The Abandoned Final Draft

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

I have learnt a lot about the making of a film along with the planning research filming and distributing it through out the process we have continuously edited and changed parts to improve it and make it look like a real film. Comparing our preliminary task with our finished film you can see a lot of improvements have been made.

The preliminary task we done had many issues with it, it looked very unrealistic due to the shot types and camera angles we used such as the handing over the skittles. Also the continuity editing was wrong because the thank you is repeated twice however we cut the sound of for the second one this helped us practice for our actual film. At 0.12 there is a jump cut from her handing the skittles then it cuts to a shot from her point of view.
However in our finished film there is continuity editing which shows the narrative and there is a vary of more shots and camera angles.

Improvements that have been made:

• We used many different media documents to prepare us for our film that traditional film makers would use such as story boards which gave us the opportunity to know what shot to use before the actual day of filming. using story boards, scripts and other planning allowed us to have plenty of time to film and edit it therefore giving us a better overall result compared to the preliminary task which we used none of this.
• We were also able to use a wider range of shots such as close-ups, long shots, medium shots, extreme long shots
• Before filming we had researched camera angles and shots to create effects for our film, a key part in our film that we used was the hand held camera this was used to walk behind amie but the camera movement was very shaky to make the audience feel as if amie was being followed.
• we also learnt from the preliminary task the art of moving the camera at the right time we had to film amna walking through the door a couple of times before we got it correct because she would walk too fast and the camera would quickly pan from left to right making the image unclear this allowed us to know when to pan the camera to film amies action shots.
• after the preliminary task we had a better knowledge on how to used final cut express on the imac computers and this allowed us to then advance to using professional effects to make our final film look very realistic

This is a rough cut of our opening sequence however we have gone back to edit it more to make it look like a real life film 

screen shots of our finished film

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

in the short film we made we left our target audience intrigued because the flashing images of the house, child and woman left them confused thinking what is the story behind the 3 repeated images. This was done by cutting the footage to lead it up to a continuous narrative it also create a lot of enigma.

The establishing shot is a long shot of amie walking through a deserted field in her uniform this straight away makes the audience think what is a young attractive girl walking through a field on her own at dusk. We also see in this shot she is the protagonist in the film

The title credits have been cut into the film to give it a creepy effect because the writing is in a type writer font so it would make the audience feel as if it is a police case and that someone has been investigating and watching the case closely.

we also attracted our audience by adding in a religion many people turn to religion for help and it is a typical convention in a supernatural horror because the priest helps the person who is possessed, so showing these christianity symbols attract the audience

We also stuck to the narrative by adding in news reporters this was to build enigma because when it is based on a true story it captures the audiences attention straight away. in the shot below we see how it is fading from one reporter to another this makes it feel as if it is a big new report over the country.

This shot is of amie exploring the house in every supernatural horror we see this because they are trying to find out what happend and why the evil soul is trapped there

we also see similar shots to the ones above these supernatural horrors so the audience can compare them to the ones they have seen before relating it to the supernatural genre:

Insidious

Amityville horror

Paranormal Activity

American haunting

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product would be ranging from 15-30's however it would still relate to the older generation as well because we use a young girl who is 15 but also there is an older woman involved. The male gender would be more drawn to the film because it is manly attractive women with long hair to show them are feminine that are used however the woman and child are both independent brave females so they would relate to other females because women like to look up to good role models, we also see this in the screen shot of her carrying books to show she is educated. Our media product is based on ordinary people in a semi detached house so it would be aiming at the middle to lower class citizens. To aim our short film at a higher class we would have based it in an affluent area where there is proof of wealth through the houses and cars, however we thought that it would relate to more people if we used the average house.

 




From our audience research we found that supernatural horrors relate to more teenagers than slashers this was because supernatural horrors are about the unknown which ment it was the most popular genre. Based on this we used one of the most successful to date supernatural horrors which was paranormal activity this is a modern film which promoted a lot of technology. The film was open to all target audiences which allowed us to use the same techniques to appeal to everyone.

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

The Production Company would invest money towards the making of the film or would create links with larger companies to make the budget higher.
The research I done on production companies was to world wide film distributors this is because our film relates to a very wide target audience due to it being a supernatural horror. The actually film 'The Abandoned' was produced with us; KAS Media Productions however to distribute our film we would of linked up with Paramount Pictures this is a internationally established distribution company for the horror genre with them having a lot of success with films such as Paranormal Activity. This is because we need a distribution company that cater for horror because Warner brothers is also a well known company however they specialise in gangster films such as ‘goodfells’ which brought them great success. Also working with a large distribution company will help our constantly evolving production company KAS, paramount pictures also has many advantages to it with it being able to release our short film into many cinemas in england and over seas such as america. it would also be able to then distribute it on to a dvd and tv on demand, however our short film does not involve any professional actors or actresses so if we wanted it to be released they would have to be repalced. Although the low budget wouldn't be a problem because this adds to the effect of the film like in paranormal activity there budget was only $15,000.

We would also work with some small institutions such as:
uk film council - attack the block
Film 4 - St Trinian's