In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)
We decided to generally stick to the codes and conventions of a typical Slasher film during our film opening. To do this, we all watched a number of film openings, analysed and discussed them. After we decided on our cast, setting and storyline so that it fit into the typical conventions of a Slasher. Having said that, we did decide that, if the film were to be completed, our Final Girl would have appeared to be a typical “Scream Queen”. This would have challenged the typical conventions of the genre and made the rest of the film more exciting and surprising to the audience.
The title of our film, “Oblivious”, is actually a reference to everybody been oblivious to what is really going on. The opening, and the rest of the film all points to the Killer been “Carl”, who is introduced in the opening to the film. In the end, it would have been Carl who revealed the identity of the Killer. The Title enters dramatically at the end of our film opening to try and reach maximum effect. The title follows the scream of our “Scream Queen” and a jump shot to the outside of the house.
The Setting for our film opening is very traditional for Slasher films. We have used Camera angles to make the house where the opening is set, look very isolated and secluded. This is a vey traditional part of the Slasher genre as it implies help and safety is a long way away, and makes the victim even more scared and vulnerable. Examples of this in other films in our genre include the opening scene of “Scream" (Wes Craven, 1996), and the main house in “When a Stranger Calls (West, 2006)” These are just two of many examples of this kind of setting been used in a Slasher film.
To keep the film realistic, we didn’t want to overdo any of the costumes. For this reason, we kept them simple, whilst still trying to tell the audience about the character. For example, we had “Amelia”, a Scream Queen, wearing a short skirt and quite a revealing top. “Carl”, a typical high school male, was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and importantly a belt which we used to signify sexual activity had taken place. These costumes tell the audience about the characters, but aren’t over the top making the film tacky. The killer was dressed in a conventional way; dark clothes, a mask to keep the identity hidden and provide a narrative enigma and armed with a knife. 
Props were relatively simple. We wanted the house to be quite ordinary and so didn’t really change much. Important Props that we did use include the wine bottle, signifying the consumption of alcohol (a sin in the Slasher genre world, and another example of our film following the conventions of a typical Slasher). The knife is also an important prop, as it fits in with many other Slasher films such as “Halloween (Carpenter, 1973)”.
Editing is very important for our film as it is the editing that creates the good effect with the increase in pace. Throughout our film we have the pace of shots increasing. During feedback, people told us that they thought the pace of the film was too slow to start with. Whilst we improved that a little bit, by cutting out a couple of shot sequences, we wanted to keep the early steady pace as it helps to create the fast effect towards the end. When the pace starts to increase, it suggests to the audience that something may happen, which is the effect we wanted. To maintain this effect, we only used one transition in the middle of the film opening and that was to show a short period of time passed. Cameral Shots are always important in a film and our film was no different. Because we used few transitions, most of our cuts are jump cuts. We also made use of Dutch angles (a common shot type in Slasher films as they are often used to show that something is not right), close ups, to focus in on something significant (such as the fact that Amelia locks the door, giving the impression that she is safe, but she has left a window open as seen in an earlier shot in the opening) and Extreme long shots and establishing shots at the beginning to set the scene (from watching Slasher film openings we discovered this was something that was very often done).
The rest of our story revolves around this character “Carl” been framed for the killings of other characters. The opening sets this up well, as Carl is the last person, except the killer to see Amelia alive. Carl’s sister is in fact our final girl, and therefore she’s the main target for our killer. The opening of our film makes the audience think that it is Carl who is the killer and who is ringing “Amelia”. If the film was to progress, we would discover that it wasn’t Carl on the phone.
Our film opening suggests our film is a Slasher by been conventional. This is one of the reasons that we chose to stick to most of the conventions of a Slasher movie; we wanted our film to be easily identified as part of the Slasher genre. The setting we have used (an isolated house), the cast (a typical Scream Queen and Jock, as well as a conventional killer) and the props (the knife, alcohol, knives in the background etc.) all point to our film been from the Slasher genre.
Three characters are introduced in our film opening. Carl and Amelia are introduced together as they leave the bedroom, signifying that they have just had sex. This means that from the start, they are portrayed as sinful characters that deserve to be punished and killed. The killer is introduced right at the end, and spends very little time on screen. The longer the killer spends on screen the less scary they become. For that reason, our killer is only introduced on screen very briefly.
Our title, “Oblivious”, enters at the end of our film opening. We decided to do this because it makes it clear that this is the end of our opening to the audience and we felt it ‘rounded off’ the opening effectively. The film title entering at this stage is also seen in the film “Black Christmas (Morgan, 2006)”. The title is a Serif font. This too, is something that we decided on after watching a number of Slasher film openings and researching this topic. Strangely though, one of the biggest films in the genre, Scream (Craven, 1996) uses a sans-serif font, which is quite unusual as the sharper edges on fonts can signify a sharp, and slightly mysterious edge to a film. The names of our group and cast appear near the beginning of the film opening, introducing the group, but they are deliberately out the way before the main action begins to ensure that there is no distraction from the story.
We haven’t included many special effects in our film for the simple reason that, if you over do the special effects then your product loses verisimilitude and the editing, which should remain invisible (the audience should not notice it when they watch it!) becomes obvious to your audience and distracting from what you want them to be focusing on. Our Micro Drama was an excellent and fun opportunity to play about with special effects, and whilst we enjoyed doing this, we made a group decision to move away from that aspect for our Final Product. We did however include some transitions, to show time passing, as well as to move from the outside of the house to the inside and we also included a transition after the killing to back outside the house and the film title.
Our female character, "Amelia" is a Scream Queen. This is signified by the way she dresses, and her flirty body language when she answers the phone, and the fact that she is drinking alcohol. A Scream Queen is one of the main character types for a Slasher as well as a Final Girl, who would have been introduced if our product was longer.
Disability is another area that we didn't see in the Slasher films that we have watched. We thought that this may be seen as quite unethical to have a killer pursuing somebody with a disability by the audience. For this reason, we decided against having people with disabilities in our film opening.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our media product would have two different categories of target audience; a core target audience and a secondary target audience. 
With all the technology available to us these days, we had a variety of ways to try and get audience feedback. Obviously, our priority for Feedback was from people within our Core target audience, and then our secondary target audience. We wanted to try a range of ideas to get feedback, below are the ways we worked to recieve feedback:
Obviously we knew that as a group and as individuals we had seriously improved over the project. It is not, however, until I looked back at the preliminary task that I realised just how much we have improved. From the simple things such as making sure there is no background noise and making sure the camera is steady, to the more difficult aspects such as making sure the mise-en-scene is correct and exciting and that the range of camera shots and continuity is brilliant. In every possible aspect, our Final Product improves on our preliminary task.
Whilst most of the feedback we recieved on our second rough cut was very positive, as expected there were little areas that people thought could be improved. We have listened to, and discussed all feedback. Some of the feedback has directly effected our final Production, whilst other bits of feedback have been discussed and we have decided to not act upon it.
Feedback that we considered, but decided against acting upon included views that we could show more of the killer. The main reason we decided against that is because we wanted to keep the killers idetity as an enigma. Very little is seen of the killer, deliberately, because we believe that the more time the killer spends on screen, the less scary they become. This view was backed up when we asked people in our target audience. For these reasons, we didn't change our production to accomodate this feedback advice.
Suitable only for 15 years and over
I have learnt many things from my R+P, such as an ideal setting, common props and conventions, amongst other strategies.
Further evidence of this can be seen in the films; Scream and Halloween (both films hugely successful, with many sequels/ homages) where a knife is used by the killer, not another weapon.
We have found that 'false scares' are also commonly used, and prove to be quite popular when further suspense is needed to keep the audience guessing. Many of these can be seen in the Paranormal Activity films . We have not used a false scare in our Rough Cut although this may change and there may yet be one in our finalised production.
We have also chosen our target audience to be in the age range of 15-24 in order to have a wider group of possible viewers. We also hope that if this was a full production, the use of a final girl would help bring female viewers to our production. 
To fully understand how and why what happens in our opening happens, we needed to see and decide how the film as a whole would unfold and develop. Below is an overview of what we planned would happen if we were to make this into a whole film:
Last Thursday we re-filmed our project. We are yet to edit it, but hopefully we have everything we need to make our film the best it can be. We shot more shots than we believed necessary, and re-shot most scenes. We also took into account feedback we recieved from our original rough cut, such as avoiding the use of panning shots. 
After completing filming about a week and a half ago, we have edited the footage into a rough cut. Having done this, and recieved feedback, a number of problems have been spotted. In reaction to feedback, we have decided to change our idea and re-write a new story, although some aspects may be carried through. This may seem like an over-reaction, but we see it as necessary to incorporate the feedback, which the whole groub agrees with.
