Media Coursework Report

Media Coursework Report

Pre-production:

I decided to follow both horror and supernatural genres with my teen series, as it is starts with a mystery which stems from a supernatural cause and then as a result develops into a horror. I decided on twenty episodes for the first season and each would be half an hour. I chose to base the series in a school to relate to my target audience of teenagers. The majority of characters will be teenagers as well, including the protagonist – sixteen year old Hannah. The remaining characters will still be relatable to teens as they will be teachers and parents. Although following both genres I wanted the series to be more supernatural than horror with an element of mystery and fear of the unknown. To keep it interesting the protagonist will realise something is wrong with her new friendship and her parents and teachers before, even within the first episode. This is to keep it within the supernatural genre otherwise it would be a risk of being a teen drama. In my research I looked at a few American teen dramas within the supernatural/ horror genres such as Twisted, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars. All of these seemed to be based in a small conformist town in America, with a group of friends, a romance and a school setting. These shows seem to get a lot of interest from teenage audience, myself included, and so I followed their conventions.


Outline of series:


 Sixteen year old Hannah starts her summer with a big move to a new town. The town is small and old fashioned, and its as if everybody who lives there is stuck in their ways and moreover stuck in the past. The house she moves into is big and old to contribute to the eerie sense of the move and as an obvious component of a horror.  Hannah goes out to familiarise herself with her new surroundings and begins to resent her parents for the move as she doesn't like the new place and how quiet and conformist it is. She meets some people of a similar age down by a lake in a forest on the edge of town. She begins to become good friends with them and soon the summer has gone by and she has spent the majority of it with her new friends.


 Eventually summer is over and it is time to start school so she looks for her new friends on Facebook and finds it strange when she can't find them. After starting school she looks for the friends she spent summer with whilst in school but never sees them during only after when they meet by the lake. Her parents begin to worry when Hannah is never home and always out with her 'new friends', although never seen with them by the tight knit community. After being told that Hannah is often seen wandering and sitting alone her parents worry more and the school gets involved. Waiting outside for a parent teacher consultation about her she begins to look at the old photographs of previous school years on the wall by the office. Peering closely on the bottom left row of a photograph labelled 1972…she sees the familiar faces of the four friends she's been searching for.


The friends went missing shortly after the photograph was taken and were never found. The community do not talk of the friends as it is the biggest and most mysterious event to ever happen to the town and would jeapordise their ‘perfect’ reputation.

The idea behind Hannah thinking the friends are ‘real’ is similar to the film Sixth Sense however because it is series opposed to a film she will realise within the first few episodes.

The themes explored within the series include supernatural, horror, mystery, love, friendships, family and betrayal. In addition, each episode will have conventions of each theme and take on a new name with a hint to that episode’s content, for example:

1^st episode – The Move

2^nd episode - 1972

Production:

I started production by designing t shirts, bags, phone cases and a mug. To do this I used www.shirtinator.co.uk  and www.customink.com . After deciding against this I chose to try a DVD cover. I chose a dark colour to match the mysterious genre. The title comes from a font off the t shirt design website as I liked how it looked like a ransom note cut from newspaper letters as the disappearance would have been reported in a newspaper.  The background is made up of a chalk board to coincide with the school setting, in the same way ‘season1’ is written in chalk. I got the chalk font from a website called www.fontspace.com. I wanted both these titles to stand out as they attract the viewers.  I blended photos  on an app on my phone called ‘instantblend.’ I copied the names and producers from another DVD and ‘set transparent colour’ to get rid of the background. I also did this with the content guidance box and barcode.

I made my DVD cover using Microsoft Word and relied on the re-colour > ‘set transparent colour’ tool, the snipping tool to recapture images, cropping tool, text wrap (square) and different fonts/ colours available. I layered a lot and saved my work as a new image frequently.


Final Outcome:


After the photo shop workshop in class I decided to develop my DVD cover and try and use the Photoshop skills I learnt. From here I made my final piece which is a promotional poster for 'Never Found' and I often looked at posters for dramas such as The Vampire Diaries and other CW network shows for ideas to see ways in which they targeted a teen audience through their posters. I used an image of an eerie woodland setting and blended it with a jigsaw puzzle image from Google, removing the colour and changing puzzle image to gray scale as it was in bright colours. The puzzle was to coincide with the mystery theme throughout. From here I added the title and actor names and I wanted these to be quite bold and simple, with a small shadow to draw attention to it. Next I added the ITV2 logo as this is where most credited teen dramas are aired. Finally, I added in a photo from Google of what I picture the main protagonist to be like, as I feel this helps draw an audience in and gives them an insight helping attract them. I used the lasso tool to remove the background and just get the side of the girls face I wanted.