2. In what way does your media products use develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products? My A-level media film introduction adheres to the convention of my chosen genre. My media product’s genre is a J-horror genre, a J-horror film introduction. I have made this genre stand out and very obvious in my product. My group made it clear by making it obvious in the representation of my media product, as the ethnicity of the characters in my film introduction were Asian, they were not Japanese however they fit into the Oriental character, (Myself and another group member Jamila), fitting our ethnicity into the J-horror genre. We chose to use only Asian characters in our movie as we had to follow the conventions of a J-Horror and wouldn’t make sense if the main characters were non-Asian.

3. We followed another genre convention of J-horror by including a typical ‘Yurei’ type ghost in our film introduction, again following J-Horror conventions, as referring to popular J-Horror movies such as ‘The Ring’ and ‘The Grudge’, both have the typical Yurei ghosts, as well as many other J-Horrors. We included the Yurei ghost played by actor and group member Jamila, because me and my group thought that it would make our J-Horror more a realistic J-Horror, as the Yurei ghost is a very popular and well-known J-Horror genre convention as Yurei ghosts are famous ghosts that are ghosts that still haunt the Earth because they have unfinished business and that fitted in well with our narrative, as the Yurei ghost in our narrative still had incomplete business left on Earth and had to seek revenge on her killers, or anyone who would find her comic book and read it.

4. The films that have inspired me and my group the most, are ‘The Grudge’ and ‘The Ring’, this is because the ideas the directors Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu used were very effective and extremely creative. Both narratives of the two J-Horror movies were very well structured and the actions were terrifying, scaring audiences everywhere, making those films impossible to forget. The narrative of ‘The Grudge’ and the haunting of the woman and the little boy directed by Shimizu were very creative, the mise-en-scene used for the location of where the woman and little boy got murdered, in the dark simple house, was very effective, as the house used in the movie suited the narrative a lot.

5. Having the boy hold the banisters at the top and actor Sarah Michelle Gellar come in and being shocked by him was very effective, as the audience wouldn’t expect the little boy to be holding the banisters as it is an unusual thing for a ghost to do, but in terms of representation, the boy was quite young, looked about 8 years old therefore Takashi decided to place the little boy at the top of the stairs holding the banisters to show his childishness and innocence, also giving a sense of entrapment off to the audience, almost making the audience feel pathos for the little boy however wary of him as he is evil now being dead but still haunting trying to seek revenge along with his dead Yurei dead mother. However in ‘The Ring’, Nakata used a much more deathly narrative, still along the supernatural and spiritual haunting theme however now in a more creative way, having a video if played and watched by someone, a Yurei ghost will come out of the video and haunt them, and have an intention on killing them. I was inspired by this idea of Nakata, because it’s unusual and is not the typical house haunting type narrative however, Nakata uses a much more creative idea of having the Yurei ghost being trapped in this virtual world with its only hope of escaping and let free by a viewer of the video. We were mostly inspired by the Yurei ghosts and hauntings from these two movies because our media product’s narrative included the theme of spiritual haunting, so we followed this genre convention of having a Yurei ghost because we thought it would be more effective. We followed the type of costume a Yurei ghost would typically wear in a typical J-horror movie, including the white dress clothing, and the make-up they would have, pale powdered face, and dark black rings around the eyes. In our media product we also gave our Yurei actor red cuts, done by lipstick and bruises made from eye-shadow, showing that our Yurei character had died a horrific death and wants to seek revenge on anyone she can on Earth and her killers.

6. My media product represents particular social groups such as working and middle class, because, me and my group set the location of our media product in an working environment and space as we set it in our school, making our media product much more suitable for audiences such as students to watch as it can relate to them because of the type of environment the location our film introduction is set. My social class is represented by having the main character Natsuko who is a student in our film introduction, being made look like a Japanese student, wearing uniform (A short grey formal skirt, and shirt) representing student life and the younger generation, epitomising social groups such as students and working class people. This social group we represented in my media product is typical in relation to other film presentations such as in K-Horror ‘Memento Mori’, the location is set in an all-girls high school, having the girls wear uniform, just like the main character in our film introduction, as she is wearing uniform as well. Me dressed up as my character Natsuko, as you can see I got influenced by asian style uniform for my J-Horror.

7. In terms of representation, the ethnicity in our film introduction is completely Asian-Oriental as we thought this would be more effective almost as if the film introduction is set somewhere in Asia, making it seem more realistic in terms of the Oriental Asian culture, however in terms of gender, our film introduction uses strictly females only, we only used the female gender in our film introduction because we thought that we’d go by the stereotypical ‘dumb antagonist’ of a stupid yet curious female that wouldn’t know what she’d get herself into, and yet do certain things where she is most vulnerable. For example, in our film introduction the antagonist Natsuko gets trapped in a theatre being locked by spiritual hauntings by the Yurei ghost Yuki, however, a chair is shown in the centre with a spotlight suddenly turn on in the middle of the theatre, Natsuko stupidly goes and sits down on the chair, unaware of the next experiences the comic book will give her having her read it awakening the spirit of Yuki. Realistically, nobody would sit on a chair in the dark in a spotlight after being locked inside a theatre due to hauntings, however we show the stupid nature of main character Natsuko by having her decide to sit on the chair and read the book that may cause her death and evil torture.

8. Obviously in my media product, ethnic minority groups are represented, Asian groups are represented, this is because my media product is a J-Horror and for a J-Horror the main characters have to fall into the Asian category, in order for the film introduction to be more realistic. The two characters we used for this were myself and Jamila as both of us are Asian, and Jamila suited to be the Yurei ghost as she has a much more lighter and paler skin complexion than me and I have a much more darker skin complexion to her, therefore contrasting against each-other, as to why we gave the characters names ‘Yuki’ and ‘Natsuko’ highlighting the significance of names contrasting against one another to suit our characters, ‘Yuki’ meaning snow and ‘Natsuko’ meaning summer child, in Japanese – again following the Japanese culture conventions. Actor Jamila dressed up as Yurei ghost

9. In general, in my film introduction, teenagers were only used, no adults were used at all, and in terms of the representation of the teenagers, the character Natsuko is represented in a very strict student way, wearing sensible uniform clothing, suiting the location of the film showing her belonging to the environment of the school, and going by the narrative. She is represented as smart however, stupid when it comes to being curious as she’s the type of teenager who is easily very intrigued by small things. In terms of the other teenager in my film introduction ‘Yuki’, we can’t really see her following the conventions of a teenager as she is not represented as a student as she is a Yurei ghost in our film introduction, however, the audience can tell that she is quite young as we can see her characteristics and face quite clearly because of the lighting in the Theatre, showing off her face to the audience, reassuring the audience that in the narrative she died young, which makes sense as to why she is haunting another teenage girl. We didn’t use any adults in our media product because we didn’t think it would fit well having adults in it, because our actors were young, we didn’t think having an adult as an actor in our media product would make that much sense.

10. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The type of media institution that might distribute my media product may be ‘Platinum Dunes’, which is a production company, this is because Platinum Dunes has been experienced with distributing horror films such as ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘Nightmare of Elm Street’. Platinum Dunes may distribute my media product as it is a horror, and goes under the conventions of a typical Japanese Horror, and Platinum Dunes distributes Horror movies, therefore Platinum Dunes might distribute my media product. In terms of synergy, two companies that could possibly merge and help each-other for the benefit of the other and distribute my media product could be ‘Platinum Dunes’ merging with ‘Toei company’, this is because Platinum Dunes is experienced with producing Horror movies and Toei company is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution corporation, which could help my media product with fame in Japan, being advertised on television and with the help of Platinum Dunes producing my media product whilst Toei company distributing, both could help for the benefit of each-other by spreading my media product around and having my media product being watched by the world.

11. In terms of the benefits of a conglomerate between Platinum Dunes and Toei Company, these two companies could both use synergy when marketing my media product by marketing the film and totally saturate the market place, by advertising and getting my media product on televisions as a possible trailer or advert, bringing my media product to life, in the world of media, with the help of Toei Company and then eventually being produced by Platinum Dunes. If a viewer were to see that my J-Horror film introduction was produced by a famous production company such as Platinum Dunes, the more likely they will find my media product more reliable and the likely they would buy it as Platinum Dunes is famous for producing movies such as ‘Nightmare of Elm Street’ and ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ which are two extremely popular horror movies loved by horror lovers.

12. Who would be the audience for your media product? The audience for my media product would most probably be horror lovers, or J-Horror lovers, an audience who loves the thrill of being terrified with pop ups and horrific images. This is because other people may dislike Horrors in general and have a different taste in films, and also me and my group’s questionnaire we made before the process of making our film introductions helped me and my group find out who would be the right audience for my media product. The feedback showed us that in terms of age, J-Horrors should be shown to an audience, of people aged 15 and above, and to only people who prefer to watch J-Horror and don’t mind J-Horror or any types of Horror.I have reflected my audience in my classification choice because with the feedback me and my group got back, the majority of the people who took the questionnaire said that the suitable age for our J-Horror film introduction would be a 15, as it’s not that young and our J-Horror is not extremely horrifically scary and gory. However if it were to be extremely more gory, scary, including violence and sex then we would definitely move the classification up to an 18 making it permitted to be watched by a much older and mature audience.

13. How did you attract/address your audience? I attracted my audience by firstly creating a questionnaire for my audience to get more advice and feedback of what they think of J-Horrors, and many questions relevant to our media product and from the results I got more ideas of what my audience want to see, therefore doing what I can do that will help benefit my audience’s satisfaction with what they preferred to see. Me and my group took a detailed look at our questionnaire analysis and made sure we ticked all the boxes of what our audience preffered. In terms of uses and gratifications, we informed our audience through our group blog ‘http://cca-alevel.blogspot.com’, with all our initial ideas on there of our film introduction, for our audience to take a look at and see for themselves, we informed our audience with the process of our media product and the ideas we had for our film introduction and educated them with our research of J-Horror movies and directors that are our influences such as Hideo Nakata, and Takashi Shimizu. The way me and my group ensured that our audience are addressed as a result of your film was by uploading our film introduction and presenting it to the whole class, showing our film introduction to them and getting feedback from them was very helpful. The pleasure of our media product is that it is a finalized piece of a J-Horror film introduction that will satisfy our audience at our attempt of making a J-Horror introduction, and the point about it is to see what about it satisfied our audience, what we did well, and getting feedback in order to know how to improve the film introduction. In reference to Stuart Hall’s theory, a lot of the feedback we got was dominant and negotiable however we only got one oppositional comment in our feedback, which was that we needed to edit the titles at the beginning of the introduction, instead of putting the titles at the end of the intro, to put it in the beginning as our film introduction looked like a short 2 minute film, with the titles and credits at the end of the film introduction. However the dominant feedback we got was that our film introduction ticked the typical genre conventions of a J-Horror, the Yurei ghost, and screams shocked and scared our audience, and this we could tell by watching the faces of our audiences to see their reactions, and most of them were scared.

14. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Looking back at the preliminary task, what I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product is that I have learnt to use better shots and filming techniques rather than simple basic shots, such as 180 shots and tracking, and because of this it helped me think of much better ideas and developed my creativity and imagination even more. The planning was more developed and done better than in the preliminary task where we left it more last minute. I drew much better storyboards in the process of my film introduction and made it more detailed than my storyboards I drew for the preliminary task. The end result of my filming in this task was a successful film introduction that followed the genre conventions of a typical J-Horror movie, with a satisfied audience and with good dominant feedback. The strengths of in this task was being able to contribute a lot of work to the group and being more motivated. Other strengths were putting a lot of research and tasks done on the blog for the group, and staying behind school and coming to school on weekends to film and get a lot more tasks done. In terms of development, filming techniques I used were more developed and much more creative. Structuring my time to do different tasks for the blog was also a strength, instead of doing all tasks in one go, I divided my time making it much easier and less stressing for myself. The preliminary task helped me when it came to my creation of the real product because, the preliminary task was just a taster and starters for the real upcoming product, the real product was just a much more extended and longer version than the preliminary, and it helped as we used our preliminary task to see what shots we could use that were much better than shots we used, that were very basic in our preliminary and we used much more complex filming techniques and shots in our real product.

15. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? The technologies I used to present my portfolio, was in terms of the ideas, planning etc. The group blog online, http://cca-alevel.blogspot.com, and in terms of the media product itself, iMovie and burning it onto disk to present it. To shoot our sequence the technology I used was a Canon FS200 camcorder, to edit my sequence we used iMovie, and edited the film introduction on there, which we found not that difficult to do.

16. Overall I have learnt how to use better shots and use much developed, better and creative camera techniques, I have learnt how to divide my time equally for different tasks instead of doing everything in one go, I have learnt and have become more organised, and I have learnt how to save time instead of waste it waffling on tasks after they are already done. I have contributed to film introductions, the planning in terms of storyboarding, the prose of planning, costume and locations, location shots, putting on make-up for the actor, being an actor for my film introduction, helping create the initial ideas, and helping create the narrative with my group members.The areas where I was weak in, in this task, was trying to find film introductions online, as it was difficult to find them as the internet is full of viruses and it was difficult trying to watch introductions of movies online, and also it was time consuming.The skills that I want to develop are my research skills when it comes to institution research and also movies online research. The types of technologies I want to use now would be a much better high definition camera, instead of the Canon FS200, although it had high definition it was not that great of a quality, and there are much more better and high definition cameras out there that I could use instead of the Canon FS200. To conclude, I found the real product/film introduction exciting and a fun task to do, I found the group very helpful and it was much better than working individually as we all helped one another and developed our team-work skills.