Kieron Reid's evaluation

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

The fact that the victim in my media product is a white male, challenges the convention of a real horror film. This is because usually those of ethnicity or female ‘sexual objects’ are the first to die in horror films. This could be because of their loose morals, that they are seen to be not as innocent as perhaps other characters.

Todorov’s theory of narrative

 

Todorov’s theory of narrative suggests that every story includes an equilibrium, disequilibrium (disturbance), followed by a re-equilibrium. The re-equilibrium is not necessarily the same as the original equilibrium, often something will have changed from the original equilibrium due to the disturbance. The equilibrium is the initial situation where everything is in balance; Disequilibrium involves the equilibrium being disturbed, in horrors this is often by a death; and a re equilibrium, in which the new equilibrium is created.

However there are five stages which narrative pass through according to his theory, these are:

·         A state of normality

·         An event disrupting the equilibrium- this event could be a character introduction or a character’s action

·         The main protagonist swiftly realises that the equilibrium has been disturbed

·         The protagonist tries to resolve the problem

·         Equilibrium is restored but because of changes (good or bad),  the equilibrium made is a new equilibrium

Our film opening does follow Todorov’s theory of narrative, as the equilibrium is the main character walking along the scene, the disturbance would be his killing, and the re-equilibrium is not included. However, as this is just an opening then following the opening the new equilibrium is picked up, but obviously as the film opening was only two minutes long, we could not show this new equilibrium. But if we could have made this entire film, then the new equilibrium would have been shown at the end of the film, once the murderer has been found. Although there is in a way a new equilibrium once the ambulance has been rang. It is a new equilibrium because that character that died is no longer in the film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represent’s social groups like the present day ‘chav’, as the kind of person that will be walking around with his phone out at night in clear view, for thieves. We made him suit this sort of stereotype by causing him to have jogging bottoms on, as is stereotypically what this social group would be wearing.
My media product represents the killer as somebody that has a particularly disturbed mentality.

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

A media institution is an established, often-profit based organization, that deal in the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services.



The sort of media institution that would distribute my media product would be twisted pictures, as they are a reasonably large company that have produced films such as saw which are the same genre as my media product. This means that they would have experience in this genre therefore could tell me about how successful they expected it to be.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my film would be teenagers as they seem more likely to be interested in a film such as this, especially seeing as the victims are going to be around that age group too. This means that the teenage age group would find it easier to empathise with the victims as they can imagine themselves in the victim’s position. As well as this, the film would be designed to keep their attention. This would be easier to attain than with a significantly older target audience, as the producers have the same sort of attention span.

How did you attract/address your target audience?

I attracted my target audience by ensuring that the film appealed to them by looking at the sort of techniques used in other films designed to attract a similar age group. For example the ring. Which involved little lighting, and a lot of point of view shots allowing the audience to view things from the main character or the killer’s perspective. E.g. When the little girl is climbing out of the television or when the video is first being watched.

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

I’ve learnt how to crop the scene during editing as I had to do that to get rid of somebody in one of the shots that did not need to be there as he was not part of the plot. This had to be done to make the opening more successful and help to create realism, as his backing away from the scene did not appear natural at all. Moreover I have learnt how to blog effectively, including how to upload videos during posts so that the correct text corresponds to the clip.

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

Looking back to my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt how to introduce a character using a panning scene to the sequence of shots which will follow. As in my preliminary task, I had to use a panning shot to introduce the main character entering the room, followed by shot-reverse-shot of over the shoulder and mid shots during conversation.

 I have then transferred these techniques to quickly edit together many shots, without losing the continuity, in my full product. Maintaining the continuity is something which became much more important to me after the preliminary task as during the preliminary task I accidentally edited together two of the wrong sequences of shots. Meaning i edited in take one with take two.

Sam Lane's Evaluation

1.       In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our plan for the film was always to conform to Todorov's theory of narrative; equilibrium, disequilibrium, and establishment of a new equilibrium. However, the only sense of equilibrium would be seen in these opening shots, before the title appears and the victim is attacked. The vast majority of the film would be during the disequilibrium, and the new equilibrium would occur at the very end of the film, if at all (leading into the possibility of a sequel.)

The title itself "Dagger" is particularly conventional for the thriller genre, as single word titles have been popular recently in films such as "Saw" and "Taken." The word "Dagger" has dangerous connotations as a violent word, and is particularly open to its narrative concept. Using a masked, obsessed killer is fairly stereotypical of the horror genre, but we tried to push this convention further, in the killings are spontaneous and unrelated, and usually occur in public places (as seen with the nearby football pitch), which has the possibility of creating fear in the audience for believing a vicious attack could occur anywhere, at any time. This is defiantly unconventional for horror and thriller films, as murders tend to happen in private areas, such as the victims own home. However, both make the audience feel uneasy about their safety in life. In an attempt to continue this theme, and suggest anyone could be a victim, our victim in this clip is male, which is a development on the genre, as  many similar films have their first victim as a promiscuous female, who is presented as vulnerable due to her life choices. This is similar to the film "Pulse" in which the first victim is the boyfriend of the protagonist, but is needed as the ignition to the course of the narrative, and doesn't seem to be an outright rebellion to the genre.

The costume of the both killer and victim is fairly ordinary in modern British youth culture. This gives hints towards who the killer is, and who  future victims are likely to be, as well as to show that the narrative could be real, and that the viewer could be a possible victim. The villain however still follows conventions of past horror/thriller films, as his hood gives him an imposing edge, and the anonymity that a serial killer would need. His mask induces fear also, as it seems fairly childish and ordinary, conveying the killer's unprofessional and simplistic nature. Using typical British fashion is however, unconventional, as this genre is not frequently produced in the UK, and examples such as Tormented seem to be the only exception. We wanted to keep our props fairly conventional, as a knife for a murder weapon is used frequently (as well as it's connections with the films title.) However, when it came to filming we did not use one for safety reasons.

The pace of the piece was deliberately kept slow, by slowing each clip down slightly and using a non diegetic track which is of a similar pace, which is a convention of the suspenseful horror/thriller, and used to develop tension and a sense of foreboding. However, there were only a minimal amount of camera shots used, and transitions were used to make make reinforce the concept of the victim being watched. This is unlike many past films we took inspiration from, where many shots and quick editing is still used for the same slower pace, but this is usually due to the amount of details that need to be shown. 

Similar to films such as "Saw" and "Transsiberian", our killer is not fully introduced straight away. However, unlike "Saw" in which the villain is revealed in the concluding scene, our villain, and his trademark mask is revealed in the opening, but after the first killing takes place. This gives the audience supposed awareness of the killer, but only their alias, and not their true identity, or their motive.

 

The opening sets up the story in a similar fashion to other horror films, such as the Saw 2, which opens with a killing that happened previously to the majority of the film. Throughout the film, there would be references back to this point, possibly though the use of flashbacks, so this is a significant point in the course of the narrative.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I am unsure whether the clip itself represents particular social groups. The victims would be mostly British teenagers, or in their early twenties, but as the story would also focus on the police hunting down the murderer and their lives, British middle aged workers would also be explored. 



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

As a British film, it would not be surprising if the film was funded by the UK Film Council, who are ultimately funded by the National Lottery. Many recent films have been associated with them, such as the critically acclaimed Nowhere Boy. An association with Film4 may also be helpful, as they have the ability to distribute to a wide audience, through both theatrical release and television broadcasting. However, successful American companies such as New Line Cinema may still be interested, but production would be on a much higher budget, so the film would be very different to its current state. With this in mind, we used their uniform opening clip in our opening.


4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our piece I believe would be mostly male (but still a large amount of female) teenagers or in their twenties, due to the violent nature of the killings, feeling of suspense and fear, and pop culture references. However, the partial focus on the detectives may attract older members of the public as they may be able to relate to the themes that occur, such as balancing work and family. They would probably be current fans of the thriller horror genre, and similar work such as Seven, or just be interested in new British films


5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We attempted to attract our audiences through costume, as the modern, youthful fashions can attract others of that age range.
The serial killer thriller genre has a strong fan base, and are generally well received, so we took inspiration from these, saw there were similarities.
In the full film, we would cast famous actors to attract those who are already aware of the actors previous work, or wish to see them in the cinema.
The enigma created by our opening may attract men, due to the violence and tension, as well as the mystery surrounding the tracking of the killer, as well as attractive female characters.
However, women may also be attracted due to the anticipation of being scared, and attractive male actors.



6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

For this project, the school had bought new digital camcorders, that record directly to SD card. We didn't have many problems with this, however, I am aware some had problems with the clips being deleted from the camera. Once clips were uploaded and editing began on iMovie, we first found difficulty in understanding how to perform simple tasks, as our GCSE project was on completely different software. Luckily, the tutorials on the website was very helpful, and we soon gained enough understanding to create a high quality video. However, there were limitations that we wished we had the ability to overcome, for example, changing the position in which the titles appear on screen. Overall, I do believe this software was better than that we used for GCSE, as the videos frequently froze and the software would need frequent restarting, so using iMovie was a definite improvement. Garageband we did have difficulty using, as nether of us had much musical knowledge, and we couldn't find a way to compose a piece to fit the timing of our opening exactly. Instead, we chose an atmospheric loop, that we effected slightly (for example, by slowly fading the clip in, to reach a climax at the point of the murder.) This, I believe was effective for our video, and once we had made this decision, Garageband was much easier to use.


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

At the time we produced the preliminary task, we were unsure of how to use the iMovie software, so by the time we started editing our final piece, we found editing much easier.
Gaining understanding of match on action shots used whilst editing the preliminary task were very helpful when it came to editing the shots of the victim walking along the path in the park and keeping continuity.

I believe that during the course of the production, we learned more techniques in filming, but mostly in editing, as we learned to use an entirely new software, and I believe everything is much more smoothly cut.

Final Cut

After re-filming the appropriate sounds, and making adjustments to the titles, we believe we reached a point where our clip was how we wanted. This is the final cut of our opening. 

Age Certificate

The age certificate for our film would be 15, due to strong language, scenes of violence, moderate gore, and scenes which may disturb some viewers. However, these would not be particularly as strong as films such as Saw and Seven, as they include much more graphic scenes, and the concepts are much more disturbing than the serial killer in our film. In cinemas, our film would be shown at later times, as our target audience would be more likely to be interested in viewing this film at a later time than in the afternoon, because the later time the viewing, the more likely the atmosphere outside would remind the viewer of the film afterwards therefore adding to the horror effect. Furthermore, those most likely to see the film would most probably be at work or college during the day, therefore unable to watch the film at that time.

Rough Cut

Once editing our rough cut was finished, we asked our peers to share their thoughts on the clip, on what they found most effective or where we could improve. From the feedback we received, we concluded that we needed a font change, especially when the title emerges, as it looks unprofessional, and not effective for the genre we wished to imitate. Another point was that the scream to connote the victim's death was not at all realistic, and seemed more comical. This was an important part that we wanted to change, as it ruined a clip we needed perfect in order for the audience to understand the plot.

Rejected Shots

After filming, we saw some shots were slightly unbalanced, due to problems with the tripod not allowing a smooth panning shot. We established that these shots were not of a high enough quality for the film, so therefore we chose not to include them. Moreover our aim was to make our film look as professional as possible, therefore we took into consideration how often we had seen scenes where the camera wasn't sturdy in real films, and the only time that we'd seen this occur was during a point of view shot. However, point of view shots are seldom seen in professional films, unless the whole film is in that style, apart from, for example, in the shower scene in 'Psycho' which is from the murderer's perspective. For our rough cut, we used mostly static shots, which therefore looks more professional.

This shot too was rejected, as the lighting was completely wrong, and it was difficult to recognise what is happening. 

Composing the Soundtrack

Once we finished editing, and we already had an understanding of the pace and how quickly the shots are cut, we set about composing a soundtrack, using the Garageband software. With limited musical knowledge, and difficulty in timing the video and soundtrack perfectly, we reluctantly settled on a loop of a Garageband example loop. However, in an attempt to build tension we added suspenseful effects, and faded the volume from muted to loudest setting at the point where the victim is killed, creating foreboding and suspense. I think overall this was effective for the piece, and after gaining a basic understanding of the software this was done fairly easily, but I personally am disappointed we couldn't create our own.