Are you alone?

• Our project was the opening two minutes and a half of a film that we created and filmed ourselves. Our project was called “Are you alone?” and it was set in the horror genre. We based it mainly on the movie Scream and another adaptation of Scream which was Scary Movie. In my group there were four people, myself included. I was the director and camerawoman, Jodie helped with directing and as well as being an actress, Tii was the main actor and editor and Pia was the main actress and costume designer.

• The opening sequence was about a young couple watching a scary movie together when the boyfriend suddenly gets an unknown call. When he answers the caller asks if he is alone and he realizes his girlfriend is gone. It turns out to be a prank however when the two return to their movie, the girlfriend supposedly sees something outside and makes her boyfriend go and check it out. In the time he is outside, she hears strange noises in the kitchen so she goes to check it out. When her boyfriend gets back inside, she finds her with a cut on her neck and sees the killer running away. The opening sequence ends with the couple holding each other whilst they wait for an ambulance to arrive.

• In my opinion, we worked brilliantly as a group. To begin with, we were all slacking a bit and Jodie was not in our group. We quickly got ourselves together however and by the time we had to film our project everything was running smoothly. We all brought different qualities to the group and this is why we managed to get everything done quickly and efficiently.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of how did your study of film openings help you to make your own?)

• The genre for our movie is horror. Whilst we kept the suspense and intensity just like in other horror movies, we added in a touch of humour. Like mentioned before, we used Scream and Scary Movie as our inspirations for the project and I believe that is easy to see. When people

watch horror movies they expect to see dark lighting and dark settings in general however, we decided to be a little bit different and film the project in the day time. Whilst this could have

taken away the horror movie effect, I do not think it has done that. I think it made it stand out and look different rather than just another carbon copy of every other slasher horror movie

there is out there. • Differentiating your film from other films in the same genre as yours is important because they

are all the same they will not be remembered individually and will not be box office hits. “Saw” had a very different twist in the storyline which was the victims having to help themselves in

order to survive rather than having a masked killer who kills everybody such as in Friday the 13th and Scream.

• The mise-en-scene helps show the genre of the movie because it is set in a house, just like most other slasher films, including Scream and Scary Movie. There are certain requirements to show

in the horror genre and I believe the mise-en-scene did that for us nicely.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? (i.e. how did you show people according to stereotypes, creating believable characters and so on?)

• In the horror genre there are a lot of stereotypes. Every character has a certain stereotype attached to them and we tried to keep the stereotypes involved in order to make our film seem more believable. Since there were only three characters and one of the characters wasn’t exactly in the film, we didn’t have a lot of freedom with what we could do. We made the girlfriend seem like the damsel in distress who needed saving, the boyfriend was the

knight in shinning armour who tried to protect her before himself and we had the killer, which you never actually got to see in the opening sequence.

• Our final does represent a particular social group and that group is young adults between the ages of about 15 to 18. It represents them because they are a young couple watching a movie together on a nice afternoon. We

have represented this through costume, appearance, actions, settings, cinematography and sound. • Costume & Appearance – Throughout the film, Tii and Pia are wearing normal everyday clothes which teenagers

would usually wear. This makes the film seem more realistic and it represents normal teenagers everywhere today.

• Actions – The two characters in the film are watching a film together in a living room. This action is what would be considered a norm in today’s society. They are spending time together and bonding over a horror movie.

• Setting – Our film is set in a house which once again represents the two characters who look like they come from a middle class background. The house isn’t overly posh however, it’s quite normal and what most middle class

families’ houses look like in Britain. • Cinematography – I was the main camerawoman for the film and I choose certain shots, such as the one at the

beginning where you can only see the back of the couples’ heads, because I thought they would show the couples’ closeness and even the little awkward moments they had. This made it more realistic and represented

young couples around Britain.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (i.e. what film company will make your film and why?)

• I think the best film company to distribute our media product would be Lionsgate. Lions Gate Entertainment is a Canadian-American entertainment company who have distributed or produced horror

films such the “Saw” franchise, the “Hostel” franchise and My Bloody Valentine. The film company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia but is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. The corporation is very successful for distributing the “Saw” franchise and as of 2007, it is the most commercially successful

independent film and television distribution company in North America. • I think it would be the best to distribute our media product because it is known for the “Saw” franchise

and the people who are a fan of Lionsgate would expect a lot of movies distributed from them to be in the horror genre.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? (i.e. who would watch this?)

• I believe that just for like most horror movies, our audience would mainly be young adults between the ages of about 18 to 28. Younger people are easily able to get hold of 18 rated movies online without any adult’s permission so I do believe that they would be part of our unofficial target audience. The young adults which are our target audience can easily identify with the young couple in the film and that plays a big part in why they are the main audience. People that are older than 28 could be considered part of our audience as well however, most horror movies target young adults as their audience and we believe our film would be best if it had them as the audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience? (i.e. how did you make sure you’d want them to watch it?)

• The main way in which we attracted our audience was by having young actors which they could feel that they could relate to. If when watching a movie you feel like you can relate to the characters or a certain character then you enjoy the movie more and that is exactly what we were aiming for. Another way in which we attracted our audience was with the genre. The horror genre is very interesting to watch and it’s also full of suspense which of course creates adrenaline. Young adults usually do not enjoying watching movies about boring films with no action and suspense such as a married couple who are having troubles with their marriage. Instead, they enjoy watching films filled with intensity and even a little gore to separate it from their day to day life.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? (i.e. how did making this film opening help you to learn about computers, cameras and the Internet?)

• Unfortunately, I was not involved with the editing of the final piece because one of our members, Tii, was already very experienced in editing films and pictures so we decided it would be the best decision to let him use his expertise and edit our final piece. This meant that I had no idea how to use the editing program that he used and I still don’t know much about editing besides what I had learnt in class, which to be fair is quite a lot. However, since the rest of my group had to act in the opening sequence, it meant that I had to film everything. Before this, I had never filmed anything in my entire life, not in such a professional manner anyway, which also meant that I had no idea how to use the camera. Tii thought me everything that I needed to know in order to film everything well and I did learn quite a lot.

• I also learned a lot about angles and about how to hold the camera correctly in order for it to not shake or go out of focused unplanned. I believe that having the job that I did helped me understand a lot about our project and about filming in general which is why I am very happy with the final outcome of our opening sequence.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? (i.e. the preliminary task shows you that film making is hard-

how did you develop from there?)

• For our preliminary task, I did not help film at all. I was doing more the directing and helping our actors learn their lines more than anything else. From there to the final product I have learnt a lot about filming and about how angles work in order to obtain certain emotions and certain twists from the audience. I believe I’ve learnt a lot more than anyone from the transition and I’m incredibly happy about that. However, during the preliminary task I did learn everything about the 180 degree rule which helped me a lot when filming for the final opening sequence so that is one thing that I pinned down early on in the year. However, if I could do the two tasks over again, I would help with the filming for the preliminary task because I do believe if I had done that before I would have been a lot more prepared and experienced to film for our final product.

• Overall, I am happy with how we worked as a group despite a few difficulties at first and I am also very happy with our final product. It could have been a lot better, I do agree but I think for a first try it was great and I know we all put in our best effort at the end of the day.