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

We begun with some well thought out mise en scene and camera angles similar to our Swede. The cinimatography was our strength. However unlike the swede we had to design a narrative which was difficult because we were trying to include 3 intertextual links used but neither of them made sense in the narrative which were: the coffin, the forrest and vampires. We also chose them because we had them available and wanted to make it look good. Eventually we decided she was in the forrest because she wanted to tell her boyfriend alone away from the temptation to bite. She was being stalked by a jelous boy but in the end it was her that bit him. She woke up in a coffin because she thought it was all a dream but then she realises its real and that she fell asleep in a coffin. We then had to think of a relevant title which was difficult because so many have allready been taken. We chose "Mistake" the mistake being her inability to resist bitting the stalker and making her boyfriend realise she is a vampire. I believe we shot the footage we had to have 2 days if shooting due to the rain this enabled us to plan more carefully our shots. Casting was difficult because it involved actors who were available which is why eventually we had to act act as the cast. Editing the shots wasn't difficult but creating anchorage was. This is why we added voice over and a soundtrack. Finding and editing all sundfiles was difficult because they all overlapped I also had to get the music withou gaps in. You may notice camera tapping noises in the diagetic sound this is because I didn't notice this during the edititing process and if i had noticed it, it would have been too difficult to loacate the files and edit them to a fluid sound. The voice over was dificult to match to the footage yet still create narrative engima and make sense. The production company titles could have been spent more time on since they are of similar colours. The main titles are good because they match the genre.
In all I believe our product is intertextually and visually well designed but it lacks anchorage and sound quality. This is different from the swede because the narrative and sounds were allready designed.

Evaluation - How did you attract/ adress your audience?

Evaluation - Who would be the target audience for your product?

Core Audience

The narrative follows the view from the insight of a teenage girl much like Twilight which apeals to teenage females of working to middle class 8 - 16. They will be white, from Yorkshire, english speaking and able of hearing.

Aditional Audience 

This includes anyone else who is white from the local area 15 - 34 working to middle class. It appeals to males through the use of gore and the male gaze and goths because it is a gothic film.

Who it doesn't appeal to

Anyone above 34, the elderly, anyone below the age of 8, anyone not from the local area. The richest people and the homeless, those who cant speak english, the deaf, the blind and the religious.    

Evaluation - What kind of media institution migh distribute your product and why?

Distribution
A cheap horror film such as donkey punch used the distributer of optimum releasing also. Hammer Horror used the distributer of J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors Universal Pictures and Warner Home Video. Twilight's main distributer was Summit Distribution though since my film has £1 million budget I would use Optimum Releasing as in donkey punch.  

 

Exhibition

The title Mistake is polysemic so the image I use would have to be too to draw the audience in to find out the preffered reading. Twilight's image signifies love which attracts a female audience The ginger hair colour appeals to those that feel as though they are outsiders as ginger signifies this therefore signifies the narrative is emotional and relatable. The pale colours and red eyes of the man however  appeal to mainly men who are interested in gothic horror. The use of youthful characters appeals to a younger audience. A lot of films try to appeal to a younger audience because it is stereotypical for youth to be less sensible with their money. I will use youths and signify love similarly to twilight. However  I will also use the male gaze and blood in mine to appeal to a male audience. I also like the way this poster to the left has used red typography to signify the genre. Like Hot Fuzz did if I were to make this in the real world I might make a game, a website a madam tusaudes exhibit and distribute through deals with McDonalds.  The best way of drawing an audience in is through trailers If I were to make one I only show the pinnacle moments of the equilibrium disequilibrium and leave the resolution polysemic to create narrative enigma. I will have a female voice over and titles in a gothic font to signify the genre as horror/ romance. All the exposition would have to show vampires to appeal to a gothic male audience. Many cheap horror film's use television  nowadays to exhibit their product Zone Horror channel advertise a film a month with their Horror of the Month. The problem with television advertising is that the trailer would have to be re-made or put post watershed.

Evaluation - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Age
All our actors are teenagers age 16 - 17 because we wanted to appeal to a teenage audience. The themes of mischief, sex and boyfriend/ girlfriend relationships are stereotypical representations of this age it therefore fails to represent this age group in a positive light. However because of the nature of the voice over it is talking to its audience therefore the world the audience see's on screen is through the teenage protaganists eyes therefore the audience are lead into sympathise with her.

Race
Stereotypically the vampire is white as deviating from this stereotype would signify connatations we didn't want to include


We  also had white actors because we didn't have the actors available.


Sexuality
We appealed to the male gaze with the use of short skirts and low cut tops which stereotypically showed the female straight sexuality. We signified she was straight by intergrating shots of her with shots of the male signifying a relationship. Using the commutation test if we did use a lesbian vampire it would have signifiers of being silly and absurd.

Stereotypically the men in our film go out to search for an protect the women. However the males are countertypically shown as wussy and useless with them dieing in the situation of a dominant female.
Regional Identity
Unlike films such as Bridget Jone's Diary we do not have an idealistic view of Britain but a more bleak unglamorised view in wich vampireism and death takes place. This is because we were trying to appeal to a local audience not a wide American audience therefore we steared away from signifying the stereotypical view of Britain.

Idealy if we had a higher budget and the availability we would use an American cast or southern people in London to draw in as wide an audience of teenagers possible but due to it's inavailability we had to reduce our target audience.

We may not have used British stereotypes but we weren't commenting on Britain as in the film This is England. We stuck to the conventions of the Gothic Horror genre and the conventions of a film opening. It therefore recieved positive audience responce on YouTube and in our screenings. When we screened it to somone from New Zealand and got feedback we knew how we could get it to appeal to as wider audience as possible yet use the same resources.  
 
Social Class
Likewise in comparison to Working Title films we didn't include higher midle class Britains but what signified as between working and midle class because of the use of casual clothing and lack of large buildings.



We also countertypically signified this class because they weren't signified as above as being vulger, stupid and outsider's but as something the audience should sympathis with.

Disability/ Ability

Our film fails to represent disability therefore follows the stereotype. If we had used disabled characters it would have been more difficult for the audience to focus on the vampire issue due to the lack of reprsentation disability has, the disability would become the issue of the drama. Disability also signifies that characters are outsiders and abnormal we wanted to have a cast that was like the majority of our audience and that would all have equal ability to leave it polysemic of who would be the "abnormal vampire". 

Gender

We appealed to the male gaze with the use of short skirts and low tops and the use of a blonde to signify she was going to be the scream queen. The male were also stereotyped in being the protectors and the hunters of the narrative.

However we counteracted those stereotypes to purposely suprise the audience by having her as a dominant force in the narrative as a vampire and the males as weaker.

Breakdown of a Media Text

Breakdown of a Media Text
Shot	Start time	Denotation	Connotation/Notes
1	0	Bat House Films ident with spooky sound ident	The signifier of the company who produced the film and who is the conglomerate
2	5	Broken Elephant Productions ident	The signifier of the company who distributed the film
3	7	Red gothic serif lettering fading out as the music begins	An intertextual reference to Haloween with the non diagetic music signifying horror but remaining polysemic
4	27	Music of birds cheaping	Signifies that this is the diagetic sound and the preffered reading that it is set during a day although the polysemy create narrative enigma
1	31	Low angle shot of trees as we track up to them shaekey camera with blue filter	This is a POV shot, we are in a strange dreamlike state and there is a feeling of vulnerability
2	35	Long shot of  a blonde busty girl in a short skirt and jacket walking up the stairs	The POV shot of before was her view. She is the protagonist. It is cold as shown by the use of the jacket. She isn’t a virgin and therefore as a code and convention of other horror films she will be the victim.
3	38	Long shot her walking to centre of the frame she picks up the phone in the setting of a walking path of a forest.	She is vulnerable. She has a relationship with the person she is speaking to on the phone.
4	41	Behind the tree medium shot of the protagonist on the phone saying “where are you”	Someone is watching anchoring that she is wearing a short skirt and that she is about to meet the person she is on the phone to perhaps the person watching is the person she is on the phone to.
5	41	Same long shot as shot three of her in the phone conversation	That she is stood alone and the tension is building
6	47	Long angle shot of her on the phone with leaves in the foreground	Leaving it polysemic but signifying she may be powerfull and appealing to the male gaze by looking up the skirt. The entity watching her is all seeing therefore all powerfull
7	50	Closer behind the tree medium long shot of her ending the conversation	The person watching her is approaching
8	52	High canted angle almost aerial shot of her walking through the forrest with a tree trunk to the left of the frame.	She is powerless. We are seeing the POV of a bird or the person watching her is hiding from her.
9	57	Medium shot of a ginger male turned away from the camera with a black jacket on in the forest	He is the person who she was talking to on the phone and therefore has a relationship with the protagonist. The use of the turning away from camera signifies that this is social realism.
10	1:03	Over the shoulder shot of stalker watching in a leather jacket the girl	The stalker is powerful and evil
11	1:03	Medium long shot her walking up a hill	She is up to something
12	1:05	Tree to left of frame from behind her medium long shot as she walks up hill behind bushes	She is still being watched and followed this signifier is anchored
13	1:07	High angle shot of a hand pulling a bush back with brown leather jacket on	The hand is the stalkers and the girl is about to become victim to the stalker
14	1:10	Over the shoulder medium close up shot of his hand reaching her shoulder as she screams	She is trouble probably dead and the stalker has caught up with her
15	1:10	A flash cut to a high angle shot  of a coffin with a blood red light filter on it	The preffered reading misleads the consumer into thinking this is a flash of the protaganists future
16	1:11	Long shot of him running towards the camera as we hear the diagetic running sound	Pace has picked up and the boy is panicking the disequilibrium has started
17	1:13	A flash cut to a longer take of the shot of the coffin	Pace is increasing and death is approaching
18	1:14	An even flash cut to an even longer take of the shot of the coffin comlimented each time by increasingly louder gashing sounds	Death is coming really close
19	1:14	A cut of the boy running although this time he has come closer to the camera	He is running very fast and there is a greate deal of panic concern and tension
20	1:17	Flash of the coffin again with gashing sound	That the death is coming really close perhaps it does not signify death at all the coffin becomes more polysemic and creates more narrative enigmae the more times it is shown
21	1:18	Close up and wipe cut of the boys feet as he runs past the camera	Panic has set in and the scene is chaotic
22	1:19	Zoom out from extreme close up high angle of a bite on a neck to show an open eyed person not blinking lying on the floor in a brown leather jacket and black hoodie and jeans and trainers	The scene is set in winter the stalker is dead and he is youthfull which signifies he possibly was looking for the girl because he had a relationship with her. The stalker is powerless The use of the blood around the neck signifies he has been killed. The new equilibrium is signified.
23	1:22	Cut with loud gashing sound of the coffin opening with the red light filter still on	The coffin scene is still happening and is a different scene
24	1:25	Medium long shot of body and girl croached over it the boy comes up and asks her “Whats wrong” he touches her on the shoulder and she turns round to reveal she has fangs, blood around her mouth and red eyes	Signifies that she did the murder and she is powerfull breaking the conventions and stereaoypes to shock the audience.
25	1:28	Blue filter no longer exists instead a red filter is on the shot tilts down to show the coffin in a high angle  medium shot of the coffin	The previous sequence was a dream and we have entered reality although it is strange
26	1:32	Close up shot of her sitting up and gasping with red eyes fangs and a pale face still in the same clothes she was before	That it was all a nightmare and it is now over although she is still a vampire
27	1:36	High angle shot as she of her looking at the area around her and gasping	The revelation by her that she is a vampire and there is some truth to her dream and the panic by her that she could have murdrered someone
28	1:37	Titles in the gothic serif red font the get what appears to be speared as the drip with blood and a gashing sound is once again heard they then flicker and fade out	The movie is about vampires, death and the “mistake” is her killing the stalker and not telling her boyfriend that she was a vampire. Therefore the film is about her dealing with becoming a vampire
29	1:41	Extreme close up of her red eyes and bloody pale face without blue filter	Anchorage the murder was real and a polysemic ending to the opening sequence to draw the audience into the rest of the film by creating narrative enigma. Questions are raised as to whether the girl is pleading for help or just pure evil as shown by the red.

Final Poster

We decided to create a more polysemic poster, the wood signifying the coffin and the blood signifying the vampire. The poster however does not give away that the protagonist is a vampire nor does it reveal the identity of the characters since the actors are not famous.

Posters

I wanted to signify vampires withoutusing a face since none of our cast are famous. Hence I like the first but it will need to be made clearer as to the narrative. I will need to add a rating, a release date, a slogan and titles to them. 

Evaluation - Problems we had with the technologies in creating the product. Revised 28/10/10

We had a lot of sound files which made the production very complicated.









 It was also difficult to add the titles in too which is why I made them a flash file and why there is a spelling mistake. 

  I was good at adding the blue filter and although it didn't make my preferred reading and look like night it did look like a dream.

Evaluation - How our film uses develops or challenges the codes and conventions of a real media product. Revised 28/10/10

The wood is an inter-textual link to twilight.

The coffin is an intetextual link to the story of Dracula.













The blonde girl was to signify a scream queen like in Brotherhood of Blood


The flashbacks were in a blue filter to signify a dream as in many movies.

The soundtrack reflected the noises of the forrest much like other soundtracks such as the Titanic one.

The titles were an inter-textual reference to Halloween

The surprise in finding out the girl was a vampire came from Buffy the Vampire Slayer 

Developing the Narrative Revised 28/10/10

We started originally by having the protagonist beginning in her bedroom  se walks down the street on her phone. The boyfriend finds her with a dead body and backs away. We end with her the next day as she's received a text saying how could you. 

The next Idea was that we had her meeting up with her boyfriend the boyfriend screams and runs away and again she receives a tex

t.

The last idea involved her metting up he has set a camp up for her they approach, he turns around but she chases him she wakes up in a coffin. 
We decided to have her meeting him in the forrest because she can't face other people but needs to tell her boyfriend. She rings him wondering where he is. Their is a stalker following her she screams. The boyfriend runs for her. By this time is a lot of narrative enigma as to the identity of the villain. We realise she is a murder because she is stood next to a dead body then we realise she's a vampire.  She wakes up from a dream but then she realises she is in a coffin and that it turns out to be true. 

Final Cut Revised 29/10/10

Rough Cut 3 Revised 28/10/10

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

We have a female villain which is countertypical she is blonde to challenge the conventions and suprise the audience.The story is based on vampires therefore the use of a coffin, forrest, blood and romance is stereptypical of the gothic horror genre genre.However more countertypically it is centred around teenage romance which is more in lign with modern movies such as Twilight and True Blood. We added the blue to this to signify nightime but it signified more a dream to our audience which we kept as it was also our preffered reading.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We countertypically have a female protaganist and villain who is violent yet stereotypically romantic. All the actors are young which is stereotypical as a lot of mischief occurs. The actors are all able and white which is stereotypical due to avaialability of disabled or black actors we also fail to represent homosexuals. Countertypically although this is a british film it doesn't show the idillic middle class view of british people.

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

Hammer Horror used Universal but in moder times they would be too expensive so I would use a cheap distributer such as the one Warp X use optimum releasing as the audience will be uk based.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

13-25 UK based both male and female and working class.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Using a young cast to attract a young audience. Adding romance to gain female interest with horror aand fantasy apealing the male audience. The use of Britain not in the idilistic view that films such as Bridget Jones diary are in signifies the film is intended for a smal local UK based audience. We signified the prefered reading by putting the clips in order.

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

was difficult because we had to use the unedited original footage in order to change the colouring.The sound needs inproving perhas re- recording to get it all the same level. Camera's look best on a fixed tripod rather than moving them or trying to track them. We don't have enough coffin clips this scene may need re-shooting. The voiceover needs improving to provide more anchorage . The church images are not needed and do not make sense.

How our film appeals to a modern audience Revised 28/10/10

We chose the gothic horror genre beause it combines the use of fantasy, romance and horror which appeals to modern audiences. The top 3 films [IMDB] in box office this week begining 26/04/10 are  "How to Train Your Dragon" which is a family fantasy adventure our film contains elements of fantasy by including vampires. The next film is "The Back-Up Plan which is a Rom Com our film contains elements of romance between the vampire and her boyfriend. The next film is "Date Night" which is described by IMDB as a thriller, comedy, romance which again our film includes elements of. A recent film of the month  is "Twilight: New Moon" which is a gothic horror fantasy romance and made $142,839,137  on the opening weekend. [NEW MOON IMDB]  So as you can see my genre appeals to modern audiences. Ashes to Ashes series 3 is renowned for using lots of polysemy andf narrative enigma. Episode 4 featured the protaganist having visions of herself in a coffin it signified serialism by using serial lighting much like we did in the forrset scene. The blue filter in ours was originally supposed to signify night but it signified more a dream which it was. The red lighting in our coffin scene is intended to confuse the audience and create polysemy as to the setting of reality and create narrative enigma as to the outcome of the protaganist. Red also signifies blood, passion and love issues which surround our prtaganist while blue signifies the cold, saddness and horror.