1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Title Of The Film

The title for our film is simple yet effective. Keeping it short helps to attract the audience, which is what we wanted to do as the title is a main feature of any film. Common horror films are also single word titles as it grabs the audience's attention e.g. Halloween, Saw etc.

We decided the leave the title of the film until the end of our two minute opening. This allowed us to create suspense in the opening and for the audience to straight away be involved within the film and have their attention focused right from the start.

We decided to use a black screen with our title written simply in a white font. This allowed it to simple but still had an impact. It allows the audience to focus solely on the title of the film 'Isolation'. I think that this adds tension to the opening as the word isolation emphasises the condition that the young girl is in, creating the tension and fear for her from the audience.

Setting/Location

I feel that the setting we chose to film in, being a garage, allowed us to have good use of mise en scene and made the opening a lot more realistic. It also emphasised the fact that she has been kidnapped by her neighbour, and she is being held in his house which could happen to anyone. It allows the audience to feel vulnerable as they realise it could even happen to somebody like them.

Costumes and Props

As you can see in the frame, the costume we decided to give the character of Sam was very simple in the flashback scenes. The white top and shorts portray her innocence yet show the torment she has been through and what she is being subjected to wear. In the present shots, her large top and trousers create a rough and messy look which further emphasises the poor condition that she's being kept in.

The kidnapper character's costume was simple and everyday style wear. This is because we wanted him to appear a normal man and have nothing suspicious about him in the very beginning as it is more of a shock when the audience realise that he is in fact the man who has kidnapped.

Camera Work and Editing

The frame shows a close up of Sam's hand during a flashback scene where her hands were being tied up. We also chose to use sepia tone as it was a flashback so we felt it showed the transition from present day to the past much clearer and shows us that it has already happened. I chose this frame to use for this section as I felt it was a key part of the film as we experience some of what the character has been through.

Title Font and Style

We chose to use the font Papyrus for our titles as we felt the way it looked fitted in with our genre and gave it a mysterious and edgy feel. We decided to include a 'fade in' before the title came on and then a 'fade out' as it went off screen. The same font is used throughout on all of the titles.

Story and How The Opening Sets It Up

I decided to use the frame of when the male character picks up the missing poster of Sam. This is the first inclination in the opening of a real story behind what is happening on screen.

Genre and How The Opening Suggests It

The frame I chose to use is one of Sam being tied up and gagged which straight away shows that there is a background to the story and suggests the horror theme as we can see she has clearly been taken. This shot, like other thriller/horror genres, entices the audience in as we want to know how and why she has ended up where she is.

How Characters Are Introduced

I chose this shot as we are viewing the male character acting 'normally' and as anyone else would in an everyday situation. This automatically confuses the audience as we don't know what he's doing and what the significance of the missing poster is yet.

Special Effects

We didn't really include special effects as these aren't always used in the type of genre that our film is, plus we don't have the equipment to create effects that would look natural or realistic. The frame I have chosen is simply a shot with a sepia tone as this is how we chose to show situations that Sam's character was put in.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

The type of institution that would distribute our product would be a company most like 'Twisted Pictures' who created the Saw trilogy and gave us inspiration for our own company's name. They are not a Hollywood blockbuster style film company so they would be more suited in distributing our film which a genre such as ours. If our film was to be taken on by a huge distributor such as 20th Century Fox, I think they would more than likely lose profit as it is a low budget film and may not be enough to attract the large audiences that they usually receive from their other films.

The money from our film would most likely be a grant from something like The National Lottery, like the film 'This Is England' produced by Warp Films. This is because there would be a minimum amount of money available for us to use in the production of our film.

So a company such as 'Twisted Pictures' would definitely be more suited as it would bring in audiences who have seen other films distributed by them and could bring in avid fans of the Saw trilogy.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6+7.

Exclusive Interview with Director and Producers, Luke Denny and Abigail Stilgoe of new upcoming blockbuster "Isolation!"


Q - Hi Guys, Welcome to the studio. Let's get straight to the point, We all know what this new film is about but what strikes the film market is the equipment you guys used. Why did you chose the use this equipment?



L - Well, We used a couple of differnt peices of equipment. This consisted of a mac computer, photoshop, garageband, video and still cameras. We chose to use all of this so we got a variation of different editing technigques and widened our experience with using different types of programme. For instance, we used imovie for the editing, and a video camera to film the shots. We then also used a still camera and photoshop for the film logo. For things like the titles in the film, were also done on imovie. Imovie also allowed us to change our font and titles and make them more interesting to the audience.

A - We used the equipment because we felt that it would really help us in finalising our piece and help us to create the clean finish, even though it may not have been the most expensive or high quality.

Q – What were the advantages of using these?

L- As i said before, all of these pieces of equipment we used allowed us to do so many things making our film better in many ways. While filming we used a tripod which created much smoother shots and allowed us to create a professional looking film.

A - Using the tripod really helped us to achieve steady shots so that it looked as professional as possible rather than having a shaky picture on screen. Using iMovie on the macs, gave us a lot of varied effects, transitions, sounds etc. that we could incorporate into our film to improve the final product.

Q – Do you feel you have learnt much from using these piece of equipment?

L- I feel that I have learnt much more than I ever thought I would. I knew to some extent I would learn about the programme, but to no standard as what I have. I feel that now I could start all again, with the feeling, and the editing, and know exactly what I am doing.

A - Definitely, I feel that I've really progressed with my skills after using them as now I'm more confident with what I'm doing and I know how to edit and polish clips so they look as best as possible.

Q – Looking back at a prelimary example of a film, How much do you think you have improved?

L - Looking back at our prelimary, I can't even believe we were so bad! One of the main rules in filming is the 180 degree rule, and we even messed that up. I am glad we did though, because through the whole process of creating our film, we were so careuful not to make silly mistakes like that, and without making that mistake early on in the process I think we would be less immune to the silly things that could go wrong.

A - A lot! During our preliminary we didn't even do the 180 degree rule! Now I think that we aren't making small mistakes like that and we know how to make things like the continuity of the film much slicker and look realistic whereas our preliminary wasn't a good example of that. Even things like titles, we didn't even add them into our preliminary whereas now we've included ones that relate to our film genre. Also, things like mise en scene, what we've shot now is only relevant whereas before we didn't really bother with finding a good location or storyline.

MediaQuestionPowerpoint

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Isolation Final.

Update On Filming

During our first session to film the new footage, Maddy was unavailable but we were able to film all of the other scenes and this meant we could still work on our film in the following week before we could re-film the other scenes so we were still making good progress with our work.

During our second session to film the new footage, Luke was unfortunately unavailable. This meant I had to film the rest on my own. However, filming still went well with both of our actors being able to complete the process and ready to film the final shots. We did face a couple of problems though, including the tape running out but luckily I had another tape I could use at home. Also, both of the batteries we were given for the camera hadn't been charged fully and ran out but I had managed to film the main footage I wanted to so it didn't ruin the whole thing.

Update On Filming

In today's lessons, we managed to complete our film. We still have to add finishing touches and make things more sharper and clear but we made a lot of progress today. We have still incorporated some things from our draft like shots of Maddy, as we are using them for the flashbacks which I think work effectively within the rest of our footage.

Recce Shots

These are shots of our location which is my garage. Obviously for filming we removed the car in order to make room for filming. However, I think this is a good location for us to use and has effective mise en scene that makes our footage more believable.

Target

For today's lesson, me and Luke are going to complete our logo for our film. We are hoping to create one that has the same feel to it as our film does and emphasise our film's genre.

Thumbnails For Draft

Pictures Of Model

Here are some shots which I took of Maddy whilst we were filming the draft of our film opening. We have given her a dirty look to show what she has been through but we are hoping to emphasise this even more in our final opening.

Coursework Progress

Me and Luke have finished a rough filming of our two minute film opening. We have started editing and have completed the titles to our film, including music and shots of things like the knife and rag etc. During filming we realised that we would have to cut certain elements for the rough draft as when we filmed we were not able to finish the shots of the kidnapper's camera. However, we still hope to incorporate this into our final edit of our opening.

Halloween Opening Sequence

I think that this is a great example of a good horror film opening. I like the use of POV as I feel it leaves the audience wanting more and they want to know who the character is and what he is doing. I think it would be good if I could somehow incorporate this into our own opening film sequence as we don't want the kidnappers face to be shown to the audience to leave it as a mystery to who they are. I also like how they show the pumpkin which your eyes are automatically drawn to and is a hint for the remainder of the film.

Film Title

We are currently trying to decide on a new name for our film as we didn't feel 'The Parker Riddle' had that much of an impact.

These are some other suggestions that we came up with:

The Parker Riddle

Question Existing

Save Me

Broken

Infatuated

Echo

Obsession

Isolation

Secluded

Eventually we decided on the title, 'Isolation', as we felt that it had much more of an impact and it emphasised the situation that our character was in.

Grey Hand Gang

http://greyhandgang.com/index

I found this website useful in giving me inspiration for types of shots, settings and camera angles etc. that I would be able to use in my film opening.

Audience Feedback On Pitches

Name Of Group And Task Idea
Luke and Abbi - Film Opening

Genre
Horror/Thriller

Target Audience
15+

Other Texts It Reminds You Of
Scream, Saw, The Ring, Kiss The Girls

Potential Problems
•Too much work
•Pictures
•Could be quite scary for 15 year olds
•Quite technical
•Not much happening may get boring
•The locations may not be appropriate - garage works best
•Offensive
•Who's perspective are we seeing it through?
•Lighting - Is it night?
•Mise en scene - Convincing location
•Could be a short movie

Positive Comments
•Really know what we're doing
•Good storyline
•Good ideas
•Very good pitch - nice consideration of costume and location
•I like thrillers
•Makes me want to watch the rest
•As it's similar to Saw, it could be quite hooking
•Good planning
•Really inventive and well thought out ideas, good setting and sinister ideas
•Good idea to be like Saw because it could bring Saw fans to watch it

Advice/Suggestions
•Keep it simple
•Garage would be best for setting - dark, cold and gloomy
•Don't complicate things too much
•Look at other thriller movies for more ideas
•Look into music which helps enhance the genre
•Research effective camera shots
•Build tension
•Don't reveal the kidnapper
•Flashbacks to abduction

Musical Inspiration

We think that a sound like this could be effectively used in our film opening to help build up the tension.

25 Word Pitch

Sam Parker, 17, Taken by her next door neighbour. The opening scene is her waking up in the place she has been taken to. Thriller genre.