Evaluation

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

The project of Mother of pearl was an interesting take on the conventions of horror, early on when we brainstormed ideas for the opening I found that we were following the conventions of horror, we particularly focused on Vampire involvement or the idea of a hidden monstrosity killing/taunting a victim. However when we decided on mother of pearl we found we took a generic horror setting of a long gone resident of a house coming back to haunt the new resident and made it not follow the same conventions, while the base plot did follow the done and dusted idea. The main setting of the opening follows some but not all of Propp’s narrative functions, in the film Emma is the victim of the antagonist Pearl, who captures Emma without her even being aware of the situation fully. Whereas Catherine who is under the control of Pearl takes Emma’s life converting her into a minion. The twist we placed on this was the setting of the opening, which takes place in a fairly modern, homely house, the reason why we chose this location was due to how relatable the setting would be to the audience, the familiarity of a cosy living room with a large HD TV can reach out effectively to place a scare on the watcher, perhaps adding the psychological effect that not even your own house is safe. I found this to be a striking resemblance to a number of horror films, for example Nightmare on Elm street had the same profound effect on its audience, although the villain Freddy Krueger only terrorised and killed in his dreams, the fact that it was happening in a familiar setting on a normal house on a street, albeit the house had a history, as did the house Emma is in.

 The Empathetic understanding is further conveyed through Emma’s action, which nearly everyone has gone through once in their lives, which is waking up from a nightmare in the morning, however instead of Emma cowering in her room and then being attacked, she gets up and goes downstairs without hesitation, which could lead the audience to questioning why. The combination of Eerie music, one track being Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a more demonic twist, as well as a running track for when Emma is walking downstairs adds to the typical convention of horror, where the use of off key music creates a sense of uncertainty among the audience. Other typical convention followed included the classic “screamer scare” in which Catherine’s face Flashes on screen close up accompanied by a loud noise, the scene overall demoralizes the audience, startling them and making them feel nervous about something similar happening again, however if nothing does happen they will still clutch onto that feeling. Little children have been used as a scare tactic for decades, Pearl is comparable to Samara from the ring, in which she is in a modern appliance, being a TV, however the main difference is instead of making physical contact she has others do her bidding, which could make for an effective psychological effect on the audience as they may feel uneasy when returning home and turning on the TV to be faced with static. We also included many little details utilising Mise En Scene, such as the colours in the costumes and doll. Green being the colour of Balance and Life, ironic as Emma who Is wearing a green shirt loses control over her life, as well as the doll which is wearing a green dress, used as a metaphor for being a play thing controlled by someone.  Other minor details such as the tin the doll is atop reads “The age of innocence” which conveys as a dark irony as Pearl is clearly not innocent after capturing Emma through violent means.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the project Emma plays a regular teenager, which immediately relates to the target audience of teenagers aged over 15, the settings of a cosy home with modern technology, teddy bears in her room particularly targets female teenagers, although Emma is in power, without knowing she is soon to be felled could hit hard at this specific group, having the feeling of being safe in your own house can demoralize the target audience effectively.  Emma does not live in an exceedingly large house however, so she represents the middle/working class which is the main percentage of the population, however this may not affect how effective the scare factor is for those who are upper class. Being a laid back teenager also familiarises her with the modern audience and creates a character that likeable and the audience can feel sympathy for. The laid back nature comes from the rough morning hair and not dressed to impress attire put on, Emma is in no hurry to look good and treats the early morning slowly. The old feeling of the house contributes to an older audience who may be able to relate to how houses used to be designed, utilising stone for example as Emma’s TV in stationed on a stone platform, this contrast of old and new adds more to relate to as a lot of people still have parts of a house that’s been around for a long time, whether that may be a fire place or set piece, the old addition relates to audiences even further.

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

We came to a conclusion that Columbia TriStar pictures would be a good media institution to distribute the film due to the success of certain horror film distributed under them. One of these films Silent Hill also follows a girl whose innocence is not completely true, other notable successful films that won awards or were received positively included; Fright Night, The Grudge and Phantom of the opera. Although some films under the company did receive negative reviews from critics, they still grossed high revenues, although impressing a critic is hard in this day and age. We feel Mother of Pearl would fit well under the distribution company.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience would mostly consist of teenagers ages 15 Years or older this is due partially to the relatable aspect of the film, but also largely due to how teenagers live their lives. Often groups of teenagers use the cinema as a means of social gathering for a day out or get together, with lots of free time they would be attracted to watching a horror film together for thrills. Young adults and an older audience can also watch and relate but as closely as a teenager. Teenagers also spread things they like on the internet and by word of mouth, returning to school the next day after a potentially hard to sleep through night after watching a scary movie, and then telling everyone about the film is the best type of advertisement, as well as sites like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube if they make reviews for fun.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We addressed the audience through our main character to relates to the audience heavily, possessing a computer, make up, a big TV with plenty of DVDS and a Nintendo Wii, which creates and interest in the character as she fits in with the target audience perfectly. The use of other little things such as the nursery rhyme adds a possible sense of nostalgia which conveys security of when the target audience was younger and heard that rhyme, and then smashing it and creating a lost hope through the demonic soundings instead of the soft chimes they would have used to hear.

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

Before the start of this project I was already familiar with the basics of editing, such as making cuts, lengthening and shortening clips, adding effects and adding sound. However this was on Sony Vegas and a program called Camtasia. During the project I learnt a bit about Final Cut Express which I found useful, as sometimes in the working world you need to work with a different set of tools than you’re used to. As a result learning about another program on another platform (that platform being Mac) is adding to my experience. I feel however now I am confident with the true basics of editing and ready to venture into different aspects of film editing, such as more in-depth effects editing such as the use of green screen and adding things to a scene artificially. The one thing I did not do much of was colour correction; however the film looks fine without it. I also got to use a good camera to film; I changed certain settings such as the shutter count to produce a smoother video, and then used various settings to brighten the scene up as a result of the higher shutter count.

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

Our preliminary was shot with a laid back attitude, we managed time a bit but not too much, I did all the editing and showed the results to the rest of my group to get feedback and used minor editing. In our main project we improved vastly over everything, we located when we had free periods and time we could edit together in the Mac room, as well as shot the entire project in one day at Emma’s house. We took more care in editing together, we elaborated over plans and ideas for when we were piecing together the opening, any ideas that did not sound to good were still tried out anyways to see if they looked good, we provided constructive criticism to each other about what we liked and did not like which helped a lot. The planning also went much better due to the amount of time we had over the preliminary task, we drew up multiple story boards and brainstormed multiple ideas before coming to a conclusion to our final idea. The group also came up with good ideas in short amounts of time, the combined quick thinking and time management alone added a great deal to the production, spending less time discussing plans and more time developing. There were still problems like with the preliminary where we noticed that certain footage was not good enough, however similar to the preliminary we used editing to get around this, such as merging clips together to erase a certain bit, patching sound together and using raw footage from the TV advert instead of the footage of the TV. We also used practical effects this time, such as the DVDs being pulled off the rack when Emma is blown over and the glass breaking (under a safe environment!) We also used make up this time around, and fake blood, however we were also going to use Red contacts, but we did not manage time for Emma and Catherine to manage putting them in, as they were not used to the feeling and motion of putting contacts in.

Overall I am very happy with the result, I learned new things and how to manage my time properly when shooting, I also learned researching other films can give you good ideas and also give you a good bracket to aim for, even though we were only armed with a HD camera and some make up.