Foundation Portfolio:: Reflective Evaluation: Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Here is a short edited peice which I have recorded explaining how I have developed my skills of different Camera Angles, lightening techniques and the 180 degree rule. It tells how I have demonstrated my skills in practice exercises to use in my final vampie horror film.

AS Foundation Portfolio Reflective Evaluation: Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media Products?

To understand ways which my horror film challenges and conveys existing films I am going to analyse key shots from my film compared to key shots of existing horror films under my sub-genre which is Vampire.

Firstly here is a key shot of my logo which I used for my horror film at the beginning and below is a logo from the movie

I do not believe this image of my logo on the left has no resemblance or similarities to the logo from the popular vampire horror film Twilight. The image of the logo from Twilight is similar to a convention you would see in a vampire horror film as the text is in a bold style whilst my logo challenges existing conventions because  it has an eye in a triangle with "shipley Productions" wrote above it which has no similarities what so ever.

I will now compare titles from my vampire horror film "The Night Stalker" to titles from the film "30 days of Night".

The titles used in my vampire horror film were deliberately dark as I believe it was create a dark era about my vampire movie and I believe that they fit existing conventions.  This is proved by the titles being similar to the ones used in 30 days of Night.

Next I will compare an image which establishes sub-genre with the film 30 days of Night again and I can conclude that both images follow existing conventions because they both look very similar to something you would see in a typical existing vampire horror film.

Both the Vampire in my vampire horror film which was played by me and the vampire in 30 days of Night look very similar and follow existing conventions as the vampires look similar. Both these images also share similar characteristics as both pictures from 30 days of Night and my horror film "The Night Stalker" are from a "close up" camera angle and they both use make-up  to make their vampires look realistic. When I filmed my horror film I used red face pain with a mix of strawberry jam, Also both pictures also  have a dark atmosphere around them and are very similar.

The next image I am going to compare is the topic of "character" an image from my horror film which shows character is the part where the victim turns around and shouts "who's there?" as he hears a noise from behind him this image is compared to the image from the film "dracula (1931). Both of these shots share the similarity that they are a close up shot.

 The image on the left from my horror film "The Night Stalker" is from the scene where the victim See's a dark shadow down the street which is a vampire this shows character as we can see the fear on the victims face, even though the victim has only seen a dark shadow down the dark road he still immediately associates it with something scary. Whilst on the image from "Dracula" the women in the picture is clearly calm about the Vampire putting his hands on her neck and this would persuade that she is a confident character who holds no nerves about things such as vampires.

An Image that shows mise en scene from my vampire horror film is when the victim at the start of my horror movie gets up off the floor after laying un-conscious and gets up. The mise en scene is the lighting in this clip as I wanted to make it clear that there was blood on the floor so I used a torch to shine light on the ground where the fake blood was laid.

The second image is from the film "The Human Centipede 2" in this scene the mental man is reading a book which possesses all his information of what the man is going t do with all the people he has captured in his warehouse, This Book plays a key part in the film.   These pictures differ greatly from each other as the one from The Human Centipede 2 is in black and white colour whilst the one from my horror film is in a dark lightening. The Human Centipede 2 scene is a close up shot whilst the scene from my horror film is a medium shot. Lastly I am going to compare 4 key pictures from my horror film and four from other existing horror films.
Firstly the key pictures from "The Night Stalker" will be showed below.

These 4 pictures from my horror film are key moments in my film as they use important mise en scene, setting and lighting and represent aspects seen in a typical horror film.  The images below are the images from an existing horror film.

The images above are from the film "30 days of Night" and the film "Grave Encounters" these images can be compared easily to the images from my horror film because they share similarities such as the camera angle two of the images off my horror film are the same as the ones from the existing horror films. The images from the existing films Grave Encounters and 30 days of Night typically follow conventions as they use good mise en scene ad lighting. My images also follow conventions of a vampire movie as I use good close ups of the vampires teeth as well as dark lighting.

AS Foundation Portfolio Reflective Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your Media Project?

The Audience for my vampire horror film "The Night Stalker" would be a popular movie choice for any age group or sex, but I beleive it would be most popular with people of a young age group because the character attacked by the Vampire in the film is a young man so I beleive young men and women will be able to relate to this. This is why I beleive the best audience for my media group would be a class from my or a simular college because of the relationship of age between the viewer and the actor in my film.

AS Foundation Portfolio: Reflective Evaluation Question 3: What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

Research two independent production companies and one major media Institution. Post images and clips of films from each company detailing how they distributed film products and how they compare/differ and why?


The 2 major independent production companies I have researched are Tribeca film festival who made the hit movie Grave Encounters and Bounty Films who gave us the  film the Human Centipede 2. 


 Firstly there is a lot of contrast and comparison between these two independent production companies which distributed their film products. The  movie Grave Encounters by Tribeca Film Festival which made $2,408,334 box office is about a a ghost-hunting reality television show, where the Ghost Enthusiast who star in the movie decide to shoot an episode of their "fictional" TV show in an abandoned  Psychiatric Hospital, where unexplained phenomena has been reported for years. All in the name of good television, they voluntarily lock themselves inside the building for the night and begin a paranormal investigation, capturing everything on camera. They  realise as the longer they stay inside the Mental Hospital that the building is haunted and  has no intention of ever letting them leave. The actors n the movie find themselves lost in a labyrinth of mazes inside the mental hospital whilst aside being tortured by the ghosts which live inside the abandoned hospital. In this film by Tribeca Film Festival they try to add a sense of realism to their horror films by filming it in a  found footage style where the movie is viewed by the recordings of a video camera in a first person point of view. This type of first person video camera shooting makes the movie scary as we believe the footage is real as it has come from a video camera which has been shot there and then so it gives the disguise that none of the footage has been edited giving a sense of realism to the movie making it more scary.

 I believe Tribeca Film Festival used this style of film shooting to make the movie a different style from others and make it seem independent from other similar sub genre horror films from this era.


 Tribeca Film Festival is a small production Company meaning they didn't have the finance to advertise on Television so they had to exploit free ways of getting their film heard of such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook this is an effective way of advertisement as it is free and very mainstream so lots of people will view and hear about it. Here is a link to the movie Trailer for this movie.

The other Independent Production Company I researched Bounty Films which gave us the film "The Human Centipede 2" is a sick gory horror film which is about a twisted middle-aged man who is obsessed with the first Human Centipede Film and decides to bring what "fictional" disgusting things which happened in the first film into real life and tries to make his own 12 person human centipede.  The film was originally banned in Britain but later after the film was release this ban was removed. Bounty Films unlike Tribeca Film Festival the filming is done in 3rd person, I believe this has a slight edge over Tribeca Film Festivals first person method because even though filming in first person adds more realism to a film it doesn't manage to use close up and long camera angles which filming in first person manages to do.  This gives an edge as these camera angles can catch peoples emotions and other details of a film which first person can't offer. Bounty Films also had to use cheaper ways of advertising to get their film out there such as Facebook and YouTube.

I will lastly be investigating how a Major Media Institution differs from Independent production Company, My choice of a Major Institution would be Lionsgate. A Major Media Institution firstly differs because films produced from a Major Media Institution are usually of higher quality to those of independent Companies simply because "Lionsgate" are big names in the Film industry and therefor have much more money to spend. This means the quality of a movie reflects upon the ratings its good this is proven on IMDB as the movie I studied earlier "Grave Encounters" only got 6/10 on the IMDB ratings whilst the popular horror film Saw 5 made a gross profit of $113 million and scored 9.5 on the IMDB ratings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9njCknefh0

The Major Media Institution "Lionsgate" also distributed their films such as Saw, My Bloody Valentine 3D and The Last Exorcism were all advertised as mainstream as possible where LionsGate would pay lots of Money to have adverts for their Films published on TV Channels such as ITV, BBC and MTV.Using this strategy of Film distribution meant that Lionsgate could reach a large proportion of society in a very short space of time which further boosted the amount of gross profit they made on their films. Unfortunately  Independent Production Companies didn't have the money to advertise on television so they couldn't get their films recognised as well as Lionsgate could.



AS Foundation Portfolio: Reflective Evaluation Question 2;

Task one: Analyse the representation in existing films from your sub-genre.

In my research for Question 2 I have uploaded beneath this two video clips within my sub-genre from existing popular films. The two clips below come from the films "Van Helsing" and "Underworld".

Underworld; This scene from the video clip is the part where  Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) and Carl (David Wenham) arrive in Transylvania, they then meet an unwelcoming Anna and her townspeople.

In this clip we clearly see Women stereotypically played as a completely different role from what they would usually be played as in different conventional movies. Stereotypically Women are played as the role of the "Damsell in Distress" but in this clip the threat which is the flying Ghouls is played by a Women and the Women who runs the Town (Anna) are both represented with great Power which is a big contrast to most other Vampire Films where the Women is usually played by the "Damsell in Distress" and shows no power whats over. The Women in this Scene are showed by having power as the Threat is a Women which is a flying Ghoul and because she is flying in the air aggressively above everyone she instantly has more Power and the Women who is the leader of the Towns people of Transylvania has power as she holds her nerves and stays where she stands whilst everyone runs away from the flying creatures. She will also happily stand against the orders of Van Helsing as at 2:16 in the clip Van Helsing orders Anna to "stay here" and she just turns Van Helsing on his side and tells him "You stay here"

This Clips from the Movie "Van Helsing" Leary challenges Conventions of stereotypical Women in not just vampire Horror movies but in Movies in general. This is completely different to the clip from the movie "Underworld" where it clearly shows a man in Power who fires a shotgun in the air to stop the recklessness of the "Lycans".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy1hgZsKuM8

In the Previous Clip from the Movie "Van Helsing" we see a Women portrayed as  having power in the clip whilst in this one a Man is portrayed as someone Powerful because he is holding a weapon as well as having Authority over the humans and the "Lycans" in the Tunnel at that scene. This Steritype used in this Clips follows the traditional Convention of Men having power.

2. Planning: How has your planning evidenced your understanding of social groups representation?

In my planning for my vampire horror film "The Night Stalker" I casted the Victim (Tom Cheshire) because he is somone of a simular age group who would watch the "The Night Stalker" and also I couldn't find anyone older or younger who would of played the role as well.

The Story for my Horror Movie was about a young man who has been btten by a vampire and has been laying unconsious on the floor for small ammount of time he then gets up realising the seriousness of his injurys and walks down the dark street for some sort of help but on his way down he hears a strange banging noise and turns around to see what it is, thought whilst he is turned around there is nothing there for the noise to come from, the man then turns back around and keeps on running, then he turns round a corner to unfortunately see a dark shadow standing in the middle of the road which is his atacker. He then turns around again and runs away but the Vampire quickly catches him up and finishes off his victim completely  by bitting him on the neck for a secound time. I beleive this story for my horror movie "The night Stalker" fits conventions under the vampire sub-genre as vampire movies are often about a Vampire hunting down its pray before he goes to kill his prey which is simular to what happens in my vampire horror film. A good example used of this is in the film Count Dracula where gives some blood to the victim in the lounge, this is remembered as one of the key moments of the movie.

3. Construction and Feedback: A social group representation is an organisation of people or a group and I beleive a social group in my film is that young people are usually a target for conspiculuous crimes such as murder and assault. This reflects in my horror movie "The Night Stalker" because the Victim of a Vampire attack is a young person.  This can be compared to the scene out of 30 days of Night where a middle aged couple are both attactked by Vampires. The comparison between them is that in my horror movie it is obvious that a young man is being attacked by a vampire and in 30 days of Night the Vampire is targeting someone of an older age group, lastly I have acheived this representation by hiring the actor of my horror movie as a young person.

The key responses from my original horror film before the retake were that the film represented age well on more then one of the response sheets.