Main Task EvaluationSalem- By Mary, Sinead and Zoe

Main Task Video

https://youtu.be/mCw04bsYFbg

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

• Our media project does not, to an extent, challenge the conventions of a real media product. Within our media product we followed the stereotypical horror film route such as the use of creepy music, filming in a woodland area, which often represents a vulnerable place where bad things happen. We also followed a typical horror storyline of involving witches and black magic, which today has an evil feel to it, which can relate back to the Salem witch trials in America or the witch trials in Britain. However we did challenge the forms and conventions of real media products by having an all female cast. Normally within the horror genre of films, the main characters are male or the main cast is male with a female damsel in distress.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• Our media product does not to an extent represent a particular social group. There is no certain ethnicity, Region or Economic groups that are particular targeted. However those who are from an English speaking country would benefit more, as they would be able to understand what is going on in the film. However anyone who can access the film online or in a cinema the film is targeted to them. Following the terms of the Traditional segmentation model, we agreed that our film falls into the C1 and below categories, someone within a higher class and profession would not be interested into our film.

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

• The kind of media institution that might want to distribute our media product would be an independent film company, such as the BBC. This because our film falls into a category that the Big Six would not be interested in. Also our film is more of what an independent intuition might be interested in. For example the BBC might be interested due to the fact that they have made films or TV series that are based on witches before. This also means if our film was to be distributed by an independent institution it would be shown at the Sundance film festival.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• The audience for our media product following GEARS is Females with no particular ethnicity, between the ages of 15-30, No particular region or social economic group.

• Our Ideal audience gender is female due to the fact we used an all female cast, and also because the film is based on witches. Something that males might not be interested in.

• We choose to not have a particular ethnicity, however audience members from other ethnic groups may feel that this film is not for them due to the cast mostly being all white.

• The age group of 15-30 was decided because the film firstly is age 15 certificated film. Also women from these two ages will have the time to watch the film, and also might interest them. Any age under 15 might scare younger viewers and any age over 30, might mean the audience would not be interested in the film at all.

• There is no particular Region that the film is for. But ideally it would be helpful if the audience could read English, as this would allow them to enjoy the film more and not struggle with understanding what the film is about. But as stated before there is no particular region this film is targeted to.

• The social economic group the film is targeted to are students and working class adults. We agreed that in the terms of The Traditional Segmentation Model, no one above the category C! would be interested or have the time to watch our film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• We attracted our audience by naming our film after the Salem Witch trials, this was a bunch of hearing and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft that happened within Salem, Massachusetts between 1692-1693. People who have a fascination with the historical context of the trials or witches in general attracted those to our film. Also we based out film on the tough idea of the TV show American Horror Story: Coven. We got the idea of the three witches and the the new recruit from here and the idea that the witches all wear black. Fan of this show might be attracted to our film because it has a few similarities of the TV show. This was all the same when addressing the audience. However we insured that our audience had a age rating of 15.

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

• As a team we leaned a lot more about photo shop and using premiere pro.

• We used photo shop to create our logo and our British board of film classification.

• With Premiere pro, we used many more different effects than we had when editing other videos in the past. This time around we used more visual effects such as editing the color of the clips, making them more darker. We also used added in titles within the clips, we did this by changing the effects of the titles and adding in different positions (anchor points) along with horizontal and vertical positions.

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

• Our preliminary task was a quick two minute video about two agents under over at a college. We had to use different movements such as walking down a corridor and though a door, and then the characters having a brief conversation. Once we started to edit the video, we noticed that our audio was very crackly and one of our clip was very shaky. This was mostly likely due to us just shooting the scenes once and not looking them over after.

• In our main task, learning from our mistake from our Preliminary, we ensured that all our clips looked okay whilst still filming. If we thought something could be done better we reshot the whole scene again. We did this a few times throughout our shot to ensure that we got the best shots.

• When it came to editing the main task, we had a Varity of different clips to choose from, and we went though the script, placing the clips in order of how they were written. This time around we kept only two pieces of audio in, panting and screaming. Unlike our preliminary which we failed to even put any musical audio in, our main task has a very eerie music that contrast with the clips.

• Looking back on our preliminary task, it’s safe to say that our group has learned and advanced more in filming and editing with our main task.

Here shows the difference of camera quality between our main task (Above) and our Preliminary task (below)