Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Thursday, 24 November 2016
Evaluation Q2
Q2. How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?
Script for Q2
PROTAGONIST (Victim) - Owen Williams (Joseph Hill)
Young, White male.
Protagonist/victim
White British
Brown/Green eyes.
Owen Williams is just minding his own business whilst going to take the elevator. He is on his way home just listening to music, quite fast and loud, wearing stereotypical teenager clothes. He has a tracksuit on, with white trainers and a white top to connote his innocence and purity. He's completely unaware of the mysterious behaviour the antagonist carries out, a stereotype of young teenage boy who's just distracted by music and games etc. Owen just thinks that she's being rude or is shy. Due to his unawareness this leads Owen to his own death or possession from the paranormal character.
ANTAGONIST (Paranormal Character) - Blair Regan (Phoebe)
Young, white female.
Antagonist/villain.
Possessed/Paranormal character.
Black hair
Dark eyes
Small
Blair Regan is the antagonist who is the more strange and paranormal character. She is very odd and not talkative. Blair Regan purposely acts like this to not reveal anything and create an unease environment. Blair purposely isolates Owen to make him useless and weak, which then allows her to pounce on her victim, to possess Owen. The black clothes, going from dress to shoes are to represent her evilness, which is also why her hair, nails and which we find out her eyes are black to. This supports her odd behaviour because it gives impression she's possessed or a very lonely and sad person.
GENDER
In my opening the antagonist is female and the protagonist is male. Generally in horror films, the males tend to be the antagonist and the females are the protagonist, therefore our characters in our opening are counter types of the roles of gender in horror films. Women are stereotypical protagonists in horror films because they are seen as naive and are generally the first victim to be killed or the victims killed throughout the film, (as seen in Scream and Halloween). However, even though our protagonist is male he still conveys the vulnerability characteristics of the victim. This has been represented through his white and cream clothing as well as the prop of headphones indicating that he's distracted and unaware making him an easy victim. Therefore, even though it counter types the usual stereotype of women being less aware, our victim still shows these qualities. Then moving on, our antagonist if female which is another counter type. However, for our sub-genre this was fine due to not having to be intimidating. But then again we portrayed the stereotypes of an antagonist by giving her black clothes so that it represented evil. The black clothes are also seen in films such as Scream and The Woman In Black. The reverse roles seen in my opening are the same as 'Unfriended' where the female is antagonist and in power and male is protagonist and vulnerable.
AGE
In my opening, both our actors are relatively young. The reason for casting a young female for the antagonist was because I've seen many horrors where they use similar ages because they are more frighting in different ways. Films which include young females are Ouija: origin of evil, The Ring and Orphan. Moving onto the protagonist, the reason to cast a young male teenager was because he can be seen as vulnerable due to being young therefore seen as weak as well as being relatively thin so not intimidating too. We also chose to cast a young male because we wanted our protagonist to be vulnerable through being distracted, therefore we could use a teenager as they have the stereotype of wearing a hoodie and listening to music. This then allowed us to use the headphones to divert his attention from unusual behaviour. An example is the film Halloween, this is because teenagers are killed throughout the film are unaware of surroundings and are too busy distracted with things such as drinking and partying, giving these teenagers the stereotype of reckless which is how they are viewed by other ages. Our characters ages are supported by the research I carried out. I created a questionnaire and got several responses which proves that young children are found more frightening in horror films.
ETHNICITY
In our opening, both our characters are British. We chose our characters to be British as we wanted to follow tradition of The Woman In Black film, with a British background however the film is set in today's date not the past. We also wanted our character to be white British as is seen this stereotype group is seen as inferior than if he was black British due to the stereotype of black British people in a tracksuit being related to gangs and violence, and we therefore went against this idea. Also, relating to my questionnaire i carried out, responses showed that the ethnicity and origin of the character does not matter as long as it suits the film.
SEXUALITY
The sexuality of the characters are not revealed in the opening, but for the plot of the film our protagonist is an heterosexual which is an archetype of horror genre as I can not pull any examples of horrors where the characters are not heterosexual. The reason for this is to portray our protagonist character as normal and generic as possible to represent him as good. Whereas, for the antagonist she does not have a sexuality when possessed because we want her to be seen as evil therefore is a counter type. This represents the idea of 'good vs. evil' seen in every horror film.
DISABILITY
In horror films, the characters are not normally disabled unless they have been made disabled by an incident. This is because the disabled are seen as inferior, weaker and vulnerable. Therefore our antagonist would 100% not be disabled as needed to portray as powerful and evil. However, mentally ill people are seen as evil which is why the antagonist in our opening is mentally ill to be a stereotype of many horror films.
TESSA PERKINS
Tessa Perkins had a theory on stereotypes that it does not always reflect reality. Our opening applies to this theory in the way that our teenager has been given the stereotype of tracksuits which is not what reality is because not every teenager wears a tracksuit. In our opening it portrays the female as superior to the male which is a counter type, this applies to this theory which that thoughts do not reflect reality shown in our opening.
HEBDIGE's THEORY
This is a theory which Hebdige believed that the media either represents the youth as 'fun' or 'trouble'. Our opening applies to this theory because our protagonist is listening to music wearing white clothes which connotes purity. So the media here has represented him as 'fun'. However, our antagonist is seen as 'trouble'. This is due to the mise-en-scene we created by giving her all black clothes to connote danger therefore has been represented as 'trouble'.
BERGER's THEORY
Berger is a theorist who believed that in media. 'men look, women appear'. This theory is very similar to Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze'. Our opening goes against this theory because our women is the antagonist and is not sexualised. You could possibly argue she has portrayed the 'women appear' even when being the antagonist due to be wearing high heels and a dress, however we did not cast a particular slim and sexualised actor because we did not want this effect.
STAR POWER
This is a theory created by Richard Dyer who believed that institutions use stars (celebrities) to attract a larger audience to the text. In our opening we did not cast any big celebrity actors because we felt it would make our film less meaningful. What I mean here is that it would make it less scary. For example if we used Seth Rogan as our main character it would demean the horror genre. This is because he is famous for being a comedian and starring i comedies meaning that the audience wouldn't take him seriously therefore ruining the film. This isn't just about using comedy actors, it's for all. This is because there isn't particularly well known actors used just for horror films unlike all other genre's, such as Daniel Craig for action movies and Will Ferrell for comedy films.
Script for Q2
PROTAGONIST (Victim) - Owen Williams (Joseph Hill)
Young, White male.
Protagonist/victim
White British
Brown/Green eyes.
Owen Williams is just minding his own business whilst going to take the elevator. He is on his way home just listening to music, quite fast and loud, wearing stereotypical teenager clothes. He has a tracksuit on, with white trainers and a white top to connote his innocence and purity. He's completely unaware of the mysterious behaviour the antagonist carries out, a stereotype of young teenage boy who's just distracted by music and games etc. Owen just thinks that she's being rude or is shy. Due to his unawareness this leads Owen to his own death or possession from the paranormal character.
ANTAGONIST (Paranormal Character) - Blair Regan (Phoebe)
Young, white female.
Antagonist/villain.
Possessed/Paranormal character.
Black hair
Dark eyes
Small
Blair Regan is the antagonist who is the more strange and paranormal character. She is very odd and not talkative. Blair Regan purposely acts like this to not reveal anything and create an unease environment. Blair purposely isolates Owen to make him useless and weak, which then allows her to pounce on her victim, to possess Owen. The black clothes, going from dress to shoes are to represent her evilness, which is also why her hair, nails and which we find out her eyes are black to. This supports her odd behaviour because it gives impression she's possessed or a very lonely and sad person.
GENDER
In my opening the antagonist is female and the protagonist is male. Generally in horror films, the males tend to be the antagonist and the females are the protagonist, therefore our characters in our opening are counter types of the roles of gender in horror films. Women are stereotypical protagonists in horror films because they are seen as naive and are generally the first victim to be killed or the victims killed throughout the film, (as seen in Scream and Halloween). However, even though our protagonist is male he still conveys the vulnerability characteristics of the victim. This has been represented through his white and cream clothing as well as the prop of headphones indicating that he's distracted and unaware making him an easy victim. Therefore, even though it counter types the usual stereotype of women being less aware, our victim still shows these qualities. Then moving on, our antagonist if female which is another counter type. However, for our sub-genre this was fine due to not having to be intimidating. But then again we portrayed the stereotypes of an antagonist by giving her black clothes so that it represented evil. The black clothes are also seen in films such as Scream and The Woman In Black. The reverse roles seen in my opening are the same as 'Unfriended' where the female is antagonist and in power and male is protagonist and vulnerable.
AGE
In my opening, both our actors are relatively young. The reason for casting a young female for the antagonist was because I've seen many horrors where they use similar ages because they are more frighting in different ways. Films which include young females are Ouija: origin of evil, The Ring and Orphan. Moving onto the protagonist, the reason to cast a young male teenager was because he can be seen as vulnerable due to being young therefore seen as weak as well as being relatively thin so not intimidating too. We also chose to cast a young male because we wanted our protagonist to be vulnerable through being distracted, therefore we could use a teenager as they have the stereotype of wearing a hoodie and listening to music. This then allowed us to use the headphones to divert his attention from unusual behaviour. An example is the film Halloween, this is because teenagers are killed throughout the film are unaware of surroundings and are too busy distracted with things such as drinking and partying, giving these teenagers the stereotype of reckless which is how they are viewed by other ages. Our characters ages are supported by the research I carried out. I created a questionnaire and got several responses which proves that young children are found more frightening in horror films.
ETHNICITY
In our opening, both our characters are British. We chose our characters to be British as we wanted to follow tradition of The Woman In Black film, with a British background however the film is set in today's date not the past. We also wanted our character to be white British as is seen this stereotype group is seen as inferior than if he was black British due to the stereotype of black British people in a tracksuit being related to gangs and violence, and we therefore went against this idea. Also, relating to my questionnaire i carried out, responses showed that the ethnicity and origin of the character does not matter as long as it suits the film.
SEXUALITY
The sexuality of the characters are not revealed in the opening, but for the plot of the film our protagonist is an heterosexual which is an archetype of horror genre as I can not pull any examples of horrors where the characters are not heterosexual. The reason for this is to portray our protagonist character as normal and generic as possible to represent him as good. Whereas, for the antagonist she does not have a sexuality when possessed because we want her to be seen as evil therefore is a counter type. This represents the idea of 'good vs. evil' seen in every horror film.
DISABILITY
In horror films, the characters are not normally disabled unless they have been made disabled by an incident. This is because the disabled are seen as inferior, weaker and vulnerable. Therefore our antagonist would 100% not be disabled as needed to portray as powerful and evil. However, mentally ill people are seen as evil which is why the antagonist in our opening is mentally ill to be a stereotype of many horror films.
TESSA PERKINS
Tessa Perkins had a theory on stereotypes that it does not always reflect reality. Our opening applies to this theory in the way that our teenager has been given the stereotype of tracksuits which is not what reality is because not every teenager wears a tracksuit. In our opening it portrays the female as superior to the male which is a counter type, this applies to this theory which that thoughts do not reflect reality shown in our opening.
HEBDIGE's THEORY
This is a theory which Hebdige believed that the media either represents the youth as 'fun' or 'trouble'. Our opening applies to this theory because our protagonist is listening to music wearing white clothes which connotes purity. So the media here has represented him as 'fun'. However, our antagonist is seen as 'trouble'. This is due to the mise-en-scene we created by giving her all black clothes to connote danger therefore has been represented as 'trouble'.
BERGER's THEORY
Berger is a theorist who believed that in media. 'men look, women appear'. This theory is very similar to Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze'. Our opening goes against this theory because our women is the antagonist and is not sexualised. You could possibly argue she has portrayed the 'women appear' even when being the antagonist due to be wearing high heels and a dress, however we did not cast a particular slim and sexualised actor because we did not want this effect.
STAR POWER
This is a theory created by Richard Dyer who believed that institutions use stars (celebrities) to attract a larger audience to the text. In our opening we did not cast any big celebrity actors because we felt it would make our film less meaningful. What I mean here is that it would make it less scary. For example if we used Seth Rogan as our main character it would demean the horror genre. This is because he is famous for being a comedian and starring i comedies meaning that the audience wouldn't take him seriously therefore ruining the film. This isn't just about using comedy actors, it's for all. This is because there isn't particularly well known actors used just for horror films unlike all other genre's, such as Daniel Craig for action movies and Will Ferrell for comedy films.
Friday, 18 November 2016
Evaluation Q1
Script for Q1
For my As Media studies, I had to construct an opening scene of a film which had to be from the horror genre. So to make the best horror opening possible I did some research on horror films. This included the history, sub-genre's, hybrid-genre's, the macro elements which are gender,audience, narrative, representations and also micro elements which are mise-en-scene, sound, editing and camerawork. So then I took this research and spent a lot of time into evaluating the macro and micro elements in the first 2-3 minutes of openings of different horror films. I then was able to apply these real media products to my own piece.
Firstly, I watched the opening of Blade (1998). From this scene I got inspiration from the camerawork. There was many different shots, such as dolly shot, giving different perspective of the location and tacking shots to follow the character which both created tension and an unease to the film. So I took note and used similar shots in my own piece to create the eerie suspense in this opening. In addition, Blade consisted of good iconography of the horror genre. The setting was in a crowded room in a rave situation, or known as 'Blood Bath' which was important as isolates the victim. So we used this idea and brainstormed our ideas around isolated locations, we ended up with a elevator as its different as well as a quiet and alone location allowing us to isolate the victim. Elevators are also a stereotypical good setting due to being easy to make completely black, which relating to my research is more effective at making a horror scarier as dark locations connote danger which creates more suspense and builds that thought of the sense of the unknown, devil or paranormal character. This all links in with use of low key lighting. The rave music also played a part in the non-diegetic sound used in our opening, this is because it helps build suspense due to be fast and loud, therefore we used a non-diegetic sound of a song which gets faster and louder creating suspense. However, from Blade we did not use the sub-genre of horror because it involves to much make up and effects. This is the blood and deaths, which are hard to execute in pursuing the most realistic opening. Therefore, we didn't use the slasher type sub-genre of horror as would be very unreal which then leads to the audience being less scared which is obviously not the aim of a horror film.
Then moving on, I analysed the 1996 horror sensation, Scream. The opening of scream was very iconic as the death of the women was famous as it was Drew Barrymore, famous from Charlie's Angels. This death was also famous due to Drew talking about horrors and portraying all the horror conventions without realising she was in the same situation as the generic slasher horror film genre. I found this very intriguing and wanted to use this idea as it helped create tension. However, noticing this scene created suspense and tension through its dialogue, I had a change in mind as I realised how hard it is again, to execute an opening to look like a real media product when including dialogue. So although I didn't end up taking this idea, it awakened me to give me the idea that I didn't want dialogue or very little if there was to be because it would most likely ruin the suspense of the opening, which now I would create through non-diegetic sound. On the other hand though, I gained many inspirations from this film, which has been used in our opening such as the mise-en-scene, specifically the costumes. In scream the victim wears cream and white clothes, in our opening the victim wears a white top and has white cream shoes. The reason for this is when I evaluated and analysed scream, I pointed out that the clothes was chosen on purpose so that the victim had the stereotypical feature of innocence because the colour white connotes purity. To add, Scream himself wore all black clothes, which then I gave our antagonist all black clothes. This was to portray the character as evil and the antagonist due to the colour black connotation evil, dark and death. However, we did not use the slasher sub-genre genre idea again as well as the stereotype of the victim being a female and antagonist being a male.
This then leads onto the third film that took influence on our opening, The Woman In Black. As I mentioned we did not use the stereotypes of character roles in horror films and went against the conventions. I got this influence of using a female antagonist from the film, The Woman In Black. The reason I took inspiration from this idea because our sub-genre's of horror films are the same, the paranormal idea. Women therefore can be as scary or even scarier in this type of horror as they do not have to be intimidating or big or strong, they just have to have unrevealed identities and look possessed with a creepy sense to them. I then took aboard this as casting was easier and portraying a evil, possessed look was more successful to carry out, as you could use ideas such as placing the hair over the face to add to the possessed behaviour. We then took the idea that our antagonist needed a trait of how she possesses her victims. The Woman In Black inspired me to come up with the idea of something deep inside her 'blacks out' the soul and body of the victim. This generated from the idea that The Woman In Black can possess the victim with a look, which rolled onto the idea of our antagonists eyes turning black as well as anything she wants within range. Hence leading to our title 'BLACKOUT'. This supported my research as I evaluated how black and also red is used mostly in horrors due to them connoting death and evil, therefore the title for our opening in theory, suits the horror genre. The last inspiration we took from The Woman In Black was the credits. This is because our title has black within it and so does The Woman In Black, so it made sense our titles were black just like the titles were black for The Woman In Black. This also links to setting the narrative because black represents death and darkness, therefore the audience knows its an horror film from the titles, such as funky titles would be used for a comedy.
Finally, using my research on different theories, our opening applies the uses and gratifications theory. This is because the audience uses our opening and gratifies this media in ways such as escapism. Our opening would be used as escapism because its paranormal, which is mainly viewed as something that does not exist therefore this is escapism for the audience because they are watching the media to escape from life and reality. The main part of the opening that would be escapism is the blacked out eyes as they are representing possessed and abnormal features.
Tuesday, 8 November 2016
Font-space Credit Research
CREDIT RESEARCH
The link below goes to the website called Fontspace that provides a variety of different fonts. These fonts are free to use and have been inspiration in our final product.
http://www.fontspace.com/search/?q=horror&p=6
The Links below go to further shortlisted fonts we chose together as a group.
http://www.fontspace.com/jonathan-s-harris/something-strange
http://www.fontspace.com/blambot/youmurderer-bb
http://www.fontspace.com/lj-design-studios/the-dark
http://www.fontspace.com/cloutierfontes/cf-night-of-the-damned
http://www.fontspace.com/lj-design-studios/dead-feather
http://www.fontspace.com/chequered-ink/halloween-heresy
http://www.fontspace.com/search/?q=horror&p=8
Then the pictures below our are final shortlisted fonts chosen. From these four we will test and edit into our main brief. As the editor, I was given the final decision on the fonts and then to apply them onto our final video.
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Credit Research For Main Brief
https://wevideo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/215284068-How-do-I-create-rolling-credits-
The link above the pictures is a website I used to help me with editing credits on WeVideo. This website explained how I can create rolling credits step by step.
The link above the pictures is a website I used to help me with editing credits on WeVideo. This website explained how I can create rolling credits step by step.
Thursday, 3 November 2016
Wednesday, 2 November 2016
BLACKOUT Soundtrack Research
The video below is a tutorial video of a You Tuber who shows how to access free soundtracks and free sound effects. He also states that the soundtracks and sound effects are completely legal to be used in videos to post on YouTube or other videos such as educational purposes.
Therefore, this is another place we can access and use sounds for our Main Brief, BLACKOUT.
This link below takes you to the page of all the free music.
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music
This link below takes you to the page of sound effects mentioned by the You Tuber.
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/soundeffects
Therefore, this is another place we can access and use sounds for our Main Brief, BLACKOUT.
This link below takes you to the page of all the free music.
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music
This link below takes you to the page of sound effects mentioned by the You Tuber.
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/soundeffects
Main Brief Sound Planning
Main Brief Sound Planning
Production companies at start: the sound we will use for the productions is tension and sharp noises when they appear on screen to set the setting.
First shot of elevator: In the first shot of the elevator the sounds that we will use is first an elevator noise and maybe some background music.
Next elevator shots: Intense, sad and creepy soundtrack starts to play quietly in background. Gradually get louder, maybe some voices or creepy sounds on top appear to add to the creepiness and unknown.
At end of women in elevator: The last shot of women is her blinking and eyes turning completely black with a disturbing smile. When this happens a loud disrupted sound will occur to show the disruption. Then when she walks out of the elevator, the creepy music starts playing again.
Title: The title at the end appears between elevator doors when the women turns the corner. A sound effect which will be quick, loud and sharp will appear to show the title. Also, creepy noises and maybe haunted voices will be put with the title.
Last shot: This is of a dead person on floor of elevator. The sound we will use here is the creepy music continued, also maybe haunted voices or creepy singing, which will be cut sharply to end.
Where to access sounds:
We can access sounds on Wevideo where we are planning to edit our opening scene. However, they have limited options for our selection of sounds we need.
Therefore the other websites that we can access free sound effects to use for our main brief are;
Production companies at start: the sound we will use for the productions is tension and sharp noises when they appear on screen to set the setting.
First shot of elevator: In the first shot of the elevator the sounds that we will use is first an elevator noise and maybe some background music.
Next elevator shots: Intense, sad and creepy soundtrack starts to play quietly in background. Gradually get louder, maybe some voices or creepy sounds on top appear to add to the creepiness and unknown.
At end of women in elevator: The last shot of women is her blinking and eyes turning completely black with a disturbing smile. When this happens a loud disrupted sound will occur to show the disruption. Then when she walks out of the elevator, the creepy music starts playing again.
Title: The title at the end appears between elevator doors when the women turns the corner. A sound effect which will be quick, loud and sharp will appear to show the title. Also, creepy noises and maybe haunted voices will be put with the title.
Last shot: This is of a dead person on floor of elevator. The sound we will use here is the creepy music continued, also maybe haunted voices or creepy singing, which will be cut sharply to end.
Where to access sounds:
We can access sounds on Wevideo where we are planning to edit our opening scene. However, they have limited options for our selection of sounds we need.
Therefore the other websites that we can access free sound effects to use for our main brief are;
- Sound Bible - http://soundbible.com/
- ZapSplat - http://www.zapsplat.com/
- Free Sound - https://freesound.org/browse/tags/sound-effects/
- Royalty Free Sounds - https://www.audioblocks.com/royalty-free-audio/sound-effects
Downloading Video Clips
The clip above is a film countdown effect.
I learnt how to convert this video onto WeVideo, the software we use to create videos. The effect of this was that it has a movie set feel to it by using the action board which is associated with the making of movies.
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
Technology and software research
Technology and software research
https://www.wevideo.com/academy By following the link above, it shows a very useful website of tutorial videos for WeVideo. This is where I learnt how to use WeVideo better and gain more experience in this software.
The tutorial videos range from basics such as just importing videos and adding simple texts, all the way to adding animations and moving credits.
https://www.wevideo.com/academy By following the link above, it shows a very useful website of tutorial videos for WeVideo. This is where I learnt how to use WeVideo better and gain more experience in this software.
The tutorial videos range from basics such as just importing videos and adding simple texts, all the way to adding animations and moving credits.
Photoshop - Blackout Eyes
Photoshop - Blackout Eyes
For our main brief Blackout, we needed our antagonist to have black eyes. This is because the trait of the character, Blair Regan, kills her victims anonymously as her eyes go completely black as well as the surroundings.
For our main brief Blackout, we needed our antagonist to have black eyes. This is because the trait of the character, Blair Regan, kills her victims anonymously as her eyes go completely black as well as the surroundings.
Therefore, as in charge of editing as one of my main roles I practiced and practiced using Photoshop from the knowledge I learnt using the software over the past couple years as well as the research I found. This helped me edit the eyes to look as professional as possible to gain the scariest effect.
After a lot of time, the pictures above are examples of the first products of Blair Regan's eyes at different stages. I will continue to Photoshop the eyes in extreme places to get better defined detail in order for all the stages to flow better, again making the eyes more frightening.
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