Evaluation

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


Keeping audiences interest as a main priority, we have used different mise-en-scene and cinematography. As it is important to draw the audience attention, a different score music has been used to fit in the scene for the outcome of audience reaction.


We have mostly used close up shots of character(Jennifer) to show her anxious facial expression. We had even used medium shot and close up shot of her to show her body language and the way she reacts when Sakura appears near to her.




Heavily coating cosmetics was needed to provide Sakura with intimidating facial picture. The white dress worn by Sakura which connotes peace, pure, innocent contrasts with her black long hair which connotes danger, scary, horror and natural beauty.
To portray our antagonist, Devika Sherma: long shot, close up shot and extreme shot has been used to show her body language, costume and make up which is easy to stereotype. Most of the audience are expecting to see the ghost with a long hair and all dressing up in white.



This is the picture of title of our film "Cherry Blossom". We have used black and red color to show the name of our film where both of the color connotes horror, danger, death, blood and mystery. As you can only see the name of our film at the end of the film because it looks more obvious if we put the name of the film at the beginning.
Our film is some how interconnected with the character's name Sakura which means "Cherry Blossom" in English. The reason we chose this name is because it doesn't sound like horror but it makes our audience deliberate more about the title.



We had chosen this college corridor as our location because it usually relates to a place where the runaway victim becomes an easy prey for antagonist suppose(Sakura). Our film also has a scene where atagonist(Sakura) is shown playing around.


Sakura's costume:


Sakura,our main antagonist is the most important person in the film. In order to make her look more scary,we had decided to dressed her up in a long white dress. As our antagonist have a long black hair and we are trying to make our antagonist look more like a ghost in Japanese film.
At first, it was pretty much hard for us to find the costume for our antagonsit, Sakura. We wanted her custume to be simple white dress that can cover all parts of her body.Sakura, our antagonist is a kind of stereotypical because most of the ghost in horror movies have a similar looks like her. In order to make my audience more scared,we had chosen a white dress instead of other colours because white dress can be easily seen in a dark. It is a very effective way to intimidate audience when the protagonist confronts the ghost. The colour of white also connotes pure, peace where in Sakura's case she is pure but danger too.


Jennifer's costume:


Jennifer looks is more of a geeky kind. In order to make her look geeky,soft and natural, we have used vertical striped t-shirt and a knee-length, long black skirt. Her hair which is oily complements her look.



Here our character Sakura is introduced for the first time. We had used medium shot of the character to introduced her because here audience can see her make up, costume and location can understand that she is the main antagonist of the film. Here character is on the right side of the screen which means she is strong. We cannot see the face of our antagonist clearly which builds up some kind of enigma and tension on the people mind along with anticipating oncoming events.




As an editor, I have used a simple font while typing the name of the character in order to make it easier for our audience to read clearly the name of our character. Here, we have used 'Normal Time New Roman' in red colour to write the name of the character. We choose red colour to write the name as it connotes danger, blood and horror.



In most of the horror film, we can see a props like a cell phone which turns off when the character needed it most despite of her continuous effort to turn on. To make our film simple to understand,we used a props like a cell phone,stereotypical in a horror film.



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



I have compared our character Sakura with Natre (one of the well known antagonist from reknowned Asian horror 'Shutter'. Having had in Asia, it would be easy for us to draw target audience. In addition, Natre's story line is similar to that of our character Sakura because they both goes through the phase of being the victim of bully.

Sakura is 15 years old GCSE student from Havering College who was also bullied by her class mates when she was alive. One day, she goes missing. It takes two years of hard work until the step sister of Sakura,Kate miyazaki gets news of a girl disappearing fom the same college. This episode makes her suspicious the story of missing girl parallels with her sister. Already failing to get pass through college's premises, Sakura's sister Kate sneaks past the security without the permission. She manages to hide herself from the watchful eyes of security and secretly enters the radio room. She locks herself inside the room. After some minutes,Kate opens the door. She turns back and has a mysterious smile on her face.(indicates that within a brief moment, kate becomes possessed by Sakura)

In the movie Shutter Natre also died because of being continuously bullied. In our film,If we look at the ninety minute sequence of our film,the ending indicates the climax of antagonist rather than pointing towards it's death. The last scene in the movie 'Shutter', Natre possess her boyfriend's body which reflects the end of our film. Both of the character's makeup is also similar.



There are some similarities and differences between characters which can be easily distinguished.The similarities between these characters are they both were student who was in a high school. Natre was a geek and loner, who was always bullied by her classmates. Sakura was also bullied by her classmates as her mother was Japanese and father was British. This characters also have similar make ups and costume. They both have pale skin and wear white dresses.

This characters even have some dissimilarities as Natre had fallen in love with a guy whereas Sakura was just a kid who didn't had any idea about what love is. Although they were students, they were of different ages, Natre was older than Sakura. Sakura was from a rich family whereas Natre is from a poor family. Natre's dead body was found and her mother secured her body whereas Sakura's body was never found. Natre killed only her murderer whereas Sakura killed innocent people who was in her territory.




3) What kind of media institution might distributed your media product and why?

As our film is horror, we have decided to put each and every kind of scary scenes to attract our audience. We used a different camera movement and added many techniques while editing. In our opening sequence audience can see death of a teenage girl Jennifer which creates the atmosphere of enigma in the audience about antagonist (Sakura) reason behind choosing Jennifer as her victim.If audience wants to know what happens next,they can come to watch the remaining parts of the film.


Our logo is self made, has been completed by sketching. We wanted it to be sketched rather then use softwares. Our logo consist of extreme close up shot of a man's eyes which is a quite creepy and mysterious. At the starting of the movie when audience sees this logo they can easily identify that the film is of horror genre. The use of dark shades on the sketch and expressive eyes clarifies it's genre as a horror.

We decidec to name our production 'Lightning Production' because it is catchy and sounds more attractive for a horror genre. At the beginning of the film when both logo and production name is shown together with the sound of thunder audience can guess that movie is packed with elements of horror. The letter of the production name stands in white. In a complete picture,logo and production name is a blend of black and white. As all of our audience may not be able to understand the message behind logo;so we have decided to make it more simple by sketching man's eyes and a putting Lightning production as our production name so that the audience can understand that the logo and production name is of a horror film.


At the beginning of the film, we can see the name of a main characters in the film played by Devika Sherma and Tilly Trinder. I have used a red colour to highlight their names because our film is all about horror and red connotes horror, death and blood. I have even used a large font size to write their name so that our target audience can read it clearly. After a few second, we can see the name of Director Tilly Trinder with the face of our protagonist (Jennifer). This is kind of clue to the audience that the person who is playing the role of Jennifer is also a director of the film. As the director plays main person in the film, I have shown her name at first. Then a few seconds later name of Camera person, Anju Tamang appears because Camera person is second important person after director. At last, my name as an editor, Sustika Limbu appears. The names of appears within 3 to 5 seconds of time because it would avoid confusion and easy to link the name of a person with the role that they are being given to develop film as a whole.





I think our film could be possibly produced by the famous American film studio DreamsWork Pictures which produces, develops and distributes the film. This studio is famous for every kind of films. In 2002,it has distributed a film like "The Ring" which is quite similar to our film. Even our antagonist has a same look as the antagonist of the film "The Ring". As our story line contrasts with "The Ring" however falls on the same genre which may attract a production company like them. This production has even produced a film like "Red eye" which is a thriller film and animated films like "Shrek" and "Millennium Actress". This means if this company produce and distribute our film then there will be no problem in attracting more audience.

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


Name: Alen Thapa
Age: 19
Location: Plumstead
Couse: Music Tech and As OCR ICT
College:Kidbrooke College


He is a young A-level student from london. He is into metal, japanese rock and pop songs. He is a regular customer at HMV as he can buy all the range of different genre of music from all over the world. It is also the most popular music store in the UK. He is a great fan of Japanese rock band Dir en grey and X-Japan. He likes these band because he is inspired by their unique gothic visual that never forget to compliment it's lyrics. He even writes his own songs and music in spare time. He is a great fan of horror, sci-fi,physological and thrillar movies. The list of tv series that interest him are CSI miami,The Simpsons, supernatural and The X files. He enjoy watching all these programmes because it challenges his creativity.

I had interviewed him a few days ago and asked him whether he would watch our film or not and as expected his response was positive. I even asked him why would he watch our film and he replied that he loves experiencing fear and excitement that horror films bring. He thinks that horror films would be a great genre to watch with friends when they are together. I even showed him our opening sequence while taking his interview and he added that it was preety good and he would definitely watch it if we made it a full length of 90 minutes of film.

He even gave some feedback for our movie. He liked the antagonist and how we had made her shift from one place to another.




5)How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our target audience , we made a questionnaire asking about what do our target audience like to see in our film and what would they expect to see next. According to the feedback, we tried to make our antagonist look more like a ghost in Asian horror. Most of our target audience want to see a ghost in horror film. As most of our audience is also a big fan of Asian horror we had tried to make one by putting the similar antagonist (ghost) same as in most of the horror movie. Even the same kind of antagonist is famouse in most of the european and American countries we had tried to make one similar to an antagonist of the film like The Grudge.




We had used a close up to long shot of our antagonist (Sakura) in our film because in close up shot our audiece can see the facial expression of sakura and make up of her's which is quite creepy and most of the audiece can get easily scared of it. Even from the close up shot audience can see the facial expression of Sakura which shows her more scary and strong antagonist.
We have even used long shot to show the whole custome of Sakura and her long blackheair which gives a scary movemnt.



At the last scene we can see a long shot of Sakura walking around the corridor that tries to tell our audiece that Sakura rules the place so no one can come into her territory. By looking at the last scene audience can have a differnt question in mind about why is she walkin? is she mad? is the film more about a psycho chick rather then a ghost? but the thing is here we had tried to show that she rules the place and no one can comes into her territory. She loves her place and no can walk there except her.

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

This is the pictures of the equipments that we used while making our film. Video camera VX2000E, tripod, Final cut pro and Digital Deck for editing.

Final Cut Pro

I learned how to use all these equipments.In order to edit our film we had used Final cut pro. Editing is a part of making a good flim. The use of intensely charged, intimidating sound produces fear with in the audience. I learned how to log and capture a video and arrange the colour of whole film and changed it from colour to dark colour to make it more scary.As in horror film we need to make a background sound more dynamic and scary at one point and slow flowing sound at the second point so in order to make it more loud and slow at the same time i have learned to use audio track. I even learned that while arranging a sound we should look at a audio meter because if the sound is too loud then the red line in the audio meter touches the red round light so if that happen we have to lower down audio line in audio track.I even learned that we should arrange all the selected scene in the timeline and there we can also add some audio but the audio should be at the down of the scene because if we put the audio with the scene on the same line then we won't be able to see the scene instead we can only hear the sound with black screen.

In order to make the film creepy, score music is the most important things to take care about.
we have used videocopilto software to get the right music for our film.
We have tried to used the different music according to the scene e.g when camera focus on Sakura a music goes high and in the scene where Jennifer looks around and finds no one instead she sees Sakura infront of her at the time loud thunder sound is used when Sakura appears infront of Jennifer.As our film is a horror film we needed to make our screen look dark to create spooky environment so here i had turn down the saturation colour to make it look more dark colour then before.





Youtube

I used youtube to upload our film and for the audience feedback. As Millions of people use it,it is one of the biggest online video sources where people upload videos to share it with world. From our uploaded videos, we can easily garner people views and comments. The image of thumbs up image at the side of comment enables us to understand whether people liked or disliked our videos. By using this site I have learnt that people can showcase their creativity and as a 1st year of media student who loves to make a movie then this is the right place for us because here we can get more comments on whether our video is good or not and what can be done next time. People from all over the world would be happy to help you guys and comment and rate on your videos. I even learnt that youtube is the great source of information.Be it learning to make movies, displaying your unique talents like singing, dancing, storytelling etc.,it would enrich your knowledge. Visiting Youtube and typing a simple key words that you are interested enough to learn would be worth trying. I even used youtube to get some ideas on the editing which helps me out a lot.


Picnik

I used Picnik to edit some of our logos, group pictures, behind the scene pictures, pictures of the characters and the pictures of our target audience. While posting pictures in blog, if the pictures is too big or if the size of the pictures aren’t the same then the blogs looks informal. To give pictures a suitable size, I have used Picnik to resize and edit it. By using this site with some knowledge of editing, we could recreate or turn simple photograph into professional outlook. To give a picture more darker shade or to include more light in it,simply clicking on the name of the editing style would provide us with the result. I have even learnt that failing to choose good lighting and colour becomes the product of bad and unprofessional image.

Facebook

I used facebook to promote our films so that to our target audience can visit our blog. Facebook is everywhere and connects people from nook and corners.It has wide varieties of users, ranging from any ages. As teenagers falls under our target audience list, we opened a group named “Cherry Blossom” and allowed the people to join those people who are interested in horror film. Facebook is another medium to raise your popularity where people from different group and ages can add you as a friend and join you if they can relate to your group. Facebook is also the great source of feedback as it helps to polish up your work. I have learnt that uploading videos in Youtube would connect people with same interest be it different race, gender, religion and many more by joining groups. This way, you will be successful in attracting your target audience.

7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the pull product?

These are the pictures from both Preliminary and original video


This picture is from our preliminary task. Here, we have shown the match on action. While showing this editing, we should know that the action starts on the first shot and ends in the second shots. We had done the same editing in our film too where Jennifer (Protagonist) opens the door in her attempt to escape when she sees Sakura (antagonist).








Here, we have used a short reverse shot inorder to establish the relationship between two characters. This type of editing even helps the audience to understand the relationship between the two character. A same kind of editing has been used in our film when Jennifer hides under the table where Sakura appears infront of her. In order to show the increasing tension in between and facial expression of the characters, we have used this shot while editing.






Here, we have shown the 180 degree rule. We should never break a 180 degree rule. If we break it then there would be difficulty in understanding the scene.In 180 degree rule,the camera must not exceed 180 degree rule. Though most of the filmmaker has broken the 180 degree rules e.g : an Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass and a late Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.




Here, we have used a long shot to show the character's body language and the surrounding. In most of the film, we can see this kind of shot which helps the audience to understand the film even with the help of the location.



I learnt different editing techniques while doing our Preliminary task.It even helps me out a lot while making storyboard and editing our film. We, as a group decided to rehearse the scenes before filming which would help. This saved us a time while making original film. Deciding on the perfect location became complex as the first location became unavailable to shoot. However, we didn't give up and found better location than previous one. Applying 180 degree rule in our film also helped out us a lot in our filming process.
The process of making a film and editing has helped me to enrich my knowledge. It would be very useful to use my skills on my upcoming or future fimmaking. I have become more confident on applying and use my acquired skills. Given the chance of making a movie on my own, I would not hesitate.

180 degree rule

180 degree is the very important thing we should think about while filming the film and we should never break 180 degree rule.
If we break the 180 degree rule then our audience may get confused about the whole scene.

Textual analysis (Anju and Sustika)

Sustika Limbu: 50%
Anju Tamang: 50%

We are analysing a 90 minutes Sequence of an American version movie The Grudge 2004.In this textual analysis, we will be writing about 4 technical aspects. Mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound.

This film was directed by Takashi Shimizu.

This movie starts with the title sequence and follows with the written text "When someone dies in a greap of a powerful range ..... a curse is born" the word "Curse" is highlighted in red, the screen fades in black for a while and again appears with other written text " The curse gathers in that place of death" again the word "Death" is highlighted in red. Soon after that, other phrase takes place "Those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury" the word "Fury" is highlighted in red again. The reason behind highlighting these words "Curse", "Death", "Fury" are interconnected with the storyline of the movie whereas red connotes danger.

The movie starts with establishing shot which shows the location and camera tracks towards the character's face whose worrying facial expression is visible to see. Few minutes later, a brief introduction of 1st character Professor Peter, his short lived scene ends which automatically ends after he jumps from his balcony which happens to be witnessed by his wife. The new character, a social worker is introduced who is assisting the ill woman Emma. One day her assistance, Yoko Maki hears a sound from the room while cleaning. She wonders into the rooms to find the source of sound. She hears the sound coming from ceiling upon careful inspection. She sees that that the passage to the attic when she opens the cupboard. She climbs the ladder through the cupboard. stretches her body to get the proper view inside the attic. Therefore, she burns the lighter and looks around there. She sees the ghost (Kayako), the main antagonist of the sequence. After this event, the main protagonist is introduced.

Karen Davis


Karen Davis is the main protagonist of the film. She goes to assist the same person Emma, in the place of Yoko Maki. While working, she finds a closet being barred by the tape. The cat like noise comes from it. Out of curiousity, she rips off the tape and finds a little boy. She asks her to come out of closet but he refuses. She asks him his name of which she gets prompt reply of his name being Toshi. This get interrupted as Emma begins to chatter alone. As she calms Emma, the dark, long hair flows above the ceiling which terrifies Emma. Kayako reaches to Emma while Karen continues to stare at her. Karen lose consciousness from fear. Finally Karen's boss Alex appears who witnesses Emma's death and finds Karen in a state of shock. Karen is taken to hospital and another character detective Nakagawa is introduced. The detective interrogates Alex about the other family members of Emma. Finally the detective interrogates Karen. She tells her part of the story, indicating the appearance of the boy. Over the next few day she is distressed by Kayako. Frightened and stressed, she begins to research the history of the house. Eventually Karen discovers that the house had been embroiled by the murder case. This gives her more initiative to investigate on her own. She meets Peter's wife Maria and questions her about connection between Kayako's house and her husband's suicide . Unfortunately, Maria doesnot have any clue to help her so she allows Karen to search through the old photographs. Looking every photograph in detail, Karen gets a hold of photograph with Kayako in the background. It indicates that Kayako had been following the couple without their knowledge. Karen tries to talk with her boyfriend Doug but he has already left to investigate situation on his own while trying to get hold of Karen. Karen returns to the house searching for her boyfriend where she gets the flashback of Peter's visit. She experiences the event that took place after Peter finds the corpse of Kayako and Takeo's hanging on the noose by Kayako's hair. The flashback allows Karen to see a brief, final moment of his life: him murdering his wife, Kayako and his son, Toshio. Overwhelmed by revelation about the murder,Karen wobbles on the way down to the stairs.Doug has been crippled so he gets dragged towards the door by Karen when he grabs her ankle, but Kayako's ghost suddenly appears upstair. Kayako crawls down the stair towards them. Karen gives a kiss of death to Doug. She bangs the door and kicks over the gas can. She tries to burn the Doug's lighter and fires it onto the gas, as suddenly Doug turns into Kayako. The screen goes white and shows the ambulance taking Karen.

Later she learns that the house has been saved and mourns the death of his boyfriend,Doug. Suddenly, Kayako's hair appears beneath the sheet that covered him, she soon realizes it was just a figment of her imagination because it turns out to be the normal sheet. Kayako, then appears behind Karen. As Kayako utters her death groan, the movie ends with her eyeshot.


Kayako is the antagonist of the film. She was killed by her husband after he finds out that she fell in love with an American Professor(Peter) in Tokyo. Takeo, Kayako's husband beats her up and while escaping she crawls down the stairs in futile as he kills her and packs her in the white, transparent bag to hide her dead body above the ceiling. Then, Takeo kills their child Toshio by drowning him inside the bath tub, full of water. Later, Takeo hangs himself.

Since the day Kayako was killed, the each and every person who comes to live in that house or those who steps inside the house are cursed, gets haunted by her and the curse spreads.

Preliminary Task

This is our preliminary task, here we have showed a three elements of editing; match on action, shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule.

Textual Analysis of 2 minute opening sequence of a horror

I have chosen a 2008 horror movie Splinter by Toby Wilkins as my 2 minute opening sequence for textual analysis.
The opening sequence is very powerful and attractive for those who loves horror. The director has used mise-en-scene and cinematography to attract it's target audience. Even the music is so catchy and spooky.

In the starting of the movie we can see a name of production company in black and and white, the black connotes danger, enigma where as white connotes peace. Soon after the name of production company we can see a gas station, where direction has used an establishing shot and a tilt movement to show the location. So, that his target audience can understand where the location is. Even the non diegetic sound at the background where we can hear a sound of a crow is to convey a message to his target audience that, something bad is going to happen.



Soon after that scene we can see a man coming out of the station, director has used different kind of props to show the audience that, it's the gas station. Even from his costume we can say that the man is a worker at station. Soon after a tilt movement director has used medium shot to focus on the face of a man. so, that the audience can see the facial expression of the character. After that we see a next scene where the same guy takes out a chair and put it in in the ground and tries to relax. Here director has again used the medium shot to show the audience that the character is trying to relax, from his body language. At the background we can hear the non diegetic sound of some kind of animals.

Soon after that the character looks back to check on something, in order to show that the character is looking back at the bushes, the director has used tracking shot. Then we can see a character's full body from the medium long shot. From this shot, director has tried to tell his audience that the character is looking back at something.

"Go on I ain't got nothing"

he stands up

shows his feet, where he is heading towards

"jesus" (close up)

pace animal attack the guy (aha.....)

shot reverse shot (animal and the face of the character)
(animal and the hand of the character)

then the screen turns black for some seconds.

From this opening sequence I have learned that the more pace we use in our horror film, the more scary it will look but if we use it too often then the film won't look scary enough and the audience don't get scared.

Group role

I have taken the role of "Editor" in the group of As media coursework, where as Anju has taken a role of "Camera women" and tilly has taken a role of "Director".We have to make 2 minute opening sequence of thriller/ horror for our coursework.