When organising our film we need to think of what props we will use and what they connote. These props have changed heavily since our original film as the locations have changed.
We needed to think of how we could show our genre through these props and what image they give off.
Props used:
Sink:
We wanted to use a plain white sink as this portrays innocence, this will contrast with the contents of the sink. We also want to use this type of sink as it is seen as a more expensive options which would give a different impression of the killer.
Knife:
We will use a knife to clearly indicate that the sink is that of a killer. A knife has connotaions of death of killings which ties in with the genre of our film.
White Towel:
We are going to use a white towel which has connotations of innocence. We will use these ideals of innocence as contrast to the situation that they are found in.
The differences between our preliminary task and main task are very obvious, in my first group we were not confident when using the equipment and with our ability to see a shot and integrate it in with the final piece which we created. In our main task through extra research and analysis of horror film openings as a group we saw the conventions which we needed to include. This allowed our piece to become a better rounded piece and would quite obviously be put into the genre of horror.
You can see the use of match on action and the 180 degree rule has become almost second nature and we continually used this throughout the opening to allow the viewer to be able to follow the storyline.
When we planned out the genre of horror we looked at other horror films that followed the same themes as ours. We found films such as Saw (2004) and Scream (1996) both follow the same style of horror as our piece. With the theme of stalker and the unknowing of why they have been targeted throughout the film. The use of the telephone in Scream uses the same techniques as we used in our opening by using regular household items and turning them sinister. We have used this research to benefit our piece by using a radio broadcast to give an eerie feel to the piece.Through this research into other horror films we could create a storyboard that would be easy to follow when filming. This allowed us as a group to see what shots were needed and when. When preparing for filming we also created a detailed shot list along side the storyboard, this allowed the filming to become easier and less work as we would not need to work out what shots to do as they were all written out in the order of when we would film them. The order was decided through the times we were able to film and the light that was able to be included in our piece. We had to film at around 4 o clock as any later the filming came out too dark and we didn’t want to use artificial lighting as it wouldn’t give the feeling that we wanted, but any earlier it was light and also wouldn’t be the right light.
As we were able to order the timing of filming we also chose what order to edit our piece, we decided to try to put the piece in order as well we could with out transitions or any other methods and then add them in later. This was different to the way that my first group did in our preliminary task. When editing the preliminary task we started from the beginning and worked through adding transitions as we went. I have found the way we edited our main task easier as we could change the order of the piece and allow new ideas to come into our piece and change the piece without disrupting such a large piece of our film.
Through the time between our preliminary task and main task we have used the camera a lot more through filming our film openings from different genres, through this use of cameras as a group we grew more confident and was able to achieve shots that we wouldn’t have tried in our preliminary task.
I feel that our opening of a film was successful, as a group we were more confident with filming and planning but the results where hampered by the fact we did not enough material to choose from so we couldn’t have extra shots that allowed us to add a bit more gore or horror into our opening. I feel that the opening was an open narrative and the storyline was clearly going somewhere and could not be portrayed as a film trailer rather then an opening. I feel as a group we worked well together and achieved a lot in the time we had.
We have learnt that during the process of constructing our product that the technology we use is very vital to making our product successful. There were a few problems that occurred with the camera equipment, for example, when filming the killer washing his hands in the sink, we originally had thought to set the tripod up next to the sink but unfortunately there was not enough room for us to do so. The problem that we came across was that if we placed the tripod the other side of the sink we could have a steady shot, but when in the process of doing this the lighting had been a lot darker than wanted. We ended up resolving this problem through shooting the scene on a handheld shot, , on the side of the sink that we'd originally planned to shoot on, even though this was not steady to begin with we resolved this with a function on our editing software which increases the smoothness of the shot.
A minor problem we came across was that when we went to our teacher about putting the News Reporter scene onto disc we had the wrong disc, we had a DVD+R disc and we needed a DVD-R disc. We overcame this problem as our teacher luckily had a clean disc spare for us to use. Another minor problem we came across was that when we went to take the cameras from the Media Suite they didn’t have enough charge for us to film the News Reporter Scene; we overcome this problem by having to quickly charge the camera for half hour. In the end, it was fine and we learnt that when we had finished with the camera we would make sure to charge it straight afterwards. A major problem we found was when we put all of our shots onto the Mac to start our editing we found that some of our shots were a little too dark, we turned up the brightness and tweaked a few things and the outcome was better than we'd imagined.
We used certain equipment that enhanced our film; an example is when we had to put the News Reporter scene onto a DVD-R disc, this enhanced our film as by using the Mac we had the opportunity to put this footage onto a disc. Other equipment that enhanced our film was finding 'loyalty free' music sound effects for the radio tuning which made it sounds more like a news report which would be heard via radio. Other equipment that enhanced our film was the tripod when filming the News Reporter scene, made the filming very still and professional making this more believable to the audience that it was actually filmed in a studio by more advanced professionals.
I have learnt that editing is the most time consuming element of our project. When editing we decided to use iMovie as it was a lot easier and we found that we didn’t need all the extras Final Cut Express offers. Unlike other groups we didn’t need split screen or other types of shots in our film opening, we didn’t want to overcomplicate matters, we decided to stick to our original idea by using the transitions and the shots that we’d discussed. Additionally, I learnt that by layering soundtracks in our film opening in scenes gives more of an atmosphere, as you can hear in our film opening we have different soundtracks that are used to give the piece more of an ambience. We found all of this very useful in creating our overall mise-en-scene for our film opening.
We encountered one problem during the editing process, this was that we wanted our title, which read ‘What you are about to see is based on true events’, to have an effect on it as though it was being typed at the time that the audience were reading it on the screen. We couldn’t find an effect that would do this, we resolved this problem by doing each word separately, then changing the fade in and outs on the words so that it was continuous and so it looked more professional, this was very time consuming, however when done it was how we wanted it. Things we done wrong, was filming the last shot in the room that we'd done our previous scenes in, we found that it was too dark and if I could go back I would have chosen a different location, however the first scenes were how we had organised them to look.
I think that in lesson we all put in our ideas and how the film was going to work, discussing the storyboard and planning out the whole filming process. At the beginning of our main task everyone was very enthusiastic about the work and we were sharing out the work equally, however, getting further into the task and planning and research work increasing you could see by blog posts that others were getting a lot more work to do than others. We were starting to notice when we were giving each other certain posts to do it wasn’t getting done and then others were getting extra work through others not getting them done. Everyone knew what was happening, we all got filming schedules and when editing sessions were so each person in the group was informed. Overall, I don’t think we struggled majorly, if we came across a problem, it got fixed and moved on to the next stage.
Blogger was easy and very useful to use, the best part of it was that we never forgot a post; if we were told to upload a post on something, we would title it, write information below the title on what we had to do and then it would be saved as a draft and later be completed, so that we would not forget, we would then put the names in the drafts of who’s job it was to complete that post, although this was helpful sometimes people in our group did not finish them. Blogger was easy to keep track of our work and understand what was published and what wasn’t, the problem was that even if we put it in chronological order if we then went to edit that post everything would come out of its order and be harder to organise. Overall it was useful to use.
We had to put into consideration whether our film would be mainstream, art house, Hollywood, TV Movie, Internet only or Indie. After researching on all of these categories, our group decided that our film would not be for a niche audience; if we were to publish our media product it would be mainstream. It would make sense for our film to be more mainstream than any other as looking at similar horror films we follow the same conventions, for example, The Strangers (2008) and Scream (1996). Our film would be more beneficial for this type of audience as it accomplishes the age range of around 15+ mainly; we have taken this into account as this is our target audience. Our media product could be produced by a Hollywood studio as it is similar to existing products. Films that are similar are such as Scream (1996). Certain production companies that could distribute our media product could be certain institutions such as Miramax Films.
Miramax Films are an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. Miramax films were the distributor of Scream in 1996; the films follows a storyline closer to ours than most films and were very successful. Miramax also distributed for the film ‘Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’ (1996) which was additionally a very successful film. Perhaps Miramax Films would, if we were to publish, distribute our film as we are an independent label. Another film similar to ours is The Strangers (2008), also a certificate 15 taken into consideration of our target audience, their distribution company were Universal Pictures.
Universal Pictures (a.k.a Universal City Studios or Universal Studios) are a subsidiary of NBC Universal. They are one of the six major movie studios which are very important considering we would be looking to go mainstream. This distribution company are very successful which is a significant factor. After researching on both of these distribution companies I have come to the decision that Universal Pictures would be a good match with our independent media product and have a lot of history behind distributing and promoting our film to reach our target audience. Our film would be released for a number of reasons, this would give distributors and institutions a big opportunity to invest for franchising and for merchandise.
We could get a film out and merchandise with cross media convergence with Xbox 360 to make a game like Resident Evil did and were very successful, they even created a different coloured Xbox with the game included on deals. They could offer it through other video games such as the DS Nintendo or produce the film on Blu-ray. They have a great chance to offer and use our media product over Radio Stations for distributing the films for when it releases, we could use Amazon, Video Stores to sell our film and then get the soundtrack on iTunes like Twilight did for their soundtrack on iTunes.
We wanted to use a plain white sink as this portrays innocence, this will contrast with the contents of the sink. We also want to use this type of sink as it is seen as a more expensive options which would give a different impression of the killer. 
We will use a knife to clearly indicate that the sink is that of a killer. A knife has connotaions of death of killings which ties in with the genre of our film. 
We are going to use a white towel which has connotations of innocence. We will use these ideals of innocence as contrast to the situation that they are found in.
