AS G321: Evaluation - Technologies

What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

AS G321: Evaluation - Progression from Preliminary Task to Final Product

What have I learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the final product?

To begin with, I feel that major improvements have been made in our horror film opening from our preliminary task as we encountered many errors and faults in our first attempt .This helped us learn from that and progress further. 

The biggest development between these two tasks was time management and organisation as these are the most important aspects of film production. In our preliminary task, the filming day was unstructured and unorganised as we were only working from a storyboard and script, which was not a professional route. In order to progress we needed a filming journal or itinerary that would keep us on track and moving smoothly. Specific times should be allocated for certain shots so that we are able to start and finish in good time without causing more stress to the cast and film crew. Luckily, we learnt from our faults and we incorporated this within our main task which helped us a lot as the actress felt less pressure and the crew were organised and calm. 

Sophie and I also added an hour at the end of our filming day for our Main Task to allow us to complete any unfinished scenes or shots, or to retake certain parts so that it was of best quality. We did not do this in our Preliminary task which was a huge mistake as we had to use shots and angles that we didn't specifically like or wanted, this made our task less complete and messy. 

In our Preliminary task, we didn't have much knowledge of mise en scene, lighting or colour as we had high key lighting throughout and it clearly didn't make sense. 

When the heartbeat sounds start to increase, the artificial lighting stays high whereas, it should have darkened and become more eerie to reflect what is happening. This was a bad mistake as the audiences emotions stay the same and the suspenseful scene creates no atmosphere. However, we noticed this when planning our Main Task and made sure that, low key lighting and dull colours are used in certain scenes. This was effective and our focus group gave positive feedback for this. 

For post production, there was a significant change from our preliminary task. We continued to use Adobe Premiere for our editing stage as it allowed us to experiment with many different features and options. In our Preliminary task for example, the sound wouldn't change volume in different scenes and this was evident when the heartbeat began. There was no slow increase it just suddenly started. However, in our Main Task, we used the 'Audio' option and altered the soundtrack volume in certain areas so that it could be heard, yet wasn't too overpowering and attention shifting. Also, ambient sounds were less evident in our main task than in our preliminary, this shows that our professionalism developed and when filming, we focused more on the characters actions and dialogue rather than what was heard around her. 

As for transitions, we kept to the dip to black as it looked professional and smooth which was perfect for both of our tasks. We mainly used this transition in our Main Task credits to keep the pace slow and suspenseful. As for our Preliminary Task, we used the transition to break each scene up. This therefore, demonstrates a progression as we looked deeper into the meaning of each transition when editing our horror film opening. 

By making these mistakes in our Preliminary task, it taught me to be more cautious and organised in our final task, so that the process would be of higher quality and that it appealed to our target audience. Overall, knowing the features that were needed to create enigma, allowed us to plan and research in much detail to ensure the audience would be drawn to our final horror film opening. 

AS G321: Evaluation - Audience

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Sophie and I decided to target our film towards the younger generation, specifically, 16-28 year olds. This is purely because the themes would be clearly understood. Looking back at the BFI Statistical yearbook, it is evident that the younger generation take interest in action and adventure ('Fast and Furious', 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' and 'The Hunger Games' ), the majority being 15-24 year olds. 
 

Reference: https://www.slideshare.net/isaac97media/horror-film-target-audience Retrieved: 10th April 2017

Research shows that the usual age for the target audience of a horror film is between the ages of 15-25. The most common reason for this is because the younger generation enjoy a thrill and adrenaline rush while watching a film that keeps them on the edge of their seats. Many younger audiences are not put off by graphic images, but are in fact drawn towards them. For example, 'The Human Centipede' (2009) is viewed and known for its unsightly imagery and theme. However, many older viewers would be put off by this. Therefore, our film offers a thrill and suspenseful atmosphere which will attract more of a niche audience. 

Reference: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/uk-film-council-portrayal-vs-betrayal-case-study.pdf Retrieved: 10th April 2017

The BFI Statistical site took interest into what draws an audience to the various movie genres, this is what I found. 

As shown in the table above, it is clear that 52% of 16-24 year olds, watch films through online streaming which supports our decision of using Netflix as our main platform. In specific, there were 3% more males than females who prefer this which helps us to draw a conclusion that the audience gender on this platform is not an issue. Lastly, since younger viewers prefer watching films digitally or through Blu-Ray (73% DVD), Sophie and I would consider selling our film on DVD, so that our target audience are satisfied. 

The information above shows what the general public want in a good movie, specifically, by asking what statement they agree with the most. As our film's main character is a middle class worker, it is interesting to see what 16-24 year olds think about this. Overall, 1 in 3 say there should be more middle class tragedy in UK films, in total 52% of the young generation agree with the statement as well as 43% of 25-34 year olds. These statistics support our films choices and show that our target audience would be thrilled to watch our movie. 

In conclusion, the statistics show that 36% of males who answered the survey enjoy watching horror films compared to 44% of females. These figures differ from the Sky Horror channel who reported that 58% of the viewers are male. Therefore, these figures demonstrate that both genders under 35 years of age enjoy watching horror films. Finally, the table also shows that social class C2 which consists of the skilled working class who have below average incomes also take interest in horror, this is particularly important when we market our film. 

Our film would be classified 15, therefore, no one under that specific age is allowed to view this movie. 

What might be included in a 15 classified movie:

• Strong Violence               
• Frequent Strong Language
• Discriminatory Language or Behaviour                              
• Drug Use
• Sexual Activity/ References
• Verbal References to Sex
• Sexual Nudity

From the above information, I completed a survey to see what the young generation can tolerate in a horror movie, this is what we found:

I used Microsoft Word to complete this Survey because it can be easily presented and is not time consuming. 

From this data we can conclude that, younger viewers can tolerate most aspects of a 15 classified movie and therefore, not many changes would need to be made before the film is dispatched.