Resit: Props

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.

Will Howlett

Resit: Evaluation Question 7

Question 7

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.

By Will Howlett

Resit: Evaluation Question 6

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.

Resit: Evaluation Question 5

This shows how we attracted our audience through the influence of other films etc.

Resit: Evaluation Question 4

Resit: Evaluation Question 3

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.

Resit: Evaluation Question 2

Resit: Evaluation Question 1

Resit: Our Final Film Opening: The Case of Kate Young

This is our final cut of our film opening finished.

Jess Wilding

Resit: 2nd Rough Cut Film Opening and Feedback

This is our 2nd rough cut to our film opening, the newspaper article has to be uploaded to be able to understand what the film opening is about as well as the soundtracks have to be organised in the right order, as well as film title.


Feedback: It seems as though you know what you're doing with the film opening, yet you need to improve order a little and we can see parts where you have reminded yourself to upload other parts of the opening, we can be solved quickly.


Jess Wilding

Resit: Our 1st Rough Cut for our Opening

Feedback: You can tell straight away that it's a horror opening, the genre is well thought through with the blood, setting and use of masks. It is confusing in places, but obviously isn't organised yet, look forward to seeing the end project!


Jess Wilding

Resit: Casting Auditions for Bill Hasley

David Wilding

      

Strengths: Voice is very loud and intimidating when he shouts. Is very tall and broad which is a plus when thinking about stereotypes for a male antagonist.

Weaknesses: Facial expression isn't serious enough, doesn't seem as though he can keep a straight face.

Ricci Wilding

       

Strengths: Gets into character well as Bill Hasley.

Weaknesses: Not the right look that we are after we are looking for more of a stereotypical male atagonist.

We decided to use Will Howlett for our serial killer, he isn't too old or too young to play the part also he can get into character well.

Resit: Auditions for Bill Hasley Junior

Below are the auditions that we had for the part of Bull Hasley junior, we placed auditions so that we could see who would play the part well for our film and to see who looked most alike what we had planned for our characters to look like.

Lee Dyer - 16 got the part of Bill Hasley Junior in our opening as we felt he was not only the most confident in front of the camera but also looked like we wanted Bill Hasley junior to look like, we needed this character to be small and look quite young.

Resit: Animatic Storyboard

Below is the Animatic storyboard the we created to show how our film will run smoothly and show the camera angles we will use. We did this so that we can clearly understand what needs to be done and whether it will work.

Resit: Final Storyboard

This is our final storyboard, which we will be going from, we then have to create a shotlist to show how long each shot will go on for. We also decided to add a flashback scene as our film opening wasn't long enough, as well as this it creates more of a tense atmosphere for our film opening.

Our institution logo.

Our company logo.

This has been seen in many films, which we have followed but we will change the font, colour and transition effect in doing so, we will have a typewriter effect as if it is being written at the time.

The camera is at a close up of the sink being turned on.

A close-up of the water running from the tap.

The camera will then pan down to the sink and show a knife and 'fake' blood at the bottom of the sink, this shows the generic conventions of a horror film.

You will then see a man's hands with blood on them cleaning his hands, the audience can gather that this is a murderer.

The camera then pans to the side to the towel where the killer picks it up and wipes his hands, leaving excess blood.

There is a headline on a newspaper about a killing, which pans right of the newspaper so the audience can see what the story is about.

There is a flashback of a long shot of a boy walking down a lane, he is scared by something that he has seen.

There is a close up of the boy's face to show his facial expression.

The next shot is of an extreme close up to express the child's emotions.

The boy is scared and he runs away, the camera would pan outwards from the extreme close up and pan out to a long shot of the boy running away.

There is a jump cut to the newspaper with the headline, to hint to the audience.

There is an extreme close-up of the killer's eyes to tell facial expression, but not showing whole face to keep the generic convention of the ''unknown'' and to keep his identity from the audience.

The camera jump cuts but pans down to the killer holding the mask, cleaning the blood off of his mask.

The camera then pans upwards from the killer's feet to his head with a mid-shot, the killer's back will be facing the camera to as well keep the killer's identity from the audience.

When the camera has panned upwards from the killer's feet there will be a mid-shot of the killer, he will then put on his mask.

The killer, with his mask on, will walk out of the room, the audience will be drawn to what he could do next...

Jess Wilding

Jess Wilding

Resit: Initial Storyboard

This is our first initial idea of our film opening, we will go from this storyboard. However, we feel as though there is something to change which will be added and taken as our final storyboard.

This is a representation of our company logo.

This is a represtation of our 'In association' logo.

This will be used with a typewriter transition and will type these words one by one.

Starts off with a close-up of a tap being turned on.

Then a close-up of the water running from the tap.

The camera then pans down to the sink and the audience can see that there is a knife in the sink with blood surrounding it, the audience can straight away tell the genre, through the generic conventions of a horror being a knife and blood.

The killer then goes to wash his hands, which have blood on them, the audience will then start to think along the storyline and gather that this man is a murderer.

The killer then goes to dry his hands with a towel that has blood already on it.

The camera then jumps to an extreme close up of the killers eyes, we do not give away his whole identity, we want the audience to recognise his eyes but not give away all features of his face.

The camera then cuts and pans down from the killers chest to the mask, we see that the man is cleaning the mask which has blood on it, to see that he carries a second identity as a masked killer.

Without seeing the killer's front we see the character from the side, as he is wearing dark clothing we cannot identify the character, the killer puts the mask on.

The killer then walks out of the door with the mask on, the audience can tell something bad is about to happen..

Jess Wilding

Resit: Photographic Storyboard

This photographic storyboard represents the shots that make up our film opening, this helps us to understand and picture the film better.

This is our first shot of the sink where the masked killer is about to wash his hands after a murder.

The killer washes his hands in the sink after the murder. However, in our film he will have 'fake' blood on his hands to portray that he has killed someone and to show the generic conventions of our horror.

The tissue in this photo represents what would be the towel, the killer will pick this up from the top of the counter and dry his hands, leaving some left over blood on the towel.

This is a flashback to the past, our team member, Alex, represents the character, would walk over to the barn and see something that he was scared of.

We would use a close-up shot so that the audience can see the facial expression (scared) on the character's face.

We would use an extreme close-up to exaggerate the facial expression of how scared the character really is.

These two pictures represent how after the character portrayed that he was scared he runs away.

This picture is a close up of the killer washing his mask from the blood, this is the present after the killer has washed his hands.

We do not want the audience to know the killer's identity as it creates mistery to our film as a whole, therefore we use a shot from the back of our character, panning upwards from his feet.

This picture shows the rest of the panning shot, panning upwards from his feet.

The killer puts his mask back on after washing it, we still do not see the killer's face.

The killer puts his mask back on and walks out of the door for his next murder..

Resit: Sounds in Horror genre

As we were going to create a horror genre film opening we needed to consider the sounds that we will use in our piece.
I researched into the generic conventions for sound for the horror genre. Firstly I created a qucik questionaire that I asked 10 people what sound they would expect to hear during a horror opening.

What pitch sound would you expect to hear for a horror genre film?

High pitch - 1
Low pitch - 2
Mixture - 7

The answers differed most people answered that there should be a mixture between high and low pitch sound but it would be at a slow pace. The use of this creates a mysterious and frightful atmosphere and also builds suspence towards the audience. So with this in mind when creating our horror genre film opening I need to consider the sound that I will use, We will need to ensure it fits with the Horror genre conventions and creates the correct effect on the audience.
I watched a Horror opening and analysed the sound that I heard:



In this clip you can hear the mixture between high and low pitch sounds which creates a scary atmopshere. There is also use of non-diegetic sound that also have a frightening effect on the audience so I could think about using some non-diegetic chilling sounds in our opening to scare the audience.

I looked at very popular Horror films opening credit sounds to see whether these use the mix between high and low pitch and maybe even different sound effects. I looked at 'Nightmare on elm street' (1984), 'Halloween' (1978) and 'Friday the 13th' (1980) I used these films as they were very succesful so they must have been effective to the audience so if I follow the conventions of these films sound wise I will be sure to create the correct terryfying effect on the audience.

Friday the 13th (1980)



Nightmare on elm street (1984)



Halloween (1978)



In all of these clips the conventions that I obtained from my questionaire were all correct , these very popular Horror genre theme tunes include the use of a mixture of high and low pitch music and non-diegetic sounds and they all create a very scary atmosphere towards the audience.

Now that I have found this information out I will ensure I use it when creating our groups horror genre film opening so that I follow the correct generic conventions to create the correct effect on our horror genre audience.

Alex Cockburn

Resit: Locations of Filming

We have now decided on what our opening will contain, we now need to think about where to film these parts. We need to think about what kind of day would suite our film, what angles we could achieve to gain the best shot.

Our piece contains two different places, one outside in a large field with a path, and secondly we need to have a kitchen or sink in a large room to gain the angles which we need.

Outside shot:

Church field (Broomfield):

• This shoot would be good as it is a large field with a path and an old abandoned barn which we could incorporate into our piece. The downside is this is a very popular place and many people could be around so we would have to make sure we go at a time when most people are busy.

Felsted:

• There is many fields to choose from but most fields are privately owned so would need written permission to film here. This could cause a problem due to a lack of time in waiting for a reply.

Inside shots (Kitchen):

Alex Cockburn's:

• This kitchen has the right room, it is light but can be made dark due to the blinds in the window. The surfaces are wooden so look old which in keeps with the thought that this kitchen belongs to a older person.

Jess Wilding's:

• This kitchen would be good as has a large sink and has a look of a cottage kitchen. The bad points of this kitchen is the lack of natural light which means we would have to use artificial lighting which would not fit in with our genre.

We have decided as a group to film in Alex Cockburns kitchen as it is the best placed and best equiped to achieve the type of shots that we are after. We have chosen Alex Cockburn's house as the kitchen is old fashioned compared to a modern style kitchen. The outside shot will be filmed in the Field behind the Church in Broomfield. This is due to convenience and the old barn.

Will Howlett