Woman in White - Final Piece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miU3fY_4koY

Evaluation - Question 7

7. What we learnt since our preliminary task

Since the preliminary task, we have learnt, as a group, that we needed to be a bit more patient with eachother as, at times, we were getting a bit annoyed with eachother if things weren't going right. When it came to the camera work, we learnt that if we wanted to get a high grade on our final piece we then needed to start using different camera angles and shots so that it would make us look like we had looked into our film genre and had thought about what kind of camera angles and shots that we would have then needed to use during our film. For this, we decided to use the handheld camera shots to show a sense of realism for the audience so that they could feel like that they were in the shoes of the person who is currently being viewed on the cinema screen. We also learnt that we needed to use a range of camera shots to make our film look like we had used a wide range of camera shots and not just a few throughout the whole thing.

With Mise-en-Scene, we learnt that we needed to use a lot more costume within our film and make sure that the settings were relevant to what our film was about and make sure it all linked together. For example, for our pre-lim task we used the bare minimum for costume, whereas in our final project, we used more costume and made it look like we had put in a lot of effort for this particular piece as before it did not look as great with the costume as it did the second time around. Also, with character, we learnt that we had to make our characters more confident and ready and able to pull off an extremely good performance in order for us to get a good grade on our final piece. We also learned that if we were going to film something then we needed to make sure that the setting was completely accurate with what we were focusing on. This would have also meant making sure that there weren't many people around whilst we were trying to film so there wouldn't be any distractions which would have caused us to then have to re-film, giving us more editing to do after all the filming was finished. 

Throughout the stage, we also learnt that we needed to have a narrative which made complete sense with the right content within the film. Even though out preliminary task made sense? We had to mak sure that our final piece also made sense so that we could then go for higher grades and have our work look good at the very end. We also knew that we would need to choose an appropriate content so it wouldn't look bad if we just had random bursts of language that did not need to be there in the first place. 

Evaluation - Question 6

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




Since we started filming, I have learnt how to use the camera's more confidently as before I was not as confident in using the cameras instead of getting someone else to do the camera work all the time. I am also now more confident on understand and helping to edit our film on the software 'iMovie' which we could edit our movie on in our own way and make it however we wanted it. With 'iMovie' I now know how I can edit a movie without having to ask someone to sit with me and help me as I have produced two movies and have been able to learn a lot from helping to edit on 'iMovie' each time with my groups.

This helped our film look more professional because we were able to take time to make it look as professional as possible with the way we developed our title sequence to look quite professional to the point where it looked quite sophisticated with the bold colours being used (black and red). This improved our work because it made it look a lot better as we were able to use a piece of software which helped us make our movie flow well without having any hitches in the final pieces.

For me, as I was new to using all the cameras and technology on the Apple Macs, I found it a bit hard to get the hang of doing the editing at first as I was not quite sure what I was doing at first so I needed to get help from the rest of my group as they had experience in using all the different technologies before whereas I had not. As we went through the filming and editing process, I got a bit better with how to do things as I then started doing some filming myself instead of having my fellow group members do it for me. Even though now I know how to do some parts of the editing, I am still a bit unsure with how to do some things, like changing a piece of sound so it's louder and quieter or something to do with making the dialogue louder or quieter, things like make me a bit unsure. 

Evaluation - Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?



With our film 'The Woman in White' we attempted to change our film around and make it something that would go against the traditional views of Gothic Horror. With our film, mainly everything we did was a specific element and feature as it was all specific to what we wanted to do in our own film. For example, the way we did the narrative was our own choice as we thought we could appeal to the audience in that way. Within the film we did, we made the first scene our own way, as we had different shots to show Emily and Brandon getting ready for their wedding which we chose to film in different ways instead of just one straight shot of them getting ready in a boring way. In the shots we used, we got to see them from both the back and front view so you didn't just get one view of them, you got different views so it wasn't that boring.

With our questionnaire on Vox Pops, it made us decide that our target audience was going to be around the same as 'The Woman in Black' or just one higher as we wanted to entice the same kind of audience to come and watch our film. It also gave us ideas on what people thought about our film and whether they thought the idea of narrative and content was good enough to be made into a film. With our audience we have targeted the age range of a 12A, so we decided to target the younger age ranges and try to make our film look like something they would enjoy but also not make it to brutal and horrible which would then scar them and give them nightmares after watching the film.

Evaluation - Question 4

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


For this type of film, I would expect that mostly men would watch it as when we did our research with our Vox Pops, we had more of a response from males about watching the film and they were all also in the age range of 16 and above which gave us a good age range of who would watch our film. However, there would be a possibility that people in younger age groups would watch the film and enjoy it so that would boost the audience for the film institution who is distributing it. With ethnicity, I don't think there would be any preference as to who would watch it as there is no discrimination of ethnicity within the film as the content does not discriminate against anyone at all. Again, with class - there is no specific class mentioned within the film so it would not shame anyone or make them feel like they were targeted or left out in the film or feel like one class type was mentioned more than another which made another class feel like there was a hierarchy between classes. Within the film, there are no jobs mentioned - just a 'hit job' which is touched upon when you see the real identity of who wanted the killing done.

We know all this because we thought about it all before filming and thought about all the different ways our film could be seen through the eyes of other people. When we researched the film 'The Woman in Black' we saw the target audience they had was the age range of 12A and we then thought we could base our film around that age range but make it bit more like something that was classically British.

Evaluation - Question 3

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


For our film, the media institution that would most likely distribute our film would be Hammer films as they specialise in doing horror films and have defined the genre in Britain. This institution fits with our idea because it can show really gritty bits that is typically British. This product would be an independent because of the use of blood and weapons involved and because you see the throat being cut on the camera, therefore this would make it an independent film as it would not be something that other institutions would want to distribute because of it's content and grittiness within the narrative. Hammer is a mainstream institution, however, it is not as well known as other institutions because of the genre that it specialises in. Because this film would be published by a mainstream company, the film would only be seen in America as they do not like to see films that are 'typically British' with the gritty storylines and all the blood that would be involved in the films. This film would therefore only be shown in Britain because of the kind of narrative it has and because of the content within the film. The people who watch horror/gothic-horror films would be first to watch this film as it would be the kind of film that they enjoy. It could also draw in different audience members depending on whether they liked the look of the film or not.  This film does not cater for all people but people can also watch different types of films are decide that they really do like them and would then decide to watch these types of films, gaining the gothic-horror genre more audience members.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

- Did you base your characters/music star on other film/music characters? Why?




For our characters, we used the members of our group because we then knew we wouldn't have to rely on anyone else to help us film and also because we had all planned the film together and knew exactly what we wanted to happen within the film so we just made ourselves the characters as we knew we could rely on each other. We decided that Tommy should play our killer because he was able to play the part best out of both the boys and that then meant that Brandon was better suited to play the groom in our film. We then also decided that Emily was going to play the bride and murdered victim because she was better at being able to be the stalker and look like she was dead with all her make-up and everything on.


Our inspiration came from the film The Woman in Black and the way they played it out. We based our characters on various different characters, we based Emily's character (the dead bride)  a little on the Woman in Black and how she would be placed in the corner of the camera looking all scary and mysterious and then able to make others feel uncomfortable while she was just stood there. When we filmed our film, we used the same kind of camera angles as the Woman in Black by having Emily stood in the distance - making it a long shot of her - and then having the people she was targeting in the main view of the camera. When we were thinking of inspiration, we also thought of the title sequence from 'The Conjuring' as they used loads of different pictures at the beginning, we as a group, then decided to do the same kind of thing with our film as we then decided to use pictures from a relationship which was between two of the characters over the years since the murder had happened.

When we were thinking of stereotypes, we thought of a typical bride wearing a white dress - to show the traditional values of a white wedding with a bride who was meant to look all pure and innocent, Emily matched this stereotype with the way she did her make-up and hair as it made her look like a young and innocent girl who was really pure. . For Brandon's character, he matched the stereotypical views of a groom because he was dressed up in a black suit which made him look smart and ready to be married to someone.

When thinking about our inspiration of 'The Woman in Black' we based Emily's character vaguely on the Woman in Black, especially with the stalking scenes and making her look dead and the memorable scene at the end of both 'The Woman in Black' and 'The Woman in White' with both dead women putting their faces up to the screen to end the film. We also used the a theme within our film, in 'The Woman in Black' the theme of revenge and vengeance was used and within our film we used the theme of revenge for our dead women to try and get revenge on both her killers. We did this because we wanted both some similarities and differences between our characters within our film.

Evaluation - Question 1

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


In our media piece, (The Woman in White), we stuck to the conventions

of having the woman dying and then using lots of blood and a knife to conform to the horror genre. However, with mise-en-scene, we subverted lighting and setting as we did not use the dark lighting and it was not set in an isolated building or house. This shows that we subverted the genre as we decided to go against the traditional views of Gothic Horror and decided to put our own spin on it to show that we understand the genre and would have been able to change some things within the conventions and still make the film work. We also did not conform to the typical gothic fashion of having dark clothing, we only used dark clothing for one character, which was the murderer, for the rest of the characters, we used light colours - for example, the bride was in white which would have made her look pure and innocent. With character, we still had an antagonist but no protagonist, which would have gone against the traditional gothic horror conventions. With the camera work, we did match the conventions of gothic horror as we used Close-Up Shots on the characters faces so that we could show their emotions and also show their reactions to things within the current scene. This shot can also make the audience feel uncomfortable, especially if you have an extreme close up on a character. We also used Long Shots to show what was going on in the scene and also show that we could show the audience the surroundings and establish what could be happening next. Our Handheld Shots were used to add a sense of reality within the scene and make the audience feel like they are there with the characters, this can then also make the audience feel like they are on the edge of their seat because they do not know what is going to happen next to the characters they are currently seeing. Also with sound, we stuck to the to having the non-diegetic sounds throughout which would then increase the fear in audiences as it would make them feel uncomfortable as the music would make them feel uneasy about the film itself. This is evident at the very beginning of the video when all the characters are introduced - this uneasy music plays right up to the death of our female character. Sound can also be used to emphasise the sub-genre that is being used which can also increase fear within the audience.

Our product has conformed to the conventions of gothic horror with the camera shots as they show the audience the different feelings and facial expressions each character may have  and can also show the setting around the characters. We also conformed to the gothic horror conventions with sound as it was used to make certain points of our film to scare the audience. We wanted to use some traditional conventions because we wanted to have a traditional side to the sub-genre. However, we also did not conform to the traditional gothic-horror conventions as we wanted to change things around a bit and make it different to all the other gothic-horror films that are around. With changing the conventions, we changed things to do with setting and lighting as we did not have any dark lighting within our piece nor did we have any isolated settings to make it a traditional gothic-horror. We did this because we wanted to make this film our own and be completely different to any other gothic-horror which had already been released previously.

We matched specific conventions with the camera shots, for example, we used close up shots when trying to make the audience feel uncomfortable at the very end of the film when Emily's face was extremely close up with the camera, we also had a specific convention with the hand-held camera movement so that there would be a sense of realism within the film, making the audience feel like they were there with the characters. We used these two conventions because they were two of the main ones that are used within gothic horror and camera work is one of the main things that people focus on when they are watching films as that is also something that makes them feel on the edge of their seat, or uncomfortable, which is something that every person who makes a gothic horror film wants to have. We also used an antagonist within our film which made up our storyline as he was our killer in the beginning.