The social group represented in my media product represents teenagers; this is because both my protagonist in both of my pieces is a sixteen year old girl and my antagonist in my preliminary task is a seventeen year old boy. Catharsis can be created in both teenage boys and girls because of my protagonists and antagonist. Catharsis can be created in teenage girls because they will watch the protagonists on screen and feel like they are taking part in this situations with the protagonist herself; the female viewer could also envision the female protagonist as being an influential character to themselves and someone who they inspire to be, especially because my protagonists do not follow the anorexic look that most film stars this could be another way the character influences them because it increases self esteem. Catharsis can be created in teenage boys because they could watch the antagonist doing rebellious tasks and feel included in the clip. Through my research I have found that teenage boys enjoy conflict in films and because there is conflict between a male antagonist and a female ‘sex appeal’ protagonist they could enjoy this film even more.
I believe that because my film is an independent, low budget, amateur production that no studio would market or distribute my film. However my film could be aired on amateur film festivals, such as Liverpool film festival. Furthermore my film could be shown in cinemas such as FACT in Liverpool which is a cinema that specializes in showings of independent films. The plot for my main film would most probably be more appealing to film studios such as Dimension films who are regarded for creating such films as Alejandro Amenaber’s film ‘The Others’ which is a film which follows the same narrative structure to my main task.
The sex appeal of a female protagonist I believe would attract a male audience where as the use of a female protagonist of females could be used as an influential character towards them. Because there is no film stars in my film to pull in an audience I am relying on the aspect that it is an independent film which is becoming more and more popular with my target audience, e.g. paranormal activity has no famous film stars in it or a very famous director and this is very popular and is currently filming its fourth film in the series. The age range of my characters in my film means that my target audience will relate to them more than if the characters were older so they may be drawn in to see what happens to them and if it could happen to them. For my main task I believe a strong advertising campaign could draw in viewers, for example a film poster with the film title, picture of a house and ‘ring a ring o’ roses’ as the tag line I believe would be an effective posters because it doesn’t give anything away it would suggest the film genre by the font, colour and lighting such as red font and a grey screen over the image. This could draw audiences in because they would want to know what the film would be about and what is going to happen.
Because I had never used Imovie before it was at first quite hard to begin editing because I had to teach and familiarize myself with many different aspects of the software. I decided to film little practice clips to help me learn how to use the techniques and this was a very effective thing to do. From using Imovie to edit my film I have learnt a lot about the timing of films and how to slow down or speed up a clip, I have used this in my preliminary and main task. Also I have learnt how to colorize a clip to give it a desired effect to help it follow codes and conventions of that genre, e.g. I reduced the lighting of my clip in my main task of the girl in the bath and increasing the contrast made the scene look more eerie because the flickering of the candle was emphasized and this made it look more like a horror film. Also I learnt a lot about increasing and decreasing sound to create an effect and applying the sound in certain aspects of the film and being able to manipulate the non diagetic sound to have it either louder or quieter that the diagetic sound. E.g. in my clip with the girl in the bath I made the sound of her splashing in the water trying to escape louder and added an sfx of a heartbeat in the background gradually getting louder and the sound increased in speed.
From my progression from my preliminary to my main task I became more aware of the cutting down clips and the edit to the next clip and trying to create continuity. This was very hard to do in my preliminary task because I was not used to doing it but when it came to my main task I became more confident in using this technique even though there still is some room for improvement with my opening scene where there is an evident cut between two clips that were originally meant to be one. I became more aware of the effect that non-diagetic sound can have on a clip because in my preliminary task there was none and in my main task there are many such as a main theme song for my film and many different sfx such as a heartbeat and a child laughing. I learnt that layering my sounds will create a multi sensory effect to create tension in the audience and allows the audience to be included into the film.