Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/adress your audience?





The setting of this opening sequence would appeal to our target audience because it is set in an alley way, everybody walks through an alley once in a while or maybe everyday, at night and even in the day time alley ways may seem scary, therefore the audience may know the emotions that the character is feeling and they can relate.

The main character is female, this would attract the audience(mainly boys) because she is quite attractive since out target audience is of an age from 15-21, an attractive girl on screen may be appealing therefore more people would watch it, having a female as the main character may also allow girls to relate to her.

The backing track used for this opening sequence builds tension and suspense, it is also a typical convention of a horror film, if the audience like horror films then this would be appealing to them and they would expect music like this throughout the film.

Evaluation Question 7

xLooking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?








I have learnt to use the camera better than I did in the preliminary task, even though as stated before we had technical difficulties with the camera and therefore had to result in using a hand-held camera, this made filming our opening sequence a lot easier than the preliminary this is because in our opening sequence all shots are point of view so the hand-held camera went well with what we are trying to create, whereas with our preliminary task the camera had to be stationery.


With the preliminary task i had help editing, so therefore I didn't find it as hard as editing the opening sequence, I believe that the preliminary task was a lot easier to edit because there were less screen shots and detail to it unlike the opening sequence. The music that we had chose for the preliminary task had no relevance what so ever to what was said in it, however with my opening sequence the background music that we had chose complimented the action in the sequence.


For the preliminary task there was no script, storyboard or planning it was an idea that came right off of the top of our heads where as our opening sequences had weeks of preparation, scripts were made, storyboards and planning. This helped us get the final product that we have, the planning helped everything to run smoothly and it was also a structure so we knew exactly what we had to do.

Evaluation Question 6

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

For our media coursework instead it being paper based, we had to upload blog entrys onto blogger, I had never used this website before but as time went on I gradually found it easier to handle and work with. I learnt how to embed links onto a post, upload photos and by using another website called scribd I was able to put my script and screenshots onto the post.
Scribd is website where you are able to upload powerpoints embed the link and post it on your blog.

I Had never used a camera like the sony HVR-V1U pro HDV 1080p and I found it quite hard at first because of all the different buttons and equipment that it came with, during the editing stage we found that there were problems with what we had filmed it kept skipping and the sound wasn't working we later on found that we had a dysfunctional tape and therefore had to film all over again in a short space of time, we tried to book another camera for the day we wished to shoot however there was none available at that time so therefore we had to result in using my camera which is a canon.

To edit the footage in postproduction, Final Cut Pro was used, at the beginning Georgia and Lisandra began to edit as I updated my blog, towards the end I began to take part in the editing adding music and credits at first I found it quite hard and confusing. However I began to find it easier the more times that I went onto it.

I used You Tube to uploaded videos so that I could embed the codes and use them for my blog.

Evaluation Question 4

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

Above I have posted a picture of my target audience. My target audience for this film would range from the age 15-21. Throughout the sequence the point of view shot is always focused on the protagonist which is a female, so therefore the main audience would be males, however females could be part of this target audience because they may relate to the situation that the protagonist is in or the choice of costume.

Our media product is aimed towards the middle to lower class citizens; as our setting is filmed in a dark alley way, which would be based near train stations and restaurants, if we were aiming for the higher class citizens then we would have set our film within a high class estate or a road which had lots of shops along it. We felt that we could relate to a wide range of audience if we set our media product within a place that everybody can relate to.

We had asked some of our target audience to name a few of their favourite films, out of all the films that were named we found that these were the most popular.

In no particular order

1.) Harry Potter

2.) X-men - the last stand

3.)Scream

4.) The Fast And Furious

There is a wide range of favourite films, but most of them are 'thrillers'. We chose this target audience because they are at the age in which they can watch the film and relate to it, since this could happen to anybody at any time.

Evaluation Question 3

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

A Production company is the company who makes the physical production of a film. The production company that you have chosen would be the ones responsible for raising the money to create the film. funding or may have a link with a larger company whom funds the film. Our film, Dead mans alley has been made by myself and my group; 2012 Productions - our own production company. If we were to distribute our film, we would need to create a link with a distribution company who are for releasing films to the public.

our media product,dead mans alley is a Independent British Film, it would be distributed by a small distribution company like Big talk productions, who have distributed British films such as 'attack the block' and 'Paul', this would be the perfect distributor for our film due to having contacts in the film industry based in London, United Kingdom and accept film submissions over the internet, also Comedy and horror provide the beating heart of Big Talk’s slate, this is good because our film is a horror film.


Other ways that we could distribute our film is buy film festivals, an example of a film festival that could be used is Zero film festival .Zero Film Festival is the first and only festival exclusive to self-financed film-makers, this would be good due to the fact that our film has no budget and not known actors. A large distribution company would be Paramount, however paramount is a large budget production and distribution company with a lot of links with large cinema groups, distributing on DVD and TV on demand. Smaller distributors cannot afford the same things that the bigger distributors have to offer hence the reason they do not have links and are unable to return the huge cash return upon a distribution of a film, this is why they have smaller budgets. Paramount distribute films such as 'along came a spider' and 'van helsing', they would be unsuitable to distribute my film due to the fact as stated before that there is no budget and also not known actors/actresses.

New ways of distributing films maybe through e-mails, itunes and the apple store and also Lovefilm.com

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The two screen shots of Georgia and Brittany Snow have many similarities, they are both blonde teenage girls, and even though both shots are mid shots of the girls we can see they are in modern casual clothing. The film Brittany Snow stars in (Nelson McCormik and J.S. Cardone's 2008 film 'Prom Night') is an American film and our own is British, we can see that the conventions are similar. The producers for horror films aimed at a young audience usually use young attractive girls as the protagonist character this is because it would attract more of a younger audience, it relates to a younger audience and teenagers/young adults would go to the cinema with their partners or friends to see it.


From the chosen shots of the two characters we can see that both of the characters body language and facial expressions are confused and scared and that there is a mysterious silhouette behind them causing this. As for the characters roles in the two films, Georgia and Brittany play very similar parts, where they are both the main characters that the film is based around who in which is the psycho murderer's prime victim.


The dialogue in the two films have their differences in the sense that the American film ‘prom night’ uses more dialogue than our British film, the language that would be used in the film ‘prom night’ would be American orientated, the simplicity of the dialogue used in Dead Mans Alley establishes how young adults/teenagers speak the use of teenage slang usually associated with teenagers in London and Essex where our film is set.


The props we used in our film Dead Mans Alley is a mobile phone, which once again is often associated with teenagers and the technology of today, we had our protagonist character use the mobile phone the whole way through our opening sequence and this played a huge part in the series of events that led up to the climax/main event, and also shows the typical attitude of a teenager.


All of these conventions identifies that particular chosen characters are associated with a certain audience, in our films case as well as Prom Night's a young attractive girl is usually associated with a horror film aimed at a target audience of teenagers/young adults and with our main character being from Essex this would identify with a young audience in the UK.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Firstly, we chose Dead Mans Alley as our title; this is because it lets the audience know the genre of the film from the get go. The title is always shown in bold lettering to make the title stand out and grab the viewer’s attention; therefore our media product has used conventions of a real media product as most films aim to grab your attention through big bold titles on trailers/opening sequences in a cinema to draw you in from the beginning.

The location that we have chosen actually came from the choice of title for our film, this is because one of my group members suggest the alley next to her house which is named ‘dead mans alley’, we thought that this would be a great location to film due to the surroundings that it had; for example a train station right next to it, over grown plants and parts of the alleyway which looked like a dungeon. This alleyway is quite dark and is the type of alley that someone wouldn’t want to walk down alone. The title of this film inspired us and made the perfect setting, therefore developing our media product into a whole idea and image in our minds setting the base for our opening sequence.


We also used modern day costumes/props as mentioned before such as the mobile phone and clothes that teenagers would wear everyday, however the costume that you see our protagonist wearing in our opening sequence was not an basic modern day clothing such as tracksuits or jeans, it was more of a individual look, some of the clothing that our protagonist had on had connotations of danger and death for example the red/burgundy socks that were worn, this shows a hidden message from the start. We challenged and developed on some real media conventions trying to make our film as modern as possible.

In our camerawork and editing we chose to film the whole sequence as a point of view shot from the murderer's perspective to build on that uneasy atmosphere. We also added a clip of heavy breathing to build up the tension, as well as a creepy soundtrack to build up the moment and set the scene/mood. While we were editing we found it hard to hear the dialogue of the character that was meant to be said, therefore we used a soundtrack over it so that no dialogue had to be used. This specific shot was to make the audience feel unsettled as well as get their attention to make them want to see what's going to happen and who this person is who's eyes we are seeing it through... But to make it a cliffhanger we don't reveal who this person is throughout our opening sequence, even at the end, too add to the mystery. The whole opening sequence being in a point of view shot perspective uses and develops on ideas from real media products as there are normally a few point of view shots in a sequence involving a psycho murderer scene, but we challenged this convention by making the whole of our opening sequence a range of point of view shots from one perspective.

When choosing our story-line and how to create the build up in our opening sequence, we imagined what would keep us on the edge of our seat if this was an actual film we was watching in the cinema, so we used the conventions a typical horror movie usually does and what you would usually see happen in them. We started by introducing the audience to our character straight away by showing her walking from a busy high street down a side road, it's very obvious who our protagonist character is as the camera follows there every movement, this distinguishes her from the rest of the people in the background, and by getting her to walk away from everybody else this automatically brings her away from the busy public place and brings her into a deserted location instead, separating her from the 'life' in the location, which is once again another hidden message, but purposefully making it very apparent that she is now alone. We did this as in typical horror movies you see either a lone person, or a group of friends get into a situation where they are often alone (or end up alone) in a deserted place with no other frequent form of life close by. Putting the protagonist character alone is the start of our build up and developing on the idea above, then having someone follow her closely adds to this. When the character is then in the alleyway we start building to the climax of the sequence, with the person behind (who's point of view we are seeing this from) getting closer to our protagonist character, and the two then finally coming face to face, however we only allow the audience to see this interaction between the two for a split second before the shot jump cuts to a black screen, building the suspense and mystery.

The genre definitely uses and develops on the usual conventions of a horror film by the using a young and attractive teenage female as the main character, the use of props such as a mobile phone and also the clothing that our protagonist was wearing shows that we have tried to make it as modern as possible. The soundtrack from the beginning of the sequence shows forms of conventions because from the creepy and slow music we sense that it Is a horror film also , the isolation of the character herself and the uneasy point of view shot from the murderer's point of view (even though it is not obvious who this person is)

Production Ideas

Setting: Alley (At night)

Location: Romford

costume: Typical teenage casual day-to-day wear ect jeans, converses, tshirt. (no further props i.e bags/ except mobile phone).

Hair + Make-up: subtle to refference teenage persona (young + youthful + innocent)- increase audience experience. Ponytail (typical young casual style)

Soundtrack:

priliminary task

'DEAD MAN'S ALLEY SCRIPT'

Dead Mans Alley Script


Dead Mans Alley Storyboard

Codes and Conventions of horror films

Codes and conventions which are typically found to be used in horror films.

-Ominous mise-en-scene e.g dark nights, isolated location, emphasis on noises such a wind, dogs barking swing creaking, people walking/breathing, bad weather e.g storms lighting blackouts is used to manipulate the characters so then they can't escape.
-Killer has to have an iconic method or weapon of killing. Scream - Ghost face & knife, Saw - Jigsaw & the mask. Nightmare on elm street - Clothings and knife glove.
-Disorientation/disturbance of the audience - can do this through many ways; digetic and non-digetic sounds, un-natural camera movements can make the audience feel disorientated and absorb them into the film.
- Horror films usually target teenagers and young adults as it can play on their vulnerability and naivety.
- First to be killed is usually a teenage girl stereotypical - blonde hair a bit dumb plays off the "rules" of a horror film e.g don't inspect a noise from outside, don't go off on your own, don't ask who's there?
- The main character whom survives being killed until the end usually has problems with themselves, relationships, family, etc this is used to progress the story and make them feel more relateable which in tale makes the film more scary as the audience can be placed in the film easier.
-Horror film settings can differ from either a secluded isolated location, or they can use a location which is more seemingly "safe" e.g a characters home, school this is used to scare the audience further as it breaks their safety and can make the film seem more relatable.
- Some films use plots where they remove any trust or aid from things that people usually go to for help e.g parents, the police, and our friends as this makes not only the characters in the film but the audience feel no sense of protection and safety thus again making it scarier.
-POV (point of view) shots from the killer are a must in a horror film as they place the audience into the film emphasising the thrill and the make the victim seem more vulnerable and defenceless.
-Surprise twists within the plot, e.g a person whom was seemingly safe is suddendly killed, a killer is revealed to be somebody who was presented as harmless character throughout the film.

Equitment List

This is the equipment that we used for out open sequence...



1.) Camera

2.) Tripod

4.) Black glove

5.) Mobile Phone- for the use of the character

Opening Sequence film plan.

Title: Dead Man's Alley

Storyline: Its a dark cold, gloomy night and a girl is walking through an alley shes distracted by her phone when suddenly she hears the noise of a cat screeching and she panics and drops her phone.
It is dark so she looks around for her phone when she discovers a hand, she is in shock to she backs away into something.

Camera movements: at the beginning of the film, the camera is at the front of the alley watching the protagonists character walking down the alley, then we have a jump cut to the oppposite end of the alley to show her walking down the alley from the killer perspective, it jumps back to the front of the character as a mid-shot to establish that she is distracted on her phone. Then we return to the point of view shot of the killer from over the girls shoulder.

The camera will then track the main character from this point on showing, the killers point of view and also what the girl can see aswell, this allows us to see her dropping her phone, going further in to finding it and and then a close-up of the hand and also the girls hand going coming into shot with it, we then go back to the killers point of view where we see the girl stand up in shock and backing into the killer. This scene then ends with a gloved hand covering the girls mouth.

Throughout this opening sequence the titles of the film will be running along the bottom.

Mise-en-scene: Gloves, Mobile phone, hand
-( modern day british horror, clothing choice optional)


Roles ans Responsibilities

1.) Editor - Lisandra
2.) Actors- Georgia-Mae & Lisandra
3.) Camera directors- Vicki & Renee

Opening sequence (Titles) Analysis

Media Pore Sent at Ion Opening Sequence

Analysis of 'Scream' Opening sequence

Establish some of the key characters:
The opening scene shows the protagonist who is a women, she seems vulnerable and friendly, we are able to hear the voice of the antagonist throughout this opening scene, his voice sounds like a middle aged man who is calm, the man over the phone comes across as friendly as he is trying to make a casual conversation.


Plot/Enigma
The opening scene tells us what the whole story may be about, ‘Scream’ has a slight thriller aspect
it shows High school student who receives a flirtatious phone call from an unknown person, who continues to ask question about the girl. The situation quickly escalates out of control as the caller turns aggressive and threatens her life. He reveals that her boyfriend Steve is being held hostage. After failing to answer a question correctly about horror films, Steve is murdered. When Casey refuses to cooperate with the caller, she is attacked and murdered by a masked killer, and her body is hung from a tree, the unkown caller then goes on to kill other people.

Location and setting
The opening scene is set in the girls house which is supposidly based in the middle of nowhere, the first part of the opening scene is shot in the girls house and then towards the end it escalates to the garden, where we see the girls boyfriend being killed.

Mise-en-scene
In ‘Scream’ the director uses a establishing shot, this sets the scene and shows the audience where the character is.
The Dolly shot shows the audience the garden and then Kacy’s house, this gives off tghe impression that it is a horror movie as the house is miles away from the town, it is isolated and therefore Kacy is also, this shows us that the unknown caller as the antagonist is looking in on her and so is the audience.

The clothes that aare worn in scream rep;resent the time period in which this film was made in which is 1996, the girl is shown in a cardigan and her boyfriend is shown in a football bomber jacket which the american footballers would wear.

‘Scream’ uses sound to scare the audience and character for example at the beginning of th efilm before the opening scene begins we cn hear screansw alos during the film, while kacy was on the phone to the unkown caller she realises she’s being watched so she locks all the doors and looks out the front window she then walks into the other room and then straight after that the door bell rings this scares her and the audience as its unexpected.

The Mise En Scene also shows a horror element in the film an example of this is when Kacy plays with a knife whilst on the phone creating a horror element, she mentions another horror movie where the killer used a kitchen knife as the murder weapon, and this shows us dramatic irony.

Opening film analysis sequence