Final Product: LILY'S FOR THE DEAD

This is our final product.

Lily's for the Dead - By
Jade Goldie - candidate number: 4075,
Charlotte Magill - candidate number :4126
and Jade Cruise.

Evaluation - In What way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The mise en scene incorporated in our media product helps create the sense of horror genre and conventions of real media products. The use of setting and location used in our media film is to help develop the sense of closed atmosphere, we have done this by making the location a closed, quiet setting and using the location of a small isolated house. This has connotation of being tapped and not being able to escape. The costume and use of make-up connotes the horror genre, the white mask and white clothes signifies the supernatural antagonist and the black dress significates funeral clothes for the protagonist which shows the sense of death.


Iconography was another aspects we took into consideration, the use of the main prop of the lilly's, the fake blood and the mask was all used to show the horror iconogrphy.


Our product uses the micro forms and conventions of horror quite well in some scenes, In our media video to create a scarier image we used a medium shot of a young girl in the mirror with a human in the background standing there. The young girl has just arrived home from a funeral so there is already some grief within the home. When the standing image of a supernatural antagonist, it tells the audience that the film is within the horror genre. This is shown from the use of the mask in the film, the mask is all white and the antagonist is dressed in a complete white gown, with dark black hair covering. This enables the features of the face to be covered and gives a sense of menace and an image of the unknown to the audience, leaving them on edge.

We considered the use Micro and Macro features in our product to develop the forms and conventions of real media products of the horror and comedy genre. The sound/music we incorporated into the product helped enhance the genres we are trying convey.
As a group we have challenged the forms and conventions of real media products with the use of micro and macro features. The non diagetic music we have used in the opening scene of our horror film is parrallel as it is a sad scene and slow emotional music is used to express feelings, however the protagonist is not able to hear this sound. This sound is to just run in contrast with the plot and main genre of horror. This sound portrays the conventions of a sad situation which is delievered as the funeral.

   

Audience Feedback

To gather audiences feedback i asked a few people to watch my main video of my opening to a horror film. I had got a boy and a girl to watch my clip to see how their thoughts differed. The feebback that I recieved was quite positive as they said I had included various different shots such as medium shot, match on action and high angle to gather a continuity effect on the film.

The male feedback was also positive, they said although I did not use a male cast member the girl used is still highly likely to attract the opposite sex as they are attracted to the female body. They also said that they are attracted to the blood and gore used in the film. they really enjoyed it and said the tension that was builded up was very exciting and effective as nobody knew if anyone was in the house.

The female feedback was also positive, as the storyline was emotional this can relate to many females as they express their feelings a lot differently to the males. They also emnjoyed the tension that was very effective and made them more excited.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel as though I have learnt many things in progression towards the full product.
The preliminary task allowed me to begin develop my skills using a video camera:

I have learnt how to obtain a steady fixed camera shot with the use of a tripod.
Developed my knowledge of a variety of different shots e.g. hand-held camera, medium shots, panning, long shots, close-ups and many more.
Consider which types of camera work look effective to convey the purpose of the shots being used e.g. match on action shots to convey the sense of continuity.
Experiencing with an editing programme, learning how to cut down shots, add in transitions and titles etc.

The practice with the preliminary task has helped me increase my ability to work with a video camera. We used similar camera techniques in the full media product, for example in the preliminary task, we used a zoom out and panning in the beginning shot. I believe that the panning technique looks very effective, therefore we used a medium panning shot for the beginning of our full media product.

Once producing my media product I used similar camera techniques in the full media product. For example in the preliminary task me used a match on action with someone walking in the door then see her walk in from the outside and we also used this shot in our final product. I believe that this shot is very effective hence the reason why we used it for a second time in a final piece.
Once this was finished we went onto editing and putting the clip together, because we had done this before I found it more easier to put clips into the right place which took us a lot faster and was able to cut the right parts of clips out to make it fit in more better. We added in the characters name when they were seen in a small clip in the movie on their own, this is to introduce the character. Then at the end of the sequenced clips we added the title of our film, which we decided to call 'Lillies for the dead' because it is a opening scene of a horror film and at the end of this opening scene one girl gets killed off. We looked at various different sounds that we thought would suit best in our opening scene, after listening to some and fitting them in we decided on one that best suited the storyline to our clip. We decided to use a slow emotional track as we thought this would be best suited.
The shot above shows the match on action shot we used in the premlininary task. This shot is slightly low angle and we improved our shots used in the final media product, this shows how we improved our camera techniques

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

During constructing my media product i have learnt a lot about media technologies, for example although i did not film the video I helped out with using the camera when a member in the group was struggling, this enabled me to gather knowledge about a video camera and how to use it more effectively to suit my purpose, also using computer programmes such as pinnacle to put my media film together and make it more appealing to the audience.


Using a tripod has enabled my shots to be viewed more steadily and abled us to use a variety of different angles to make our media product more attractive to the audience and relative to the chosen genre of horror. For example using the tripod in the opening of our film has enabled me to produce a steady long shot of the protagonist walking towards the graveyard which sets the scene to tyhe audience. Using these different angles helps establish the setting and introduce our character to the audience.


The begginging shot helps convey the emotion of the only character in the media product. A sad emotional scene is shown of a young girl at a graveyard and it is shown that she has been to a funeral from the clothes she wears, this is likely to be expected from the director. This was shown from different reaction shots we used, for example we used a long shot of the young girl walking towards the graveyard alone slowly, the pace she walks portrays how emotionnly sad the time is. When the girl arrives home we use a medium shot of the girl looking in the mirror, we used this shot to emphasize the emotion of love as she looks in the mirror with the look of loss in her face expressions. The reason we chose a medium shot instead of close up is because we thought including the location would give a better overview as a medium shot still shows the expressions and body language from the character. Moving on we use a high angle shot of the girl walking up the stairs, this enables the audience to see all body language as it shows how scared she is by how she walks up the stairs, (slowly and posture of her body). The reason we chose a high angle shot was to reinforce the vunerablility of the character as she is very scared but nothing is proved anything is in the house with her.


Using the editing programme pinnacle, i have learnt how to merge clips together so that they flow to create one final presentable media product. Whilst editing my product I have learnt how to merge clips together, add pictures, add videos and include transitions and different eniting techniwues to create meaning. To make a more effective media product I had to cut down clips and rearrange our clips so that they merge better and flows nicely.


The editing and music added to our clip I believe is significant to the genre chosen (horror), for example we used a slow emotional music track that is parrellel to our product as it is very emotional more so at the begginning.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I feel I have attracted my audience in a variety of ways. To attract our audience we aimed to complete a storyline which would relate to teenagers, and in order to do this the actor must be of this age group. Firstly, the protagonist in our film is a young attractive female who is likely to attract not onloy females but males too. Attractivness of characters to the audience is ver important, whether the female audience look up to this character for daily tips or whether it brings a male to watch the clip as he becomes atractted to the female lead image.


It is important that when planning a film you consider what the audience will expect to see in the film. It should be relevant that a audience can relate to the characters in the film, usually the protagonist as this character usually defeats the evil in the dead.
There are four main reasons for media according to Katz and Blumers study on the uses and gratification model. firstly, diversion, this means the audience would diverse themselves away from reality a diversion from their own lives to be entertained. The second one would be identification, when someone relates nthemselves to the plot or characters. Third would be socialisation and forth would be surveilance when someone is out to get information about something.


Another element that would attract an audience would be the location. If a location was a fair ground it is likely to attract young children whereas if it is a deserted home an older age group is likely to be attracted and young adults as they enjoy that sense of adrenaline. We chose a house as after a funeral that is usualy a place people want to go to escape from everything. I think that this location would attract both males and females becuase it is a place where everybody goes once completing their daily needs.

We have aimed our media product at all genders, both male and female. This is because although most of the casting of the film is based on the filming of girls, this is due to the fact in horror films girls are easy to target and are usually killed off.




We also decided on a bold film title, ‘lillies for the dead' we believe our film storyline is related back to this in many ways as it is not shown how the character is killed of and in one scene the protagonists sits on the bath side and smells the lillies.


We aimed to relate our story to teenagers by adding clips such as close up of a mobile which most teenagers carry around with them today, although out clip is not of a typical teenage girl, as she is not on her phone constantly and has just arrived home from a funeral our film is still aimed at this age group.


Moving on, the type of people we are aiming the film at are middle class people, this is shown from the body language in the media product and the setting of the clip too.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product is teenagers, possibly young adults. My reason for this would be when planning our film we took into consideration the image of the actors and who it is likely to attract. We also thought about what young adults would want to or expect to see in a horror film if they were to visit the cinemas or buy a DVD. By us making our films relate to a relatively large audience we took into consideration what a young audience would want to see to make it more relevant and fun as producing a horror film myself is convenient as I can share ideas from a younger perspective to make it more enjoyable. Although our cast only consists of one female actress and the antagonist i do tend to believe it is attracted to a larger audience than expected because the female is likely to attract a young female audience but the blood and gore however is likely to attract the males.
However there are some limitations about who our media product is aimed at. One being the pysical appearance of our cast is likely to reduce our audience. Due to only having one actor in the opening scene, we had to come to a decision what ethnic group we was going to use. We come to a decision that white British would attract a relatively large scale of the audience as the majority of people in the UK are white British. Having one actor that is white can have an effect on our audience because our cast is not a full representation of British Society as British Culture is diverse in ethnicity, which may mean other ethnic groups may not come to watch our product.
A second disadvantage would be the development of the characters. The character does not speak much in the film opening and mostly uses body language, this means that the audience may find it hard to relate to what the character is feeling, however you do know that the character has been to a funeral and returns home, this could relate to people in the audience as people may have lost friends or relatives not recently but even years before.
Stuart Hall, his approach outlines that he believes that an audience focuses on textual analysis for negotiation and opposition. This means that an audience does not passively accept a text and that an element of activity becomes involved. The audiences negotiates the meaning of the text, the meaning being the cultural background of the person. The background can explain how an audience can accept a given text whilst others may reject it.
Therefore an audience will scope for negotiation or opposition when analysing our media product. I believe that our textual analysis is not deleloped enough for an audience to decide whether they negotiate (accept) or oppose (reject) with the text.
I have chosen this age group as my target audience as they are more likely to want to go out to the cinemas or buy it on video to watch.