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?

Here is what i had previously written as what I learnt in the preliminary task:

There are two main things that I have learnt throughout this preliminary task.

1) How to use the video recorders
2) How to use the editing software.

I felt that I have now had a wide range of experience in this type of media work, and now feel that I would be able to use this experience in my future projects.



For this project there were a few things that I was worried about:

• Time Management
• Choice of locations
• Music
• Props
• Scene selection

Luckily we did a lot of planning before we began to film so we were able to sort out the worries I had. However, time management i thought would still be an issue.

Choice of Location and Scene Selection

We made detailed story boards which contained the time scale of each scene/clip and also the location, cinematography and mise en scene. After we filmed the first few clips in the flat on the Wednesday evening we spoke to our actors and we decided to make alterations to our day scene. Originally we had planned to film in Worcester High Street and possibly a few shops who we had spoken to and asked for their permission. However, we decided that it would be difficult to film our cast without getting a lot of attention from other members of the public. Therefore we changed our location to beside the river. There were still other pedestrians however this time there was not too many to distract the audience to the extras.

During this i learnt:

• Always consider other options, you may not always be right first time
• Film the same scene as many times as possible from different angles- you may be able to use this to good affect when you come to edit your footage.

Time Management

So that we were able to manage our time affectively we wrote out a brief plan on how we should plan our time which is in our logistics. We managed to keep to this so this in the end was really well done.

During this i learnt:

• Always produce logistics. You are able to put down a plan of everything you are going to do, and include your time management. It works a treat!

Music

With our music we were very lucky as we knew someone who produces music for independent films. He offered to watch our film opening and help us produce music that would suit it perfectly. We managed to find heart beats and birds that we could use as background music as unfortunately when we were filming the sound did not record. This was a great experience and it was thoroughly enjoyed by me and Sophie.

During this i learnt:

• Always use your contacts. If you have had an offer by someone who is willing to help you, you can learn a lot from them.

Finally...

Props

Sophie and I wanted to challenge certain ceonventions and have the aviators as the main icon. The problem was is where do we purchase these? Luckily we found a perfect pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses on ebay! This was brilliant news as we were able to buy several pairs as one pair was to be worn in the day scene and the others we wanted to smash up for the night scene so that the murder scene would be visible by a reflection through the one eye of the sunglasses. We were both so happy when this scene worked well. From our feedback we were able to see that what we had done was worth it, and added tension and horror to our film.

During this i learnt:

• Try places that you wouldnt usually try for props. Many things can be used, and you may even end up surprising yourself!
• Nothing is too difficult if you put your mind to it!

Evaluation: Question 6

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

To produce our two minute film opening there are several things that we used. The cameras that we used were digital; they were Digital SLR cameras and they were used with the uses of tripods. The tripods were really useful as for the scenes beside the river we needed the camera to be steady. The cameras were nice and easy to use which was a huge help otherwise we would have struggled to produce the video at all.

After we had collected all of our footage we then needed to start editing the scenes. We used software that was called Premiere Pro which worked reasonably well. Here we were able to add our credits easily and also blend the scenes together smoothly. We used video transitions such as the credits fading in and out and also we were able to change some of the effects and lighting using the video effects. We made the lighting slightly darker so that even though we wanted it to be a bright and pleasant day we thought the light was too bright after we had recorded it. We were able to do this very easily but just changing the contrasts and brightness. In one of our scenes we had unfortunately got both characters in the scene which we didn't want. However due to us being close to the deadline of production work finished we had to make a quick decision n what would be the best thing to do. We decided that we would try and crop part of the frame. Luckily we found a tool of 'zoom' on the editing software where we were able to cut the unwanted character out.

We thought that due to the use of the software we were able to make our amateur work look slightly professional.

Evaluation: Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our audience were 16/17 year olds who could be classed in the social class 'emo' and enjoyed listening to heavy metal and indie music. We wanted to see how our audience enjoyed our film and how they reacted to the film opening so we produced this short video.

After the audience had watched the video they had to answer several questions:

(This is our Questionnaire)

Questionnaire

This questionnaire is based on the two minute film opening: Pulse. Created by Lauren Mullen and Sophie Price for our AS Level Media Coursework.

1) What genre do you think this production is?


2) Which conventions within our production helped you to decide what genre it was?


3) Which part do you believe to be the most captivating and attractive part?


4) What do you think is the story line for the rest of the film?


5) Did the first two minutes of the film make you want to watch the rest?


6) Are there any particular scenes which you felt had the best editing?


7) What scenes do you believe were the weakest in terms of relating to the genre?


8) Did you think the non-diegetic sound created an atmosphere? If so, what was this?


Thank You for Your Time

After our audience had answered the questions we then left them to go back to the classroom. To our delight the people who had watched our film were talking to their friends about it. This was really good as this was the desired response. I truely believed that we had managed to meet the demands of what our audience would want.

Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

A target audience is something that needs to be thought about carefully so that you are able to include things within your media product that will appeal to your audience. There are several groups of audience which enjoy horror films and the films also have a variety of film ratings. A film rating is one way of selecting your taregt audience.

Here are the film ratings for the film openings we analysed:
When A Stranger Calls- 15
One Missed Call- 15
Scream- 18

For our film rating we've picked 15 because we wanted our target audience tio be able to talk about our film at college and school so that it becomes popular between a similar age/audience.

Our target audience are teens/late teens, C2, yet our film will be targetted towards a mainstream audience, and as a rating it would be '15' this is because there will be quite disturbing scenes which younger children would not be able to manage with. The teens would probably be people who look for gory films with low age ratings for them to go watch. Our characters are also quite young so this would appeal to them.

Evaluation: Question 3

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

Our film will be a small film production that will have been made on quite a small budget. We would hope that it would reach a larger audience however due to the target audience being around the age of 16/17, which would hopefully suggest that they would discuss the film between friends.

One way of getting our film to become well known is by featuring it in local festivals and through advertisements and showings on smaller cinemas.

A festival which I would attend with this film would be: Frightfest - the UK's premiere fantasy and horror film festival. It is in the heart of London's West End at the prestigious Empire Cinema for five packed days of premieres, previews, personal appearances, signings and surprises. Being located in London would open up many opportunities for the film due to top production companies and other film fanatics being there, helping to promote the film through the premieres and previews.

Frightfest is also sponsored by film 4 so if we were struggling to get our film broadcasted in a cinema we would be able to have it shown here hopefully.

It would not go to a large cinema such as Vue as it is an independent movie, and the audience would not be right. We would only be able to progress to cinemas like Vue or Odeon if our film recieved a large amount of praise. The Electric House and Light House are both independent cinemas located in Birmingham which would be better suited for our audience.

The production company that we have decided to use is: 'Price Mullen Production' and it will be in association with 'Media Life Pictures'. These two companies will have helped to fund our low budget film and also help to advertise it and distribute it.

Dimension Films is another production conpany who could help produce our film; this is because our production seems to be quite independent. 'Scream' - one of the films we researched are also distributed by Dimension Films. A conglomerates such as Universal Pictures would not be suitable for our film because of our production not being a large budgeted hollywood film.

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the beginning of our film (the two minute opening) there are only two characters known to the audience a male and a female.

The Male Charcter

• White British
• 20
• Middle Class

This character is represented as being an obsessive male who is in love with the female character. We used a very stereotypical view that the stalker would be a male role which shows residual ideology, however we thought that if we followed an emergent ideology view the audience may not like it as much. You can tell the male character likes her so much, especially when he walks by her and the slow motion shows him sniffing her hair.

The Female Character

• White British
• 19
• Middle/Upper Class

This character is representated to be a naive girl who is a hedonist. Her hair is neat and straight and this shows how she likes to keep herself presentable- possibly to males. She walks with her head up high and she struts instead of walks. This is quite an emergent view due to woman now dressing and trying to appeal to men. This could be what is attracting the male character to her.

Evaluation: Question 1

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

Before the production of our two minute film opening could begin there were several things that we needed to consider, so that our film could contain similar forms and conventions of real media products.

Focusing on film genres and the conventions within a genre we looked at several other films with the genre: slasher/stalker horror. The three films we looked at were: As we were producing only the first two minutes these are the clips we analysed from these three films. All three films have young characters acted by late teens as the main characters. These characters could either be the villains or the heroes.

We needed to find actors for our characters so therefore we needed to decide on genders of both the stalker and the innocent character. In ‘when a stranger calls’ and ‘scream’ the stalkers are both male. Therefore we took this convention and we used it in our two minute film opening. The male actor we chose looked quite rough due to not being clean shaved and had slightly messy hair. However like other stalkers he did not stick out to the eye in public as being a stalker. He had normal characteristics such as normal clothing and he was not hiding his face. The clothing however is mainly black, which we had planned to create darkness upon the character and the shirt which he was wearing was white and red to connote blood and death to pureness- which in my opinion is a connotation to the colour white.

For our film opening we needed to put credits on it showing the names of the actors and the production team. For this we needed to carefully choose font type and colour. Yet again we looked at the film openings of: One missed call, scream and when a stranger calls. The positioning of all the font is in the centre (therefore we did) and also our main credits are white and are a similar font to ‘when a stranger calls’.

Even though scary movie was not one of the films I had originally analysed when the name of the film is shown near the fifth minute the font colour changes from white to red, this has a connotation of blood and death. Therefore as we liked this we included it in our film opening.

These two screen shots show the transition from white font to red font.

Our plan was to add uniqueness to our production by challenging certain forms and conventions of other slasher/stalker horror films. Darkness is one main convention that is used to create bad connotations. In our two minute film opening we did include this in the first few shots so that the audience would be able to recognise the genre so that they would be captivated immediately. Also as the beginning is actually the end this would hope them keep them watching until the end. The part which showed us challenging the convention is when the shots filmed in Worcester are filmed in the day. I thought we did this quite well as it made the setting a normal day.

Pathetic fallacy is usually created through bad weather, which is usually linked to horror films: thunder and rain. In our two minute film opening there is one main icon: the aviator sunglasses shown before and after the credits. This also challanges usual conventions of slasher/stalker horror films as the sunglasses connote sunshine, happiness and good.

Also the setting for all of the filming was in every day locations. The first location was in a flat which is a type of accommodation. Then beside the river is very normal, with people walking their dogs in the same location. However the only thing concerning the locations which could be used as a convention in a horror film is that water/rivers could often be used to dump bodies.

Video Production: Our Finished Production- "Pulse"

Candidate Names: Lauren Mullen and Sophie Price
Candidate Numbers: 8374 and 8309

Video Production: Final Storyboards

This is the final few scenes where the 'stalker' begins to ring the female character and there is tension built up to this point. The is done with uses of music which we will produce to fit in with the scene. The camera will then slow down when the 'sniff' happens.

















These are still edits from the walk...

















This will be the next few scenes watching the characters walking beside the river. We will need to do filming from several positions so that we can do match on action.















The credits will be next. There will be pans of the sites around by the river, where we are filming. There will then be some white font as the credits.














This is our first few scenes which will be filmed in the venue we have planned in a basement flat. There will be four rapid edits of items in the room, followed by the male character sat in a chair with his head in his hands- thinking about what hes done. Finally there will be a scary clip of the murder in the sunglasses that have fallen on the floor.

Video Production: Editing

As we have all of our clips that we want to use for our film opening we are now ready to begin editing. We are using an editing suite called Adobe Premier Pro. After capturing all the clips we will be able to begin piecing the clips together. As it is a horror film we need a lot of quick edits. For this we will be cutting down most of our clips- or even doing this we will be able to produce the jump cuts we wished for at the beginning.

Video Production: Story Board

Original Stroryboard


This is a copy of our story board which we have produced to help us when filming our film opening.

The first scene will be rapid jump shots of areas/items in the room or body parts of the character. The lighting will be dark so that it is difficult to see what has happened in the film yet you begin to guess what may have happened.

The second scene may be difficult to film. We are hoping to get a reflection in the aviator sun glasses of the villain beating the female. Again there will be jump shots to add tension and a narrow depth of field. So that you are able to details in the room this scene will be a medium close up.

Our day scene will be located in the high street with a medium close up of the female character. Over her shoulder you will be able to see the male character (villain). The camera will be straight infront of the female character and will have a slight trachk out as she is walking towards the camera.

Video Production: Logistics

Cast/Costumes

• Harriette Mullen- Casual
• Kris Roberts- Unusual and untidy

Locations

• House/Flat
• Beside River

Booked Equipment for February 13th-February 23rd

• Digital Video Camera
• Video Case
• Rechargable Battery
• Recharger
• Tripod

Time Keeping

We did recording for the evening scene on Wednesday 18th Feb at 9.30pm, we then decided that what we had planned for the day scenes would not be suitable due to the unconvenience of other people in the high street. Therefore we decided to change our story board and we produced these on Thursday the 19th Feb at 2.30pm. This took an hour to finalise things. We then planned to do the day scene of Sunday 22nd Feb due to the lighting and expected quietness. We started filming at 11am and finished at 1.30

Video Production: Sypnosis

First 10 Seconds

1. There will be a brief start to the film opening with credits
2. Flashing images around the room

Next 40-50 seconds

1. Main woman lay on floor
2. Beaten up character
3. Reaching for her phone
4. She sees the reflection of the villain in glasses reflection
5. You see him about to kill her

Following/Last 60-70 seconds

1. Main woman walking in high street
2. She goes shopping
3. Looks in shop windows
4. Villain seems to be everywhere she goes
5. Phone rings from 'unknown'
6. They bump into each other
7. She gets in taxi to go home
8. They stare at each other through window

Video Production- Two Minute Opening Analysis

For our project we have chosen the genre Horror- slasher/stalker. We have analysed the two minute opening to 'When a Stranger Calls' and this is what we will use to help us chose important details to our films such as the genre features. When a stranger calls was produced by Davis Entertainment and Screen Gems and was distributed by Columbria and Sony Pictures. This will have been as quite a few films with the same genre have similar distributers due to them knowing how to target their audiences. Our target audience are teens/late teens, C2, yet our film will be targetted towards a mainstream audience, and as a rating it would be '15' this is because there will be quite disturbing scenes which younger children would not be able to manage with. The teens would probably be people who look for gory films with low age ratings for them to go watch. Our characters are also quite young so this would appeal to them. We have recognised certain genre features such as the darkness and the empty dark house. There are also children laughing and screaming and a fayre ground which is usually linked to clowns- something which in the correct context can connote horror. The only narration in the two minute opening was a woman saying 'hello, who is this?' on the phone. You cannot see her, or the phone therefore this is non-diegetic. However there is diegetic sound coming from the children and the fayre ground. We may use non-diegetic sound as this creates confusion as the audience do not know who the conversation is between, until later on it the film. There are many fast paced edits throughout the opening. This is a good way to create tension and excitement during the first two minutes therefore we will probably use this technique in our opening. There are uses of enigma codes which also makes the audience unsure of what is happening. Narrative consists of the girl on the phone who is suggested as the victim; later on we will eventually find out the villain. Our film will contain enigma codes also as there will be a slight suspicion as who the villain is yet it will not be certain.

Video- Film Openings: Narrative and Genre

When looking at film openings there are several that we looked at as a class; one of these was 'Dog Soldiers'. Watching this allowed me to see whether I liked this genre and what aspects of this film I liked enough to include in my two minute opening. 'Dog Soldiers' is an action/horror genre and it's sub genre is a werewolf movie. Several things that are used to connote this sub-genre are: a solid silver knife, the setting being in the woods, a full moon and howling.

There are several things i focused on while watching this; the conventions used and the narrative structure.

To help the audience understand the narrative structure there are uses of binary opposition. The main example of this is when there is evil and good. The audience are drawn to believe that the villain is the sergeant who kills the dog and the hero is the man who stands up to him. The use of the other group of characters in their tent allows the film to explore the todorovian stage of equilibrium. These characters experience a disruption when the werewolf attacks them, however before this everything was balanced and normal.

As the audience have a good understanding of the narrative structures this is a good way of keeping the audience involved and also captivated. These effects allow the audience to predict in their minds the rest of the story.

Video Production; Specific Research

We are now beginning to focus of film genres and the conventions within a genre. As my video will have a slasher/stalker horror genre we looked at several films with a similar idea. The three clips we looked at were: One missed call, scream and when a stranger calls. All three films have young characters acted by late teens. This is mainly used due to this genre has a target audience of young adults. There are always a mixture of slow and rapid edits which can add tension to the film. The costume and props are always things that are well known to the target audience. If the surroundings and the setting are

Video- Film Openings: Initial Research: Institution

There are several very large companies/muti-national conglomerances that produce and distribute Hollywood genre films. Examples of these are; Universal and Paramount. The films that they produce tend to be formulaic films, with very large budgets and big stars that tend to reproduce dominant values.

Social realist films are normally produced by similar companies. These films are usually low on budget, fewer will known 'stars', less special effects and more complicated narratives. 'Sweet Sixteen' for example was partly produced by the Alta Films and the BBC. The film was on a low budget and the cast were not that well known to a mainstream audience.

Art house films are also owned by smaller companies. Films such as Funny haha which was produced by 791 cine. These films tend to challenge dominant/residual ideas and take more risks; as they cost less to produce they are able to take these risks. They are made for more personal reasons similarly to as I said before.

You are often able to know that types of messages and values within a film by lookin at who produced it. These companies that produce and distribute a film can often give a general guide that help the audience pick their desired style of film.

Video- Film Openings: Initial Research

To begin research for my video production, I looked at the variety of forms. There were three forms that I looked at; Hollywood Genre Film, Social Realist Films and Art- House Films. Looking at these three forms allowed me to see what forms and conventions would be most suited for my two minute opening sequence.

Hollywood Films are classed as being quite broad and non specific. When looking at three Hollywood Films with the genre Action such as Die Hard, Bourne Trilogy and any of the Bond Films, they all have several factors in common like their conventions. The conventions of Guns, Explosions, Cars, Women, Chases, killings, money/gambling, etc are all present in these films, and almost every other film that has the genre 'Action'. They also all have relatively simple narratives. The basic narrative includes, Hero saves everyone and kills the villain after many chases killings and explosions. Endings of Action films are usually resolved can be fairly happy as the villain gets what he/she deserves. Hollywood films are aimed at mainstream audiences which can be categorised as C 1/2.

Social Realist Films have a more difficult subject matter. The representations are quite complex and realistic. The target audience are B/C 1. The characters are often working class too so the audience are able to relate to them. Unfortunately the endings are not always as happy as Hollywood films, the endings are not normally resolved in social realist films. This Is England and Sweet Sixteen are examples of this genre.

Art-House Films have less conventional structures and do not contain a narrative structure either. Instead of the emphasis being on content it is mainly on style due to the target audience being more sophisticated and niche. This is mainly die to the projects being quite personal. Funny Haha is an example of this type of genre.