Evaluation

Media Evaluation on Prezi

Evaluation Draft

Our Horror sequence incorporates generic conventions such as:

Low-key lighting – This is effective as is gives a more scary effect because you don’t know what could be hiding in the shadows.

Eerie music – This makes our piece more atmospheric.

Fast paced editing  - This gives the effect that it’s building up to something.

These elements make our video more intense as without them it wouldn’t be as effective. We have used a very well known narrative as; in one of our scenes slender man is following the daughter of the main character.

In our opening sequence we haven’t used the stereotypical abandoned, scary setting, in our video we shot in a typical house, we did this to make it more threatening, as though it could happen in the audience’s house too.

The eerie music hints that our sequence is a thriller horror, as does the fast paced editing when Liam is walking to the house.

We were influenced by paranormal activity to shoot in a normal house, as it was quite effective, also in Halloween a lot of POV shots are used, as we got our film storyline from an urban myth, it could be linked to the film urban legend.

Our opening sequence shows a father and daughter relationship, as we see his worry for his daughter being missing, we also see teenage social groups in the DVD home video clip.

Gender is Represented in a stereotypical way slightly as, in our opening the female has gone missing which is very stereotypical for horror movies. Also we have portrayed male dominance as the kidnapper is a male, we know this due to his name, “slender man”.

This connects with the target audience, as they aren’t to out of their depth as they see something they are used to seeing in films.

This could be something that maybe produced by a Hollywood studio as it has the potential to be a great horror film

It could have the potential to be a TV movie if it needed to be as the story line could be stretched out to make the time for a TV movie.

It would not be an art house movie as the movie will be target to a wider audience of all horror films instead of a specific audience

It would not be an Internet only release as it would be more suited to a cinema and not on a small computer screen

It would be released in the summer due to lack of horror films in the summer and it is mainly comedy’s during that time and many people may not want to watch it and need to watch something else.

There wouldn’t be a lot of opportunities for a franchise but merchandise may be able to be made as it has a logo that can be used on things such as shirts.

We kept the conventions of a horror so it appealed to the target audience, we filmed without lights on for most of the opening sequence apart from the stairs scene which has low-key lighting as it gives slender man an eerie look.

Our film is similar to ‘urban legend’ and the TV show ‘waking the dead’ as both of these shows are about urban myths as is slender man.

Our target audience is 18+, even though our certificate is a 15, we think that we would generate more audience from 18+ year olds. We kept this in mind when we made our opening sequence very mysterious, as it would draw them in. Within the opening sequence there is the shot when we are first introduced to the creature in our film the ‘’slender man’’ in which we are given a close up of Liam Patterson’s then a loud bang in contrast to the soft music being played throughout then a POV shot slowly looking through a door with soft music again a slow upward pan and then we see it! I believe that this is scary as it is unexpected as nothing has happened like this so far these kind of situations or shots are repeated throughout the film as a recurring theme to make the audience know when certain things are coming the music becomes a sort of sound motif for our creature and build suspense and fear in the audience. A lot of POV shots are used, this will make the audience feel more involved as it makes it more personal seeing what the character see’s as the audience feel like the are being chased too. Within the opening sequence to our film Liam Patterson’s character of the father has the most screen time shot, this allows them to witness only Liam’s perspective, this makes it more eerie as certain things we cant see. By shot including several POV shots we are putting the audience within Liam’s characters position becoming empathetic to Liam’s character and creating suspense with him and fear of Slender man. The generic conventions we used we effective to the audience as it entices them as they see what they are used too seeing in a horror, this creates suspense as they know that if a film incorporates certain aspects, such as a music change, then something is about to happen.

The strengths were it was small and compact so it was easy to move. The downside was that the tripod only went to a certain height so the shots that wear close to Liam’s face near the end had to be hand held, although this worked as it makes it look creepy.

We had a problem with battery life as half way through filming we only had a little bit of battery life left and no charger, we managed to get through filming without rushing.

We didn’t use the TV studio, track or jib, as we didn’t think they were necessary or that it matched well with our genre.

We got our sound track of the Internet our tracks were copyright free. We used garage band to edit slender mans voice to make it more eerie.

Plan more effectively for deadlines, add more detail to the story board, this meant a large variety of shots but planning ahead meant it would be easier when it comes to filming due to knowing what shots would be needed to film.

It has been a lot easier when needed to use certain shots as for the exam we needed to learn many different shots which helped us decide what shots we should use at certain times.

Yes, it is a lot easier to work with the camera and other equipment such as microphones as we now have experience with them.

I it was rather successful as the opening sequence is around 2 minutes long and has the titles included.

Final Edit

I think that we had a proficient use of steady shots when needed.

The most framing of the shots were good through out the sequence.

We used a good variety of shot distances when appropriate.

I think we had an excellent shot material that is appropriate to the task at hand.

We has a excellent use of mise en scene in the sequence. Appropriate lighting and objects were used in the sequence and the setting was great for what we were shooting.

I think the editing was great in showing what the viewer needs to see and get a basic grasp at what has happend.

We used a good amount of different transition effects through out the sequence and other effects that would be appropriate to the sequence.

We has a great use of sound and images in the sequence.

We had a excellent use of titles through out the sequence.

Overall I think that the sequence met the criteria at hand very well.

Rough Cut

Our rough cut is very simple, there is no sound, titles and no logo. We will obviously improve this for our final edit. The main negative feedback we got was to include sound, The positive feedback was that the slender man stop motion of him coming down the stairs was very effective and made people scared.

Slenderman Poster

We thought it would be effective to create a mock poster to show what we would do to promte the distribution of our film we have stuck to the conventions of horror even within our poster the dark low key lighting scary stile of writing and slenderman sporting the front of the poster to show the audience what to expect the poster also includes the age rating for our film and the main actors names above 

Story board

Pitch

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The whole opening scene is close ups of wooden dolls faces, they all seem to show shocked, sad,creepy and angry emotions, although there are a lot of different emotion they all looks scary, this show that the story is going to be based around ventriloquists or something of that sort, this also shows that the wooden dolls aren't going to be the hero's of this story, they are going to be the opposite. The clips of the dummies just fade from one to the other, apart from the last two frames merge as a graphic match, to show that evil is hidden behind the ventriloquist dolls, this could maybe hint that the last doll is the evil one and is maybe going to get the other dummies to become evil too. As all of the shots are close ups it makes the audience feel more connected to the dummy which could make it more scary/creepy. The titles are dotted around the screen fading with the clip, as they both fade together it makes it look more professional than if they were out of time of each other, the opening sequence follows the tradition by ending the titles on edited by. The music behind this clip is very eery which adds the the idea of the ventriloquist dolls being evil.

Risk assessment

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As media opening sequence

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Floor Plan

Audience Research

Nobody younger than 15 can watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, strong words, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and mild non-detailed sex activity.

Nobody younger than 18 can watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category do not have limitation on the bad language that is used. Hard drugs are generally allowed, and strong violence/sex references along with non-detailed sex activity is also allowed.


With reference to the BBFC, I believe that the film we are making should be a 15, therefore anybody under this age will no be able to watch the film in the cinema. This is because of the use of moderate-strong violence, the use of strong language and slight references to drugs.


A similar film which is called "The Rite" was classified as a 15 recently by the BBFC. The genre of this film is Horror, therefore it may share similar things to the film we are making. It contains strong supernatural horror and disturbing images. It is very likely that our film will make scenes which will contain rather disturbing images, this is because of the plot. Supernatural horror may also arise in our production.


This film will appeal to a target audience which get a thrill out of horror. The target audience will obviously for people aged around 20-30, anybody over the age of 15 can watch it but the fact that its a horror makes it more suitable for an older audience. The way it gets to the audience is by the characters, gore and the narrative itself.

Prelim

Bug Timeline

We did a time line to give us ideas on how we could construct our opening sequence as well as helping us get the titles in the correct order as we used these to make sure our titles were correctly placed.

Seven Timeline

We did a time line to give us ideas on how we could construct our opening sequence as well as helping us get the titles in the correct order as we used these to make sure our titles were correctly placed.

Horror music.

Since I will be producing the sound I did a little research in to what typical horror movie sounds would be, these are some of the sounds that I found.

This has a good range of different sounds from different horror films, such as the sound of a ghost child, foot steps and the sound of a childs sound box.

This has a great effect on the vocals giving it the creepy low tone effect that we will be after to use on the video.

initial ideas on Prezi

A Brief Insight Into Horror Films

A brief insight into the history of horror movies

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Paranormal activity 2 is the highest grossing film but it was cheap to make as it doesn't use many locations or actors and doesn't use well known actors. Paranormal Activity, Resident Evil And Saw are all sequels, this improves the income as fans of the other film(s) will be desperate to go and see the new one. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a remake of an old movie, as people will have already seen this film it may have interested them to see how they recreated the special effects etc. Although A Nightmare on Elm Street is second, Paranormal Activity Sold over 2,000,000 more tickets and brought in over $20,000,000.

Top Grossing Films Of All TIme

Horror films seem to be produced by a range of different people but Universal have some of the top horror films, as shown by having 3 in the top 5.

Sequels of high grossing horror films are also in the top 25, show by Jaws 1 & 2 being in the top 5, the first being Jaws 1 and Jaws 2 being 5th and Scream - 13th, Scream 2 - 17th and Scream 3 - 25th. This shows that a successful francise can create a large gross in revenue.

Jaws (Number 1) gross revenue is almost 7 times as much as Scream 3 (Number 25)

Group
Liam Patterson
Kieran Morris
Casey Smith
Andrew Naisbitt

Genre
Horror