Evaluation

Media conventions


In my production I both enhanced and challenged typical media conventions with my characters. My main villains were females instead of males, and this challenges the convention that females are defenceless victims and are preyed on by males. It is also being challenged as usually female vampires are brides or servants of Dracula and mine are not. By challenging this convention I also play into the growing number of subverted films. I however enhanced conventions by having my female vampires be dressed in revealing outfits. Another enhancement made is that, following popular stereotypes within horror films, a black male is the first person in my film to die. My audience, as a fan of horror films, will recognise this convention and relate to it. 


Elements of my opening that use common conventions of horror were my lighting and sound. I used an atmospheric song throughout the actual film to create tension and atmosphere, then a song chosen specifically for its lyrics. The lyrics link in to the religious horror theme that intertwines with vampire films by talking about heaven and hell. My film is shot in black and white to show it was in the past, and this reflects some of the most classic vampire movies are from the 1920's and 1930's and would have been in black and white. Having footage in monochrome also accentuates the shadows that would not have been so obvious for the aura of the film. The film is also set in a graveyard, something very typical of a vampire film.


Some of my shots are those typical of a horror film, such as point of view shots, tracking shots and over the shoulder shots. However, as shooting time was limited I was not able to get in other conventional shots, such as high and low angle shots. I also intended to have a worms eye view of my victim being followed by one of the vampires but the location prevented me from doing so as it had rained earlier in the day. The rain also made me change the ending of the piece from the victim being forced to his knees so that the vampires could feed from him to them leading him to the bench, which didn't have the same scary effect. Unfortunately we had to complete the shoot in one day so I couldn't complete the sequence on another night, due to conflicting schedules.

New technologies


The start of the project was when technology started getting involved. The blog was set up on Blogger, something I had not used previously as my blog is a Tumblr account and was unsuitable for the purposes of my coursework. PCs I am very familiar with, however, and had my account set up quickly. I personally found the site easy to manoeuvre and it was only a lack of time that kept me from decorating my blog with gadgets and pictures.


At the start of the shoot I was using my own personal camera, a Hitachi DZHV1074 camcorder, shooting specifically in black and white. However part way through the shoot the camcorder battery died. This was my own fault as I had used it the night before and hadn't checked that the battery still had enough charge. Because of our tight shooting schedule, we had to complete filming on a camera phone, specifically an iPhone 4S. This had both advantages and disadvantages; the picture was better lit on the phone, but there was less stabilisation since we couldn't use the tripod any more. With my resources lighting was also an issue because the onboard halogen light on my camera was not strong enough to light what I needed it for, meaning some shots are almost too dark for the action to be seen. When filming our next project, if darkness is involved then I will make sure to have torches and other lighting sources readily available.

Importing my footage to my home PC so I could sort through it all was simple as I film in a digital format. To transport it to the iMac computers we were using in college to edit on it was a matter of putting it on a USB stick and importing it from that onto the iMac.

While at college there was an issue in regards to saving the footage in iMovie as a new event. I'm familiar with the workings of Apple software but I'd never used the version of iMovie currently installed at the college. As the iMacs are on a different network to the main student drive, we didn't know that for our work to be fully saved it had to be on the student disk; the memory on the iMacs isn't enough for all students so they have a deep freeze setting that wipes the iMacs onboard hard drive whenever it gets rebooted. This problem, for me at least, was resolved by a quick tutorial in saving from the college IT technician. 

Once I had overcome the saving issue I had to re-edit all of my film as most of it had been done in the lesson before the tutorial. In the tutorial lesson I constructed my title sequence, ready for the end of my production. The re-edit did not take very long, considering most of my footage followed what I had designed on my storyboard. My main problem was how to construct an element of fear having used actors who were not very good and spent most of the shoot corpsing. In hindsight I should have scripted the scene better and chosen people who were more serious about what they were doing.




Target audience

My original target audience was white males aged 18-24. Despite the fact that my male character in the opening sequence has changed ethnicity, I don't feel like this has changed my audience. I think this for two key reasons. The first is that this is only the opening sequence, and that what happens in it may be the set up for the rest of the film but is not a full definition of the contents, especially as the villains are white: this proves that my production is not a "black" film. My other reason for this thought process is that traditionally in horror films the first male victim is usually black. This would help my target audience feel more like they understand the film.

Within the production there are elements that define my audience. The plot and subgenre are key. Vampire films, especially those that involve seductive female vampires, have always had an appeal to men, and my plot involves two seductive and usually scantily clad female vampires. The sound is also key to identifying the audience in that many males in my target audience, being part of the "Goth" and "emo" scene, would listen to metalcore and would recognise the second part of the sound used. Other males, such as nerds who enjoy more role play games and fantasy that make up my audience are more likely to recognise the alternative rock aspect of the sound, as Queens Of The Stone Age are very popular in their subgenre of music.




Representation


One of the social groups represented in my production are young black men. The media in general tends to portray young black men in a negative light as gangsters and thugs, especially those from urban areas.  In my production this stereotype has been subverted as the young black men in my opening sequence are the victims and not the aggressors. However this is not always a complete subversion as a common stereotype in horror films, as I have mentioned previously, is that a black male is usually first to die. 



Another social group represented are the "geeks" who are interested in science fiction and fantasy. They are represented in that a very common figure for them to lust after is the female vampire, a notorious Gothic sex symbol. However the main group represented are females. Traditionally they have been seen as the weaker sex and have always been portrayed as the victim by the media. The females in my production are part of a growing number of self actualised, independent women being shown in the media. They fend for themselves and don't rely on a man's help. This is significant because despite the fact that we live in a post feminist society, females are still discriminated against and judged primarily on their looks and ability to clean and bear children.






Institution


I chose 20th Century Fox to be my production company as they are the largest multinational media conglomerate. They own Harper Collins, which is significant as my production is "based on a true story". If the novel I have claimed to have adapted for my film (which is actually non existent) was published by Harper Collins it would be easier to get the film adaptation created. In hindsight I should have used the Fox Searchlight vignette because where my film has a more limited target audience than a traditional horror film and would be made for a lower budget.




Pregression from the preliminary task


I feel I have progressed from my preliminary in that I was more used to filming in different shots than I was when I took GCSE Media. My preliminary used match on action, something I had not used before, and also used the 180 degree rule in a conversation. I had never used the continuity rule either, although I knew of it. I also regained my knowledge of using the tripod as it had been a while since I'd used one; whenever I used my camera at home I put it on a stack of books instead.