Evaluation Questions

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Link: 1

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? Link: 2

Question 3: What kind of media institution might describe your media product and why? Link: 3

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product? Link: 4

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience? Link: 5

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Link: 6

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

Analysis of 'Run' Final Construction

Our two minute opening sequence, 'Run', was created by Anum, Huma and myself. 

During the beginning scene, a teenage girl is shown listening to the radio on her iPhone. Below is the script I wrote, which was read out by my mother, Zenab, through a voice over which we later added on top of our opening. For the name of the institution, I chose the Japanese name 'Kaito' as its meaning is often asssociated with water, as is are Yurei ghosts. 

Later, when our main character, played by Huma, runs up the stairs in her house, we created an eerie atmosphere by having our camera person (me) follow her up the stairs, crawling, using a point of view shot. 

'Run' Final Draft

Below is the link to our final draft for our 2 minute opening sequence 'Run'.
Link: Final Draft

'Run' 1st Draft

Our first draft for our 2 minute opening sequence went quite well. We made a few changes though for the real thing, such as sounds, foley sounds, editing and credits.

Link: 1st Draft

Main Task Storyboard

Below is the storyboard our group created for our opening sequence, 'Run'. When filming our opening, we altered our shots slightly to the ones shown in our storyboard. This shows how our construction process changed and adapted to fit with our new ideas.

First half of 'Run' storyboard

 

Second half of 'Run' Storyboard

Analysis of first Focus Group responses

For our first focus group, we presented our photomatic to twelve people, unfortunately we only received eight responses. However, these responses were very full and detailed in helping us know what we did right and wrong in one of our first tasks as a group.

From the responses we received, we can understand that most of the people in our focus group felt our photomatic had a dark, horror theme to it. We could also see a lot of willingness in the responses to watch our film if it came out in a cinema.

We had some problems with the soundtrack, with some members of our focus group not being able to hear it at all. However, some did hear the soundtrack and felt it fit very well with the theme and mood that we were trying to convey.

Beginning our Focus Group

Together, we thought of twelve people to join our focus group to help us learn and develop. We created a questionnaire for the group to answer relating to the Photomatic we made for our film opening 'Run'. We each emailed the members of the group that we had chosen. The questions were:

what do you think the meanings were that we were attempting to convey through the soundtrack?

would you want to go see this film in the cinema? why?

what genre do you think this animatic portrays?

what meanings do you think the photographs we took were trying to convey?

suggest one improvement?

Photomatic

First, we, as a group created a storyboard for our Photomatic to help us decide what photos we would take and what credits we would use. A photomatic is a preliminary version of a moving image text. It consists of a series of drawings, animated cut-out figures or photographs with a sound track or voice over. It is mainly used for test marketing purposes. We created a photomatic to present our preliminary opening credit sequence idea to our class and to our target audience focus group for feedback. 

Below is the equipment we used:

                       

Next, we created the real thing.

Photomatic

Japanese Horror Research

Japanese filmmakers first started making horrors set in the classical Edo Period (1603 to 1867 - when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional Daimyo. The period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, environmental protection policies, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture ) in the 1950s.

These types of films often focus on a tale of morality or revenge, with an influence of distrust in technology and the aftermath of atomic bombs.

Japanese Horror has become popular in Western society, with remakes being created of Japanese films such as The Ring (リング). The Ring  is a 1998 film, was released in America. In The Ring, a news reporter named Asakawa discovers the story of a cursed video tape. According to the rumor, a video tape exists that will kill the viewer seven days after it is watched. The only escape from the curse is to make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else, who must then copy it and show it again to save themselves. Asakawa tracks the tape down and watches it only to realize that the curse is real and that she has seven days to live. She spends the rest of the film searching for the force behind the tape, a psychic girl named Sadako who was killed by her father and dumped in a well years ago. As we see at the end of the film, Sadako climbs out of her well and through the TV of her next victim, manifesting her wrath in the physical realm from beyond the grave.

We have a particular focus on Yūrei ghosts in Japanese horror. Yūrei ghosts are figures in Japanese folklore, comparable to Western legends of ghosts. They often wear white clothing, have long, black hair and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists, which are held outstretched with the elbows near the body. Japanese horror filmmakers explain that the long hair is a metaphor for ancient Japanese customs, where men wore their hair long and unbound and women wore their hair neatly tied up. The unkempt hairstyle of the female villains signifies madness or demonic possession due to its non-conformist associations.

Primary Target Audience

There are many important factors to focus on when it comes to thinking about your target audience. These include, genre preferences, class, gender, age, fears and anxieties, education, values and hopes.
Our primary target audience for our two minute opening sequence will probably be older teenagers and adults who enjoy horror films, because our opening sequence focuses heavily on this theme.
We will try to focus on audiences who fear similar things such as escaped people, being home alone, being stalked, the dark and unknown phone calls. These are the fears we will be portraying in our opening sequence. By focusing on our audiences fears we are trying to create a more tense atmosphere for their viewing pleasure.

We will also focus on audiences who have similar values and beliefs. For example, what one would do if someone broke into their house. All these values and beliefs would come together to make our opening sequence seem altogether more interesting and gripping.

For our own opening sequence we want to focus on a target audience that appreciates Japanese horror, primarily the westernised type, such as 'The Ring' (2002). We want our opening sequence to shock and scare our viewers, as horror films traditionally do. We want to focus on an opening with no special effects or over exaggerations, just simple costumes and makeup, going back to the traditional popular Japanese horrors, such as 'Dark Water'. These types of films rely on suspense rather that over-the-top scare tactics used in many American horrors. Many fans of Japanese horror like to think of themselves as away from 'mainstream' and part of a lesser known cult of J-horror, so we would like to focus on people who are already part of this Japanese horror cult.

Opening Sequence Observations for Planning

Having analysed a variety of openings, I would say there are 10-15 credits in a typical opening credit sequence.
The credits usually included in an opening sequence in conventional order are, production company logo, casting by, music by, main cast credits, produced by, cinematography by, directed by, edited by and the title of the film.
I would like to include aspects of narrative in my group opening such as, characterisation of the main character, the horror character and the setting.
We will set up our characters with use of their clothing, physical appearance and their dialogue. For example, for the horror character may wear a long white dress. She may also have long, black, limp hair. She will have little dialogue to retain  her mysterious aura. The main character will be dressed in casual attire, a hoodie and jeans.

Analysis of Japanese Horror Opening Sequences

Tale of Two Sisters (2003) A South Korean horror film
Tale of Two Sisters begins with a few opening credits, next it goes onto a patterned background with the title written across it in Korean. It then shows more credits consecutively across the patterned background which slowly dissolve away to the right. The camera then slowly pans out, and the pattern from the background starts floating away, as this happens the credits being shown turn from white to red. The image then fades to black and the story begins.

The Grudge (2004)
The opening begins with 'Columbia' film production's ident. It then moves onto Ghost House Pictures ident. Next, text shows up on a black background which begins to tell the narrative of the start of the story. The film begins, showing a scene of a couple, suddenly the man throws himself off the couple's balcony. Next, the credits begin on a black screen, they are written in red. After the credits, the black fades away to red, and the title of the film is shown, in Japanese, in black across a rep, rippled background. The red ripples are then disturbed by the silhouette of a hand, and the title is shown again in black, but this time written in English. This then ripples away and the rest of the credits are shown, all with a rippling sequence in between each one. Blackness then envelops the red, and the story begins.

Dark Water (2002)
The film opening begins with Kadokawa Shoten film ident. Next, the credits show in white across a black background. The black fades away to show murky water with a dim light shining in one corner of the scene, like a torch, still with consecutive white credits across the screen in different places. All the credits are written in Japanese. The water then gives way to the beginning of the story.

From my analysis of Japanese Horror opening sequences, I can understand that they focus heavily on red and white coloured credits with black backgrounds. I can also see that many of the credits dissolve or face eerily into the background, creating a mysterious and tense feel to the opening sequences.

Idea for Main Task

Our scene begins with a girl, sitting in her living room, listening to the radio on her iPhone. She is listening to a news report about a young girl that has escaped from a mental institution in her local area. The girl goes upstairs to get ready for bed. While going through her nightly routine, she hears a bang downstairs in her house. The girl runs downstairs to see that her front door is wide open, she shuts it and as the door shuts, a scary Yurei type ghost girl (the young girl from the mental institution) is standing behind her as the door closes..

Timeline Task

For this task, we watched an opening title sequence to a film of our choice, I chose 'Batman' (1989). We had to draw up a timeline showing the different times of each credit and how long each lasted. We also had to do the same for the music in the title sequence. We did this task to help us with our own creating of an opening title sequence.