How did we attract and address our audience?

Coursework feedback

Research and Planning – 16

Excellent and detailed filming schedule and risk assessment – excellent organisation of actors.  The script is detailed, but I would have like to see a more professional and traditional approach. With scene directions included. There is excellent work into the target audience, looking at media theorists and ideas about the standard age/gender groupings. However I would have liked to see some more secondary research (e.g. the BFI statistical yearbook) Research into existing products is detailed and relevant.

Main Task – 39

The material is appropriate for the target audience, and is clearly a proficient film opening in its narrative, style and dialogue. The titles follow conventions, and the red font is particularly fitting for the horror genre. There are some interesting sound edits, including cutaway’s with sound running underneath. Occasionally this isn’t so successful, but on the whole it is. There are a variety of shot distances and on the whole the framing is thoughtful. Editing helps with meaning on the whole, but there are one or two continuity issues, like when the group move from the bed to the floor too quickly.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

Main Task Final

February feedback

Your web-log looks impressive.  Ensure that creative technologies have been used to present your evaluation.

Complete the evaluation thoroughly

Put the preliminary task and your production as last posts then the questions

Add any extra elements to the research and planning.

Set targets for what you need to do over half-term to fully complete the coursework

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

My Main task was of a higher standard to my preliminary, due to the increased length of time we were given to create it. The preliminary task was filmed during one lesson and we were given a story board to copy, instead of being given the opportunity to create our own. I had no knowledge of the camera and the editing software when I filmed my preliminary task, so practicing with this footage enabled me to make my main task more professional.

From the Preliminary task, I learned how to create a storyboard and a script and how to use the 180 degree rule whilst filming two people having a conversation. I also briefly learned how to use Premiere Pro to edit footage and continuity editing, however whilst transferring these skills to the main product, I developed them all and learned how to use them to make them look professional. 

Although I had edited short videos on the MAC's before , I'd never actually made something that required so much detail and I had never made sound bridges or transitions before. This is probably why our preliminary task didn't look as professional as our final product because we were very inexperienced and didn't include sound editing or any technical edits, we simply put the different clips together in a chronological order and had the help of our teacher to create a match on action and the green screen explosion at the end. We didn't really consider the way the lighting looked or how the camera should be positioned, but in our final task we prioritised the small elements like this and doing so made it look more professional. 

The camera shots we had to use in the preliminary task were given to us on a story board and due to our lack of knowledge of continuity editing, the video did not flow particularly smoothly. However in our final project, we were given a lot of independence and time to consider which shots to use in what order to make the film opening appear to play smoothly and continually. Due to this every shot was really thought out and this allowed us to think about what shots would suit the situation and cause the audience to have the feelings we wanted them to have. For example, we used close up shots to emphasise what the characters were thinking and feeling and therefore reflect those same feelings on to our audience. For example, we did an extreme close up on Poppy's face in order to emphasise the fact that she was afraid, therefore foreshadowing to the audience that there was something to be afraid of. In our Preliminary task, we used a close up of the protagonist using the phone several times in order to build tension. However in our preliminary task the shots were not as clear at conveying a message as they were in our final task.

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Part 1 of After Effects Tutorial

To begin with, I learnt how to use 'After Effects' animation software to create an animated logo for the production company. I had never used this program before and therefore had no knowledge of how to use it. So to learn, we watched a YouTube tutorial which taught us how to create a logo that looked more professional than just creating one on Photoshop.
 
Doing this involved creating a number of different compositions and solids and applying different effects and pre-sets to them to create our desired effect. Due to the length of time it would have taken to write out 'Paranormal Productions' in this animated font, we had to abbreviate it to P.P.

Interface of After Effects Animation Software.

The most important technology we used whilst creating our film was Premiere Pro editing software. By using this software I have learned how to import footage and audio to the sequence, edit footage and audio and how to use different editing tools for example:
The Track Select Tool moves all the clips at the same time so you don't have to move them individually which would have caused a problem for us due to the sound bridges we had made.
The Rate Stretch Tool changes the duration of clips and stretches them out and speeds them up or slows them down. I have also learnt how to move clips around on the timeline to put them in the right place.

The Razor Tool is used to cut clips to get rid of any unwanted footage from the clip whilst keeping the relevant, useful bits.

We also learnt how to create sound bridges using the tools to break up all of the continuous speech in the film. Without them, the dialogue was overpowering and a sense of continuity was not created. So we used sound bridges to introduce the speech from one clip underneath another clip to stop the film from having blocked images with speech and make it more interesting to watch. We also used them to show other character's reactions to what is being said, this was very useful when our character Effie was giving her long, scary speech. Sound bridges broke it up so it was not in one large chunk and showing the other characters reactions helped to build tension.  

Rendering is another technique which was useful to learn. It takes your footage and makes it run smoothly and adjusts it to make it a better quality. Premiere Pro informs you that your footage needs to be rendered by putting a red line above the clips in the sequence. Once you render the footage by going into 'Sequence' and clicking 'Render entire work area' the bar above the clips turn green to let you know it has worked successfully. This was one of the most important things to learn whilst editing together our film as without this, the footage and sound would be poor quality and wouldn't have smooth transitions making the overall film appear unprofessional. 

We also used a website called incompetech to find royalty free music and sound effects that would not raise copy right issues. We used this for the music at the beginning of the film opening and learned how to import and overlap the sound.

When filming our product, we used a JVC camera with a lens that allowed us to alter the focus and depth of field. We learnt how to use the camera efficiently to create effects and which camera angles and shots would be the most effective to use. For example, using over the shoulder shots and two shots to film conversations and close ups to create tension. We originally filmed the footage using a DSLR camera, but when we came to import the footage to a MAC the files became corrupted due to compatibility issues. Due to this, we had to re film everything on the new camera and to ensure that the same problem did not occur again, we did a test to check if the files would be compatible with the computer. Whilst constructing this product, we faced several problems involving corruption and compatibility which taught us that you should always test the cameras before filming the entire product to eliminate the risks.

To create the presentations for the film and the evaluation we used creative technologies like Prezi, slide share and voice overs to make them more interesting and interactive.

Finally, we used a audio voice recorder to record the sound of a child giggling from a website. We originally tried to clip convert the video to an Mp3 file, but due to the schools internet rules, it was blocked and we could not use it and due to the young age of the antagonist we could not convincingly create the sound ourselves. We used the same technologies to record a voice over for this evaluation.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

A company called the Life Matrix devised a contemporary approach to audience targeting by defining audiences into ten categories. For our film 'Arabella' I think that our target audience would fall into the Tribe Wired or people within the Fun / Atics category. People within the Tribe Wired category are described as digital, free-spirited and creative thinking people and people within the Fun/Atics are described as aspirational, fun-seeking and active young people. Our film, 'Arabella' is a creative film that addresses urban legends which is a controversial topic which people would need to keep an open mind to enjoy as if somebody is dead set that they do not believe in them, the film would not trigger their fears. Also, due to the film starring teenagers, I believe younger people of a similar age may enjoy the film more then older people as they can relate to the characters and the themes within it. 

The age group we look to aim our film at is between 15-24, as research shows that teenagers and young adults enjoy thrills and the thrills created by horror films are more likely to excite a younger audience than an older one. Due to their immaturity, teenagers are generally not put off by graphic images and in some cases actually go looking for them, whilst an older audience may be put off by them. Most horror films are aimed at males due to them stereotypically being more susceptible to gore and violence than females. However, although males may enjoy the content of 'Arabella' our film will be mainly aimed at females due to both the antagonist and protagonist being females. 

Our film highlights suburban Britain and the safety female teenagers find within their homes. Instead of conveying teenagers in a negative light in which they vandalize and abuse drinking and drugs. Teenagers gain a bad reputation through the media's portrayal so with our film we aim to sensationalise things by including elements of reality. Teenage girls are usually mature and ordinary, spending time watching television, spending time with friends and focusing on school work, rather than hanging around in dark alleys at night time mugging elderly people and causing trouble in the community. We aim to display the gentle nature of feminine young women who find comfort within staying at home in a safe environment and having fun within boundaries, the only danger coming from ancient stories told at a stereotypical sleepover. Fears for these teenage girls involve evil intruding their homes, which they view as their 'safe base' and the unknown forces that lurk outside of the comfort of their own homes. Therefore our target audience would be girls who follow similar practices and would therefore find thrills by being able to relate to the characters.

To further my research I went on to an audience profiling site to see if this would help profile audiences for my film. This is what advertisers use to get a better understanding of their target audience and learn more about them then just gender and age. It enables them to look into their lifestyles and then use this information to target them in more detail.

As I could not profile an audience for my film, I looked into the film 'Scream' which has similar features to 'Arabella' due to the suburban setting and the 'Last Girl Theory' which refers to a concept within horror films that specifically refers to the last girl left alive to confront the killer and survive to tell the tale. As you can see from the screenshot, the audience profiling site targets the film towards women aged 25-39 who live in areas such as London and Central Scotland. The typical professions our audience would have include media&publishing, consumer goods and entertainment and we found these same patterns within the film 'The Conjuring' which also has similarities to the theme of our film.

This helps me to try and profile my own audience, some things I found relevant and useful to know whilst others weren't.