Year 13 media assessment

Year 13 media assessment

My year 12 coursework consisted of making the start of a film, everything else was our choice. My group decided to do a horror film opening for teenagers (our age) we thought this would be easier to do purely because we knew what they would like. It was based around a possessed doll and it was called ‘She told me to’.

The research and planning we managed to do was purely for the film e.g. what costumes, makeup, actors and shots. Our first piece of planning was the shot-list, this consisted of what the main actress was going to partake whilst being filmed e.g. our first shot was the girl sitting in a plain office looking down in a hospital gown. We knew this would attract the audience because they would want to know what why and who, the shot-list had many other shots that we would carry out and asked for feedback from a peer to see what they thought. This time when doing our year 13 coursework I want to ask the target audience questions and really nail what they would like to see in the music video, I think last time we just went on what we would like to see so it wasn’t very represented. We then researched other horror film openings e.g. possession, the last house on the left and sinister, we did this because they were our inspiration in the first place we got our initial idea for the film from these types of films. We also looked at what type of costumes would be acceptable for this genre, for this we looked at what other actresses were wearing in films like ours and then looked at makeup by going on YouTube and finding the best makeup for a delusional psychopath which we found, this gave us the idea for my makeup and clothing. I think that we planned this well to make sure we stuck to the conventions of horror movies. However we didn’t look at lighting or props we didn’t do any research about that which I think we should have touched upon because the lighting is a big part of a horror film. We also didn’t really do any research on the music we used, we just sat on YouTube for a long time listening to scary music that we liked the most and used it, if we were to talk about it and disgust the best for our film with the target audience we would of got a better outcome. We did however, research the best text for our title we looked on a website that had a variety of text fonts and we eliminated it down to 5 of our favourites and picked from them, we did ask peers which one they liked best too but it wasn’t formal. This time around we will definitely ask the target audience every question to do with our music video possible and either film it or right down using an interview approach, we will look at music videos constantly to see what they include to give us inspiration and so we know we are sticking with the conventions.

With following with the conventions of a horror opening I think this was our strongest part because we knew what they were we had watched so many of that genre that we knew what the lighting had to be down to the makeup and the plot. We chose to go up to the loft to find this doll because it’s always a mysterious scary place, we also thought of the practical issues with it and thought that it was easy to access that’s why we chose it. We had the doll because in most films they always pop up and seem to be the haunted object. Nowadays the genre of horror films are aimed at over 15 year olds and that is exactly what we tried to aim for, I think that our lighting being natural but low key helped with the genre and to set the feel for our opening to make the target audience feel weary and try to keep them guessing what was going. Every horror film does this and that’s why we feel we kept to the conventions very well. We kept to wearing casual every day to day things in most of our shots because we wanted them to think we were normal but this only happened because of the first shot you see of me in the hospital gown looking crazy is the only word to describe it, this creates confusion for the audience and that's a convention to make them think and keep them on their seats to scare them. We tried to use straight cuts when editing to make it more tense and fast paced to make it more tense. The characters was me and a male peer we were acting as a newly married couple, we struggled to show the audience what the relationship was because we wasn't sure if we wanted it to be a married couple or a father and daughter relationship so we did struggle on that part.

When finally changing the plot to a married couple I thought this was original, the plot that we had in mind was very different to any horror film that I have ever seen unfortunately It didn't come across when people watched it. We decided to do the plot as me having a miscarriage and went mental due to that, this was our twist to the core conventions of other horror films. We also used the camera as the doll to make it look like the doll was looking at us, this was different from anything that I had seen before in horror films that's why I liked the idea so much. other than that I feel like we followed the conventions a lot and I feel like if we did change it up a bit we would of got a better grade, that's what I think we should do this time and mix it up a bit more then following the conventions.

Production diary

My production diary 08/09/14:

This was our first week back, I uploaded my finished Britney Spears task and finished my star analysis, I tried using a range of tools to present my work because i knew that was important on the blog to show. i wrote my essay on a music video of my choice, which was beyonce purely because she has so much to write about. I then pursued 'what music means to me' and took pictures of the music timeline i had done before breaking up for school to present on the blog.  

Analysing music videos

Beyonce Knowles Carter released flawless on august 2014, this was produced by Hit-Boy and co-produced by jungle city studios. The video is 4 minutes and 14 seconds and consists of performance and narrative this is because she is in front of the camera singing and dancing along with the other back up dancers, it also has concept because there is shots where they are all moshing, I see why it’s used because it shows that females can be strong just like males and also shots where there is a couple just kissing. The genre is trap/hip-hop due to the beat and the lyrics.

In the video she goes against all female stereotypes there is, she is surrounded by skinheads which are a subculture peer group who believe that woman are equal and that is why females that are skinheads shave their hair and wear exactly what the male wears in that group which is very masculine, steel toe work boots (dr. martins). It’s very masculine with fire and moshing and the theme of violence with Beyonce slow motion punching herself, she also has gold grills in her mouth in some shots which are stereotyped for black males to always wear them. The whole video is in black and white I believe this is in aid to show equality that ethnicity does not matter. In the middle of the video it turns to slow motion because a feminist ‘Chimamanda’ is used to speak one of her podcasts about her feminist views, whilst this is happening a massive mosh pit is happening with Beyonce in the midst jumping around with the skinheads this is also to show that her and all the girls can handle themselves just like a man, I think this whole video is to show that females are the best species and to show people that she clearly has a strong feminist view towards the world.

When she is sitting on the sofa with the skinheads she is centred in the middle this has purpose, just to show again that she has made it big time this is why she shows the 80’s TV show of her and the members of destiny child’s among other girls competing against a male group, she is continuously saying that she has made it and that she is better than everything else ‘bow down bitches’ it also makes references to how girls will forever be flawless that her and all females are flawless from the beginning ‘we woke up like this’. Her iconography consists of her husband being Jay-Z who is as famous as her who actually features in this song but just saying ‘crown’ to refer to her being the queen of what she does (musician) it also consists of her old girl group it started off called girl tyme this was shown in the first and last shot you see them trying to win a competition, this is shown I believe because they were men that they competed against who then went on to win but no one knows who they are now and also because out of that girl group she is the biggest artist that came out of it. They are the messages I believe she is trying to get across, then she went on to become a member of destiny Childs who her dad managed or most of the career with such hits as; bills bills bills, I am a survivor and soldier ect. This band is the one that made her famous, when they broke up her and Kelly Rowland had solo careers but that was it, Beyonce is by far the biggest artist out there now, she has been called a diva and is renown to be known as ‘Queen B’. Her confidence on stage and her ability to write hit avfter hit pretty much makes her a star and it helps that she is very beautiful and would be a great example of the male gaze because all girls want to be her and all men want to be with her, she stays in shape and keeps herself up to date in fashion being an icon a lot of them time.

Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze has been gone against here in flawless just because she is acting like a man and trying to be masculine and hard, that’s why she has moshed and had fierce looks on her face with scrunched up fists, this all goes against the theory of being sexualised, I think that this has something to do with how famous she is that she doesn’t have to be sexy to sell. She doesn’t act like a stereotypical girl and doesn’t look like one too, however she does dance like a girl nowadays does so she is going along with those conventions or theory.

Beyonce has a variety of different genres she can do and the convention she will follow for that although I do think that she can do whatever she wants to do and her fans will stay her fans because she is so famous and liked around the world. 

The music history time line of the noughties

I have reflected on the importance of all eras of music and genres over time.