Dear Moderator

Dear Moderator,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blogs, I'm sure you'll enjoy them! My group blog is linked to my individual blog, you will find the group blog link on the right. There's also a link to the other members of my group and one back to our teachers central blog called 'Mrs B's Y12 Foundation Blog' which has links to all the students and group blogs from our school.

On my individual blog, you will find all my individual research and initial ideas and planning, mainly from the early stages of the project before I began discussions with my group. You will also find the work I did on my preliminary task, including the clip of the task itself, my reflections on the development of the project throughout and the evaluation questions.

On my group blog, there is evidence of my group's planning and project development work, and any research we did together that influenced and inspired our project.

I have posted the youtube clip and linked my finished film opening sequence to both blogs.

I hope you find it easy to navigate through my blogs. Everything is in date order from beginning of the project in November 2008 to the end in February 2009. I have used labels to identify all the research, planning and evaluation work I have completed on my individual blog. On the group blog, we have used the same system and I have also labelled the posts I was individually responsible for, with my name.

Thanks, have fun looking at my blog!

Jack Downes [5275]

Closing of the Blog

I am sad to say that this, is unfortunately the end of our journey together.

We made have started off fairly rocky but over the last few months, you've become more than just a blog...

I'll miss you!

Actually... maybe not THAT much...

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?



The brief for the preliminary task was different from our brief for the main task. Firstly, the brief for the preliminary task was very to the point and clear about what needed to be done. This seemed like a quite boring, mundane task to film when as a matter of fact, it was quite difficult. It let us practise using the continuity techniques we had learned in class without worrying about being particularly creative. It was really helpful as in our final sequence, we used a lot of the techniques due to having a conversation between the 2 victim and villain such as the 180⁰ rule, shot-reverse-shot and match-on-action. The other difference between the two tasks was that the final task needed music and titles. This meant that the final task needed much more editing than the original task. The final sequence brief allowed for a lot more creativity. This gave us the opportunity to experiment with things such as the lighting techniques, shot types, editing techniques and other things. In the pre-production of the preliminary task, we learnt that it is very helpful to have a shooting script, a storyboard and a shot list and knew we had to be as organised as possible to make the most efficient use of time. The shooting script was incredibly helpful on the main shoot as with our location, we had a very small space of time to shoot and as our actors weren’t media students and were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, the shooting script helped us plan when we needed each of the actors so we were able to let them go home as soon as possible. This is another benefit of non-linear editing. We didn’t need to shoot it all in order so we could shoot them in order of convenience. We were also able to do location reccies for the main task, this allowed us to choose where we wanted to film. In the final production, the only difference in the equipment we used was the fact that we used studio lights with blue gels to get the right colour and create the shadows for our sequence. Also, using experience from the preliminary shoot, I learnt that it’s very important to make sure that continuity is correct. In the preliminary task, we had a few errors from shot to shot like the chair not tucking in properly or the hand on the door not pulling away properly. This taught us that in future we should really pay attention to the mise-en-scene such as the things left on the floor of the basement although, we weren’t entirely successful in this as, as I mentioned before, we had a bag left on the floor in one of the shots (0:30 to 0:40). The final shoot however gave us the potential for re-shoots which we took the opportunity to use although we didn’t use any of the footage from the re-shoot. The preliminary task also taught us how everything takes much longer in the actual shoots because of continuity and we couldn’t just film small snippets and edit them together so we were aware would have to run-on the action in the shoot so it would make it easier to edit together to make a coherent sequence. Another difference in the production of the 2 tasks was that in the final task, we were able to get any actors and not use media students. This made the overall project easier in the actual shooting aspects such as having plenty of people to do the jobs such as controlling the lights, taking care of sound and directing. This meant the quality of acting was overall of a much higher standard. The only problem we encountered with this was the fact that they can be quite unreliable which is something we didn’t experience when using media students in our own group. In the preliminary task, we had very little time to edit, around 1 hour. Due to having a lot more time in the edit suite with our final project, we had the potential to experiment a lot with the effects in Premiere on the actual footage such as adjusting brightness and contrast. Two of the major differences between the editing of the two tasks was the need for titles and music. In the preliminary task, there was no need for music to be added but in the main task, the music was vital. It accentuated the entire atmosphere. The music we used was 'The Platform' from www.freeplaymusic.com The next aspect of the main task that was different was the fact that we had to include titles in our sequence.
Overall, I feel that the preliminary task was very useful to have done due to the fact that we were able to practise the continuity techniques and, although we didn’t have a re-shoot, this meant we could tell what was wrong with the shots and could make sure we didn’t do it wrong in the actual shoot. It also refreshed our memory on how to use all the software and hardware that we used. It also made sure that we knew what we were doing when it came to editing the footage so we could worry more about editing to the music and adding titles. I think I improved greatly due to the fact that I learnt to construct a seamless narrative and coherent sequence with the use of new technology and gained skills in using Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro along with improving my skills with using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Evaluation Question 6

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

The equipment we used is mentioned in the evaluation summary. With the studio lights, we used the blue gel to create the blue tinted effect for our sequence to make it cold-looking and make our villain character look much more menacing and there being little way of our victim escaping. The lights also made it possible to create large shadows behind our villain as you can see in the picture. This once again made him seem incredibly overpowering and threatening. During the entire production of the sequence, we learned a lot about how all the equipment works and how the software on the PC or Mac can make things easier. We used Adobe Premiere Pro (below) to edit together the sequence digitally. This gave us the ability to edit non-linearly which made things much easier when it came to constructing continuity techniques such as matches on action. It also gave us the potential for multiple timelines where we could layer the titles on the shots and made it possible to edit to the music such as when the music gets louder as the hand bangs on the door in the last part of the sequence (1:58). On the Mac, we experimented on Final Cut Pro when we were making our titles, looking mainly at the presets. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything of use so we had to create our own title using Adobe After Effects. None of us had ever used this program before, but after a bit of instruction, we were able to create the title exactly how we wanted it. This was a lengthy process due to having to look for a font, make the letters on separate layers then add transitions to them. The font we used was ‘1942 Report’ as it mirrored the derelict, aged look of our location. In some of the feedback the audience said it looked ‘scary, seemed a bit disjointed and not all together’ which was beneficial as that is one of the ways we described our villain. In some initial feedback, the test screening audience said that the main title wasn’t obvious enough and that it didn’t linger for long enough. After this, we decided to change the effects used. We used Adobe After Effects to make the letters fade up slowly one by one in a random order, this made the audience focus much more on what the title actually said. We also added the ‘outer glow’ effect to make the title different from the rest of the titles. Another way we used After Effects was when we found that one of our shots had a bag in the background that ruined the entire look of the shot. In the end, we managed to blur this out so it looked less like a bag to anyone who wasn’t looking for it. It wasn’t the ideal situation as it would have been better to have not had it there in the first place though. So we learned to really check all the mise-en-scene in the shots to make sure it’s right before finishing shooting. In a lot of the shots of our villain talking, the sound wasn’t captured very well. This made it very difficult to use the music over the top of these clips. We ended up fading the music down, not completely silent but very quiet and turning the clip audio up. This then produced noise in the background sound of the clips. This was then edited out by turning down the treble on the shot which cut out the higher pitches where the noise was without really affecting the rest of the sound. We learned that in future, it would be best to have had a boom mic rather than one fixed to the top of the camera. This would have enabled us to have captured the sound much closer to our actor without having to turn it up and create noise. The last thing we learned was that, where there was blur in a few of our shots due to the auto-focus, although we weren’t able to cut it out, we edited around it. This however, could have been avoided if we had used the manual focus settings on the camera.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted the ‘horror’ audience with the use of violence in the opening scene; the blood instantly attracts attention and is often used to really get the audience involved due to it being quite shocking and often unusual in opening sequences. The horror audience usually enjoy visceral pleasures due to the hand (1:58) ‘making them jump’ being a reason in our feedback for why they enjoyed it which is why other films such as ‘Alien’ (1979, Scott) are successful. Another reason for the bloody hand on the door was because it creates a lot of enigma codes that makes the audience (as shown by our research) interested in what is likely to happen next, asking questions like ‘why was it there?’ or ‘who was that?’, this was the type of response we were looking for so we were very pleased. This adds more of an intellectual pleasure to the sequence which a lot of the thriller/horror audience seem to enjoy such as in films like ‘Goodfellas’ (1990, Scorsese) and ‘Severance’ (2006, Smith) where the audience is left wondering about certain aspects of the film for a long while. In ‘Goodfellas’ the opening scene is the main characters killing someone (the video below 0:00 to 2:06), a scene we see again later in the film. ‘Severance’ has an opening scene where someone is running away from something in a forest. This type of opening really keeps the audience’s attention and makes them continue watching to find out the reasons for these scenes.
We also had characters that are around the same age as our core audience (18-30) as well as being of aspirational ages to our outer audience of younger teenagers. By using similar colour effects to recent films popular in this age group like ‘Saw’, we made our audience recognise the film to be fairly similar but not obviously copying. Another way we addressed our audience was through the use of pace in the sequence. The sequence goes from initially slow paced, then speeds up, slows down etc. I feel this really keeps the audience gripped and makes it unexpected as to what is likely to happen next which is another of the horror/thriller audience pleasures, enjoying the emotional aspect of films. This audience, although fairly aware of current social trends, do not always follow them, this is a reason why I don’t think it was overly important to have a ‘star’ apparent in our film to attract the audience. I don’t feel that their particular taste in film is really dictated by having a star in the film. The ‘Saw’ films don’t have stars in and are extremely popular in this market.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We always saw our initial audience as being aged between 18 and 30 and/or liking the horror genre. This is because we saw the film as being quite gory so would achieve an ‘18’ rating. We put the 30 year ceiling as it may seem a bit unnecessarily gory or ‘childish’ like ‘Saw’ which people above this age don’t seem to like and tend to appreciate the ‘Slasher’ sub-genre due to the slasher craze in the 1980’s with films like ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ (1980, Cunningham) which were popular as they were growing up. Our secondary audience would be the boyfriends/girlfriends/significant others of our main audience as these are the people who are likely to be going to be watching the film with them. Another secondary market would be the under 18 age group. Many of this age group will see it as a bit of a thrill to see something they aren’t supposed to and so are likely to be even more attracted to it because of its 18 rating. Due to question 3 and deciding to release the film locally, the audience would have to live in or around London to get access to a local cinema where the film would be showing.
After looking back at the research we conducted at our audience screening, the majority of people guessed that the film was aimed at an audience between 18 and 30 with a few saying that it would be people who liked horror or violent video games.

Evaluation Question 3

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

Looking at the responses from our audience feedback, most said that it would be at home in a regular cinema or multiplex. We didn’t aim for this, due to our restraints with equipment, location and actors but this response was really good. We were expecting to get responses suggesting ‘indie cinema’ or ‘arts cinema’ and we did get a couple that suggested ‘student film festival’ but to have the majority saying it looked very filmic was pleasing. I think that due to the lighting effects we were able to create and the location we used, regular cinemas may see this as more professional than we initially expected. Although, many multiplex cinemas often show films with ‘stars’ in. Having no way of having a celebrity to endorse the film, it would be difficult to get a good reputation with this type of cinema with unknown actors. Our production company is called ‘Live Wire’ (above) which we felt should make modern horror/thriller films. We saw it as being similar to ‘Twisted Pictures’ (left) the company that produces the ‘Saw’ films. The distributor that would best satisfy our needs would be ‘Verve Pictures’ (below), they have a particular emphasis on the distribution of UK-based independent films. This would be ideal for the first run of our film to get it off the ground in local independent London cinemas and then, with the help of good reviews, could spread further North to cities such as Manchester, Birmingham etc. This would only give us the potential of reaching a fairly small audience but due to it being a low-budget film, I don’t feel it would be wise to attempt to reach a national scale and display the film in multiplex cinemas even though our audience feedback seemed to suggest it might.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Neither of the characters shown in our sequence are particular stereotypes. The killer is seemingly very friendly at times but then has a quick temper and seems somewhat deluded. The friendliness is not typical of a horror villain as they are usually very sadistic and sinister. This character was inspired by ‘Norman Bates’ from ‘Psycho’ (Hitchcock, 1960) with the switching personalities but ours weren’t quite as dramatic. The delusionary way our killer has about him though is often apparent in other villains. This delusional aspect he has about him makes him think partially like a hotel host, making his victims as ‘comfortable as possible’. Our victim isn’t a stereotypical victim, he is trying to show how he isn’t scared and not giving his captor the upper hand. When the killer rips the tape from the victim’s mouth, the victim tries not to react to show the killer he isn’t afraid. This is reflective of how a lot of young males would like to think they would react in such a situation and not be scared.

Our villain character portrayed a psychotic hotelier. This is the kind of character, in a normal situation, that would keep offering help to his ‘guests’ and make sure they were as comfortable as possible. We reflected that in the way he spoke. He speaks with a very calming tone of voice for most of the scene, one you would expect to hear form this type of person. He has a sudden change in tone of voice from very calming to screaming at his victim showing his unstable state of mind. The mise-en-scene reflects this. The way he is dressed is similar to how a stereotypical bellboy (left) would dress in an upper-class traditional hotel, although his outfit is black instead of red, connoting his sinister nature and evil intentions. The location is also of relevance. He is clearly ambitious about his situation and may have wanted to be a hotelier but failed so the best he can conjure up is a basement to keep his ‘guests’.

If we were able to cast stars in our film, I think someone like Matt Damon (right) would be appropriate for the victim character as he is appealing to the female audience as well as looking fairly young as to relate to our audience of 18-30 year olds. Due to his recent history, audiences will feel he is not likely to be caught easily so makes our killer look much more threatening. I feel our killer would be better as an unknown actor due to being able to get a well-built, young, unnervingly quiet person; however, I don’t think anyone currently well known fits this description.

Evaluation Question 1

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

To establish what we what conventions we wanted to use/develop/challenge in our sequence we first had to be aware of what the original conventions were. The genre we decided to put our sequence in was horror, we researched the typical conventions of horror and found that they are violent, bloody, involve death, have chase sequences, some kind of iconic killer/monster such as ‘Predator’ from ‘Predator’ (1987, McTiernan) or ‘Michael Myers’ from ‘Halloween’ (1978, Carpenter), numerous victims and are usually set in very dark places. We were inspired by the ‘Saw’ (2004, Wan - above) films with the use of a green tint. We opted for blue rather than green as it seemed more appropriate and made the room look darker, colder and overall scarier. We decided that we wanted out sequence to be specifically horror rather than a thriller so we decided to use some blood in our scene as with the hand against the window at the end. This made it seem like a taste of what was to come in the rest of the film. More blood, guts and gore. Our narrative also follows a fairly typical narrative. I saw this scene as being one that comes later in the film and the rest of the film shows how our victim got there and then how he escapes. This is reflected in Todorov’s narrative theory. There is a status quo, the victim is happy where he is and nothing seems to be wrong. The killer then disrupts the status quo by kidnapping him, this then triggers a series of events that have problems which are solved to restore the original status quo where the victim attempts to escape his captor which triggers more obstacles. This can be applied in a large number of films. Such as in ‘House of Wax’ (2005, Collet-Serra) where the group are happily camping in the forest when the killer cuts the fan belt of one of the cars. This then sets into motion the sequence of events that leads the rest of the group to being killed with only 2 of them surviving and both the killers dying, thus restoring the status quo. What made our sequence different was that in most horror films, the killer/villain is not often shown in full until the end, maintaining some enigma. We decided that we would alter this and made the killer apparent in the first scene. This way, later in the film, there’s the possibility of using this to create tension between characters with situations like the killer luring potential victims into a false sense of security where the audience knows what is going to happen but can't prevent it. Because of this, we also decided to change how the killer acted towards his victims. At first, he seems really friendly and treats them well, then suddenly changes and acts very aggressive, this makes him more sinister overall and makes him seem more like a psychopath. More enigma codes are used when the hand hits the door at the end of the sequence. It makes the audience wonder who it is, why they’re there and what has happened to them which they will find our later in the film. A lot of the feedback we received from our audience screenings showed that the audience reacted exactly how we wanted them to.

Evaluation - Introduction

Our opening sequence was called ‘Reservation’. It is based around a tall, kidnapper that treats his victims somewhat like guests in a torture chamber. The main victim you see is quite young looking and looks quite frightened. He is the ‘final’ character and is the one that lasts until the end of the film. For the shoot, we used The Latymer School’s basement on the 2^nd of December 2008 and the 11^th December 2008. The equipment we used on the shoot were:

• Canon HD MiniDV Camcorder
• Tripod
• Camera Microphone
• Small studio lighting kit with blue gel filters

After the shoot, back in the edit suite, the software we used included:

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe After Effects
• Final Cut Pro

Finished!

We've had another test screening and had only a few slight problems which didn't take long at all to fix!

We've finished!

Test Screening Responses

The feedback we've been given was good and we made a few changes.

To fix the problem with the title, I put some effects on the text using Adobe After Effects and put a glow around each letter and made them fade up in a random order so it's unclear as to what the title is until it fully appears.

We also added more titles and spread them out across the sequence to make it more of a title sequence and less of a random part of a film.

We fixed the sound with Matt being quiet and the music being too loud.

Test Screening Results

The audience screening went fairly well but we had a few problems to iron out.

Sound

With some of the shots of Matt (Scary Guy) there was a slight buzz in the background of the shots that we should have removed beforehand. We got some advice on this and edited it out. The main problem with sound though was that the levels between Matt's shots and the music was wrong. The music was much too loud and Matt being fairly distant from the camera, he was fairly hard to hear and having a quiet voice anyway, we needed to adjust the sound. There is also a part where he shouts at Rob (tied up guy). This was a problem as he went from being very loud to very quiet so getting the balance was quite difficult.

Credits

After Ms Blackborow watched the sequence, she said that we needed more credits as we only have a few at the beginning so we created some more and placed them at regular intervals along the timeline to make it seem much more like a title sequence and less like a random part of the film. We got some feedback on the main title, most people said that they found it really difficult to read and it was too small and similar to the rest of the titles.

Other

One of our last clips is of Matt leaving and closing the door. It was suggested that there should be a locking sound to the door so it would seem much more like he is locking them in and it being much more dungeon-like rather than just pulling it to so they could easily get out if they managed to get free of the chains. It also makes it so its more difficult for anyone else to get in. Also, we put a sound of someone whispering 'help' behind the shot of the hand banging against the window but most people said this really spoilt the atmosphere and didn't really have much significance.

Overall, most people really liked it and there's just a few changes we need to make!

Back

We're back after Christmas and all's well except Shaun's voice!

We're really close to finishing the project so we've arranged a screening with the other group that Shaun is going to stay and record all they say.