Final Production Company Logo Design

This is our Final Production Company Logo Design, created by Michael Barrett. We chose to use a red and black background because, whilst simple, the colouring is both effective and also provides links to the type of movies our company will make, which are horror. The design itself is set on a black background, in order to make the text and the eyeball pop-out when the logo is being viewed. The text is bold but also holds a sort of deterioration effect, as though it is cracked and rotting away. This adds texture and connotations to the words that the audience can reflect upon. The key part of the logo is the red eyeball, which is set to the left of the words Moral Panic. This eyeball aims to show that the audience is watching the movie/trailer/tv program that we have created and also that we are watching them as a company. This aims to be unsettling, as though the audience is always being watched by an unknown entity. We will animate the logo so that the red text will flash and the eye will blink, showing that it is alive and not just an eyeball. This animation will make our production company logo more interesting and suitable for a moving image format.

Production Company Logo Animation

This is our Production Company Logo, after it has been animated for usage at the very start of our film opening. It shows the already created logo, but with the incorporated blinking eye that was detailed in my last post about the logo. We also added music, that of which is Royalty Free and will be detailed in our Soundtrack post. This whole clip is what we will be using in our final product. This clip will jump into the start of our film, where a character is being chased through the woods.

Production Company Logo Generation

Final Institution Name

Our final institution name is; Moral Panic Productions.

The idea for this name came from the definition of the 'Moral Panic' part of the name itself, meaning an instance of public anxiety that is directly linked to something that goes against the morals of society. In essence, this is a fear created from something that goes against someone's morals. For example, if someone committed murder, they would be seen as immoral in the eyes of society, and would inspire fear in people that someone could do such an act. This definition links to our company's ethics as we are creating movies under the horror genre, but at the same time to not entice anyone to follow the ethic's shown in our films, hence why we will refer to ourselves as Moral Panic. However, it could also be seen as a simple connotation of fear, which is the way in which the audience will feel when they watch our movies. Along with this, the name itself is original and ambiguous, meaning that it sounds far more professional.

Despite this company name being our group's favourite from the start, we have also been supported on this decision by our Target Audience (with 38% of votes), that of which we handed questionnaires to, along with our focus group who said that it was the most appropriate name out of the ones we pitched to them. This means that our target audience along with the group that will be our source of key analysis in our production have supported our decision and made it practically unanimous.

Production Diary : 28/10/2016

So, this is my first production diary. At this stage we have completed our outreach steps, this includes our questionnaires given to the target audience (along with the production of results for each of these) and our interview with our focus group. We have decided on a company name; Moral Panic Productions and have decided on an initial pitch for our film opening. From now onwards we need to finish our more practical side of planning, such as casting, storyboards and decisions on props and locations. Hopefully this will be done in the next couple of weeks.

Focus Group Interview

Here is our first interview with our focus group, that of which consists of; Yoli Wallbanks, Jordan Diver, Alex Conolan and Todd Fletcher. During this interview we talked about which of the institution names they most prefered, which pitch they would most like to see come to fruition and we got some information on preferred locations and from this where we could apply this locally. This interview has been very beneficial for our planning stage of our production and has made some of our decisions very clear.

Results wise, from this Focus Group Interview we found out that the preferred institution name was Moral Panic Productions, followed by Phobia Films. The reasoning behind the Moral Panic Productions name was that it contained alliteration and also fit the genre (which was stated as Thriller in the video but we informed the focus group that it was horror before hand so it was just a mistake of speech). The pitch that seemed most appealing to the focus group was my pitch, shown below in the blog, because they stated it was the most interesting and most capable of actually being created. Thorndon Country Park was the location that is the best choice to apply because it is the most fitting geographically due to the thickness of the woodland.

Conventions Of A Horror Movie Questionnaire Results

Institutional Aspects of A Horror Film Questionnaire Results

Target Audience Description

Our target audience consists of people of both genders (male and female) between the ages of 16 - 25. Since our movie will be rated a 15, the slightly younger ages (14-15) will be our secondary audience alongside the slightly older ages (25+). This is because there is always going to be a variation in the age demographics of the people watching movies, no matter how the film is marketed. Our film will contain a mix  of genders (male and female) in order to appeal to the largest audience possible. Since our targeted age is 16-25 years, the majority of our casting will also be of that age range, so that the audience can associate and relate to the characters. Our demographic does not aim at people with children or in a married relationship (due to the fairly low ages of our targeted group). Similarly, it will not focus on a specific religious group or a particular ethnicity so that our reach can be as broad as possible and no prejudices will be created that are linked to our film.

Our audience's category is C2DE, which focuses on the 'lower' side of the income groups but we will also include C1 categorised people in our targeted audience because there will be some level of intellectuality throughout our film. The location of our targeted audience will be in well populated, high income countries; like the USA and the United Kingdom. To whittle this down further, we will aim it at people in more Urban areas so that when a rural theme / setting is shown it is more unfamiliar for those watching it.

Our target audience's purchase/consumption history can be varied in a multitude of ways but they will have had to have enjoyed or purchased a horror movie before because otherwise they will not feel comfortable heading in to a new genre that is widely seen as 'scary'. #

The main role of our target audience is not only to attend the movie but also to help with the marketing or the film (using aspects like Social Media and word of mouth).

Institutional Production Name Ideas

Preliminary Task Evaluation

During the planning stage of our Preliminary Task we wrote a short but detailed script that showed exactly what we wanted to be said and acted by the characters in the scene, scouted locations around the school before deciding on the one we wanted to use and researched the three camera techniques that we needed to use in order to pass the requirements for the Preliminary Task. All of this research and planning is shown in the posts below. This planning allowed us to go into the preliminary task almost fully prepared and gave us a large amount of insight into how our eventual product is going to need to be planned.

During the production stage we made sure to include the three key camera techniques detailed in the brief. The rest of the shots were improvised in order to create an interesting piece that showed off our currently possessed skills. For the Match on Action we made sure to take lots of clips of certain things, like Character 1 opening the door, so that we would be able to show different angles on a singular subject matter and follow the actions that the character is taking.We used a 180 degree angle for most of the scene in order to show how the two characters are facing each-other. Finally we used shot reverse shot during the dialogue in order to not focus on one subject for two long which may bore the viewer.  

The editing stage was rather simple as we already had experience with the software we used (Adobe Premiere Pro). However, we did find that whilst editing we could have used some extra shots that had not been taken; so during our final product we need to film extra shots that may be included, just so they are available to us. 

Preliminary Task Finished Video

Script For Preliminary Task

[Character 1 approaches the door hesitant to open it; he slowly reaches and unlocks the door. Then standing peering into the room before stepping in, walking across the room and sitting on a chair positioned opposite character 2 with a small table between them]

Character 2: *clears throat suggestively* have you got what’s mine?

Character 1: [placing a brief case on the table between them] it’s all there, just like you asked.

Character 2: [opens brief case cautiously. Examining the contents]

Character 1: What?

Character 2: [closes case and places it on the ground next to his chair]

Character 1: [nervously] what about my end of the deal?

Character 2: I’ve got mine, you’ll get yours.

[Cuts to black screen]

Preliminary Task Research

For the video preliminary task we have been asked to film and edit a video piece with 3 key aspects; character 1 must open a door, cross a room and then take a seat opposite character 2 and have a conversation with them. The aim of this task is to show a ‘starting point’ of our media skills- how good we work as a group, our skills when using a camera and our ability to edit together a simple piece of film. The video itself must demonstrate three video techniques; match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. My understanding of these techniques will be shown below;

Match On Action

Match on Action is an editing technique where one shot is cut in by another shot, whilst still following the actions of the subject matter in the first shot. This is used to further the idea of continuity editing – where the viewer of a media text can see that the action on the screen flows continually. Match on Action presents a continuous sense of what is happening on the screen in front of us.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180⁰ rule is a camera technique where two characters or objects positions are reflected over each other in the same left/right relationship to one another. For example, having two people facing each other on opposite sides of a table, one of the left of the shot and the other on the right. The actions on scene take place in the same 180⁰ angle.

Shot Reverse Shot

Shot reverse shot is an editing technique used most often during a conversation. It switches from the two subjects faces during a conversation, in order to represent a natural flow – even though the lines are filmed at different times.

Preliminary Task Location Scouting

Location 1 : Sixth Form Common Room
The first location we trialled was the Sixth Form Common Room. This would have been a good place for a scene in which comfort and relaxation was a key aspect, due to the large amount of sofa's. it could also be seen as some sort of living space. Unfortunately, our scene needs to be more dramatic than what we could achieve using this location.

Location 2: School Art Room

The second location we looked at was the school's art room. This could have been a good place if we required a large open space which is obviously in a school atmosphere. The viewer would be able to associate the chairs and tables and the art work on the walls with a school room. However, once again, this was not the type of space that we required.

Location 3 (Chosen Location) School Office

The final location we found was a hidden school office. It was small, making it easy for our scene to be seen as enclosed, it had a lock on the door which increases the tension of the scene and had draw able blinds so that we could make the scene look darker. There was a table that each of the two characters could sit opposite each other on. The only improvement is if the board behind the characters was empty.

Horror Genre - Sub Genres

9 Key Screen-Shot Analysis - Scream

Uses and Gratifications in Accordance to our Film

Our genre of film fits into a few of the Uses and Gratifications categories, those being; 'simple entertainment' and 'escape from daily life'. A horror movie is not completely intellectually challenging, hence why it falls under 'simple entertainment' and most movies fitting into the genre contain things that do not exist in real life (like monsters or ghosts) so the genre can fall under the 'escape from daily life' category. Films that cater to this use and gratification are things like Paranormal Activity and A Nightmare On Elm Street. The events that take place inside our movie will be mostly unrealistic as an extremely minute percentage of people will ever have been faced by a murderer out to kill them. This means that through interaction people will be able to immerse themselves in something they never will have experienced.

I think that uses and gratification theory does not provide enough information to be able to produce a detailed analysis on a movie contained in the Horror genre. This is because different people have different reasons why they are watching a film alongside different uses they have from watching that film. Since the horror genre is so diverse, in both subject matter and quality, it is hard to pinpoint an obvious use or gratification for a wide audience. For example, some people may watch the movie Child's Play (Chucky) in order to get scared whereas others may see it as a comedic attempt at a horror movie.

The Uses and Gratifications Theory helps us when creating questions for a questionnaire as it is an easy way to see what it is people want to take away from our movie, from how they want to feel to how they want to act after the credits roll. We can see whether they want the movie to be entertaining in a simple manner, or whether they want to be fully immersed. This could help us during the creation of the movie because it allows us to see what the majority of people want to see and by catering to that expectation we can maximise our audience.

BBFC Research

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is the organisation that classifies movies into their selected age ratings (U, PG, 12, 15, 18). It was founded in 1920 as a joint effort throughout the film industry in order to protect viewers from being subjected to film that was not suitable for their age range. They have the legal ability to rate films and be able to censor or full on reject certain works from being shown in the UK. Censoring cuts material deemed inappropriate, either allowing it to fit inside a certain age rating or allowing it to be actually shown to the public.

The age ratings are as follows;

U – Universal; meaning that it is suitable for absolutely any audience.

PG – Parental Guidance; meaning that there could be very mild inappropriate content and young children should be accompanied by an adult whilst viewing.

12 – Only suitable for this age or over; contains some swearing and violence

15 - Only suitable for this age or over; contains more swearing, violence, sex or drugs

18 - Only suitable for this age or over; contains blood, gore, swearing, sex, extreme violence, extreme drug use, etc.

Director Research and Case Study - Peter Jackson

The director that I chose for my Case Study is Peter Jackson, the director, writer and producer of the world renowned franchise Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and The Hobbit (2012-2014). He was born in New Zealand on 31 October 1961 and is a Film Director, Screen-Writer, Film Producer and Actor. He also directed the 2005 remake of King Kong and he produced District 9, The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn. He has also dabbled in the areas of comedic horror with Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992). He has been awarded 3 Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, 3 Saturn Awards and 3 BAFTA's. His production company is called Wingnut Films. He also has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

From a young age Jackson was a massive film fan and drew inspiration from television series like Thunderbirds and Monty Python. He used to make short films with his friends, even attempting to make a stop-go animation remake of his favourite film King Kong. He practically taught himself editing, special effects and make-up through trial and error. He watched the animated part-adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings as a child, obviously sparking the idea for a full cinematic adaptation from an early age.

Jackson's most famous cinematic creation was his adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (written by J.R.R Tolkien). He won the rights to it in 1997 after meeting a producer named Saul Zaentz. Originally the film was to be produced by Miramax, who wanted two films but after being pushed into cramming the whole trilogy of books into a singular movie, Jackson singed a last minute deal with New Line Cinema to create a whole trilogy. Most of the filming was done in the outside of New Zealand, with the set for The Shire still being able to be visited today. Jackson was always given enough time to refine the films to their maximum potential. The third film in the trilogy, Return Of The King, is by far the most successful, winning 11 Oscars, including best picture and director. 

Conglomerates in the Film Industry

A conglomerate is a combination of multiple different companies that are all owned or ‘fall under’ a singular company. In relation to the Film Industry, a conglomerate is where an extremely large cooperation owns many other small companies that provide them services (like production of a film). A good example of this is The Walt Disney Company, the large singular company whose conglomerates are; Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm just to name a few of them. These smaller companies produce, distribute and market films under Disney’s lead and budget, and a large majority of profits feeds back into the company and its affiliated conglomerates, practically keeping them all up and running as one entity.

Theories of Identity (Media 2.0) - Gauntlett

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Ideologies In Film

Ideology, by definition is; 'a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy'. So, when applying this into film, it is basically what the film is trying to tell the audience throughout it's run-time and how they will receive this information because of their different social views. Different films will present us with different ideologies as each film is focused on a different person from a different time, culture or society. For example, the ideologies presented in a film about slavery (i.e 12 Years a Slave) would be completely different to that of a film based around the White population of America during this time.

There are three main categories of Ideologies;
Neutral: A neutral ideological film is where the basis of it is on action and entertainment as oppose to hard hitting topics. The values shown are all part of the entertainment so will be twisted to fit the film itself. 
Implicit: Two main characters inside the narrative will hold completely opposing values (Hero Vs Villain) but this is not focused on inside the story. Instead we are led to follow the hero's beliefs as that is what the audience has been brought up knowing. This means that the more widely accepted beliefs will be held by the protagonist. For example, Star Wars shows the ideologies between Luke and The Emperor (Good VS Evil).
Explicit: A Film made solely to teach or persuade the audience into a way of thinking, morphing their current ideologies with those shown inside the movie, for example The Lion King teaches children about good morals, friendship and acceptance. 

Intertextuality in Opening Sequences

A notion introduced by Julia Kriteva suggested that a singular text is shaped by the meanings of other texts that relate to it. She stated that a text is not an isolated entity and is instead an amalgamation of the meanings and products shown through other texts.

Media intertextuality is where a certain text (movie/TV show/book) makes links to other Media texts, like a predecessor in the series or an original creation (if the current text is a remake) or, in some cases, a completely separate text (this is often known as an 'Easter Egg'). This is very important when thinking about audience, as intertextuality has to be understood by the audience in order for the reference to actually make sense. 

Intertextuality in the form of references is often shown in the comedy genre, especially in animated TV shows aimed at large audiences (like The Simpsons). A lot of the comedy here relies on prior knowledge of each reference, which in some form increases the intellectual requirement for consuming the program. This increases the audience's pleasure whilst consuming the text, due to the way in which it is involving them personally and making them feel included when they understand the references included. The use of intertextuality also subverts the idea of engrossing an audience in the narrative as it pulls from it and shows how our mediated society is all linked.

Awareness Of Audience

Audience in the Media Industry is one of the most important aspects of any text that has been created and distributed to the world. An Audience, by definition, is the group of people at which a certain piece of text is aimed. For example, an animated movie is aimed at a younger demographic whilst a horror movie is aimed at a more adult audience. All movies have to maintain a targeted audience that their product is aimed at. This target audience that has been presented to them then has influence on the production, editing, marketing and final distribution of the product (as different audiences want to see completely different things). Here are some different audience categories;

There are also different types of audience based on the number of people that they contain;
A Mass Audience is a very wide-spread audience that does not hold any key prejudices or ideals and will consume most if not all main-stream films.
A Niche Audience is one with a comparatively smaller population with interests that are more focused into unique areas.

Media audiences are researched in many different ways. This is mostly done through ratings, sales and figures but there are a few organisations (like BARB and ABC) that monitor audiences throughout their targeted Media outlet. These organisations carry out research in two different types;
Quantitative research - number based, factual and focuses on questions that give very exact answers.
Qualitative research - individual preferences, open questions and aims to show opinions and thoughts.