FINAL CUT

This is the final cut of my film opening, 'HAZEL'. I am very happy with how it turned out and feel like I have achieved everything I wanted to within this opening.

Evaluation Question 1

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

I have made a 'Prezi' answering this evaluation question which you will see linked below.

https://prezi.com/l5upwnybjgvb/in-what-ways-does-your-media-product-use-develop-or-challenge-forms-and-conventions-of-real-media-products/

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have answered this evaluation question by doing a magazine spread by a made up company called 'Social Magazine'. You can see this in the image below.

Evaluation Question 3

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

I have answered this question in the form of a 'Slide Share' which the link below will take you to.

http://www.slideshare.net/aaldrismedia/question-3-what-kind-of-media-institution-may-distribute-your-media-product-and-why

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I have answered this evaluation question by making a Microsoft power-point and converting it to a video format. Each slide lasts for around 10 seconds so in order to read every slide just pause the video and play it again when you're ready.



Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly, my target audience is mainly 13-19 year old females however I know some males and people outside of this age range may enjoy my film too.  Click here to see my evaluation for question number 4 where i talk about who the my target audience is, in more detail.

To start with, I thought about what my audience may like, I noticed that in many films aimed at females, the protagonist is usually female too. This is true of films such as 'Mean Girls', 'Wild Child' and 'Mamma Mia'. I think this is because this makes it more relatable, if the main character is the same gender as us we may relate to them and their thoughts and issues more so that if the main character was the opposite gender, as they may experience things we can't relate to. Due to this, and other reasons I have spoken about in previous blog posts - such as females being more emotive, I decided to make my protagonist a female. 

As a female, I questioned myself about what would attract an audience of young girls like myself, to watch a film. I then thought that levels of drama and emotion are often factors that appeal to me if done in moderation - not over the top. So I immediately planned for my film opening to be a serious one, portraying some emotion, and as you can see, particularly in the first half during the monologue, the mood is quite dramatic and intense. I directed the actress, Kerry Hardesty, so that her body language and performance during the monologue and the rest of the opening delivered a message or added to the atmosphere of discomfort and anxiety to emphasise the drama and emotion throughout the opening.

Before going on to do some audience research I thought about what else could attract my audience and I realised that outside of the narrative was something very important, the quality of the film itself. If the film was grainy and didn't look very well put together or edited then it would be unattractive, so in order to avoid this issue I spent a lot of time playing around with editing softwares to make sure my editing skills were at a high quality level before editing my opening, and I decided to use a DSLR to film my opening, so that the shots were filmed at high quality too. 

Carrying out audience research was a big part of finding out what my audience liked and disliked, and what they thought was or wasn't effective in attracting viewers in film openings. I addressed my audience by making a survey and sending it out to my friends on social media who fit my target audience. I then did extra research addressing my them further by interviewing my peers at sixth form and asking them different questions to those in the survey. Click here to see my audience research feedback video.

My audience research told me that in a good film opening they expect to see something shocking and memorable. I took this into consideration and thought about what my main storyline was, and what I could incorporate into the opening to give it this element. I decided that my opening would end with Hazel beginning to realise she is the main character in this book as it would be both shocking and memorable, I did this by incorporating an item Hazel owned into the book Hazel was reading, she would learn that the character had the exact same item and got it from the exact same place as her. However, the audience research from the survey also told me they thought the most effective way of opening a film was to only have a little bit of insight into it during the first two minutes, so instead of revealing all in the opening, Hazel reads the sentence in the book that tells her about the character's shared item (a necklace) and then she looks instantly worried as she slowly pulls a necklace out of her pocket. This is subtle, it requires the audience to put two and two together giving them some insight into the story without giving too much. I feel like this is a good way of attracting the audience,  as it also adds to the mystery and tension of the film.

73% of those who answered my survey said they felt mystery was the best way to entice them, so to attract my audience further I took this on board, you can see this from what I have spoken about in the paragraph above however there is also another occasion where I used mystery in my film opening for the purpose of attracting the audience and adding to the dramatic tension of the film. In the first half of the opening, Hazel is voicing her thoughts, the first thing the audience hear is her talking about curiosity, and the first thing they see once the film opening starts for almost a minute is Hazels body language with a mysterious dark, old looking book. Rather than to create tension (unlike the ending of the whole opening) I used the first half of my opening and the monologue to make the audience build questions in their mind such as "why is the girl standing at a lake?" "why does she look afraid of this book?" "what is the book?" etc. I feel like mystery, just like my audience did, helps to entice viewers, and that tension after the mystery helps to keep them watching.

Before my audience research I had liked the idea of voiceovers, flashbacks and music in film openings, and once I had done research into genres and other film openings, I realised I wanted to incorporate them into my film because I thought they would attract my audience too. I asked my target audience during the research and even without hints - simply questions about what they expect to see in good film openings, all three were mentioned which gave me confidence in the idea and so, I decided to incorporate all of them into my own.

Everything above, particularly a voiceover, flashbacks/forwards and music, would be meaningless if they didn't fit with the opening's narrative or atmosphere, it would take away the point of them being there to attract the audience and make the film more interesting. Due to this, when recording the voiceover I made sure the tone of my voice would represent the way Hazel was feeling as she was talking in present tense, about to take us on her journey of everything that happened. At the time of the voiceover we are in the present however it is a flash forward to the end of the film as the film would end in the present (if it was made into a full one rather than just an opening). When Hazel throws the book away, she is relieved, yet numb and dazzled, therefore the tone of my voice in the voiceover reflects that. It is also slow and you can hear me breathing in it (little sighs of relief), the heavy breathing also adds to the heavy and intense atmosphere. The music is slow too, it has quite a big range of simple piano notes in that are sometimes low and then very high - representing Hazels journey. The editing is also slow paced during the majority of monologue to again, reflect Hazels mood and how she is drained from all that has happened. I believe even little details like this all help to piece together a film, attract the audience and then keep them watching.

One of the main things that I think will attract this audience is that its different, usually films with the same target audience as mine are 'chick flicks', films about teenagers in high school climbing the social ladder, having relationships, being rebellious and having fun- for example 'Mean Girls' or 'Wild Child', however my film is more serious, but also more interesting and I think the quality of a film being different is attractive to an audience as it will grasp more attention from the them because it stands out.

Evaluation question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from constructing this product?

I answered this question in the style of a video blog, which you can see below.