Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Evaluation Activity 7

looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?
i have evaluated the camera work and editing.

on our preliminary task we used the 180 rule and match on action, we also used some shot reverse shots. this was a really good way to practice for our opening 2 min.

what we noticed from our preliminary task is how important it is to use the 180 rule so hat the audience does not get confused as to whats happening in the clip.

we therefore made sure we used this in our opening 2 min.

we used shot reverse shots in our prelinary task while the characters where in conversation. as there was no conversation in our opening 2 min we could not do this although we did shot reverse shot as it went from the murderer to the victum, this therefore enhanced the fact there was a link between these characters.



we liked the speed and continuity of our match on action in our preliminary task and therefore made sure that we used this in our opening 2 min, we learnt from our prelimanry task our strengths and weaknesses and used this to our advantage when filming our opening 2 min.

Evaluation Task 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
for this we have taken pictures of us using the equipment. it was very important that we knew how to use all the equipment in order for our opening 2 min to run smoothly and be of a higher quality. knowing how to use all the equipment correctly also helps save time and this would be extremely important for a high budget film where timings have to be spot o.

this is me holding the camera and tripod. we learnt how to adjust the tripods so that we were able to get it at the right height and angle when filming. this is important as we needed to get the right shots and the tripod had to be at the right level so it was steady.

 this is charlotte holding the camera and tripod. we also learnt how to use the camera properly, this was important as we needed to keep our footage safe on the camera and make filming more efficient.
 we used youtube to upload all of our videos. we learnt how to upload all the videos on their website. this was a vital part of being able to show our final product.
 we were planning on making our own music but we came across freeplay music which is full of no copyright music, there was music on there that was perfect for our film and this therefore helped make our film the best it could be.
we had previous experience with windows movie maker and therefore used this to edit our film.

Evaluation Activity 5

how did you attract/address your audience?
for this i have added speach bubble to our video so explaining what other films ours links to and how we have made our audience more attracted to our film.

Evaluation Activity 4

who would be your audience for your media product?
for this i have asked our target audience question about themselves and then filmed interviews of their responses to our film. this shows wether all different people fromour target audience enjoyed our opening 2 min or not.

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Evaluation Activity 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
for this i have done a directors comentry stlye voice over.

Evaluation Task 2

how does your media product represent different social groups?
for this i have picked the key characters from my opening. i have found different actors and actresses from films and have written about the simularities and differences that they have.

our main character is very simular to 'Casey' from scream. she is sweet and inncoent in personality,this makes her appear vulnerable and an easy target, therefore the audience has sympathy for her and her weaker persoinality makes her seem like an easy target and that she would not be able to stick up for herself. the clothing is simular as it is very girly and casual. they are different as 'Casey' is older than our main character, she also speaks alot morein the film.


our main character is also simular to vanessa hudgens from high schoolmusical. she also has a sweet innocent personality and is of a more simular age. they are different because they act in very different genres of film. our main character fromour horror films contrasts with the film high school musical that is a disney film for amuch younger audience. They wear simular clothes such as girly clothes with flowers on.

Evaluation Activity 1


In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
for this i have taken different screen shots and written about them.

1) This is the first shot to our opening 2 min. it is a long shot of a girl walking towards her hous. she is in the middle of the shot and the audience can see that there is nothing around her and she is alone, this is typically for the opening of a horror film as it makes the person seem vulnerable. she is wearing casual clothes, this makes the audience able to relate to her. we also have our titles saying 'lionsgate Pictures Presents' this is fading in and out on this shot. the font is white so it shows up well againts the darker background. the begging straight away suggests its a horror film as the colours are dark black and reds and the music played over the shots is scarey and puts the audience on edge.

2) there is then a shot from behind the girl and you can see her approaching her house, this is a long shot as you can see her and the house. there are no props used in this scene. we do not have alot of editing in this shot although there is text fading in and outover thetop of the shot. By fading in and out it builds more tension which is giood for the genre of our film. there is only one character introduced so far, the audience does not know anything about this person and this adds to the mystery of the opening 2 min.



3) there is a extreme close up of the girl opening the door, we increased the sound when the key goes in the lock and the door opens. this adds the tension being created.










4) there is a mid shot as the girl entres the house, this makes her the main focus. the only editing we used in this part of the clip was adding titles over the top.













5) There is then a long shot that shows someone looking in fromoutside. the camera is shakey so it shows the audience there is someone outside movingsround but the audsience is not able to see them, this builds furthertension and suspence. the music at this point becomes slightly more dramatic.







6) there is then an over the shoulder shot of the girl walking own the hallway. the camera follows her as she walks, we got the idea to do this from the film insidious. there is more text put over the shot, we used times new roman because it has an old style which suits the convention of a horror film.









7) this is another shot from outside, again we made the camera shake so that it appeared that there was a person outside. It was a long shot so you could see the girl standing behind the window closing the curtains. There are more tiotles over the top of this scene aswell.










8) there are close ups of making tea, each shot lasts around 3 seconds, this helps build suspense and tells the audience that something is going to happen but by having normal everyday activities taking place this puts the audience on the edge of their seats.








9) In this shot we have the girl to the side, this makes the backdoor in the middle of the shot and therefore the main focus allowing the audience to see the man standing there, the musis more dramatic to add to the tension.

Monday, 12 March 2012

Horror Film - Opening 2 min

we have done most of our editing for our film.



there are a few things that we would like to change. we feel the ending would be more dramatic if the Vikitm turned around, dropped the milk (close up of her face) and she screams. we would also like to add titles that fade in and out as the clip is playing.

Music

while editing our film we have realised that music in the background would improve our film as there is no dialogue and we feel it will make it more interesting and build tension.

music ideas:

1. Vampire night

2. Eerie Angel
3. Demented Dreams
4. Behing the looking glass
our favourite one was Eerie Angel, it fits really well with our film and looks most effective.

Film Diary (Entry 2)

we managed to finish the rest of our filming today. We are very happy with how it is going. we are going to begin editing straight away so that incase there is a part that does not look right we can easily re-film and add it in.

Film Diary (Entry 1)

today was our first ay filming. we were hoping for no problems but some builders that were doing work in the bathroom flooded the house and therefore we were restricted with our filming. we are going to finish filming in the next couple of days, therefore i am going to have to make sure things in my house dont get moved around and cause continuity errors.

Insidious Clip

we have been watching some more horror films in order to get ideas on how to make it more effective. a clip that caught our attention was a scene from insidious. the part where the women is walking through the house and the camera follows her looks really good and builds suspense, therefore we are going to use this in our film. we also like the way the camera changes from outside to inside and looks through windows, we shall try and incorporate this in our opening 2 min.
http://youtu.be/f7UUtLZ1Sgw

Costume Ideas

our costume ideas are rather simular to our original idea. we are going to have the murderer in black clothes...





our Viktim is going to be in her clothes as we want her to look like an everyday teenager.

Location Pictures

we have decided to do the filming at my house, this is due to the fact that we can use it at anytime and it has a brilliant layout for the idea of our film.











New Cast

for our idea we only need 2 characters. once again a murderer and a viktim. as filming time is becoming less and less we have decided that charlotte (involved in filming and planning of the opening 2 min) will be acting as she is very commited and understands the importance of getting the film done. she also has some past experience in acting and therefore she was perfect for the role. this means that i will be doing the filming but we will both have a say in the camera angles and movement that we do in order to make our opening 2 min as sucessful as possible. As we also need a murderer we were considering me taking that role, although as i am not very tall we thought it might not be as intimidating and may not have the dramatic effect we were going for. therefore we have decided that John Glover (my dad) will be the murderer as we are planning on filming at my house, therefore he will be around most of the time and this will therefore make filming alot easier and quicker, which is important as we now have slightly restricted time.

The Cast

Charlotte White (Viktim)
John Glover (murderer)

New Idea

As we have decided not to use our original idea we have been thinking of some of the problems we came across while filming, such as having to get the horse to co-operate, problems with the camera, lighting, weather conditions stopping us filming, time and cast. we have learnt from these mistakes and therefore we hope this idea will run alot smoother. as we were also not happen with the suspense built in the other opening 2 min we are going to look at more horror films to see how they build more suspense, we will incoporate this into our filming.

Idea 2 - new idea

Our Film Idea 1

we have decided after editing that we are going to change our film idea. we are not happy with the way this has come out and beleive the other idea we have will be far more effective. fortunatly as we are not doing a high budget film this is not a problem for us although if we were this would waste alot of money and may not be possible due to time and money.

This is part of our opening 2 min idea 1:

Film Diary (Entry 5)

we finished filming today and have begun editing. we are not very happen with the lighting and some of the moments we wanted to build suspense with are not as effective as we had hoped. we are going to finish editing although we feel we may need to change our idea, this would help as we could do filming inside with better lighting and could build more suspense as the audience would relate to it more if it was in a familiar surrounding such as the home.

Opening 2 min - Haunting in conneticut

the film starts with old pictures, this is effective for a horror film but would not be suitable for our film as it does not go well with our storyline. when the clip officially starts there is a close up of a women talking, the camera movements are slow yet jump from one to another quickly, this builds suspense as well as keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. we could use these camera movements in our film next time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh_JEbgblPI

Opening 2 min - The Strangers

we have some filming done although we are not sure how to make it look scarier, most of this will be done in editing by adding music although we are looking at some more opening 2 min to help give us ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLDdPW5yfR4

this film has titles at the begging that fade in and out, this would be done in editing. this builds suspense and the dark background and orange and red colours add to the horror film effect. as the film starts there is a establishing shot the shows a lonely place, the camera moving around in a pan shows the area around and highlights how deserted the place is, we will use this in our film.

Film Diary (Entry 4)

unfortunatly yet another problem has occured with our opening 2 min,due to the camera we have used none of the footage has been able to upload onto the computer. although we have learnt from our mistakes and will now use a different camera. fortunatly we have been able to watch our footage back and have seen some area we would like to improve. we will look at some opening 2 min of other horror films order to acheive a better opening 2min.

Film Diary (Entry 3)

change of character
unfortunatly as we have been delayed due to the weather one of our characters can no longer act in our film, this has not caused any problems as we have not done any filming that involves this character. i have decided that i will now take this role as it is last minuit and we dont have any one else.

Film Diary (Entry 2)

the snow has cleared up so we have finally been able to start filming. we have done some of the filming outside with the horse. unfortunatly our actor has a small fear of horses and so filming has taken longer than expected.

Film Diary (Entry 1)

we were planning on filming today but we have woken up to a lot of snow, this means we will not be able to film today and will have to wait for the snow toclear up as our location is outside. if we were filming for a high budget film this would cause alot of problems as it would cost alot of money to have to film on another day, fortunatly for us the snow should clear up soon and we will have time to film.

Film Name

we have decided to call our film 'The Visitors'. we got this idea from other films such as 'the strangers'. we have thought of other ideas such as 'one missed call', 'when a killer calls' although we feel that 'the visitors' does not give to much away and suits the storyline for our film. although we have only one person that is the murderer or 'visitor' we beleive that 'the visitors' seems scarier and more effective than just 'the visitor' we have been practicing with titles for our film:



we have decided to have a black background and red writing, this goes well with the institution clip at the begging of our opening 2min and has a mysterious scarey look that goes well with our film.


we think this titlt is better as it looks more professional and looks as though there has been smeared blood, this firther adds tp the ffect of our horror film.

Our Film Institution

we are going to use lionsgate for our film institution, they have been involved in sucessful horror films and therefore would be a good institution to go with. we are not going with an institution such as pixar as this makes films that appeal to a much younger audience, with cartoon and disney types of films, therefore it would not give out the right message of our horror film and would not be aimed at the correct audience.
we have looked at some of their introductions and have found a horror version, this will go really well at the begging of our opening 2 min.

Costumes

for our film we want our victum to relate to a stereotypical teenager, therefore we will ask our character to come in her own clothes, something like jeans and a top would be suitable for the film.



our murderer will be dressed all in black, therefore black leggins, long sleeve black top, gloves and a balaclava would be suitable for this character.