Our film incorporates many generic conventions that you would normally see in a horror/thriller film. For example, an eerie soundtrack used throughout the opening scene in our film, and that would appear throughout the rest of the film in order to be instantly recognisable to an audience, which is similar to the soundtrack to say the SAW franchise, which uses the same soundtrack at various points during all of its 6 films. When the soundtrack plays, with it being an eerie scary soundtrack, this then indicates the genre and sub genre of out film. Also, we use a deserted setting, for example we use woods in our film, influenced by the film ‘The Shining’ which opening scene is also set in woods. Our film starts with the title sequences jumping through the opening scene. This is similar to the film, which also does this, in order to split the action up and disorientate the audience, a typical convention used in a horror/thriller film. However you could say our film challenges some conventions, as in recent horror/thriller films such as ‘When a stranger calls’ , the protagonist is a woman in order to give off a damsel in distress feel, however in our film, a boy is the protagonist, hence challenging conventions of other horror/thriller films.
How does your media product represent particular social group?
The main protagonists in our film are male, around the later teenage years (17) and are of a white British race. Gender is not represented in a stereotypical way in some cases, for example it is the men who are the victims of the Hanger, rather than the women, however, it is a woman who has been murdered at the start of the film, and therefore you could say that the gender is stereotyped in this sense. This links to the target audience, as the film certificate is a 15, and the target audience age from 15-25 in my opinion, so therefore the characters are of a similar age. Therefore the audience can empathise more with this age group, thinking what they would do in a similar situation, hence creating a more thrilling atmosphere. The characters in our film can be compared to those in the horror film Jeepers Creepers, when (although not both male, instead one male and female) the characters are of a similar teenage age, therefore also comparing to the age of the target audience of that film which is again similar to ours.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our film would be produced by our own production company, NJJD Productions, as we would like our film to be made by ourselves, making all our own decisions. However, we would like our film to be distributed by Universal, as they would be a good distributor choice looking at a big scale picture, because they would be able to promote our film globally. They also distribute a lot of thriller and horror genre films such as “The Unborn”, so they would be our ideal film distributor. They are a big company with a lot of funding, therefore making more profit for us and themselves, on the basis that our film would be a success at the box office. Our film would therefore be released in the cinema, then onto DVD/Blue Ray, followed by a television premiere on say a movie channel PPV channel such as Sky Box Office, in order to generate more profits. Our film does offer limited merchandising however, as it is a 15 certificate and a horror film, therefore figurines, and free merchandise in food outlets such as McDonalds is an unlikely prospect. However, a video game could be made of our film similarly to that made about the film franchise SAW, and our films antagonist; the Hanger’s costume could be made for Halloween and his weaponry for the same purpose also, making The Hanger a cult icon. Also our film could be open to sequels in order to span the series out and explain the storyline fully, again like SAW.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience would be a horror liking audience of both genders from the ages of 15-25. This is a young audience in terms of horror/thriller movies, seen as our characters are also young, therefore the audience can relate to the characters. Also, we found from our audience research that the ages of 16-24 year olds preferred the thriller and horror genres (6 people and 5 people out of the 20 people asked) compared to any other, therefore we aimed our film at this age range, and also created a horror/thriller hybrid genre film because of this research. Films similar to ours include “The Blair Witch Project” “Saw” “The Shining” and “When a Stranger Calls” all of which appeal to a similar target audience. The classification criteria most appropriate to our film would be a certificate 15, which would contain frequent strong and abusive language, strong violence and mild adult themes, which would all contribute to this classification, as our film would contain all these criteria, with it being a horror/thriller film. The film website bbfc helped us classify our film on this way. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/#
How did you attract/address your audience?
Particular points in our film would appeal to our target audience, for example the violence and the dead bodies, gore etc would appeal to the male gender more than the female, and therefore you could say our film is aimed at males rather than females. Also, the beginning scene where the boys drink larger would also appeal to the males, and particularly of this age range, as a common social activity is to have a drink of alcohol, and also as the boys appear to be camping out, this is also a common social activity, hence appealing even more to this age range and gender. At one particular point in our first scene, one of the boys in our film is shot from a bird’s eye view angle, which appears to be an angle from a dead body hanging in the trees. At this point, the audience get a full scale view of the boys reactions, been allowed to witness these. Therefore, this puts them in the same shoes as the boy, as, providing they can figure out it is a dead body they are looking down from so to speak, they also know there is a dead body, when no one else bar the boy does. This could make them feel in the know, and hopefully not confused, showing they will be in the know for the rest of the film, hence hopefully grabbing their attention. 
What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
The camera equipment has a few different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the camera we used (a GVC-DV Camcorder) was compact, easy to use and provides us with good quality shots. However a big weakness is the audio recording quality, which did not match our shots and seems unclear at times. However, this can easily be rectified during editing. During the filming process, there were a few slight problems we faced. For example, whilst recording our footage we found it difficult in some cases to position the camera correctly, which cost us time, however once we got used to it, the recording process was fine. Other than that, the only other slight problems we faced were finding the right props in the woods, but that was easily resolved. When editing, we used Final Cut Express. I personally learnt how to edit, as although I done some editing on the preliminary task, I was still unsure of what to do. However I quickly learnt the skills needed. The programme was an excellent program to use, as it made the editing smooth, and it was easy to use. It also gave a professional look to our film. 
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The planning stages to our film really helped us organise and create our film efficiently. Without the planning, our film and everything about it would have been spontaneous, and although some of the factors would have been efficient, most of the film and our coursework portfolio would have been a mess. The research into the genre via questionnaires and research of other films helped us to decide what genre of film to produce and the storyline to our film. The storyboarding helped us plan our shots, and along with our shot list, helped is film smoothly. Compare this to our preliminary task, where we didn’t really plan anything, therefore the process took far longer, and the task was to be frank boring, compared to our actual film which was brilliant fun to make. My personal use of specific shots has improved, for example I helped shoot matches on action, which really helped me understand continuity, and improved my ability as a camera man, something which I would pursue in the future. I know about sound bridges, and how do edit successfully. I feel more confident with the equipment, feeling able to use the equipment quite easily now, whereas for the preliminary task I was unsure and not relishing the task at all, whereas now I look forward to filming.
In terms of the group, I believe we worked extremely well together in order to create a great project. However in some intstances, I believe we could have made more decisions as a group, and shared the workload evenly as we found our selves having disagreements at times. However, personally, I would happily work with the same group of people again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wACEI2abRJ0&feature=related
Above is the video of our audience response, we asked a cross section of our target audience to evaluate and to give us feedback on our film. Most of the comments were largely positive, although few gave us constructive criticism. Some of the positive comments that were made were
"good continuity editing"
"camera shots were good"
"the acting was quite good"
"the music"
Some of the constructive criticisms were
"could have been more use of certain shots''
"the acting was slightly unrealistic"
But overall, i was happy with the critical response of the film in general.
Overall, I believe our end product is extremely successful. Our film looks professional, it was a lot of fun to work on, and was a helpful experience, something I would quite happily and probably will do again. It has been brilliant.
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