Evaluation 6

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here i have made a prezi to answer the evaluation question:

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Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience

Throughout the production of our opening sequence, the group and I included many different techniques to physically engage the audience with our film. This includes the use of questionnaires and myself creating and audience feedback video; this to give us crucial information on what the audience did/did not like. In our actual opening sequence, we used non-diegetic and ambient music to create a dramatic atmosphere for the audience to connect to. Our uses of extreme close ups broke the fourth wall between Hannah and the audience by staring directly at them, making them feel a part of the film themselves and building a personal relationship (uses and gratifications) with the protagonist.

Hannah breaking the fourth wall

Questionnaire:

Following our dis-conclusion on what to name our opening sequence, the group and I gave the audience a briefing on what our opening sequence would be about, we displayed this through a powerpoint presentation in which we presented to the rest of our classmates and we asked them to fill our a questionnaire determining on what we called our film. I previously made a blog post on the questionnaire (see blog post Audience Interaction - Film Title Questionnaire). We gave a straightforward selection of film titles, those including: Songbird, Extortion, Silence, Silent, Mute followed by a choice of 'other'. Overall the predominant winner was 'Mute' and we decided to keep it as the title of our opening sequence.

Audience Feedback Video:

As a further addition to our research, we decided to include the audience in what their opinions were  about the first draft of our opening sequence - what they liked and dislikes - followed by what aspects they thought we needed to change.

From this video, we learned what mistakes we had made whilst producing the sequence; here are a list of some:

 "I think you need to make your story line a bit clearer"

Previously, the opening sequence had seemed unclear because we did not include any indication as to how Hannah turned from 'good' to 'bad'. Originally, we believed that this created a greater sense of enigma but it lead to the audience being too confused. To amend this, we added in a section in the middle of the sequence briefly showing Hannah being washed in a bath, surrounded by excessively clean doctors equipment leading the audience to understand that Hannah has been kidnapped with the intention of harm towards her.

Here are some of the images from the montage of short clips showing the changes we made to our opening sequence regarding the criticisms about the unclear storyline

"The subtitles are hard to read, so maybe you could change the font"

The subtitles were initially difficult to read because of our predominant white and blue colour scheme . We experimented with using darker fonts such as black and blue for our subtitles, however it did not look professional so we decided to keep the font as white.Moreover, we took this criticism into great consideration and we ended up adding a shadow to the back of our white font as this made it easier for the audience to read. So even over the white surface (below on Hannah's fingers) the audience was still able to read the subtitles.

Camera/Audio/Editing/Mise-En-Scene:

I have made direct connections between the audience and what is on the screen in order to attract and draw them in. As aforementioned, my use of close-ups allowed the audience to form a sense of belonging with Hannah as she breaks the fourth wall, this means Hannah is semi-interacting with the audience making them feel as if they are actually there. The extreme close up on 

 Hannah's eyes is a seriously intimidating shot as it looks directly to the audiences eyes which directly addresses them.

The slow motion used in specific shots builds up an intense atmosphere which grabs the audiences attention, this in conjunction with the non-diegetic slow to fast paced music inflicts horror on the audience.

The use of a fast paced montage engages the audience by the audience having to watch and keep up with the ever changing scene; the engima codes in which it brings makes the audience want to carry on watching.

Evaltuation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS: 

Audience demographics are the natural features of a specific person this could be specified through: their age, gender, class and ethnicity. In the media, audiences are targeted through these separate demographics and I will talk about who my target audience for MUTE is.

AGE:

For the opening sequence to MUTE, our BBFC age rating is an 18 because of the mature themes throughout the rest of our film. However, even though it is rated an 18, the age group in which we would most associate and target audience as 15-24 years old as a 15 year old may be mature enough to watch the uncomfortable themes as it entirely depends on the person. Also, this age group would be the target audience as the characters within the film e.g. Hannah who is a teenage girl and is the main protagonist and victim. We stopped the target age group at age 24 as after this age someone may rather watch a more sophisticated drama than a horror/thriller.

NRS CLASSIFICATIONS (CLASS):

The social class of the target audience of the film MUTE would most likely be from grade E through to C2 as many of the audience would most likely be made up by students and working class young adults; the lower grades (E) would make up the majority of the target audience as the film may be more enticing an intriguing to a younger audience because of the relatable young character of Hannah.

GENDER:

In mute there is really no specification to gender as both male and female are part of my target audience. Women , being the primary audience, are represented through the use of the protagonist Hannah, the women watching may feel a deeper connection of empathy towards her character. Additionally, as Hannah is seen as an unconventional woman who is independent and doesn't rely on men, this may empower women so they may watch for those reasons.

On the other hand, men, being the secondary audience, may watch MUTE for their own satisfaction and possibly pleasure when watching the female character Hannah; we have used Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze throughout the opening sequence with the use of mise-en-scene through make up, costume and props, with scenes of Hannah sucking on a lollipop (with sexual connotations) additionally to being dressed in an outfit mirroring one of a school-girl also, when 'bad Hannah' is introduced, the use of bold red lipstick has sexual connotations.

ETHNICITY:

In MUTE, our representation of ethnicity is shown through the character of Hannah and through our anonymous Spanish speaking voice over. The Spanish voice over strengthens Alvrado's 4 key theory and enforces the fear that ethnic minorities have on to the predominantly Caucasian British audience as the antagonist in the film is of non-British decent. Hannah depicts to the audience that the white woman are seen as victims, which may want the audience to sympathise with her - therefore creating a Caucasian target audience. Therefore the ethnicity of the target audience would apply most to the Caucasian, British population.

AUDIENCE PSYCHOGRAPHICS 

The audience psychographics are what makes up the person; this can be identified through their interests, lifestyle and needs. 

As our opening sequence challenges some conventions of opening the target audience would be far from mainstream. Most likely the people who would have the most interest in MUTE would be individualists who are also seekers and adventurers as they want to discover something on screen which is a complete juxtaposition to real life. In MUTE a number of disastrous things happen to the character Hannah ultimately making her change her persona to the binary opposite from overjoyed to depressed - to a shadenfruede audience this would be ideal as they enjoy seeing others at misfortune as throughout the opening sequence her happiness and sanity deteriorate. Additionally, the audience for MUTE may be voyeuristic and enjoy to watch Hannah and not be seen themselves by the characters on screen; in our opening sequence there are several shots of Hannah unaware she is being filmed, one particular shot where she is laughing in slow motion and the ambient non-diegetic horror-esque music is introduced to emphasise this.

The type of people who I would associate the most to be the target audience would be a heterosexual couple in their early 20's who have an interest into horror films. They would be of the working class and would be fairly laid back and informal. However, the target audience may be fashionable with what they wear and with the latest trends as MUTE is a very up to date film in terms with costume, hair and makeup; so they could be associated with the occupation of retail assistants, stylists or hairdressers.

When looking into Blumer and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory through Hannah, it allows the audience to have a 'Personal Relationship' with her as the sympathy/empathy expressed towards her could allow the audience to not feel alone; even though the melancholy tone to the plot, MUTE may include escapers to the secondary audience as they could feel support from the character Hannah throughout. 

Evaluation 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 A film distributor is a company or individual that holds the responsibility for the marketing for a film. Therefore, it is the distributors role to advertise /market their media product, in this instance - the particular film. They may advertise the product through different techniques such as trailers, posters, billboards, etc. A film distributor may inform the audience to when the film release date is, either in the cinema or on DVD or Blu-ray. Distribution companies also have a dictation on what cinemas the films are screened in (e.g. Odeon, Vue, Empire Cinemas) and how long their film is aired on screen in the cinema for. It may be a participant in deciding whether the film is to be shown on film websites such as: Netflix, Amazon Prime and Lovefilm. It is very important to market your media product so the audience may become as broad as possible and that everyone included in the production, distribution and marketing of the film is able to achieve a decent profit. 

It could be said that smaller, more unsuccessful films benefit more from their distributors, this is because through the companies they are able to gain maximum profit and customers. Some successful examples of distribution/production companies are: Blumhouse Productions and Bounty Films. Smaller production/distribution companies may also benefit from film festival events such as 'London Film Festival' and 'Sundance Film Festival' as they allow all members of the film industry to become more nationally identified. Smaller film companies rely on the distribution methods as they may not have the finances to hire large, well known actors/actress' to star in their films, which would naturally attract and target the audience.

Blumhouse Productions is an American based horror specialised production company; by this I mean, the production company specialises in the horror genre by producing, distributing and marketing horror films. Blumhouse Productions was foundered and is run by Jason Blum. Additionally, Blumhouse Productions is one of the most recognised horror production companies, distributing the likes of Insidious, The Conjuring, Sinister and the Paranormal Activity franchise - all extremely successful and globally known horror films. The films in which Blumhouse produces are all low budget films, this means that the company 

Blumhouse Productions logo

can gain maximum profit from the film afterwards. For example, the first Paranormal Activity was made on the low budget of $15,000 and it managed to gross and eventually make $193 million worldwide. This would be a good production/distribution company to use for our opening sequence MUTE as it would be an under-budgeted film and would need to make as much profit as possible, as students we would not be able to fund very much; our opening sequence cost us only about £10 on props all together so mathematically if MUTE was to gross and make the same rate of money as Paranormal Activity did, it could earn us up to £12,876. We additionally took some inspiration from Bumhouse's Sinister and its Lawnmower scene - as we liked the use of 'home movies', this could allow our media product to be represented by Blumhouse Productions as our distributor, marketer and producer. Also, as our opening sequence is of the Horror/Thriller genre it fits into the specifications for Blumhouse Productions distribution company - therefore, there would be a possibility that Blumhouse could distribute our media product. 

20th Century Fox's logo

Another Production Company which would be appropriate to distribute our film MUTE would be 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox are an extremely successful conglomerate film and television production company; it has  distributed the likes of American Horror Story, The Simpsons, Star Wars trilogy and many more diverse films and television series. 20th Century Fox was foundered by Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck on the 31st of May 1935 and is also an American based company. As the company contains more then one genre of media, it could be said that it can broaden their audience as the target audience would be generally more diverse than a one genre based company; this would possibly increase their income and popularity; resulting in more jobs, larger profit and larger awareness of the company. 20th Century Fox's marketing methods may vary from: in cinema trailers, television trailers, previews, red carpet events (as their actors/actresses are more likely to be larger celebrities).


I have used 20th Century Fox as an example of a distribution company as some of our inspiration for our opening sequence MUTE has stemmed from 'American Horror Story' and its uses of fast paced montages and is from the horror genre also. The opening sequence to the first three seasons is of a similar unconventional style to MUTE as it contains various glitches and disturbing ambient/non-diegetic music. Although American Horror Story is a television series there are many similarities between it and MUTE. If 20th Century Fox were to distribute our opening sequence in a film I feel as if it would be very successful due to MUTE's unconventional interdependent features. Our use of a hybrid genre of Horror/Thriller wouldn't necessarily be important to 20th Century Fox because it is a multi-genre company and has products of many diverse genres. However, because of American Horror Story's success in the media industry leads us to believe that, because MUTE is similar in style, it would be made very profitable and internationally known film.

Here are the opening credits to American Horror Story:

Glitch Studios, named after the special editing techniques in its products, is the production company in which our group was able to form for our film opening sequence; as it is an independent company its methods of distribution and marketing would differ from that of 20th Century Fox or Blumhouse Productions. The use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may play a crucial role of targeting the audience nationally on a low or no budget. It could still get recognition but not as much as the other conglomerates.

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence MUTE we have represented several different social groups such as women, teenagers and ethnic groups. Visually, throughout our opening sequence there is only once character displayed on the screen, this being 'Hannah', she is portrayed (at the beginning)to be  an innocent and vulnerable teenage girl, which follows to become seriously a corrupt and Gothic character towards the end. With the use of our voice over different ethnic groups are represented to mostly be antagonistic as in many western films this is the conventional view.

Hannah - MUTE

Women in the Media

In film (and everyday life) there are strong stereotypical views on females which represent them to be seen as predominantly weaker and inferior than the male gender. Throughout history women have always been seen as worth less than men - only within the last century were women allowed to vote (due to the suffragette movement)! The traditional role of women is conventionally to get married,  have children and then they are seen to subvert themselves to their dominant husband; Because of the stereotypical vulnerability that they hold this conventionally makes the women be the victim in many horror films. In the media, women are usually represented in two binary opposites; one being a Madonna and the other being a Whore - this is theoretically known Sigmund Freud's Madonna/Whore Complex. An example of a film which includes this theory is a scene in The Breakfast Club (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EbZ_F4VbwE) where two of the only female characters are discussing the subject of sex. A Madonna is a woman who is seen to be the pure angelic virgin who men would want to be the mother of their children, opposed to the whore who is woman to mess about with in the mean time before the men settle down. Also, in the media women can be viewed as simply a sexual object to give sexual pleasure and made to be more desirable to the heterosexual male, this is known as Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze (1975). In the media the male gaze may be achieved through seductive shots of the women which make them appear desirable. The editors of the film may use effects such as slow motion to exaggerate the sexual nature of the women an example of this is the opening sequence to Jennifer's Body (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_jriX8B_lY) , where the camera slowly traces up Megan Fox's body it forces the heterosexual male audience to appreciate and find satisfaction in her youthful body.


Teenagers in the Media

In the media teenagers are stereotypically represented as rude, lazy and disobedient. Films and TV series such as Skins and Project X display the teenage generation to be rebellious towards society conventionally by what they do in their free time; this may include illegally consuming drugs and alcohol in addition to having dangerous unprotected sex - because of this the view of them being irresponsible. Teenagers are also conventionally seen as misunderstood by the older (and younger) generations because of their adolescent surge of hormones. Although, most teenagers in society don't conform to these negative stereotypes, the few that do are the ones who create the negative image which is commonly held. Another damaging stereotype held by people is that teenagers are seen as violent

Project X

Skins

and intimidating. In the British television drama Top Boy, it illustrates the unfortunate lives of teenagers living in a conventional council estate in Central London; the teenagers are entangled in the growing drug culture and hang round the streets of London in intimidating gangs. TV Show's alike this set the destructive over exaggerated stereotypes against youths- if they are depicted this way by the media, it may influence the way  people build up their ideologies towards the certain group.


Ethnicity in the Media

Zero Dark Thirty - Torture Scene

In western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America the media often represent different ethnic groups in very different ways. As Britain is predominantly known as a Caucasian population the 'White man' is represented and signified as very powerful and authoritative over other ethnic minorities.  Historically, the white man has through time always been seen as empowered purely due to the fact of the British colonisation and the slave trade that took place in numerous third world countries - because of this, the ethnic minorities were seen as the white man's possessions; even though this ideology is harsh and racist it was entirely true less than 100 years ago. In the American made film Zero Dark Thirty the middle-eastern Islamic men are represented to be evil, linked to Osama Bin Laden and are the prisoners to the white men.  Alvrado's Four Key Theme theoretically backs up the point I have previously made, it stress' how ethnic minorities are represented in film as scary, 'other' and most definitely the enemy. The usage of different languages is enigmatic to the British/American audiences as there is a mystery as to what is being said and expressed; this leads to a the representation of other ethnic groups to be sly, sneaky and untrustworthy.

Representations we have used in MUTE.

In our opening sequence, as stated aforementioned in the introduction, there are different representations of Women, teenagers and ethnic minorities. With our usage of 'Hannah' we have created several conventional and unconventional features to represent Women  and Teenagers. Our usage of the Spanish voice over also signifies conventional views of ethnic minorities in the media.

Conventional:
Some of the representations and characteristics that we have used in MUTE to form the character 'Hannah'  are seen as conventional when looking at 'women' and 'teenagers' in the media. Throughout our opening sequence there is an ever-present hint of sexuality from the Hannah throughout; this supports theorists such as Laura Mulvey and Sigmund Frued. The sexual nature may be identified through the mis-en-scene such as Hannah's lollipop which she is filmed to be sucking on - this to the audience may have two separate connotations: the first being Hannah is child-like by eating and holding sweets, whereas the second being Hannah is a sexualised young lady with the lollipop prop being displayed as a sexual innuendo. 

Another idea to support Frued's Madonna/Whore complex is Hannah's white outfit. The outfit Hannah is wearing denotes purity, innocence and possibly virginity the conventional 'Madonna'. As a result, the representation of teenagers is seen as conventionally 'childish' and highlights and signifies Hannah's immaturity.
       Also, in our opening sequence there are several close up shots of Hannah unconscious in a bath and she appears to be being washed by another person. In addition, there are several high angled, extreme close up's of Hannah's face - both represent women as being vulnerable which is definitely conventional in the media and especially films in the horror genre.
      Our Spanish voice-over (spoken by our antagonist) meets the conventional representation of ethnic minorities. The voice-over creates a confusion to the audience as to who is speaking and can make the audience fearful of him - this is backed up by Alvrado's Four Key Racial Theme.

   Additionally, at one point in the opening sequence Hannah is filmed whilst she is crying; this is conventional as women are seen as emotional and hormonal, this gives Hannah a weakness.

Unconventional:

On the other hand, in our opening sequence we have represented different social groups in many unconventional ways. Throughout the scene, it is clear that Hannah is extremely independent because she is the only character that is seen on the screen and (from viewing the opening sequence) it is clear that she is always alone. This challenges the normal convention that 'women are dependent on others' - stereotypically dependent on men - as they are conventionally seen as inferior and vulnerable so it is unusual and unconventional to see an independent woman. 

        Another unconventional feature we have used which challenges the representation of teenagers is 'happy' Hannah. In the first part of the opening sequence Hannah is seen to be laughing and chatting away to an unknown/invisible (to the audience) person. Conventionally teenagers are seen as miserable and uncommunicative, in the part 1 of the opening sequence Hannah is represented as the binary opposite.

We chose to represent Hannah in this way to the audience so people can really get into her corrupt character and understand why she is the way she is; how manipulation towards an innocent character can physically and emotionally scar them. The juxtaposition between Hannah at the beginning and end emphasises the massive change in which she, the victim, has undergone to get to where she is today.

Evaluation 1

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

In a real life film opening sequence, many codes and conventions are used to set up the structure of the entire film that follows. From film opening sequences that I have previously analysed, it has been made apparent to me what similarities and differences they all share, irrelevant of the genre. For example, some films may begin with an establishing shot (this being to give the audience an idea of where the film is taking place, e.g The Shining); Juxtaposing that, some opening sequence may start with no introduction to characters or settings and will create Roland Barthes' enigma code by beginning with something which will question the audience and create a sense of mystery, for example 'who are they', 'where are they', 'what are they doing' (an example of this being Se7en). Many will begin with an equilibrium, as the destruction to follow will excite the audience later on. Most importantly the opening sequence may give away some foreshadowing to let the audience understand what may happen further into the film.

In our opening sequence MUTE we made sure to follow certain codes and conventions to make our product as realistic as possible. We took into account various codes such as Roland Barthes' enigma codes as, we believe, without them it would simply make the opening sequence uninteresting. The way in which we used Barthes' enigma code was by our usage and the early introduction of the character of Hannah. To the audience, they will have no clue who 'she' is and why 'she' is doing what she is doing, her transition from good to bad may leave many questions for the audience to come up with that would be answered later on in the film; we found the narrative enigma very successful for making a realistic product. We haven't given too much away in the opening sequence at all, we have used a convention of introducing the main character very early on but still the audience doesn't know who she is at all.

'Bad' Hannah

Another conventional code of an opening sequence in which we used is the audio to build an uneasy atmosphere with the use of non-diegetic sounds (such as music and sound effects). As the characters on screen can not hear the sounds that the audience can the noises may startle the audience. Many production companies use this technique to draw their audience in - an example of an opening sequence which uses this convention is the opening sequence to Insidious 2010. After watching the opening sequence to Trainspotting I really liked the conventional usage of a voice over as it makes a more in depth connection to the audience; so in our opening sequence we used a voice-over, however ours being in Spanish. We began our opening sequence with the conventional usage of  production logo (Glitch Studios) which was created by Blake, we chose our name due to our editing techniques as it does involve many 'glitchy' images; this made our product seem more professional in addition to mirroring a 'real' product. Additionally, at the end, our title is also a conventional code of an opening sequence - adding to that, the font and colours in which we have used for it are very professional allowing our product to seem more realistic.

Mute; Title

Mute; Production Logo

However, even though our aim was to make something that seems realistic, for my group it was our aim to create a product which is more challenging and unconventional even if it meant using different codes to many 'real' products. In MUTE we decided to use the unconventional Alvorado's four key racial theme; we achieved this by the usage of our Spanish voice over by the antagonist of the film. The predominantly English audience may find the Spanish voice over as a threat and create a dangerous element which foreshadows events later on in the film. Another unconventional code in which we used to create our opening sequence is, our usage of motif's throughout; for the opening sequence we decided to stick to the unconventional non-horror-genre colours of blue and white because we felt it made our product appear slightly uncomfortable for the audience. As our entire film is based upon our fictional clean-freak antagonist, so the colours blue and white- these connote and signify a very clean and sterile atmosphere which completely juxtapose the evil intentions in the film aimed towards Hannah. Another unconventional feature in our opening sequence is the fact it was a montage of short clips with no diegetic audio, this allowed us to enforce an uneasy/confused atmosphere to the audience as the placements of the clips are non-chronological; we found this to be a successful technique as many horror/thriller films begin by throwing the audience straight into the action, we challenged this common theme by easing the audience into a background of the main character. Another unusual and unconventional feature of our opening sequence is graphic matching, we managed to do this by matching a clip of Hannah's eye to food colouring in a bath. We liked this as we thought it was unusual and interesting - we achieved this by cross-fading the two images together.

GIF of our usage of graphic matching

Some conventions that we have used in our opening sequence were inspired by other horror films. As our opening sequence is stylized as a montage we managed to get our inspiration/starting point from opening sequences such as The Girl and The Dragon Tattoo; this opening sequence being extremely successful and unforgettable. However, we managed to challenge the convention of montage's in an opening sequence by dividing our opening into 3 separate (and distinctive) parts - these being 'Good Hannah' 'Taken Hannah' and 'Bad Hannah' as before I haven't seen an opening sequence with 3 separate parts to it. Our usage of ambient and non-diegetic sound is also very similar to the sound effects in the opening sequence of Insidious as it creates an enigmatic atmosphere. I believe that these conventions make our opening sequence seem 'legitimate' to the observing audience.

Film Poster - MUTE

Here I have created a possible film poster for our opening sequence MUTE. I have used the combined online editors of Pixlr and PicMonkey. I have included the film title in bold and large writing, this may attract the audience as they would be intrigued to see what 'MUTE' is. Additionally, I have added only the age rating in the corner to reiterate that the poster is for a film. The black and white poster is juxtaposed by the blue eyes - this signifies the uses of our motif's throughout.

Final Opening Sequence

MUTE - Final Piece

Here is the final piece to our opening sequence 'MUTE', we hope that you enjoy it.
 (Select highest quality)

Audience Feedback: Mute

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Today at school we gathered a group of students and teachers to watch our opening sequence 'Mute'  and we asked for permission to film them leaving their feedback on it. Overall the comments were positive. Although, there were a few negative comments this will help us to improve our opening scene. Here we put together a video of the responses:



 

Costume + Hair and Makeup

COSTUME + HAIR AND MAKE-UP

HAIR AND MAKE-UP

Whilst filming, I took photos of the costumes, hair and make-up which I put together earlier on in the day. To begin with I will look at the hair and make-up followed by the costumes.

In this first look, I gave Hannah a very sweet and innocent feel, the pink eye shadow denotes femininity. Additionally, the lack of makeup suggests and denotes youth- she has a long life to live, she is happy and has no worries. Her hair also backs up the idea of innocence with her soft and bouncy curls in the bottom of her hair; this is quite alike to how a conventional little white girl would have her hair.

In this look I used a smokey eye and a deep wine red lipstick. The smokey eyes connote that she is a dark character 'the eyes are the window to the soul' and hers are covered in blacks and greys this suggests that her soul may be dark and malevolent. The wine red lips definitely give off sexual connotations, it signifies availability but also, her maturity is emphasised.  Reds and blacks are both colours that can be associated with horror and blood and death, this follows our genre of horror/thriller. The hair is slicked back away from her face, this could denote confidence, on the other hand, it may denote vulnerability.

COSTUME

We chose to place Hannah in this outfit to make her appear as child-like as possible, The white tennis skirt resembles a school girl skirt which exaggerates how young she is. Also, converse pumps are seen as very juvenile. The reasoning behind her whole outfit being white is the colour white connotes purity, innocence and clenliness - Hannah resembles all of these at the beginning of the opening sequence where she is seen as happy.

In this second outfit Hannah is dressed very differently, she is in very dark colours of black and navy blue - which connote her unstable emotions and dark soul; black in general connotes death, hate and nothing (she feels as if she is nothing). The jeans which she was wearing are more masculine as opposed to her previous outfit which was extremely girly. Her outfit shows her to have a different persona and signifies how something has happened to her to make her be like this. The high heels represent and denote maturity whilst the fur coat connotes that she may be a cold-hearted person.

Audio

AUDIO

For our opening sequence the group and I have found and made some music, sound effects and voice overs to use. Here is what we have uses, more specifically:

MUSIC

Originally, we found it quite hard to find music suitable for our theme. Our opening sequence is really split into two sections where Hannah is innocent and where she is rebellious and dark, so we really needed two separate soundtracks to represent this change.

We decided on using 'Little Cloud' by Johnny Ripper for part 1 and 'Techtonic Shift' on Free play music.

'Little Cloud' is a very calming slow paced song, it fits our beginning half of the opening sequence as it creates an angelic atmosphere.

'Tectonic Shift' contrasts this with the eerie-ness in which it creates. However, to achieve the atmosphere in which we have it was with help of the sound effects.

Here is where we got our music from:

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/johnny_ripper/

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search.aspx?q=tectonic%20shift

SOUND EFFECTS

In our opening sequence, the sound effects have played a vital role in building up an atmosphere. We have used a series of sound effects such as:

• Glitch noises
• TV glitches
• Reversed laughing
• 'Boom' effect
• Ear ringing effects
• 'Shh' sound effect

Without these sound effects the audio would sound bland and would leave a dull atmosphere. Although, we did find it quite difficult to place the sound effects at the appropriate times; it took a while for us to get the hang of it. In my opinion, the best person to do it was Hannah.

VOICE OVER

For our voice over we chose to take Alvrado's Four Key Racial Theme into play and decided on a Spanish man (the actual killer) to do a voice over in Spanish. To a predominantly white, British audience the idea of a foreign man having a conversation to the audience may throw them off-guard. On a Friday after school, Alice and I went to Alice's house to start filming with her older brother Harry (who studies Spanish at Portsmouth University) saying our script but in Spanish, On the whole, it took us about an hour and a half to begin and finish this, Here is a sneak peak of our voice-over in MUTE:

Production Logos

PRODUCTION LOGO

In an opening sequence it is a convention to include the production logo before the beginning of the film so the production company is recognised. Some conventional horror production companies are Blumhouse Productions (producers of Insidious), another example being Twisted Pictures (producers of SAW). In our opening sequence it is essential for the group and I to create one of our own

production logo to feature at the beginning of our opening credits. We are thinking of naming our production company something along the lines of 'Glitch Productions' or 'Glitch Studios' as the editing we have used whilst creating it includes several glitches to create a confusion and retrospective views.

Our ideal is to create something along the lines of this:

As the hand hits the window the production logo will show; It is our idea to include an ambient bang sound effect to make it seem more dramatic to the audience whilst using an earthquake effect to make the screen shake once this has happened. 

SHOOTING AND EDITING

Previously we unsuccessfully shot a brief production logo, as it did not go to plan we ended up shooting it for a second time. After shooting we edited the production together by using programmes on the mac called  LiveType and Final Cut Express. Here is a GIF and a video of our final production logo.

Mute: Target Audience

For our film Mute the group and I have decided on a suitable target audience:

Breifly, to establish the gender; Because our film theme is horror/thriller a predominantly male audience would like to view this. This is because men are conventionally seen as more 'risk takers' than the more conventionally 'vulnerable' women. However, the secondary audience may be women as one of the main characters is a woman, so they can empathise along with her character.
  The age group of which I believe is suitable for our opening sequence is 18-30 as it is of a mature theme. Mature themes such as: mature language, torture, violence and rape. As the film is based in the United Kingdom the ethnicity of majority of the characters are Caucasian and British, therefore the audience of the film would also predominantly be White, British. The social class for this film would be C2 Working Class because it is not very sophisticated or formal so it wouldn't apply to anyone above the Working Class. The sexuality would most likely be Straight as there is no representations of homo/bisexuals in the film. The demographics of the audience would be explorers, as I find our opening sequence has something very different to offer. The type of people to watch our film would be a male and female couple late at night (as it does include the aforementioned mature scenes).

Motif's in Films

MOTIFS IN FILMS


In many films certain motifs are used throughout; this may lead someone being able to identify a film just because of the motif that is repeated throughout. Some examples of this are in Human Centipede 2 with the representation of the centipede itself; and in Sinister being the child killers. The use of motifs is very effective as it can give a film a theme to go from.

MOTIF'S IN OUR OPENING SEQUENCE


In our film Mute we have based the whole of our opening sequence around the colours blue and white. In horror films, conventionally, the usage of the colours red and black are most common as they denote death, blood, war etc- so for our film opening sequence we wanted to create something more uncommon and unconventional. To do this we have used to motif of the repetition of the usage of the colours blue and white. With these colours we were able to create an uneasy overly-clean atmosphere to fit our story line - it contrasts the conventions of horror but it still works.
Also, I like that we have used blue as a motif as towards the beginning of our opening sequence because we have used it to edit the colours of the actual footage, it makes it appear very vivid and cold and I think it works very successfully.