16. EVALUATION

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EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT

The brief that I chose required me and my group to create a film opening, horror being the genre that we chose, lasting a maximum of two minutes. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of our film opening, especially certain camera shots which I feel helped convey the mood and tone. One of these camera shots that I am particularly happy with would be the high angle shot used (at 0:18) when the girl runs in from outside. This makes her look very vulnerable and sets the audience up for something that could happen that is beyond her control. I also feel that the tilted camera shot we used (at around 01:15) when she was walking down the hallway was very effective as it showed a sense of panic and added to the tension of the scene. I particularly loved how the camera angle was slightly slanted, this gave a distorted kind of feeling, almost foreboding what is going to happen. I also feel that the quality of our editing was very good throughout as we made sure that we didn’t cut each camera shot late or too early, we learnt a lot about achieving continuity editing from our preliminary exercise. Another aspect I felt was strong about our film opening was our choice of music to help intensify the mood. I felt that music plays a very important part in all films as it helps support the mood that is being created. Without the music I feel that most films lack something, which is why it is needed most of the time. Especially in horror films I think that music is very important as it amplifies what a person is feeling and the tension of the situation, which is definitely what I think we achieved with our music choice. I also believe that where we chose to place our title and credits was a very good decision as it didn't distract the audience from what was happening. We used the title (at 01:39) to show that a few minutes would have passed from the previous shot. However, even though I am very happy with the finished product there are only a few parts that at times were quite clumsy; this is mainly due to the fact that we were very limited with our technology when filming. The shots that i'm talking about are from the start to when the girl runs into the door. We only had one handheld camera and one microphone so when we were filming outside in the dark (00:00 – 00:10) the quality of these shots was not as good as we would have hoped. Also, the sound quality was not as good as we wanted it, when we were filming outside we had to remove the sound from these shots as the wind got in the way which meant we had to add in sound effects of footsteps instead of using the real sound from the film. I feel that this has impacted slightly on our final product as this makes the beginning look less professional than the rest. But, I do believe that the quality of the filming inside after this bit was very good and made up for the slight mistakes made before.

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

After studying other movies in the genre of horror we were aware that to create an effective opening sequence of our own we must follow some of their conventions. We believed that by mostly keeping to stereotypes and conventions of other horror films like that of those in our research this would make our film opening appear to be far more authentic and recognizable to our audience. Our film opening uses and develops many of the conventions of those in existing horror films such as the use of dark locations, which help create a sense of mystery. We decided that we would use a dark hallway, which represents an isolated location which lends to the idea of "no escape" in horror films. We also used quick editing when it came to the main action of the attack which is often used which makes the scene appear more chaotic and scary. Another convention we followed was that normal teenagers are usually used in horror movies. We thought that we would use ordinary teenagers as this would make the audience more interested and more able to relate to the people in the film, especially as our audience is mostly teenagers. Another conventional technique used in horror films is the use of unsteady camera shots, this makes the audience feel disorientated which goes with the action that happens, we decided to use this as it adds to the tension of the scene. We also used close ups of the victims face because this shows their emotions, which are often used also. Aswell as this it is common in horror films to use a young female victim, and we decided to do this aswell.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

One of the social groups represented in our film is gender. Stereotypically, females are seen as the weaker sex and more unwilling to fight back, and after researching existing horror films this was seen in a few, for example Scream and The Ring. There is commonly a female victim used that is shown to be vulnerable and alone and we decided to follow this in our horror movie opening, which shows the girl trying to run away but getting caught. So with this stereotype in mind, we decided that to use a stereotypical pretty blonde girl and that after the group had split up, the camera would follow where the girl goes, and she would be the one to be attacked and killed without fighting back.Another social group that we represented in our film opening was age. In most horror movies that we have all watched and studied the people in them are usually teen aged. This could be because there are a lot more story lines that can be based around them. We decided to use teenagers in our film opening with our main actress being 19 years old. Aswell as this the storyline was that they were running away from the police at the beginning before they all split up and run away. This can be seen as a stereotype that some teenagers are bad and often get in trouble with the police.

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

Because we followed the genre of horror very closely I think that film companies that specialize mainly in horror films may distribute this film such as Twisted Pictures. Also maybe it would be a British distributor such as Hammer Films may as this is a company in the UK and this film company is very much known for making horror films which means that these companies probably would attract the audience that our film appeals to. Another example of a film company dedicated to producing horror films is Ghost House Pictures which may distribute our film also. This could be because our film closely follows what these films companies would like to distribute and what they are known for. However it could be seen that Independent film companies would distribute our film due to the fact that it is low budget. Major film companies may not want to distribute our film because the actors in our film are not known or because it's low budget.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

One of the first things that we decided to do was closely decided what the target audience we were aiming our film towards would be. We decided that it would be quite a wide target audience of both males and females aged from around 15 to 30 years old. This age range of people may be likely to go to a cinema to see a film. From studying and watching other horror films, when they contain mild violent scenes they are usually certified as a 15, if they have very violent gory scenes that are certified as an 18. As our film is of the horror genre and included a mild violent scene, we knew that this would not be suitable for a young audience and so decided that our film would be certified as a 15, and so our audience shouldn't be any younger than 15. We also thought that the majority of elderly people would probably not be that interested in horror films and probably would not go to the cinema that often.

How did you address/attract the target audience?

We felt that by sticking closely to original conventions of horror films that this would make it recognizable to our audience and would make them more likely to want to watch our film. We also used the idea of "unanswered questions" which make the audience want to carry on watching and to see the resolution and outcome of the film. For example the audience may want to know who it was that attacked the girl. For our opening sequence we wanted to convince our audience to continue watching the rest of the film, which is why the opening of the film is very important. We felt that if the opening wasn't very good this would not make the audience be interested in watching the rest of our film so we decided to include an exciting opening sequence. Another way that we attracted our target audience was by using characters that they could relate to. As our audience was mostly teenagers we decided to use teenagers in our film. We also made this storyline easy to understand so that the audience would be able to follow on and be aware of what was happening.

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

One of things about technologies that we learnt through this process is that all the elements such as the filming, lighting, sound and editing are all needed to create a good piece of work. If one thing is not as good as the rest this can really show during the end product, for us the sound was the hardest part to make perfect. We learnt that it is very demanding to get everything perfect when filming, so it was definitely best to film each shot more than once to avoid having to go back and do it again if we were happy with something. We particularly learnt that it takes a lot of time and effort when editing because every single shot has to be edited perfectly together in order to demonstrate continuity. Due to our limited use of technology, which I feel we handled effectively, we were not able to be completely satisfied with everything mainly due to the fact that the sound and lighting wasn't perfect, but if we were to do this again we would have tested the sound more thoroughly using the microphone before filming it. Another thing we learnt was that it is very time consuming when filming as we had to make sure that each shot was perfect. We learnt that to achieve shots that were still it was best to use the tripod which makes the shots seem much more professional.

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

Looking back at our preliminary task, we learnt a lot from this which helped us in our main task, especially concerning using technology such as editing. We were able to familiarize ourselves with how to use the cameras and microphones and this was a good thing. When filming our preliminary most of our group, except one person, had little to no experience concerning filming and editing so this was useful for us to get to know a bit about the technology prior to working on the main task. We were all more knowledgeable on how to achieve continuity editing through the preliminary, as this was the aim of it, which helped us greatly when we came to the main task. One of the main errors we made in the preliminary task was concerning sound, as we filmed a person entering a room the sound from outside the room and so the scene didn’t flow very well when the camera cut to inside the room. We learnt from this and made sure that the sound in our main task should flow better when cutting to a new camera shot. I feel that our main task was of a far better quality then our preliminary task was as we learnt from our errors.

14. CONSTRUCTION - Finishing with Music, Title and Credits

FINALIZING THE MUSIC, TITLE AND CREDITS TO PRODUCE OUR FINAL OUTCOME

From the 24th of March up until the 3rd of April we used this time to finalize our film opening to create the finished product which all our group were to be happy with. Compared to the last draft we have changed a few things to make it better.
This is what we changed:

• The first thing that we did was to tighten up most of the editing as after watching it back it appeared that a few things were not perfect, for example when the girl walks up the stairs our of the shot, we cut about half a second off that, and also off the next shot where she comes in through the door.

• The second thing we did was to sort our a few shots. We rotated the camera shot of her feet walking across the hallway as we did not do this in our draft. We also changed lighting and increased the brightness of the first few shots of the 3 people running as we filmed this bit in the dark and the quality wasn't very good, and the shots were too dark.

• The third thing that we did was to sort our the music that we were going to include. On our previous draft we chose a section of music from the horror film The Ring as it was typical "horror movie" music and thought that it fitted well with our scene as it helped build up tension. However, we chose a different section of music from The Ring for our final draft so it flowed better than it did in our draft. We kept the music constant right from where she was walking up the stairs as we thought this was better. We used dark, low tone music as it fitted with that was happening.
  

• The next thing was to change the position of the title. In our previous draft we had the title fade in on the end shot but we decided to change this. We decided to position it on it's own on a black screen straight after the girl has been attacked where it cuts off. We thought we'd do this as we want it to go into a different scene of the girl dead which would have happened a few minutes later, so we positioned the title there to give the sense that some time has passed. We had also seen this used quite a few times in our research, I saw this on Scream and House of Wax and decided that it was very effective.
  

• The next thing we did was to add the credits. In our previous draft we had not added those in as we hadn't decided on where we wanted them to be. We had decided to position them after the main action, the attack, had happened, so we wouldn't distract the audience from watching the attack. We had them fading in and out while we see the dead body as nothing much is happening at this point, the audience have time to see the credits and the dead body. We didn't make the credits too big or distracting as we thought this was best and didn't want to draw too much attention to them and we also had them going on after the action so we didn't overwhelm the audience with too much going on at once.
  

• Another thing we did was to sort out the sound and sound effects. In the first few shots that we filmed outside of the 3 teenagers running away from the siren it was very windy and we could hear the wind too much when reviewing this bit. We decided to dub out the sound and add in a windy sound effect instead, and only using the piece of dialogue that was said. We also had to add in sound effects of footsteps. In a way I felt a bit disappointed in this, but as we filmed it with the sound quality not so good we had to do this.
  

Here is the final version which is finished:





Our final version can also be seen on the DVD as is the preliminary task.

13. CONSTRUCTIUON - Day 2 of Editing

EDITING TOGETHER EVERYTHING WE'VE FILMED

After finishing our filming, we got together again as a group and decided to edit it together to try come up with our finished product. We used the skills we learnt from the preliminary to help us achieve continuity editing.
Following our storyboard we edited the shots in the order that their appeared, then viewed what this looked like. We decided that we would make a few changes as some things didn't turn out how we thought that they would on the story board. Next we decided to edit the sound of the siren in. We recorded this ourselves as we had a siren, and then put this over the top of the video. We then made it sound quieter as we wanted to make it sound like it was in the distance.


We have yet to finalize the title, credits and music and this is just a draft of how we might do this.
We do know that we want to use music, typical to that in other horror movies, but we have not yet decided on which music that we are going to put over the top and use to create the mood. In this draft we have used a section of music from The Ring. This music is very effective in conveying the mood.
We also are rethinking the place of the title and we have not decided on the credits yet we have yet to do this, all that remains for us to do it make sure we are perfectly happy with our film opening, finalize the credits, title and music.

We have not yet finished, but this is a rough edit of what our film may look like. We have some more editing to do as we are not perfectly happy with all the shots;

Here is what we have so far:

12. CONSTRUCTION - Day 2 of Filming

FILMING THE REST OF OUR FILM OPENING

Today we again, had access to our location (our school), props and cast so we filmed the remaining shots we had left to do, and finished all our filming as all our group was present. Today, we had all our cast members so we were able to film the beginning of our film opening, and any shots that we had decided to re-do from last time. When we arranged our time to meet we arranged a time of 6:00 this time, as last time when we met at 7:00 we ran out of time, so this time we made sure we had enough time to finish it. We had told the main actress, Angela, that she must wear exactly the same clothes and jewelers, and have her hair the same as last time, in order to avoid any continuity errors. We made sure that the location was exactly the same as last time also.


The equipment that we had with us this time was a tripod and video camera, this time we had a microphone for the speaking bits. We brought our final storyboard again so we could follow it as we filmed. We brought our checklist of shots so we knew what we had left to do and what we needed to re-do from last time.



First of all, we decided to film the scene that we were unable to film in the last session, which was the scene of 3 people running away, and then splitting up. Our idea was to suggest that they had committed some sort of crime so we would hear a siren in the background so the audience would know why they were running. We decided that when editing we would edit the sound of the siren in over the top so we could manipulate how loud we wanted it to be. We followed our story board, and finished this part. However, we had a few issues with this part of the filming; as it was very windy we had a bit of trouble with sound. In this part of our film opening we decided to use a microphone because of this issue, and this proved to work a lot better and the sound was heard a lot better. Next we decided to film the shots that we decided we wanted to re-do from last time. We took a note of why the previous shots didn't work, and filmed them in a different way to last time. Next we filmed the remaining shots that we had left. One shot which required us to film in our school sports hall looking up into the window where the hall we were filming is. While we were filming this, 1 of us went down into the sports hall, and the other 2 stayed in the hall, we were on the phone to each other so we could easily direct the filming and the actors. Next we filmed the scenes where it cuts away from the hall and goes to the other 2 actors at the start who split up from Jade, we decided to film these in a well lighted area using a black backdrop to give the effect that they were outside, we decided against filming in the actual outside as it was pretty dark and the lighting wouldn't be good for filming. After we would edit this piece of film to make it looks more realistic.


Here are an album of the pictures I took while was filming today:

To view the album if slide show doesn't work:
http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h185/Dannideluca/Media%20Filming%20DAY%202/?albumview=grid


After all this, we reviewed all the shots we had done today and made sure that we had done everything we needed in order to make sure that we didn't have to come back after finding out we forgot any shots.

11. CONTRUCTION - Editing

EDITING WHAT WE HAVE SO FAR

Today after again reviewing everything that we had filmed yesterday, we got together as a group and we edited together the parts that we filmed just to see whether it was going to be good enough. We are very happy with what we have done so far.

Here is our progress so far:




We have not finished yet, but this is a sequence that we might put together. We are going to discuss whether the part where the girl gets killed will be at the beginning as a flashback or whether it will happen at the end. Once we film the rest we will decide what looks best.

During the reviewing process of all the shots that we had done in this filming session, we decided that there were definitely a couple of shots that we would like to re-do as they weren't filmed exactly how we wanted them. What we learnt from this was that we should have reviewed our shots more while we were filming as we could have just refilled the bits that we needed while we were out on location, which would have saved us a lot of time.

10. CONSTRUCTION - First Day Of Filming

FILMING HALF OF OUR FILM OPENING

Today we had mostly everything we needed (costumes/props/cast etc) and had access to our location, so we were able to film half of film opening. However, one of our group members, Lottie, was unable to attend this filming session. So present was Me, Jack and Hannah. We worked around this by distributing her role from that session to everyone else in the group.
We scheduled to meet at our location at 7pm as we needed it to be dark, but this proved to be a bit of a problem as we didn't have enough time to film everything we wanted to from that session due to the restrictions of being in our location that late. We learned from this that during our next filming session we would schedule to meet at an earlier time of 6 so we could have more time.


The equipment that we had with us for this filming session included a tripod and a video camera with a built in microphone. We decided that as this part of our filming doesn't involve much dialogue we wouldn't need another microphone at this point. We had all the props that we needed including the fake blood, the costume for the creature and the mobile phone.


We also brought with us our final storyboard so that we could follow it as we filmed, and a checklist of all the shots and Hannah would tick them off as we went so we would know what we had left to do for the next filming session.
As well as all this we thought it would be good to take a digital camera with us so as we filmed hannah would be taking pictures to show the process of this filming session and things such as props and the location.


As we only had our main actor, Angela, were filmed the bits that only her were in, which were from when she enters the door right up to the end shot. We decided we would film in the order that our shots came in on the storyboard as this would be easier for us.
First we filmed from our first location which was where she comes in through the door. (We would have previously seen her running from the other side in the shot before it) We filmed this is a variety of ways, using long shots, mid shots and close up's and then we would later decide which one to use, or which combination to use. After this, we filmed in our second location, her going up the stairs. We also filmed this in a variety of ways, from behind of her going up the stairs, in front of her, and at the top of the stairs while she was walking up. Next we filmed in the main location of the hall. We filmed her coming through the door into the hall (we would have previously seen her coming through the door on the other side after climbing the stairs)
After this, we skipped many shots and decided that we would do these on our second day of filming as we were running out of time. We filmed our last few shots of the dead body, using the fake blood that we made, and filmed this from a variety of different angles.



Here are some of the pictures that I took whilst we were filming on this day.

View this album if the slideshow doesn't work:

http://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h185/Dannideluca/Media%20Filming%20DAY%201/?albumview=grid

9. PLANNING - ORGANISATION OF FILMING

ORGANIZING WHEN TO FILM

During our lessons and meeting up on Tuesday the 3rd, Wednesday the 4th and Thursday the 5th, As a group we have decided on our final idea, and have our final draft of the storyboard ready and we decided that we had done enough research and planning so that we could start the filming. We decided to devise a list and discuss everything that we will need to make sure that the filming goes as good as it can.

Here are some of the things that we have discussed and finalized:

Times and Locations
Our location we are going to film in is our school, and we are going to use a few different areas in our school like some stairs, a hallway and just outside to film in. We decided on this location as we have easy access to this place and some of the areas we have looked at have a very dark mysterious feel. It didn't really matter to much on the location as we wanted it to be a random place that the girl runs into, just as long as the place looked like it would easily accompany the action that was going to take place which was the killing. We have decided to start our filming on Monday the 9th of March, due to the fact that the school is open late on Mondays, so we thought that we may have enough time to finish half of our filming on this day. As we need it to be dark for our filming we are going to meet at 7.00pm and we believe that this will give us enough time to film.

Props
We have have made sure that we will have all the props we need for our filming on that day. I will be providing the costume for the creature and Jack will be buying the food coloring, cornflour and water for the blood and have a mobile phone.
The props are:

• Fake Blood - Cornflour, water and food coloring to make it

• Black sheet/costume with a hood and a black wig for the creature

• Mobile Phone

Actors/Actresses
Our main actress has told us that she will definitely be able to make it on Monday so we will film the scenes with only her in.

Equipment
We will make sure that we have the equipment needed to film all that we needed on this day.

• Video Camera and Tripod

• Camera to take photos

• Microphone

We made a list with all these things on, so we would make sure that we wouldn't forget anything for our filming.


Click the picture to make it bigger.


We will be starting our Filming on Monday 9th of March.

8. PLANNING - Final Draft of Storyboard

FINISHED FINAL DRAFT OF OUR STORYBOARD

This is our groups final story board which we are all happy with.
The changes that we made from out draft were that we put more detail into this one. Some of the changes that we made were finalizing how long each shot was going to be, what shot type they were going to be.
Also some changes we made were adding extra shots in and finalizing the ones we had.
Click the picture to make it bigger.

At this point we have also decided on the name of the film, which will be "Dead and Gone". We decided on this as it clearly shows what genre the film is going to be.

7. PLANNING - First Draft of Storyboard

FIRST DRAFT OF OUR STORYBOARD

This is the first draft of our storyboard that we came up after deciding on our idea and things like cast, location and props.



Click the picture to make it bigger.

6. PLANNING - Gathering Ideas For Our Film Opening

GATHERING IDEA'S FOR OUR FILM OPENING

After looking at other horror film openings and how effective they were, we decided that it was time that we devised our own idea for our film opening.
So today we came up with a rough idea of what we wanted out film opening to include

The idea was came up with was of there being a group of friends, and one girl leaves her friends, and goes into a place on her own, then gets being attacked and killed by something mysterious, and then her friends are wondering what happened to her.

After this we decided to think about things like the cast, locations, costumes, mise-en-scene, music and lighting that would be involved in our film opening


Locations
Some places that we were thinking about were those like, a forest or street, but after watching other horror films, a lot of new ones have started to use typical "safe" places to give the idea that no one is safe. So we decided that we could use a place like a house or a school. So, we decided on using our school as there is a hallway which would be a good location because it's very narrow and has leads to dark location.


Mise-En-Scene/Props
We thought that we would make some fake blood up to use, as dead bodies and blood are commonly used in horror films


Lighting
We thought that we would film when it's dark, at night, to give a scarier mood. Most locations that we looked in other horror films where most of the action happens (like killing) were usually very dark locations which would probably use artificial lighting.


Cast
We thought that in the group of friends there would be about 2 or 3 boys and one girl. The girl would be the one that goes off on her own and gets killed. We decided on this as it is stereotypically seen that females are weaker, especially in horror films.


Music
We definitely want some kind of mood building music which is typical of horror films that will be playing while the girl is just about to get attacked. We think that after looking at other horror films music is very effective in creating mood and tone.


Costumes
We thought that the main person in the film who is a girl would be wearing quite girly clothes. Also we needed a costume for the creature who kills the girl and we thought we would use black clothes and hide the identity of what it is that kills her.


We have also decided after watching other horror film openings that our target audience will be around the age group of 15-30 year olds. This is mainly because most of the film openings we watched were rated at 15's because they had violence in them, and as in our idea will contain gory scenes we thought it best to raise the age group to 15, and thought that our film wouldn't necessarily appeal to older people, so came to the conclusion that 15-30 was probably a good target audience.


After doing this we decided that we would give everyone in our group specific roles and responsibilities, even though we are all going to be involved in every process like research, filming and editing. We thought we would do this as it makes it easier for us to get everything done.


Here are the roles that we decided on:

Jack Mainly Filming and Editing

Hannah Story boarder and in charge of the clipboard during filming, and taking pictures.

Daniella Filming and in charge of the music.

Lottie Sound, Lighting and she will be "the creature" in the film.

5. RESEARCH - Watching Horror Film Openings

MORE RESEARCH FOR MAIN TASK

During our lessons on 17/02/09 and 18/02/09 we outlined some ideas for our main project of the film opening.
Firstly, as a group we have decided on a genre of Horror. The main reasons as to why we chose this, is because we believe there is a lot we can do in terms of filming, sound and location that will help us convey this genre. We also believe that there is many stereotypes that are involved with this genre that can be easily followed or broken.
We also started to gather some ideas together on what we should include in our film opening.
To help us with this ideas, we decided that we should watch some more existing film openings of horror films.
As a group we all decided that we would all look at 1-3 film openings individually, and make notes on them regarding things such as camera shots, music/sound, cast, props, locations, stereotypes, the audience they appeal to, how they appeal to the audience etc. After this we shared all our notes and discussed what we had found and how we were going to incorporate these ideas into our own film opening to make it as effective as those we watched were. The other members in the group looked at some horror film openings also but here are the film openings that I looked at and then shared with the group:

HOUSE OF WAX - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtIJPXf83lE = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)

What happens in this sequence is that a lady is making a waxwork model in the kitchen (shot 1 and 3), we are told that this is 1974 (shot 2), and ten a man comes in with a small child who is screaming and crying and covered in blood, the man and woman strap the child to the chair (shot 6) then it goes into present day (shot 9) and there are teenagers in a car.

The first thing was the Warner Brothers sign, and during this and the other signs the music was playing, this music was quite intense music, which automatically made me feel as though it was going to go straight into something intense. The screen went black after these logo's had finished, with the music playing throughout. The first scene was dated at 1974, shown in shot 2 above, as it came up on the screen to inform the audience this wasn't present day, this shows that this background to the story must be very significant for later on in the film, so it sets the audience up for something that is going to happen later on it the film. When it goes back to present day, it comes up at the bottom of the screen as shown in shot 9 in the picture above. The lighting throughout this part of the film is very dark and mysterious, and at this part, the characters faces are never seen in this part. There are 3 people, a man a woman and a child who is the victim and is seen to be being tied to a chair. The faces are never seen of these people only their bodies mostly hands and legs (can be seen in the picture). The fact that the identities of these people are unknown adds to the mystery of the scene as the audience feel as though they want to know who these people are and how they relate to the story. The editing during this part is very fast and as the tension builds up the music also starts to build up and gets faster, while still remaining creepy and sets the mood as very unnerving. The victim in this film opening is a child, and this could fit a stereotype as women and children are often seen as weaker.
Also we see that their are some teenagers which are also usually victims in horror films.
The Audience of this film is a 15 certificate, obviously because of the scenes which are not suitable for a younger audience due to the violence. This film would probably appeal to an audience of older teens like 15 to about people of 30 years old.


SCREAM - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YvxjRiY6tY = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)



What happens in this film opening is that, straight away the title of the film is shown on a black screen which red blood like writing. Next a scream is heard and a heartbeat, which are non-diegetic as the character can't hear them. This fades into the first shot which is of a telephone ringing (shot 2). A girl picks the phone up and on the phone someone tells her she is going to get killed(shot 3), she then runs around her house locking all her doors (shot 6 and 7 above).

What i noticed was that the location of this film was in a house, a typical "safe" location (shot 4), this could suggest the idea that no locations are safe and that everything is unsafe which can be seen in newer horror movies.
Also the victim is female, is could be seen as stereotypical as females are seen as weaker and therefore easier victims to be killed.
During the shot of the house from outside , i noticed that it is very dark, which also creates a scary mood. She also turns the lights off in the house which makes is scarier.
Also i noticed that the girl was quite young and possibly a teenager which is quite common in horror movies as they are usually targeted at a older teen audience.
After she is told on the phone that she is going to die and when she starts running non-diegetic music starts to play, this is very intense typical "scary movie" music to inhance the mood.
This film has a certificate of 18, which shows the audience may be from 18 to around 30. This film obviously wouldn't appeal to a younger audience, but would probably appeal more to an older teens to middle aged audience.


FINAL DESTINATION - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1tzn0XRTfk = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)

I liked the use of the title and credits in this film, i thought that we use this as a possible idea could incorporate this into our film maybe.
The first thing that appeared was a shot of a window and as it panned down the window the title of the film appeared.
As the camera panned down the window is went onto an object a name would appear and fade(shot 4 and 5), then it would fade to a new object and a new name appeared (shot 6). This carried on (shot 7, 8 and 9.)
During all this the non-diegetic music was very dark and mysterious. I thought this was an effective way of using the credits as they were appearing and fading in a mysterious way, showing objects that may be significant to the film. After the credits the music stopped some characters of the film were introduced and scene went on.
The certificate of this film is a 15, so the target audience would probably be from about 15-30. As this is a 15 it probably would appeal more to a younger teen audience rather than an older adult audience.


Some main things that i noticed from my research was:

• That usually the people involved were teenagers.
• Music was used very effectively in creating the mood.
• Dark settings

4. RESEARCH - Watching Films for the Main Task

RESEARCH FOR MAIN TASK

During our lessons on the 10/02/09 and 12/02/09 As we had finished our preliminary task, and shown it to our teacher who decided that it was good enough, we started the first phase of our main task - the research and planning. As we have not yet decided on any part of our film opening, to get some ideas about the genre that we would like to pursue as a class we all watched different genres of film openings, which would help us in deciding what genre our group were going to choose. We decided that some of the things that we should be looking for in these film openings are; how they fit to the stereotype of their genre, the camera shots, editing, mise-en-scene, the music/sounds that are used, how the mood/tone is established, how the characters are established and their use of the title and credits.
Here are some of the films & genres that we looked at:

HORROR - SAW
The music was typical horror film music (like low notes) that added to the mood, which made it more intense.
We saw that this film went straight to the action, and quickly established location, which was a mysterious room, characters, 2 men, which could have been seen to break a stereotype that it's usually women who are weaker and more likely to fall victims in horror movies.
At the beginning of this opening, the title appeared on a black background, which was quite good in establishing the mood as it cut quickly into the film.
The mood/tone is easily established by the dark setting at the beginning, when the lighting is introduced it's artificial lighting. A dead body was seen right at the beginning of the film also, which is typical of a horror. Typical things like blood were also seen. The question that this film opening was imposing was how the people got in this location, and why they were there.

COMEDY - EVAN ALMIGHTY
The music in this film opening was very upbeat, and very happy music which helped set the mood. The credits were appearing on the screen during the beginning of the film and as the music was playing and the location was being shown. This way of showing the credits was very effective for this genre, however we decided that this would not fit very well with other genres such as horror. There was very bright colors in this film opening which also helps set the mood. A family were introduced which were like a typical happy family, which are usually used in upbeat happy films such as comedies and are stereotypical. Also the camera shots were quite smooth and the editing wasn't too noticeable as this was not meant to be the focus, it was focusing more on the location and characters. Usually in comedies it starts off with a state of equilibrium, which is what this film opening was showing. Overall this film opening was very upbeat and all aspects, such as music and characters showed this.

THRILLER/ACTION - THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
In this film, it started with very quick editing together of a dream like sequence. These shots were very disorientated, and set up a mood of panic and chaos. The main character of this was introduced, and it was a very muscly man, which is a stereotypical hero of action/thriller films. The location of the place appeared like it was being typed up on the screen, which shows this it must be very important for the story that we must know the location. All of these elements came together to give this scene a very mysterious feel and that some sort of action would take place soon in the film. It was good at creating the mood.

3. PRELIMINARY - Finished Preliminary Exercise

PRELIMINARY

For our preliminary exercise, we filmed a continuity task which involved a character opening a door, coming into the room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, then some dialogue is exchanged. We incorporated Match on action, the 180 degree rule and shot/reverse shot in our preliminary which was instructed on the brief. First of all taking into consideration the clips of versions of this scene that we had watched previously we storyboarded our scene out and planned the idea which involved the things we had to include in the brief.






Following the storyboard that we drew up we decided to start filming our preliminary exercise and we filmed on 3/2/09 and 4/2/09. We used a tripod for our filming, and the first shot we had was a tracking shot of just someone’s legs and feet walking across a corridor towards a door, we then had to shoot the opening of the door and did this in two sections; First we shot the character, Lottie, opening and coming through the door from the outside, then we filmed her coming through the door from inside the room and carefully edited these together which demonstrated Match On Action as the aim of this was to make the opening of the door look like one continuous flowing action even though it was shot in more than one section. After this we filmed Lottie walking across the room and sitting down opposite another character. We kept to the 180 degree rule and only filmed on one side so the room and background would appear the same to the audience to shot continuity. We used shot/reverse shot as the conversation took place, and also incorporated Low angle, and high angle shots to make one character seem more vulnerable than the other.

After filming our shots on the 5/02/09, we used software on a computer to edit these together in a continuous style. We made sure to edit each shot very tightly together to make sure the scene looked continuous and kept to the brief on continuity editing. We filmed all our shots and kept it to a minimum of 2 days in order to achieve continuity as things like the room we filmed in and made sure that appearance of the characters stayed the same (making sure they wore the same clothes etc) throughout our scene.

From this preliminary exercise we learned about how to achieve continuity editing, which was the overall aim of this task. We also learned about which shots worked best in a sequence. We tried several of the shots with the camera in different positions to try out which shots looked best, and decided that we wouldn’t change the shots very much throughout and try and keep them the same as this would become noticeable to the audience and the editing would not appear continuous.
This was preparation for the main task which we feel has helped us gain an idea of he best way for us to film as a group.


Finished Preliminary:

2. PRELIMINARY - The Planning of the Preliminary Exercise

PLANNING FOR THE PRELIMINARY TASK

Before starting the main project of a film opening, we did the preliminary exercise, which was a continuity task in which we had to filming a scene where there has to be a person opening a door, crossing the room, and sitting down in a chair opposite another characters followed by a few lines of dialogue. The main aim of this exercise is to show continuity, and how well we can show this in our shots and editing. The techniques that we had to include in this preliminary task were shot/reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule.
We decided that the first thing we were going to do was to watch clips from existing TV shows involving a scene with these actions and filming techniques so we could widen our understanding of the task. We contemplated the ways in which the basic techniques such as shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule were used effectively in this situation to demonstrate continuity editing from watching clips from TV dramas such as Coronation Street. We watched different clips to get a variety of ideas of how we were going to film our own scene, and also used these as a basis for ideas that we could incorporate into our own filming and we also learned which techniques and shot types were useful and good for us to use. Whilst watching them we story boarded the actions that happened so we could compare these to our own idea.
We also talked about various different situations in which this scene would be typically seen in, such as a police interrogation scene.
In many ways, the work from the previous module on TV Drama's helped us a lot as we had good ideas on which shot to choose to portray what is happening effectively.

We drew up a storyboard for our idea, noting down how long each shot would be, what order they would be in, and most importantly what type of shot it was going to be.

Here are some storyboards of some scenes like the one described in the preliminary brief that we watched and made.

1. PLANNING - Deciding On The Project

THE GROUP

This was our first lesson regarding this project. I have decided that I would like to work as part of a group for this project because after reading the brief I decided that I would like to follow the route of FILM not PRINT. I decided to choose film as I believed that this would be easier for me and sounded much more challenging and exciting. My group consists of 3 other people, Lottie, Jack and Hannah.