Friday 27 April 2012

Media Evaluation Q6

 "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
i have used a presentation to answer this question here is the link to the presentation

Media evaluation Q 3

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

I have actually briefly covered where i would think our film would be featured in the research and planning stages Featured here but to go into more depth i feel our finished peice would be best suited to be shown on film four.

I say this because i feel that our independent british teen horror is quite an ecclectic genre and especially the fact that it is and independant film makes it suitable for film four as they tend to show alot of independent british films as they do not get so much coverage on other television channels.

It is shown that my group and i found this instituition correct to associate our film with as at the beginning of our clip we actually feature the film four intro as we thought it would show the audience the type of film it would be before it had even started.

Along with this the channel is often watched from teenage age upwards and so it would be targetting our target makret as well as a wider audience.


An example of an independent film i have watched which has been featured on film four is
The Unloved :

It follows the story of a young girl as she is put into social care , it is critically acclaimed and is thought to give a  "intimate child's-eye view of the UK's care system"

I feel this film shows that ours would also fit in despite our less realistic story line;  our interesting filming style and british actors and setting would also enable it to be different enough from the average film to fit in well to fim four's programme repetoire.

Media Evaluation Q7

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

Link to my powerpoint answering this question

Main Task Evaluation Q 1

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


Main Task Evaluation Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Main Task Evaluation Q4 & 5

 Q4 - Who would be the target market for your media product?
Q5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Link To Prezi Presentation Answer For Q4 + 5

Thursday 26 April 2012

Main Task Audience Feedback

In order to gain feedback from our target market we went around our school to ask the opinions of several people on what they thought of our film. We recorded , edited and posted this whole video using just an iPhone so we could have the flexibility to ask a range of different people with different opinions in an unscripted naturalistic setting for honest teenage opinions on our film.

here is the video we made:


Thursday 29 March 2012

Main Task - Sound

Often in horror film's music is featured to add to the mood that the makers wish to portray , now we are in the editing process we have looked alot into the different types of sound we would like to add to our peice.

At first we had planned to feauture Non Diegetic music during our opening shots of the woodland scenes to create that horror like feel , we have decided to stick to this but the idea in which we wished to use music as diegetic sound to be overlayed in our scenes in the car was scrapped as we didn't feel like the different sounds would slow fluidly and it would not add anything to our peice.

We searched for a long time for suitable music for our opening montage style scenes and in the end decided upon this peice which is an instrumental of a song by Nine Inch Nails entitled "hurt".
This peice of music is not too dramatic to make our filming seem amatuer and instead creates a good mood "spooky" mood which is the main aim we wanted to achieve.




In order to add more sound into our peice we decided upon also adding in non diegetic sound to the scene in which Harry's phone is dropped to once again create that mood of unease.

In terms of diegetic sound we added a  sound effect to add emphasis to the point when Harry creeps up on the girls to scare them , this add's a "jumpy" point to our opening and we are all very happy with it.

Also we decided to film an ending shot in which a hand is shown holding Harry's missing phone at the end of our opening in order to bring it to more of a cliffhanger edge from which the film could continue; we added music to this part as well to carry on that feeling of utter unease and wonder.

Main Task - Editing

We have been constantly editing since the completion of our filming , we have all taken part in the editing process to make sure all our talents are put to use and also that we are all included in the work.
Editing has gone smoothly and we have learnt alot of new techniches in which we never knew before.

We are very near to an end and have fine tuned our peice to come to something we are happy with.

A last minute addition to our peice includes a film four opening we were able to aquire , we decided to add this in to add the independent film edge we were looking for even more so to our peice , as well as this we decided it suited our peice well and backs up the ideas we had for where our finished film would be shown.

We have also now placed titles , this took alot of thought but we feel our final results suit our peice very well , completion of our peice should be very soon.

Monday 12 March 2012

Film Sypnopsis

Together as a group we set out key points for our sypnopsis of the film in order to work out what would happen in the whole film so we could narrow down what we wanted to include in our opening here are details of the overall plot as well as the opening 2 minutes.

Overall film synopsis:
Three teenagers take a road trip to Brighton for a weekend away, however on the way their car breaks down and they are forced to spend the night in an unknown wooded area. Here they receive text messages from one of the characters phone, that he lost whilst in the wood, but when they try to call for help they do not have signal. As the film progresses each character goes missing with the implication being that they are being murdered by the writer of the text messages. The film ends with just one character left. 


 Specifically the opening two minutes:

We begin our film with establishing shots of a wooded area , from the ofset this creates a spooky atmosphere for us to build on in the opening.Our ending cuts abruptly to the inside of a car to introduce us to the main protagonists of the film; Lizzy , Nina and Harry.

They drive along an isolated road excited for the trip ahead of them and clearly unaware of any possible danger although Harry soon demands they pull over so he can take a "piss".

He is shown to drop his phone without noticing as he heads back to the car as he inturupts the girls deep conversation by scaring them.

As he gets back into the car it becomes apparent the car won't start , at this point the lack of phone is noted by Harry and a text is recieved by both girls from Harry's phone , which considering he has not got his phone seems almost impossible... 

Saturday 10 March 2012

Main Task Further Filming Progress

We were able to refilm the main chunk of our peice feuturing all the actors in the end , but once again some problems arose with actors. In the end we decided to go with 3 charactors ; Harry , Nina and Lizzy. I feel this is not a bad outcome as they all worked very well together and it was not detrimental to filming in the long run.

In the filming process we changed some camera angles to suit the new character set up , along with this the weather was consistent throughout which is also good.

I feel refilming was definitely the best decision we could have made and now we have begun editing all our peices together.

Friday 2 March 2012

Main Task - where would our film be featured?

As a group we decided to research into where our film would be suitable to be shown once it is completed. As it is an independent British film we feel it would not be the type of film to be released on a large scale in cinemas and instead worked out it was more likely to be feautured on television.

Our Film is very low budget in comparison with large film companies productions and with reference to our audience we feel channels such as MTV or channel 4/ Film 4 would best suit our finished peice.

Along with this as our film will be rated 15 these channels would be able to show them and would also target our preferred audience.

Monday 20 February 2012

Main Task Filming Progress

Monday 13th Febuary- 

This was the day my group and I aimed to film the scenes featuring all our actors as well as all the scenes including our main prop , the car. We began early and almost immediately ran into problems as we could not film in all areas we wanted due to unforeseen circumstances ; Along with this in the run up to filming 3 out of 4 of the original actors specified in our pitch either pulled out or were unable to film and so we subsitituted with our new charater's Lizzy and Huw as well as  Tabatha from our group who subsituted for us to see if we could complete filming.

Tuesday 14th Febuary -

I was unable to film this day as i was Ill but my group were amazing and got a good bulk of establishing shots filmed which has given us a good amount to work with for the final cut.

Overall we decided that the footage we got from the 13th was not appropriate and that we would have to refilm it with better planning , although this is unforseen and pushes back editing slightly it is key to improve the quality of our finished product.

Sunday 12 February 2012

Main Task Film Pitch

As part of our task we had to picth our film to the class , below is the Prezi presentation we created to go along with our pitch.

http://prezi.com/qjacuaap-i8h/media-pitch/

Main Task Costume

We did not do a great deal of research into costume as being teenagers our selves we felt that our actors own choice of clothes would be appropriate seeing as it would suit the background of our characters as they are the average teenagers just like ourselves.

In our film will feature the actors wearing their own clothes which will be of a regular standard feauturing modern styles , nothing too out of the ordinary , just regular clothes to suit the seemingly regularity of our character's in the peice.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

British Board of Film Classification Ratings (BBFC)

In the world of film it is important to classify who the film is suitable for in order to create a sense of organisation and to make sure the audience watching the film is suited to it's content.
In order to guide our opinion on what we should rate our film as we decided to research the classifications and there definitions; below are the classifications.

UUniversalAll ages admitted, there is nothing unsuitable for children over 4.
PGParental GuidanceAll ages admitted, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for
children under 8. May contain mild language and sex/drugs
references. May contain moderate violence if justified by
context (e.g. fantasy).


12A12ACinema only. Introduced in 2002.Films under this category are
considered to be unsuitable for very young people. Those aged
under 12 years are only admitted if accompanied by an adult,
aged at least 18 years, at all times during the motion picture.
However, it is generally not recommended that
children under 12 years should watch the film. Films under this
category can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs,
moderate swear words, infrequent strong language and
moderate violence/sex references.
1212Home media only since 2002. 12A-rated films are usually
given a 12 certificate for the VHS/DVD version unless
extra material has been added that requires a higher rating.
Nobody younger than 12 can rent or buy a 12-rated VHS,
DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game. Films in his category
may include infrequent drugs, infrequent use of strong
language, brief nudity, discreet sexual activity,
and moderate violence.
1515Only those over 15 years are admitted.Nobody younger
than 15 can rent or buy a 15-rated VHS, DVD,
Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game,or watch a film in the cinema
with this rating. Films under this category can contain
adult themes, hard drugs, strong language and one use of
very strong language, moderate-strong violence/sex references,
and undetailed sex activity.
1818Only adults are admitted.Nobody younger than 18 can rent or
 buy an 18-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or
watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this
category do not have limitation on the bad language that is used.
Hard drugs are generally allowed, and strong violence/
sex references along with strong sexual activity is also allowed.
Scenes of strong real sex may be permitted if justified by
the context.





We decided as a group that our film should be classified as a 15 as that is the market in which we want to target , along with this it will allow us a bit more of an open range on what we can include without having to censor anything to suit a younger audience. With that in mind we felt our film would not be able to be classed as an 18 as it would not feuture such stong gore references.
Also if we made it an 18 alot of our target market would not be able to view the film which would defeat the point.



Monday 6 February 2012

Main Task Dates For Filming

The dates we have chosen for filming are:

13-14th February-  We have chosen to film the bulk of our task on these dates , by booking the camera out for two days it will give a good amount of time though we will try and film all on one day in order to keep consistency in our mise-en-scene. By doing this we will have time to look over our footage and will be completed by the end of half term allowing us a good amount of time to edit.

 We also did some test shots on The 30th of January to try and work out what type of shots we would be able to achieve as well as this some shots will be able to go towards our final peice.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Main Task Script Ideas

We decided against a rigid script for our peice as all our actors are friendly with eachother we decided to set out a loose guidline which will encourage natural conversations and "banter" which will suit the character's we are trying to portray.

Saturday 4 February 2012

Main Task - Name Of Film

As a group we have decided to name our film Out Of Service. I suggested this name to the group as i felt the idea of the phone going missing as well as our character's being stuck in the woods linked into the idea of being out of main areas thus loosing service.

This title came about after we developed our ideas of plot linking it more to the idea of threatening texts which would suit the teen aspect of our genre really well. Often in these times unfortunately cyber bullying can happen , we have tied this in to our film in a much more sinister way and i feel the title shows influence from our idea's in an interesting way.

As well as this the title gives the suggestion that our protaganists will be unable to call for help and are truely isolated from the modern world making the storyline more thrilling and horror like.
We feel our title creates enigma but suits the type of film we aim to make as for example it is not a one word title that is common with hollywood hit movies.

I am very glad we came to this decision and feel the title has a good amount of depth to it.

Main Task Location Research

With our story board in place we have been looking into locations ideas , as you can see from our storyboard below we feuture opening shots of woodland areas as well as the fact our driving scenes and layover location will all be in wood like areas.

For our opening shots we have decided a large woods named The Thicket will be a good place to get a good range of shots as it is such a large area with many different area's; as well as this it would be easily accesible for us to film but with this in mind we would have to avoid capturing the genral public on camera as it would ruin the isolated feeling we want to create in our opening.

For the more wild areas of woods we may feauture we woud go deeper into the less frequented areas in order to craete an even more isolated horror feel. When it comes to ideas for filming our car scenes there is another area we feel would be perfect as there is a long straight road as well as a pull in area , the only concequence is that this area is very popular for dog walking and so we would have to be very careful to not capture the public as it would ruin the eery feel we aim for.

Here are some pictures of different areas within the thicket.




Main Task Music in Horror Films

Tabatha has found an interesting peice of writing about music and sound effects used in stereotypical horror films , i found this very interesting as it could help us make some decisions as to the type of sound we want to use in our opening.

http://www.eng.umu.se/monster/john/sound_music.htm

Friday 3 February 2012

Main Task Animated Story Board

Before going into more detail of our film below is an animted version of our storyboard which has also acted for inspiration purposes as the animation format has helped up visualise our film opening better and has given us a wealth of ideas.

It is important to plan the opening so we make sure to include everything we would like as well as the fact it will make our filming process more efficient in the long run as we will have a plan to stick to , although with this in mind spontanious decisions are also welcome in the filming process to help us keep our ideas as fresh as possible.

We put together this story board after going through our initial notes on themes and choosing to base our film upon a group of teens who set out on a roadtrip but an unexpected pull over results in a situation they never imagined.

Below is the story board.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Teen Horror Film Deconstruction 2



I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

00:49-3:41

I still know what you did last summer is the sequel to a teen horror classic , the 1997 hit “I know what you did last summer” , this film series is so well known that it has been parodied and referenced many times over the years in pop culture.
The basic storyline follows two teenagers who were lucky enough to escape the fisherman they thought they had killed by accident in the first film but may not be so lucky this time as the villain returns to seek his revenge once more.
The film begins with the opening titles stating “Columbia Pictures Presents” from the very beginning background non diegetic sounds of screaming can be heard which creates a tense atmosphere and implies the genre of the film immediately.
As the title of the film appears in fractured white text against a stark black background sounds of what seems like flashbacks of dark conversations can be heard vaguely as they have a disjointed effect as well as use of echo to create a jumpy horror feeling to the film.

As a final non-diegetic sound of a knife slicing echoes out an establishing shot can be seen at 1:08 of a religious figure, as the camera pans downwards a figure of Jesus can be seen and non-diegetic music begins to play; as the scene moves on the clip cuts to a close up shot of a pair of female feet in a church walking through the centre of many pews.
Diegetic sound of her feet moving can be heard clearly notifying the audience to just how silent the surroundings of the church are , as the shot pans up to reveal the back of a woman she appears to be in complete darkness creating an enigma into who this mysterious character is.

The scenery of the church often connotes ideas of isolation and silence which could put the audience on alert to a possible scary situation, creating tensions which are an important factor of a successful horror.

As the shot changes to that of a bird’s eye view it gives the audience a sudden sense that this character may be being watched as it pans towards her briefly before her full face is shown in a mid-shot at 1:37 , by revealing the identity of this character first it can be assumed that she is one of the main protagonists of this film along with this the fact that her face has a heavy focus on it and the background seems to have gone slightly out of focus shows her importance in the scene.

As the shot smoothly cuts once again to the back of the character suddenly a change of scenery and a close up shot of the character in a confession booth puts the audience on edge once again as it is unclear what will happen next, this creation of the sense of enigma is key in teen horror films as it keeps the audience on their toes.

This shot is filmed through the barrier to create the idea that we are seeing the protagonist from the view of whoever is listening, as the character voices “forgive me father for I have sinned” she begins to divulge into the guilt she feels for the death of the man who had died the previous summer.

Throughout this prose the shot changes from through the barrier at a close up to a mid-shot of the character in profile, this again creates the idea that the character is being watched as well as the listeners face not being revealed creates a sense of nervousness to the scene as anyone could be on the other side of that barrier.

A diegetic sound of a male saying “yes” in reply to the female is the first interaction given which seems to lull the character into a sense of security as she continues her story and confession, by doing this it not only creates a ambience in which something bad can be felt it also fills the audience in on the theme of the film from the start.
As the female finally voices the name of the man she killed the second character can be heard to say “I know”, as confusion crosses the protagonist’s face the shot switches back to that of the second character viewing through the barrier as suddenly it switches so we can now see the face of a man from the protagonist’s view creating a sense that this man is not someone to be trusted.

As he states “I know what you did last summer” the shot switches to a close mid shot and the man is seen to plunge towards the camera with a fishing hook as a loud diegetic crash can be heard.
With the use of slow shots and the small range throughout this opening it is the perfect build up to the horrific end which starts the film off perfectly as it is clear what is to come.

Monday 30 January 2012

Teen Horror Film Deconstruction





Final Destination 3


00:00-2:09


The final destination film series are iconic in the genre of teen horror with a total of 5 films being made.All films are based around the idea of a group of teenagers who avoid fatal horror when one member of their group foresees the oncoming danger. The only thing is in the end they all die in the order they would have in the accident that never happened.

Final destination 3 focuses around the idea of a group of teens who board a roller coaster , yet get off when Wendy the main protagonist has a premonition of the ride crashing.
The film begins with an establishing shot of a large ferris wheel which quickly fades into a closeup shot of a flashing sign reading "the corkscrew" this style of quickly fading into different scenes is featured all the way through the opening.This montage of seemingly harmless fairground scenes creates a sense of suspense as the constant changing keeps viewers unknowing of what is coming next.

A shot featured at 00:07-00:10 is a slow panning long shot showing a large  roller coaster , the use of panning on this particular shot shows that this roller coaster has a certain significance in the storyline of the film.Throughout the first 20 seconds of the clip titles fade in and out slowly with use of a fairground like font but dark colours are used to create an eery feel to the text being displayed.This style of title continues through the whole opening scene but at 00:17-00:23 the title of the film is displayed.This section begins with zoom shot of a fairground mechanical fortune teller , as it fades into a closeup shot of the hand of the machine moving over tarot cards the title "Final Destination 3" comes up in a classic circus style text with the use of red yellow and black colours , all of which are known to be danger or warning colours.

Following the titles a slow motion up shot of a ferris wheel horse is shown with a use of a horse's neighing sound used as a short overlay over the use of non diegetic instrumental music. The music creates a scary feel to the whole opening clip as it is unnerving to listen too , the use of specific sound overlays which work in conjunction with what is being displayed such as screams also show the horror themes of the film well which gives off obvious links that this is not just a normal teen film.

A cut which resembles a glitch to the shot is then used to switch to a long shot of the ferris wheel going round slowly , but this quickly changes as a reflection of the wheel starts going at a much faster speed while the main shot stays in slow motion. This gives the clip a disjointed look , it makes it seem scary and out of the ordinary which will make the audience expectant of the impending horror.

The use of shots of the mechanical fortune teller shows a link to the story line of the film , by using different angled shots of this machine at different points of the opening it hints to the theme of the film throughout the opening making it entirely relevant to the film. Another interesting point is the use of pictures and signs which show meaning towards the film , these are shown at a slower speed so the audience can see them properly and features images such as the devil and signs with phrases such as "do you believe in fortunes?". The images shown are of a questioning and unpleasant nature and so show that this film will be focused around scary unpleasant themes of death and fear.

At 00:53 the style of the opening changes slightly as a coin is inserted into a pinball machine seemingly by itself , as if an invisible character has started a game of pinball , which is known to be a game of chance. As the shot pans to the right side of the screen it fades into the inside of the pinball machine , showing a short shot of the inner workings of the machine moving a ball along.

This clip is interjected once again with the montage like clips of the fairground , but now they have the prominent feature of being in slow motion and then speeding up significantly with even more use of screams in the background sounds.This is done in order to build to a crescendo at the end of the opening as the constant speed change of the clips makes for a creepy jolting style to clip as well as the increased amount of screams making it seem as if something very bad is going to happen.

Switching back to the pinball clip a downward spiral of the ball could relate to the upcoming situation of the film which gets worse and worse ie: goes in a downward spiral. As even more clips of rides and scary fairground posters are shown the clip comes to a meaningful end as the pinball is shown inside the machine moving around , the colours are dark and grungy and the knocking sound of the ball on the sides creates a jumpy feeling. As the pinball is shown missing a hole entitled "Fate" by a small margin it then continues to spiral around a whole which is marked with "Death"as it drops into the hole the shot drops into darkness and the opening is finished.

The drama of this final shot shows that the upcoming movie is going to keep you on your feet and result in many deaths as the hints within the opening have lead the audience to expect the worst.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Early research and Planning

Featured  are some pictures of our notes displaying evidence of early research and planning.



Main Task Brief

Brief- The opening of a new fiction film, to include titles and to last no more than two minutes.

In accordance to this brief my group and I have chosen the genre of “teen horror” with this genre we will be able to explore a wide range of techniques as well as the fact we would be creating a opening which appeals to teens interests just like our own. We will be able to look into interesting ideas for mise-en-scène as well as the fact we will be able to develop our skills with use of non-diegetic sound.
Production costs will be able to be kept low also and we can use people we know to be in our piece as well as using the local area to find locations.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Full evaluation after the jump , Please read more.