Friday, 24 April 2015
Final Draft of Film Opening- 'Past Revenge'
Monday, 13 April 2015
Evaluation Question 7
'Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?'
Planning- In the preliminary film, it didn't require a lot of planning as the film was only thirty seconds long. It took around a page of story boarding and as we hadn't done it before, it didn't look professional at all. The storyboard for the film opening, however, had much more detail and was much longer. We knew the key words to use much better and this helped when it came to actually filming. We followed by the storyboard. Also, for the preliminary film we had around half an hour between the planning and filming, however, between planning for the opening and actually filming we had the space of a few weeks, which definitely helped when it came to time management and we had much more time to make detailed planning in order to make our produce as effective as possible. We had to retake many times when making the preliminary film as the bad quality camera didn't stay focused for very long and we only took a limited range of shots, and now we know how to take a much larger variety of shots and were able to name them all.
Equipment/skills- Looking at the preliminary film, there are many shaky shots which we didn't think to retake and the angles are all fairly simple and conventional, such as close-ups and mainly long shots. However, the improvement can be seen when you see the final opening because there are a larger range of shots such as worm's eye views, extra long shots, and much more. Using the better quality camera helped us to improve the film because the microphone, tripods and cameras were much better quality so the entire quality is generally better. The first film we didn't even use a tripod for most of the shots and even the change of using an iPod makes the shots much smoother and don't move awkwardly or shake.
Editing/sound- seeing as we used a much higher technology program (Premiere Pro) to edit the film opening, the editing looks much better and the sound is also much better quality. The reason for the sound being better quality was that both the camera microphone quality is much higher and we used some music online, so we didn't just have the bad quality of the microphone from the flip camera. When editing the opening, the cuts are much tighter between each one and they all run a lot smoother, and the sounds we used create a multitude of feelings for the audience, creating a more overall satisfying experience for the audience. Using the soundtrack made the film much more tense as the music helped to create suspense, and made it all tie together a lot better, compared with the preliminary film when we only used the microphone on the camera and didn't have music in the background. Also, the titles helped the film to look a lot more professional and represented the narrative very well. Most professional films you will watch contain titles that make the film fit into a specific genre and help to create tension, and I believe inserting this into the opening helps it to look much more aesthetically appealing and professional compared with the preliminary film.
Teamwork- Over making our blogs work well together and filming the opening and preliminary film together, we have learned a lot about sharing out the workload equally and making the film as good quality as possible. The only communication we had during the making of the preliminary film was in lesson, whereas we learned that using communication techniques such as facebook messaging and text messaging we found it much more effective when it came to making and editing the opening. We all shared out the responsibilities equally when it came to filming, editing, and inserting sound and titles.
Planning- In the preliminary film, it didn't require a lot of planning as the film was only thirty seconds long. It took around a page of story boarding and as we hadn't done it before, it didn't look professional at all. The storyboard for the film opening, however, had much more detail and was much longer. We knew the key words to use much better and this helped when it came to actually filming. We followed by the storyboard. Also, for the preliminary film we had around half an hour between the planning and filming, however, between planning for the opening and actually filming we had the space of a few weeks, which definitely helped when it came to time management and we had much more time to make detailed planning in order to make our produce as effective as possible. We had to retake many times when making the preliminary film as the bad quality camera didn't stay focused for very long and we only took a limited range of shots, and now we know how to take a much larger variety of shots and were able to name them all.
Equipment/skills- Looking at the preliminary film, there are many shaky shots which we didn't think to retake and the angles are all fairly simple and conventional, such as close-ups and mainly long shots. However, the improvement can be seen when you see the final opening because there are a larger range of shots such as worm's eye views, extra long shots, and much more. Using the better quality camera helped us to improve the film because the microphone, tripods and cameras were much better quality so the entire quality is generally better. The first film we didn't even use a tripod for most of the shots and even the change of using an iPod makes the shots much smoother and don't move awkwardly or shake.
Editing/sound- seeing as we used a much higher technology program (Premiere Pro) to edit the film opening, the editing looks much better and the sound is also much better quality. The reason for the sound being better quality was that both the camera microphone quality is much higher and we used some music online, so we didn't just have the bad quality of the microphone from the flip camera. When editing the opening, the cuts are much tighter between each one and they all run a lot smoother, and the sounds we used create a multitude of feelings for the audience, creating a more overall satisfying experience for the audience. Using the soundtrack made the film much more tense as the music helped to create suspense, and made it all tie together a lot better, compared with the preliminary film when we only used the microphone on the camera and didn't have music in the background. Also, the titles helped the film to look a lot more professional and represented the narrative very well. Most professional films you will watch contain titles that make the film fit into a specific genre and help to create tension, and I believe inserting this into the opening helps it to look much more aesthetically appealing and professional compared with the preliminary film.
Teamwork- Over making our blogs work well together and filming the opening and preliminary film together, we have learned a lot about sharing out the workload equally and making the film as good quality as possible. The only communication we had during the making of the preliminary film was in lesson, whereas we learned that using communication techniques such as facebook messaging and text messaging we found it much more effective when it came to making and editing the opening. We all shared out the responsibilities equally when it came to filming, editing, and inserting sound and titles.
Saturday, 11 April 2015
Evaluation Question 6
'what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constricting this product?'
1- Blogger.
We learnt how to set up a blog account, and how to make posts both in and out of school. We completed the majority of our coursework on this, and it is highly convenient to use, because we can access it at school on the macs and out of school either on our phones or laptops, which means we can do work on it whenever. This was my first bit of work using a blog, so it was helpful to learn how it all worked.
3- Premiere Pro.
We used various programs such as premiere pro and final cut in order to edit our films. I had never used software like this before so it was all new to me, so learning from scratch did initially seem fairly daunting but it was eventually easy to navigate round and use. On this, we learned how to input sounds and titles, edit the film itself and cutting and cropping out what we didn't want.
4- Live Type.
We used live type to make the titles for our film. Also having never used this type of software, we learned how to use it and create titles that fitted with the narrative of our film openings. We experimented with various titles, and this program worked well for this.
1- Blogger.
We learnt how to set up a blog account, and how to make posts both in and out of school. We completed the majority of our coursework on this, and it is highly convenient to use, because we can access it at school on the macs and out of school either on our phones or laptops, which means we can do work on it whenever. This was my first bit of work using a blog, so it was helpful to learn how it all worked.
2- Apple Macs.
Although I had previously had experience with macs, we learned how to use lots of software on it and how to navigate our way round the macs. This helped us to use OS at it's full potential. We used these to edit our films, to view what we had filmed, and to download music and also make blog posts. Without these, we wouldn't have done our work to it's full ability.
3- Premiere Pro.
We used various programs such as premiere pro and final cut in order to edit our films. I had never used software like this before so it was all new to me, so learning from scratch did initially seem fairly daunting but it was eventually easy to navigate round and use. On this, we learned how to input sounds and titles, edit the film itself and cutting and cropping out what we didn't want.
We used live type to make the titles for our film. Also having never used this type of software, we learned how to use it and create titles that fitted with the narrative of our film openings. We experimented with various titles, and this program worked well for this.
5- Websites for sound.
We used a website called 'Purple Planet', which provides royalty free soundtracks for film openings like ours. This is where we got our soundtrack from, and the rest of the sound that features in our film opening was recorded ourselves on the camera that we used, meaning all the diagetic and non-diagetic sounds were made on either purple planet or we recorded ourselves on the camera.
6- Camcorder.
We had both had previous experience having used camcorders such as the Sony one we had used, however we had never used this specific camera before so this was new to the both of us. We learned how to film on it and used this to film all of our opening, and we rested it on a tripod to make sure all the shots were steady and wouldn't need to be retaken. We also used a flip camera to film our preliminary film and the audience testing, and these were fairly easy to use as me and Hannah had both had experience using these exact cameras before this. These cameras were all fairly helpful toward filming the film opening because they were reliable cameras, and we also used the microphone on the camera to film all the diagetic sounds. I would defiantly use this technology in future because I found it very easy to get on with.
7- Facebook/messaging
Me and Hannah, because there was only the two of us in a group, found communication fairly easy as we are friends outside of this project. We used Facebook Messenger and text messaging in order to stay in touch. This allowed us to organised when and where we were going to film by communicating our schedules and sorting out when we were free, and we talked with our actors through this to sort out when we were free to film. This also helped me and Hannah to organised who was going to have the camera, who was going to keep what we had borrowed from school in order to film and when we were going to hand things in.
Friday, 10 April 2015
Evaluation Question 5
'How did you attract/address your audience?'
At the start of the opening, we used an establishing shot to show the location that the opening is filmed in, and this attracts the audience because it is conventional for this genre (psychological horror) and our ideal target audience would ideally be attracted by this initial introduction to the film's settings. Then, the titles start. This automatically attracts the audience because it is again very conventional for the film genre. The colors of the titles are red, which is archetypally presented as being the color of blood and signifies and foreshadows what happens later on in the film. The movement of some of the titles, seemingly energetic, suggests that this opening will be interesting and exciting to watch. Film openings that include these types of effects of a similar genre include the films 'Carrie', and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Also, the font is the same colour as ours because the colors is associated typically with blood, which signifies the murder that happens in our opening.
When our actress starts to call out in hysteric tones, this is what signifies the bad things that are fore coming. During our audience research, we learned that this is an effective method that attracts the film opening.
The puzzle in the opening that the audience are ending up thinking about themselves is why this woman was murdered. The element of mystery and not everything being shown in the opening keeps the audience interested, because they are shown the protagonist and automatically want to know what happens from then onward. This is another thing we learned when filming our audience testing. The type of audience has is the ones that enjoy hanging onto the edge of their seats, and we have done this by making short cuts between each shot and having music that creates suspense on in the background. This is an emotional pleasure that the audience of our target audience for this specific genre enjoy. It is also a visceral pleasure. We have also tried to fulfill the counter culture attraction in our opening that gets the audience immersed in this opening, because we want the audience to get very involved with the opening, because if they empathize for some characters it makes them more likely to carry on and watch the rest of the film.
The shots that show our actress running down into some murky woods help to connotate that something bad is going to happen, because normally this sort of location is assosciated with a murder in a film of this genre. This helps to keep the audience involved with the story.When introducing the protagonist, we also help the audience with the puzzle of why the negative music, and it keeps them on the edge of their seats and therefore still engaged with the opening. We also tried to include various shots of the antagonist go fast, so the audience have less time to visualise and more time to imagine what is going to happen. As the music begins to get louder, it becomes obvious that something bad is going to happen and this again helps to create supsense.
The reason we included many shots of the protagonist creeping up on the antagonist is that it makes the audience wander what he is going to do, why he is doing it, and we give them a lot of time to think about this whilst making the atmosphere a lot more tense. We make the audience scared of the man in black because we don't show his face through the whole opening.
At the start of the opening, we used an establishing shot to show the location that the opening is filmed in, and this attracts the audience because it is conventional for this genre (psychological horror) and our ideal target audience would ideally be attracted by this initial introduction to the film's settings. Then, the titles start. This automatically attracts the audience because it is again very conventional for the film genre. The colors of the titles are red, which is archetypally presented as being the color of blood and signifies and foreshadows what happens later on in the film. The movement of some of the titles, seemingly energetic, suggests that this opening will be interesting and exciting to watch. Film openings that include these types of effects of a similar genre include the films 'Carrie', and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Also, the font is the same colour as ours because the colors is associated typically with blood, which signifies the murder that happens in our opening.
When our actress starts to call out in hysteric tones, this is what signifies the bad things that are fore coming. During our audience research, we learned that this is an effective method that attracts the film opening.
The puzzle in the opening that the audience are ending up thinking about themselves is why this woman was murdered. The element of mystery and not everything being shown in the opening keeps the audience interested, because they are shown the protagonist and automatically want to know what happens from then onward. This is another thing we learned when filming our audience testing. The type of audience has is the ones that enjoy hanging onto the edge of their seats, and we have done this by making short cuts between each shot and having music that creates suspense on in the background. This is an emotional pleasure that the audience of our target audience for this specific genre enjoy. It is also a visceral pleasure. We have also tried to fulfill the counter culture attraction in our opening that gets the audience immersed in this opening, because we want the audience to get very involved with the opening, because if they empathize for some characters it makes them more likely to carry on and watch the rest of the film.
The shots that show our actress running down into some murky woods help to connotate that something bad is going to happen, because normally this sort of location is assosciated with a murder in a film of this genre. This helps to keep the audience involved with the story.When introducing the protagonist, we also help the audience with the puzzle of why the negative music, and it keeps them on the edge of their seats and therefore still engaged with the opening. We also tried to include various shots of the antagonist go fast, so the audience have less time to visualise and more time to imagine what is going to happen. As the music begins to get louder, it becomes obvious that something bad is going to happen and this again helps to create supsense.
The reason we included many shots of the protagonist creeping up on the antagonist is that it makes the audience wander what he is going to do, why he is doing it, and we give them a lot of time to think about this whilst making the atmosphere a lot more tense. We make the audience scared of the man in black because we don't show his face through the whole opening.
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Evaluation Question 4
'What would the audience be for your media product?'
Our media product has a main target audience of a mix of male and female viewers, from mid teens to mid twenties. We conducted lots of research upon who tends to view psychological horrors and what genre our narrative would fit exactly, and we found that this audience would be our primary target audience. This is because they enjoy the plot, and trying to work out what is going on. We also did research into what age would be the youngest to watch our film, and it would have been rated a 15 because it contained some elements of violence and that would not be appropriate for children to watch. The research we conducted was among teen-aged girls and boys of the age of 17-19 compared to people in their twenties and people younger than this and found that the teenagers would be most likely to watch a film like this.
Being that the film is rated a 15, this means we can include strong language and strong violence, which is what the film would entail. The BBFC state this, and this means we would have to stick to these guidelines because if we didn't, there would be small chances of the film actually being produced.
The people watching the film would be of a similar age to those acting in it, meaning that the audience would be able to empathize with the characters better and therefore enjoy the film more. Also, a young target audience would be able to keep up with the fast pace of the film, and get adrenaline rushes from the tense scenes. We would have a fairly niche target audience, because it is a fairly niche genre: there is never really a very large target audience for psychological horrors because it only appeals to a small amount of people. We would have a fairly national audience, being british because the actors are british so the audience will again have the empathy for these characters.
Our media product has a main target audience of a mix of male and female viewers, from mid teens to mid twenties. We conducted lots of research upon who tends to view psychological horrors and what genre our narrative would fit exactly, and we found that this audience would be our primary target audience. This is because they enjoy the plot, and trying to work out what is going on. We also did research into what age would be the youngest to watch our film, and it would have been rated a 15 because it contained some elements of violence and that would not be appropriate for children to watch. The research we conducted was among teen-aged girls and boys of the age of 17-19 compared to people in their twenties and people younger than this and found that the teenagers would be most likely to watch a film like this.
Being that the film is rated a 15, this means we can include strong language and strong violence, which is what the film would entail. The BBFC state this, and this means we would have to stick to these guidelines because if we didn't, there would be small chances of the film actually being produced.
The people watching the film would be of a similar age to those acting in it, meaning that the audience would be able to empathize with the characters better and therefore enjoy the film more. Also, a young target audience would be able to keep up with the fast pace of the film, and get adrenaline rushes from the tense scenes. We would have a fairly niche target audience, because it is a fairly niche genre: there is never really a very large target audience for psychological horrors because it only appeals to a small amount of people. We would have a fairly national audience, being british because the actors are british so the audience will again have the empathy for these characters.
Evaluation Question 3
'What kinds of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?'
Distribution companies are highly important within the industry. Large conglomerates such as Disney sometimes invest into much smaller companies, allowing them to be able to vertically integrate into different areas of the media industry, making a larger profit for them overall. Distributors advertise the film and try to create a hype, which then in turn creates fans for the film and makes a larger target audience.
Larger conglomerates occasionally like to get involved with smaller companies to distribute, for example 'Slum dog Millionaire', which was made by an interdependent film company and ended up making millions after distribution by Fox Searchlight. This is a particularly small budget film, so would only appeal to a particular group of distributors- small budget, and most likely interdependent companies. Companies such as Film 4 tend to distribute small-budget films like ours because they like to support small companies, and they have done that in the past with companies such as 'Rook Films', which had a very small budget and had to film within two weeks. Our film opening is typical of one made by a small British independent company because it was made on a very tight budget, there are no amazing special effects or anything like that because we couldn't afford it. It would not be distributed by a large conglomerate such as Lionsgate or Disney, because they tend to fund films with budgets of millions of dollars. The target audiences for our film opening is quite a local interdependent audience, compared with films that would be distributed by Disney that have a very wide, tent-pole audience.
1: Film 4 could be an ideal distributor for our film. They have distributed some films such as 'High Hopes', which made around a million in the box office. It was a very small budget film, and was made by a small interdependent company like us called 'Skouras Films'. Their budgeting is fairly low meaning they cannot reach out to very large, tent pole audiences, but they have the ability to reach small target audiences like ours, which is perfect for what we would be looking for.
2: Fox Searchlight. Fox searchlight is a subsidiary of the 20th century fox film company, and have funded many British interdependent films before. These include 'The Gods must be crazy', 12 years a slave, and bird-man, and these films have all won various awards. A company like this would be good for our film, because they tend to fund films like the one we have made, which may bring in more money for the film overall.
3: Studio Canal. Studio canal is a european distributing company. This company likes to choose slightly different films to distribute, such as ones made by very low budget companies and those that are fairly create and slightly non-conventional in ways. The narrative of our opening doesn't quite fit normal conventions for film openings so this company would be perfect for us, and also our budget is fairly small so that wouldn't be an issue for this company. This would help our film a lot because they would bring the perfect target audience for our film, then ensuring that we have a larger target audience to aim at and making more money for the film and getting a larger success rate. Also, the films this company tend to distribute usually are filmed in rural locations and the filmers don't travel far across the world, and this perfectly fits with us because we filmed the whole opening in a very rural location with a low amount of special effects. Studio Canal have distributed films such as Paddington, and the emperors new clothes, all made by small interdependent film companies such as ours.
Distribution companies are highly important within the industry. Large conglomerates such as Disney sometimes invest into much smaller companies, allowing them to be able to vertically integrate into different areas of the media industry, making a larger profit for them overall. Distributors advertise the film and try to create a hype, which then in turn creates fans for the film and makes a larger target audience.
Larger conglomerates occasionally like to get involved with smaller companies to distribute, for example 'Slum dog Millionaire', which was made by an interdependent film company and ended up making millions after distribution by Fox Searchlight. This is a particularly small budget film, so would only appeal to a particular group of distributors- small budget, and most likely interdependent companies. Companies such as Film 4 tend to distribute small-budget films like ours because they like to support small companies, and they have done that in the past with companies such as 'Rook Films', which had a very small budget and had to film within two weeks. Our film opening is typical of one made by a small British independent company because it was made on a very tight budget, there are no amazing special effects or anything like that because we couldn't afford it. It would not be distributed by a large conglomerate such as Lionsgate or Disney, because they tend to fund films with budgets of millions of dollars. The target audiences for our film opening is quite a local interdependent audience, compared with films that would be distributed by Disney that have a very wide, tent-pole audience.
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
Evaluation Question 2
'How does your media product represent particular social groups?'
Our film opening represents many social groups, and also subvert some archetypes. For example, the female in our film opening is not the typical vulnerable woman on a walk on her own in the woods- she subverts the archetype of a stereotypical woman by wearing jeans rather than a dress, and her hair is short and she is on her own on a walk.
The man in our film also subverts the archetype in some ways as well- in the area that we filmed, you would normally expect quite well-spoken individuals, who are dressed quite well. Our character has all dark clothes on including a hooded jacket, and he has overgrown hair which doesn't fit the stereotype at all. The lighting is quite low-key, which fits the archetype of our film opening quite well because most psychological horrors are filmed in a dark location.The make-up used was conventional of our genre, quite subtle and we didn't use anything over-the-top such as fake blood, which would lead our audience to think they were watching a gory horror rather than a psychological horror.
Our opening follows the stereotype of a middle-class area, because the background shows very nicely built cottages and quiet surroundings. The characters are fairly conventional- we did research into typical horror openings and they mainly consist of the antagonist (the attacker) and the protagonist (the victim). We have done this through the male being the antagonist and the female being the protagonist, which again goes along with stereotypes because females are stereotypically more vulnerable than men. Usually, the victim in a horror opening will be a female to show vulnerability and we believe we have done this quite well. This is done because teenagers are generally fairly naive and this allows the target audience to identify with the attacker. The teenager being young signifies her being more prone to be picked on and therefore fits the conventions of a typical horror opening. As me and Hannah are both teenagers, we understand the archetypal and stereotypical traits that come along with being a teenager, which therefore helped when constructing this opening and trying to make it fit with the conventions of a typical horror opening.
These characters are easily recognizable as teenagers due to what they are wearing (hoodies and jeans). Due to our female character being naive and irresponsible, the stereotypical negative stereotype towards teenagers helps to hint toward the fact that she is going to get herself in danger, and this in turn builds suspense and helps to attract a larger target audience. This then eventually helps to get more money when it comes to the final film making money in a cinema. The costumes of the characters suggest that they originate from a certain class, which is a lower class. This is because conventionally, teenagers wearing things such as hooded jackets and tracksuit bottoms are associated with those of a lower class descent. These costumes have connotations of practicality, which is what the character would have wanted if he would be in the knowledge if he is going to be running after someone he is about to kill.
Our film opening represents many social groups, and also subvert some archetypes. For example, the female in our film opening is not the typical vulnerable woman on a walk on her own in the woods- she subverts the archetype of a stereotypical woman by wearing jeans rather than a dress, and her hair is short and she is on her own on a walk.
The man in our film also subverts the archetype in some ways as well- in the area that we filmed, you would normally expect quite well-spoken individuals, who are dressed quite well. Our character has all dark clothes on including a hooded jacket, and he has overgrown hair which doesn't fit the stereotype at all. The lighting is quite low-key, which fits the archetype of our film opening quite well because most psychological horrors are filmed in a dark location.The make-up used was conventional of our genre, quite subtle and we didn't use anything over-the-top such as fake blood, which would lead our audience to think they were watching a gory horror rather than a psychological horror.
Our opening follows the stereotype of a middle-class area, because the background shows very nicely built cottages and quiet surroundings. The characters are fairly conventional- we did research into typical horror openings and they mainly consist of the antagonist (the attacker) and the protagonist (the victim). We have done this through the male being the antagonist and the female being the protagonist, which again goes along with stereotypes because females are stereotypically more vulnerable than men. Usually, the victim in a horror opening will be a female to show vulnerability and we believe we have done this quite well. This is done because teenagers are generally fairly naive and this allows the target audience to identify with the attacker. The teenager being young signifies her being more prone to be picked on and therefore fits the conventions of a typical horror opening. As me and Hannah are both teenagers, we understand the archetypal and stereotypical traits that come along with being a teenager, which therefore helped when constructing this opening and trying to make it fit with the conventions of a typical horror opening.
These characters are easily recognizable as teenagers due to what they are wearing (hoodies and jeans). Due to our female character being naive and irresponsible, the stereotypical negative stereotype towards teenagers helps to hint toward the fact that she is going to get herself in danger, and this in turn builds suspense and helps to attract a larger target audience. This then eventually helps to get more money when it comes to the final film making money in a cinema. The costumes of the characters suggest that they originate from a certain class, which is a lower class. This is because conventionally, teenagers wearing things such as hooded jackets and tracksuit bottoms are associated with those of a lower class descent. These costumes have connotations of practicality, which is what the character would have wanted if he would be in the knowledge if he is going to be running after someone he is about to kill.
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