Looking back at our preliminary tasks - Jake

Shot by shot.

Shot by shot analysis.

Opening Logo
We investigated multiple company logos and we found that depending on the film and that film style and sub-genre the opening logo changes. In this case both our logo and the lions gate logo have changed colour to a more red colour. This is because the colour red is a sign of danger but also affects the vampire sub-genre more as it is also the colour of blood witch plays a vital role in the mythology and core conventions of vampires and vampire films. In both cases the logo makes it clear what the company's name is as well as fitting in with the films style as to not detract from the production.

 Title

Both the opening titles to the film "The lost boys" and our film use images from everyday life that at first glance appear to be normal(church or fair) but then mix them in with missing posters to suggest that everything is not right yet not make it clear who is behind it and ruin the suspense.
by involving places like churches that are normally seen as holy and safe and then mixing them with images of missing people we attempted to make there be a sense of no where being safe, we then carry this on as the protagonist has nightmare in his own home and the suggestion of a vampire entering his house appears.

Sub genre convention
Both the image of our vampire and that of Christopher Lee as Dracula involve two vital components of the vampire film sub-genre. These are the use of fang, the elongated and sharpened teeth used by vampires to feed is the most important and most recognizable part of vampires. Blood is the second instantly recognizable part and instantly connected to vampires as they drink it for sustenance. It is important to see the difference in our vampire types, while Dracula has only a little blood and is quite refined our vampire is designed to be much more messy and not a gentle man instead feeding by messily ripping and tearing at his meal thus becoming covered in blood in a frenzy.

 Character
In the film underworld and our film the two human protagonists are set up in similar ways, each is depicted as being alone in a place otherwise filled with people, a train station and a street. Each is also shown to be being followed by vampires. by putting them in bland cloths and then into everyday situations it helps the audience to identify with that character, and then by putting them alone by use of camera angles it depicts them as vulnerable and weak. this fits with the idea of vampires being much more powerful than humans.

Mise-en-scene 
In vampire films the vampires and antagonists are often put in large coats and jackets that are mostly leather, this is to create a sense of danger about that character but also to help shroud that characters identity as often vampires do not wish to be seen. this helps the horror aspects of the film and not fully seeing the antagonists helps them to retain their sense of danger. both the images from our film and the film "Blade 2" use this on the main threat.

Reaction to light
One key aspect to vampires is the idea that they are burnt and hurt by sun light, this is shown in our as having hurt our protagonist who is becoming a vampire but unlike blade it does not instantly kill them.

Thoughts on the film.

Thoughts on the film.
Personally i fell that our film could have been greatly improved and was a little too rough with inadequate amounts of polish. I fell that we did not correctly manage our time and took too long organizing a re shoot after we could not use our initial footage due to the weather, this time management problem lead to the editing and opening credits being quite rushed. I feel that for the most part our editing and cuts were good with a few but not many 30 degree rule breaks and we did not run into the exposure problem we have encountered previously. However i was not happy with the state of the titles and if we had managed our time better i would liked to have made a background for the titles so it was not only over black.
 I also felt like our soundtrack became too dominant at points and stopped being part of the ambiance and the main piece not the film, it was also rough in places and would have benefited our film to have been changed, this could have been done if we had fit in an earlier shooting time.

Idea of background i would liked to have designed for our film openings.

Who would be the audience for your media project?

Who would be the audience for your media project?

It is important to know who the audience for your film will be. this is because to make a successful product, before beginning production the correct audience for your product must be targeted. by knowing the demographic of your film it will make casting the characters and planning shots much easier as different genders or age groups will be more attracted towards different characters and styles.

Foe our film we desired to target teenagers and people in their early 20s, however we did not want to only target one gender. because we felt that the teenage audience would be the audience that our film caters to we looked at the demographics and feedback for other films in our genre specifically the film "Twilight".
As we saw when we researched other films in our sub-genre it appeared that although males trend towards the vampire film sub-genre females are not far behind, the exception to this was twilight and so we decided to find out what causes this difference.
We assessed the film Twilight as it targeted the same age group as us while still being in the same genre of film(vampire). However while we wished to remain neutral on the point of gender the response for Twilight gave a serious female trend. We attempted to asses Twilight to find what it did correctly for our age group and what we should avoid to keep our film appealing to both genders.

The Film "Twilight" was a film made for a similar age group to the film that we made it also was met with huge success with an opening day of $35.7 million on its opening day. Twilight is different from the majority of the other films in the vampire sub-genre as instead of the action and horror that are common it instead spends a lot of that time developing and building its characters and romance. This focus on story and characters have gained it a huge fan base who are invested in the characters and not only there to see the special effects and action, witch take a much smaller role in the film. Gender roles in twilight follow a very old path of males protecting vulnerable females, this is odd as the vampire sub-genre has often used both the typical stereotype of weak females (usually human) but also mixed in incredibly strong female roles.

Film certificates.

There are two main certificates that apply to horror films and these are 15 and 18. each has its own restrictions and guidelines however this is of set by the advantages of public perception and amount of viewers eligible to see the film.

15. A film that has the 15 rating is very open in terms of horror, language and gore with the only restrictions being of any sadistic or sexual violence.  Along with very open restrictions giving the producers lots of freedom it also allows a much younger audience to view the film.

18. A film with the 18 rating has almost no restrictions as long as it does not break the law and does not endanger the community. although an 18 rating limits a films audience it has almost no restrictions, 18 rated films are also perceived as not childish.

For our film the 15 rating was the most appropriate as an 18 would not allow our target audience to view the film while a rating lower that a 15 would not allow us to contain the required elements to attract the higher range of our male target audience.

Previous film ratings.

Twilight. This was rated a 12. this rating let them target younger audiences and involve less action of most other films in this sub genre and more character building. this rating is too low for our film ideas and target demographic.

Blade. This was rated a 18 it involved much more gore and less character building than what we aim for however shows a trend of male audiences liking films with more action. we tried to cater for this.

Underworld. This was rated a 15 this is much more like what we aimed for and still contained large amounts of action and character building to please our wide target audience.

30 days of night. This was rated a 18 and involved huge amounts of gore. we did not plan to follow this style.

Let the right one in. This was rated a 15 and also showed younger people as vampires.

The audience for our film - Jake

It's important for films to have a target audience for a film, because that way there will be a definite audience for the film. Not only this but it also gives the film some direction and helps it to define itself as a certain type of film. For example, a film that is targeted at fans of lots of blood and large production values might not be drawn want to watch a low budget, subtle film.

We were aiming our film to be at young horror/supernatural fans. I have looked at five films that influenced us in the imagining and creating of the film. The films Fright Night, Let Me In, Lost Boys and the TV program Being Human are all fifteen certificates, whilst the fifth film we looked at, Underworld, was an eighteen. Looking at the BBFC guidelines on certification, our film fits quite neatly in the fifteen classification.

The BBFC demands that the film doesn't endorse discrimination, which our film doesn't. The film mustn't encourage or promote drug use, our film has the vampires crave the blood like drugs but it shows the problems of being a vampire so will likely discourage vampirisim. The film is allowed to have horror as long as it's not sadistic or sexualised, which our film isn't. The film is allowed to show dangerous behaviour as long as it doesn't dwell on anything that could be copied, so that's okay. In terms of language, there can be use of strong language as long as it suits the context, and it won't be used in aggression or repeated. Their won't be any nudity or sex. Violence is acceptable but can't be sexualised or sadistic, it also can't dwell on the pain of the victim. So, the film suits a fifteen category quite neatly.

I think that our target audience would be british teens who enjoy vampire films.

The target audience was targeted by using teenagers as the actors, this increases the connection between audience and actor, making the audience be able to relate more. We chose an alleyway, this conforms to the conventions because it's tight, confined and claustrophobic, it feels scary as there are only two ways you can go, this adds to the fear of the scene.

We did some surveys and found that 17 year old males were more likely to watch the film. We got feedback that said the shots built tension well but could have used a better variety of angles. They said they enjoyed the quick pace and the continuity was good for most of the film. The mise-en-scene was okay but could've been better. The feedback pointed out that the film doesn't really represent any social groups. The survey said that the film would be best suited for males who were 16-25. 50% of the surveyed said they would continue watching the film as they want to see what happens next. Some of the main criticism was because the film isn't obviously a vampire film. Also, the chase scene could've been tenser as it seemed like an action film. Overall we got an average of 40 out 60 from the surveys.

Shot by shot analysis - Jake

 Opening logos

The Lionsgate opening logo and our opening logo are similar in that they have differing colours depending on the genre. In this case the red connotes blood, which basically represents the vampire genre in it's entirety, it's all about blood. So, straight away the audience knows this is a horror film and they have suggestions it's a vampire film. "Lionsgate" is quite a nondescript word, it hasn't got many connotations and is why it's a good production company name. Lunar connotes the moon and makes the film sound like a werewolf film, one of the problems with the name. But, the use of the moon represents night, and vampires can only come out at night so it sort of works.

 Titles

In the titles we have a series of missing persons posters. This is similar to Lost Boys' opening titles in which various missing posters are surrounded by people having a fun time and enjoying themselves, this makes the missing people seem like an everyday thing and people just live with it. We didn't want to do this, we wanted to show the missing poster and have some evidence of what happened to them. This goes along with the conventions of people being taken or being killed by vampires.

 Sub-genre Conventions

We wanted more of a subtle vampire so we didn't go with the black eyes or incredibly pale, but we did want the animalistic appearance of a blood smeared face. We tried not to have a completely crazy, blood covered vampire. I think we did quite well with the blood, making it look like he's tried to wipe it off. As well as blood we have the sharpened teeth of a vampire.





Establishing character

By having the character alone, it shows he something of a maverick. He is able to run from a vampire showing he's agile. By having the vampire smaller than the protagonist it shows the power that the vampire has, creating fear in the larger person.






Mise-en-scene




By dressing the main character in white it connotes their innocence and naivety. By adding blood to the shirt, it gives a contrast between the innocence and the seriousness of a situation. White shows the purity of the character, adding the blood taints the character. It is also good as it seems cold and distant, like we wanted the vampire to seem, until finally being brought back to life when he sees the wound.

Key point 1 - The domestication of blood

In the film, Daybreakers, vampires are able to buy blood and it's very domesticated. In our film we wanted to replicate the same idea. Not as grandeur or marketed but more an underground thing. Vampire black markets and what not. Of course, being as this is only the start of the film we couldn't explain this or show this so we had a throwback in the opening credits. A simple thing from a look but it's importance would become known as the film progressed. Having the vampires selling and buying blood challenges the usual belief that vampires are all out killing for the blood.

Key point 2 - Not burning in sun

We decided to go against the usual idea of having vampires burning in the sun. Instead we had the sun hurt initially, but not kill. This way we could have the vampire go outside and interact with the world. This way we could have only the most powerful vampires killed by the light, this would be integral to the plot later on. We wanted to get the shot to be blindingly bright to represent the vampire having to adjust to his new found senses. The saturation of the light as the blinds were raised was a nice touch, showing the sunlight enter the room.

Reflections on the film - Jake

At the time of finishing the film, we thought it was okay. We didn't plan out our time successfully and we didn't use it to its full potential. I think the editing was good, but it could have been neater. The soundtrack is a bit too much, it should have been more subtle and eerie, another problem is that the credits ran on too long so we had to repeat the start of the soundtrack, not a big problem but noticeable all the same. Maybe end after the opening credits and have brief moments for when he gets bit. I think most of the film was rushed, not because we didn't have enough time but because we didn't use it well. We spent a lot of time nit picking the credits and the timings when we should have worried about the film itself. I think the ending should have gone on a few more seconds and having the actor inspect the wound but we cut the right amount from the bathroom shots as they broke a lot of rules and jump cutted around.