Evaluation - Question 7

  In this blog post I will be looking back at my Preliminary task and explaining what I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

                                                                   MAIN TASK

 

                                        

 

                                     PRELIMANRY TASK 

 

                                

Evaluation - Question 6

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

This is a Prezi Powerpoint I created to present this:

Evaluation - Question 4 & 5

In this blog post I will be considering the audience for our media product and how we attracted and or addressed them throughout our film opening. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our media product, we decided that our film would mostly suit the ages 15+ for both men and women. We decided this age range because 15-24 year olds make up the largest proportion of UK cinema audience at 31%, according to BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014 therefore they are likely to be more interested in going to the cinema in their free time. As well as this, films of the drama genre tend to be of the 15 classification or higher, therefore they are generally suited to an older audience.
15 classification: no one under 15 years old is allowed to see/purchase a 15 film.

What might be shown in a 15 rated film?

 
•   Drug taking
•   Expletive language
•   Portrayals of sexual activity
•   Strong verbal references to sex
•   Sexual nudity
•   Scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   Discriminatory language or behaviour
• 
    Strong violence

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the video below, we asked our focus group which consists  of four people and asked what they would expect to see in a horror film opening.

 

 

I have created a table to show what people liked and disliked about our media product and if they would watch the whole film and recommend it.

	LIKES	DISLIKES	WOULD YOU WATCH THE REST OF THE FILM?	WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THIS FILM?
PERSON 1	I liked that the opening had two different locations which made the opening mysterious and I liked that the black figures identity was never revealed throughout the opening, this makes me want to watch more of the media product to see if the figures identity is ever revealed.	I disliked the fact it was hard to understand what was happening, it didn’t really make sense as the ending left me muddled.	yes	yes
PERSON 2	I liked that a range of shots were used which shows the viewpoints from every angle to the audience. I also liked the fact that the music created suspense and tension.	I disliked that not much was revealed. I also disliked that you couldn’t hear the conversation clearly at the star of the three girls talking.	yes	Yes
PERSON 3	I liked the transitions used into the shots this created realism and the transitions implied a change in location and a passage of time.	I disliked that we never discovered the identity of the black figure.	yes	no
PERSON 4	I liked that the soundtrack created more tension and terror when the figure appeared. I also liked that I didn’t know what was going to happen next this made me want to carry on watching.	I disliked the ending as it was hard to understand. I also disliked that not many transitions were used.	Yes	Yes
PERSON 5	I liked that dark backgrounds were used this made it look scary and I liked the sound when the camera zoomed into the figures face, it was unpredicted.	I disliked that the locations were at different timings during the day which made it confusing as the train shots were darker compared to the park shots.	yes	yes

Evaluation - Question 3

  In this blog post I will be researching the kind of media institution that might distribute our media product and why they would be good for this.
 
what is a institution?
A institution is a company that disperses a media product for audience consumption. 

what is a film distribution?  
Film distribution is a process of making a movie available for viewing, by an audience. Films can be distributed through; movie theatres, televisions, DVD or to download.    

During my research into genre and opening sequences I looked at 'Sinister', 'The Exorcist' and 'Lights out'. I decided it would be important to look at the companies that distributed these films, considering they were the same genre and had similar features to our media product.

Warner Bros

• Warner Bros is the main film distributor for ' The Exorcist' and Lights out'.
• Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is an American entertainment company, film studio and film distributor that is a division of Time Warner and is headquartered in Burbank, California. It is one of the "Big Six" major American film studios located of Hollywood.
• One of the most respected, diversified and successful motion picture and television studios in the world,

Summit Entertainment LLC

• Summit Entertainment LLC is the main film distributor for 'Sinister'
• It is an American film production and distribution company. It is owned by Lions gate and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California “

British film distributors

The film distribution companies, that distributed the films I researched were all American- although some of these companies are large and well known it is important to also look at British film distributors. 

 Lions gate UK 

• Lions gate is a California-based independent producer and distributor, In 2005 it acquired UK- based distributor Redbus films, renaming the company Lions gate UK, The company is strong on horror, documentaries and foreign language pics.
• Titles include: Requiem for a dream, Monster's ball and Crash.
• UK titles include: The Descent and Pierrepoint.  

BBC

The BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation and is the largest broadcaster in the word by a number of employees. It is a mass media industry which is a diversified collection of media technologies that reach a large audience. Moreover, it is also one of the most well known channel across the UK and is available to everyone. It is also free so everyone can watch.
  

 

In my opinion, overall I think that for a small, independent film like ours a British Distribution company would be best. Lions gate UK, specialises in horror productions, like our own and therefore would be a suitable choice. They have produced similar horror films to our film. Therefore our film may be well recognized due to the company already being well known for distributing horror films so it would be a suitable choice. However, if we wanted to distribute our film with a much more integrated company, we would choose Warner Bros as it would be the most suited because some of the best horror films have been distributed by Warner Bros. They also have a lot of experience with the horror genre which would be very beneficial for our film.
Moreover, the BBC would also be a suitable choice because after the watershed time ( 9pm) they view more horror movies and thrillers. In addition, the BBC has conglomerates such as broadcasting on TV, the radio and online use. This means that if they did distribute our media product, it would be widely promoted.      

Furthermore, companies like Netflix could also distribute our media product: 
Netflix is a streaming service which was introduced by the USA and it allows people to view a wide variety of films and series with every type of genre. As our film would have a small budget, it is most likely to be an independent release and available on online platforms such as streaming sites like Netflix. This is because we’d have limited distribution costs and by putting it on a site like Netflix, it has also proven to be  highly popular and it is easier and cheaper for the audience to watch the film rather than to have to go to the cinema. It also means that young people, generally those over 15, are likely to watch our film as Netflix is popular with this age bracket, and our film is suited to this audience (15 and over). Which also means a  wider range of people are likely to watch the film. Sites like these are cheaper for both us as the Film company and the audience.

 

Evaluation - Question 2

In this blog post I will be studying how our media product represents a particular social group and the ways in which it does this.

Evaluation - Question 1

In this blog post I will be exploring the ways in which my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products. 

Forms and conventions are the things that make a media product recognisable. Horror forms and conventions, as previously researched, include macro elements such as enigmatic narratives and hegemonic representation of gender as well as micro elements such as low key lighting, eerie non-diegetic sounds and jump cuts. When previously analysing professional productions we researched some of the common forms and conventions of the opening of a horror film. This helped us when planning our own opening as we were able to have a clear idea of what our piece needed to contain in order to look professional and have a convincingly scary feel to it.

Film opening conventions include:

• Cast and production company details
• Film title
• Release date
• Short in length
• Sounds appropriate to the genre portrayed
• Slow pace amounting to a fast paced montage

Music:

 

This is one of the most important aspects of a Horror film as it is helping the film try to create a specific mood to the scene. The effective use of music will help promote even more emotions to the audience. The most common convention of a horror film opening is to have isolated instruments just before a key event occurs which helps link the idea of vulnerability to the audience. Long suspenseful notes often help contrast with short sharp notes to help shock the audience. We followed this as we thought it worked effectively in the films we researched and so felt that it would enhance our overall opening sequence.  When we watched the opening to 'Insidious', we thought the music would go very well with our product so we downloaded the track and imported it to our opening. What we liked about 'Insidious' was that the whole of the opening was in one shot but we had decided not to do that as we wanted to apply our editing skills by cropping out parts of shots we didn't need and it also wouldn't go as our opening was filmed in two different locations. At the end of the 'Insidious' opening, the title appeared on the screen alongside a strong sound effect of violins and we decided to use that sound in our opening for when the black figure was walking as it had a scary, daunting feel to it. In the first couple of scenes which are at the train station, we have not used any music as we thought that it would divert the attention from the dialogue. However, we have used sound effects in the first few scenes, the sound effect we have used was a train sound effect. Another reason as to why we have not used music straightaway is because after analysing other horror films we recognized that the background music is built up slowly. The music starts when we introduce the park scenes, the music starts off at a constant sound and you can hear violins in the background. Whenever we have a shot that pops up, we have a bang sound to add tension and heighten the audiences mood, sense and emotion towards the opening. This also makes the scene more scary and tense as you don't know what's going to happen. We have faded the music in at the beginning and at the scene when the man is walking towards the girls. We have edited the music using the fade in and fade out transition so it sounds more professional. We have also fitted in another 'bang' sound for when the title pops up. 

 

 

 

Setting

We decided to use two different locations for our film opening as we thought it would make the film opening seem more mysterious and interesting. The two locations that we decided to chose for our scenes were a train station and a park. We felt this would create a good plot twist as they are stereotypical settings involved in the horror genre. We chose external locations as we wanted a obscure atmosphere and we decided to shoot it outdoors because the weather could help enhance the atmosphere. We were fortunate with the time of year because it was winter.

 

Location 1: Train station

 

 

 Location 2: Park

 

 

 

 Font Types

We used a thin off - white outline colour with the man in black in the background. We used an off white colour because it stand out as well over the black background so it is easy to see. The colour white connotes cleanliness and innocence which is the opposite of our film opening genre which is horror. The main colours of the title, which are black and white create a dark and eerie atmosphere for the audience. Most horror films would use black or red title to represent horror, however we chose white so it was challenging the normal horror convention. It is clearer to see and it does not give too much away. We also chose this because it was smart and professional looking but also had a creepy and horror feel to it. After researching fonts and typefaces we recognised that many horror fonts used serifs. We decided to use this convention because it was simple but effective and created the proficient look we wanted.

 

 

 

Camera

We decided to use quite a few close up shots as horror films mainly use close up shots to heighten emotions, show possible importance of objects or people and it creates an atmosphere. It also increases the audiences fear as it shows the facial expression's of the characters.

Some of the camera shots and angles we used in our opening scene were; pan, tracking, point of view and tilt. This is a typical convention of horror films as it allows the audience to feel like a part of the film and feel the fear of the victims. In our opening we used a range of shots like, over the shoulder shot when the man in black stood near the tree. We used this shot because it showed the audience that the girls were the victims and this shot builds tension. It is also used in horrors to add suspense. We also used zoom alongside the over the shoulder shot because this added a dramatic effect and creates a element of suspense and fear as you don't know what you are going to see next. We mainly used close ups and mid close ups because you would be able to see the facial expressions of the victims and they create more emphasis.

We also used a low angle shot to show the face of the man in black because we thought it was effective because it shows the audience how the man in black dominates over the girls and he has the most power. The low angle shot is also very powerful in the way it emphasises  how scary and intimidating the black figure is. We used quite a few long shots, such as a establishing shot at the start of the girls sat on the bench. We did this because it helped the audience recognize the whereabouts of the characters in the scene. The scenes are set in harmless locations which creates a twist because the audience will not expect anything to happen. We also used tracking shots to connote the movement, we thought it was very effective as it showed that the girls were being followed and watched, it also helped to represent the girls' fear. Another reason as to why we used a tracking shot was so could establish park scene to create suspense as it was the last shot so the audience could think about what is going to happen to the girls next. The tracking shot also helped build up suspense as you don't know what could be shown next. this creates tension and mystery for the audience.                               

                                                                     Tracking shot      

      

 

                                                           Over the shoulder shot
 

 

 
Mise en scene

 

 Editing and colour

We looked at the different editing skills used in the other real life media products that we analysed. We noticed that most horror films use a dark tones. We liked the idea of using dark tones as it created an intense atmosphere. However, instead of just using dark tones we decided to use both dark and bright tones to represent good vs. evil theme. We did this, because we wanted the dark tones to represent the black figure and the light tones to represent the girls. Moreover,  a  convention that was present in all three of the openings I analysed was the use of dark colours. The fact that this is used in all three of the film openings suggested that it is effective and creates a convincing atmosphere. Initially our footage was quite light and bright, this contradicted the atmosphere we were trying to portray. A convention that was present in all three of the openings I analysed was the use of dark colours. This meant during our editing process we tried out different methods of making the footage darker. We did this because we wanted our opening to be effective and portray a convincing atmosphere to the audience.

 

Editing Journal - Main Task

Hannah, Amaal, Siarah and I filmed the first parts of our footage for our film opening " WHAT lIES BEHIND" on the 22nd of January 2017, and then we filmed again on the 5th of February to film the rest as we didn't manage to get all done in one day. We  began the editing process the following Friday. 

 

lesson 1

Firstly, we spent our time familiarising ourselves with Adobe Premiere Pro  and what features we used in our preliminary task that we thought would help us now in our main task. Then we began by inserting our SD card into the IMac and then we started to  download and import all of our footage and start watching it, by doing  this we were able to choose the clips that we felt that were best for what we were trying to achieve within the editing process. We created a folder to keep all of our footage and saved drafts in. After we had imported all our footage we opened Adobe Premier Pro and created a new file.

Once we finished selecting the footage we began adding all the clips in the order we felt that would look best onto the Adobe Premiere Pro timeline. This allowed us to see a guideline of what it would look like. We then saved this copy with the title 'what lies behind'.

 

Lesson 2

During our second lesson of editing we first opened up our file that we had been working on in the previous lesson and began to edit our clips together. We started by going from the beginning of the timeline. we cropped each shot to the right length of time that we needed  trimming bits from the start and end of each clip. We did this all the way along our timeline, experimenting with different lengths of shots and starting shots from different time frames. We then rendered the footage in and out. We then saved our file as 'what lies behind 2' so that when we came back to our work we knew which was our latest copy of the file.

 

lesson 3

In our third lesson of editing we opened up our 'what lies behind 2' file and carried on with where we had left off in the previous lesson. Most of our time this lesson was spent adding transitions to majority of the shots. We tested out a few different options for transitions. We went for dip to black on POV shots and a cut. Dip to black transition was the most used  within our production mainly because it builds up tension. This is very effective and is used in a lot of horror films as it builds a aspect of surprise and it is unexpected to the audience. Once we had completed and applied all the transitions to the shots we began to search for the background music for our opening. We found a range of different sound tracks that we liked and we played them all alongside our footage to see which fitted best. We decided to use ' Insidious scary violin background music'. Finally, we imported the soundtrack we thought best fitted our footage to Adobe Premier Pro and from there we dragged it onto the timeline, underneath the footage. We then trimmed the sound track to fit the length of our footage and we added fade in and fade out transitions to allow the music to build up. This created more tension to our opening. We then saved our file as 'what lies behind 3'.   

 

Lesson 4

In our fourth lesson, we had our first check-in with our teacher who gave us constructive feedback on what we needed to do next in order to improve. This involved us showing our most up to date footage to our teacher and receiving feedback on the positives and on how to improve our opening. The first part of feedback we were given was to improve the lighting of a few of our shots because the  lighting was too dark and the clothes of the actors weren't clearly seen because of this. The second piece of feedback we were given was to consider putting our credits onto one of our main shots as we had our credits on a black screen which made the ending of our opening basic so we decided to place our credits and title on one of our key shots. A positive piece of feedback we were given was that our choice of music was good and fitted well with the piece

lesson 5

In our fifth lesson we added titles and credits. We placed them over the top of the footage and tried out different fonts and colours to see which fitted our opening the most. Together we decided on San serif for the credits and for the title. We chose to make our writing black with a white outline. This was because of the colouring of the footage. We added transitions to our credits and title. We then saved our file as '' what lies behind 4".

 

 

Lesson 6

 In our sixth lesson we decided to add effects to our piece. We decided to adjust the lighting in a few of our shots. After receiving feedback from our focus group that the majority of the shots were too bright we decided to add effects to these to make them darker. To do this we tried many different present effects. This allowed us to make the clip darker and create a more convincing eerie setting.  We then saved our file as 'what lies behind 6'.
 

Lesson 7

In lesson seven we asked our teacher to watch our improved production and give us some feedback to help us improve our opening. The feedback we were given was that some of the shots in our footage were not well placed. During this lesson we also played around with the speed of some of our shots. We then saved the file as 'what lies behind 7.'

 Lesson 8
In our final lesson of editing we watched our opening from start to finish, to  ensure we were happy with it. Next we rendered our opening. We did this by going to sequence at the top left of the screen and going down to Render In to Out. We then exported our final piece ready for our teacher to upload to YouTube for examination. We did this by clicking File > Export > Media this brought us to the export setting menu. Next, we went to format and selected H.264. Then, we clicked present and scroll down to YouTube. Finally, we clicked Export and waited for the file to export.