayed on this side of the semi circle and we did not go past this.

 

 

From these pictures you can see the continuity of the shots as match on match is happening. This is when something in the scene is happening and when its cut the same piece of action is going on.

In this shot we have shown the shot reverse shot from an over the shoulder angle. This is a technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. This is a style of continuity.

Planning:  The importance of storyboarding helped order the direction of the product and give us a rough idea on how it would look once edited. However we noticed that sometimes you have to make changes to it during production if things aren’t going to plan. Whilst we were filming the preliminary task, we felt the needed to stick to the storyboard. In our final product, we completely changed our initial storyboard as we felt it was quite complex for the short time we had to film. 

For our preliminary task, we choose the right location, so we have continued with the right decisions for our final product. However continuity was an issue as if we did not finish filming then we would have to remember to wear the same clothes the following day ready to continue shooting. Because of this we have learnt and made sure we had a timetable for what days we are free and able to shoot therefore we should bring the necessary equipments on the day. 

Filming:

Whilst we was Setting up the equipment we was checking the spirit level this was important, as it made sure the camera was level so our shots weren’t at an unwanted angle. This then has helped us whilst filming the final product as we were aware if we were filming at a good angle. Learning these through our preliminary helped us film faster as we we’ve already familiarised ourselves with the equipment.

In our preliminary task, we noticed that we had poor use of lighting when looking back at it, this then made us more aware to control the shadow and light in our opening as much as we could. The shadows that appear in our final product were intended with the use of the red tint, as in our preliminary we struggled at the beginning with controlling this which made our characters look darker than what was intended.

We also had problems with the sound as we were using dialogue. It was kind of hard to hear it through the cameras sometimes if we weren’t directly close to it. Therefore our final product we restricted the use of any diegetic sounds and this has made our final more effective.

In our preliminary task our shots were quite simplistic even though we was just experimenting and doing simple shots we got the hang of it quite quickly therefore we could of tried using allot of other shots. This is why in our Final product we have used a variety of camera shots and movements. This is appeals to the audience more.

During our filming, we were restricted in a classroom as we was acting out a teacher telling off a student for being late. The tables used restricted the places where we could place our camera and as well as the use of big windows in the classroom made seeing the characters even harder as this was the only room available on the day. From this we have learnt to book the appropriate rooms that we wanted to film our final product so we don’t have any issues with lighting and this has helped significantly as we had all the control for the use of shadow and lighting during our final product.

Editing:

During the editing process we have learnt the importance of continuity and how these would lead to problems if we did not address them. This meant that during our final product we made sure whilst filming again on the next day we had everything in the right place as on the day we first shot.

Whilst we were editing it was quite simple and we just put the shots together cut any unnecessary shots out and included simplistic credit titles. From this we had to learn and explore imovie a little more for our final product as we had to put transitions and the use of blurs, change the font style, size and colour. This took up a lot of time as we did not know to use such tools and we found it difficult using a Mac computer as we are not all familiar with this.

Teamwork:

For our final product we have worked well as a team and we all inputted our ideas. From the Vlog1 (scroll down)  , Vlog2 (scroll down) and Vlog3 you can see this.

The importance of working in a group of 3 was shown as we all were different individuals with different styles and ideas. We came together and took ideas from each other to create our final product. We have learnt from the preliminary task that we should all have an input and not just one person doing everything as the product doesn’t end up being great, as if we worked together it would have turned out better.

Vlog 3 - editing difficulties...

Age Certificate

From our audience research we have chosen to make our film a 15 age certificate as our films main characters are around this age, also from our questionnaire we have found out that people this age are the ones that watch thrillers the most.


The rules and regulations for a 15 certificate is :

Theme: No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Language: There may be frequent use of strong language; the strongest terms are only rarely acceptable. Continued aggressive use of strong language and sexual abuse is unacceptable.


Violence: Violence may be strong but may not dwell on the infliction of pain, and of injuries. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.


Imitable techniques: Dangerous combat techniques such as ear claps, head-butts and blows to the neck are unlikely to be acceptable. There may be no emphasis on the use of easily accessible lethal weapons (in particular, knives).


Horror: Sustained or detailed infliction of pain or injury is unacceptable.


Drugs: Drug taking may be shown but clear instructive detail is unacceptable. The film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug use.

Props List

We have not been able to film each scene in one session, so have kept track of what props and equipment we have used in each scene and where they are all positioned. This will help the continuity of our opening titles.

Dark Room Props:
- white picture frame of parents
- sunglasses
- compact camera
- picture of 3 friends
- killer scrapbook
- red lightbulbs (x4)
- small mirror
- black coat
- undeveloped images
- red tint
- peach benefit lipstick

Outside Murder Props:
- black coat
- compact camera
- black bag