Evaluation: Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Project?

QUESTION 7

Here is our Preliminary task:

Question 7 from bitasophia

Evaluation: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

QUESTION 6
During the making of this film opening, we used a variety of different equipment to film, edit and for special effects.
The main piece of equipment we used was a camera (obviously). For the first scene we used a camera on a tripod to ensure the shot is steady.

We learnt quite a few things from using this camera (Panasonic) including the focus adjustments, and zoom effects. It was very easy to use and the different parts e.g. strap, handle proved to be very helpful and made it easier to use. Although, I think the screen could have been bigger so that whilst filming we could view it clearer. I also think the playback button could have been more visible as it took a while to find it.
The tripod was also very useful as it made sure the shot was steady during scene 1 and had an easy flowing movements for the establishing pan shots at the beginning.
We also used the same camera in steady cam for scenes 2 and 3. We didn't use a tripod for this as we wanted the shot to be shaky and look amateur. The side strap came in very useful for this.

Another piece of equipment we used was a sound recorder.

We used this to record all of the vocal sounds in our film opening such as Alex gasping and the whispering. This was our first time using this type of technology and although we only needed to know one button- record, we found that we had to re-record the scream because we learnt that if you hold the recorder too close to your mouth, if will make the sound too screechy, even when turned down.

To edit our film we used Adobe Premiere Pro

We had used this program before to edit our preliminary task, but only the simple effects. We learnt a lot of new effects that we used in our film opening.
For our final cut we didn't actually use any video transitions or effects. This was because we learnt that our video is better off without it and because a fade is meant to show the passing of time, we no longer needed it.
We did use different sounds in our film opening such as, the 2 different soundtracks in scene 1 and 3, the background sounds of the machines and the sound effects in scene 1.

To make these sounds more natural, I added transition effects such as 'exposition fade' to fade the sounds into the clip. I also learnt how to position the sounds to create dramatic effect. For example in the last scene where Matilda finds out she is 'the next one', the music cuts off to hear her say 'what?'. The silence adds dramatic effect and then the tense music used in scene 1 fades back and ends the film opening.

We also used Adobe After Effects to create our blood clip in scene 1. This was our first time using this and we learnt a lot about this program whilst using it such as creating a mask and adding a blur to make it look out of focus. We will definitely consider using this in future projects.

 To add our credits we added titles during scene 2. There wasn't any effects placed onto the titles which i think if we were to develop our product, we would maybe fade them in slightly.

 I think we have definitely learnt a lot from using Premiere Pro and other programs in the process of constructing this product and we will take these skills and develop further in future projects.

Here I have made a mind map of all the online technology we have used during the construction of this project. A lot of these programs/websites, we hasn't used before so we learnt a lot from them.

Evaluation: How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

 QUESTION 5

First of all, we did a survey in order to discover what our target audience wanted out of a horror film.

 
After learning more about our target audience wanted from a horror film, we had to actually put it into practice in order to attract the audience to our film. This point was crucial to us, after all: what is a film without an audience?

So how did we do it? What kind of factors of our film would pull in our audience and keep them continuously entertained?

Firstly we had to make it relatable.

Our film is set in the modern day, in a college with students leading seemingly ordinary lives. We did this intentionally to attract audiences by making them feel part of the film, like it could happen to anyone. We open with Alex's character humming Lady Gaga's Do What U Want, this is a popular song from this year and the type of music our audience would be into. We also add in a few more popular culture references with the mention of Facebook and use of the prop of an iPhone, both of which play a big part in youth culture today. The cast and characters were also very important in attracting our audience as all actors and extras we used were in the age range of our target audience, thus making their lives and interests more relatable.




We had to stick to the conventions of the horror genre, especially by creating tension and suspense

We had to make sure the opening was gripping and exciting, capturing the audiences attention right away. The most popular and obvious key convention of horror is blood, however, when done wrong this can look tacky and/or too gore-y, which (quite surprisingly in our opinion) is an element of horror our target audience don't tend to appreciate in large amounts. However, both of us felt that we should at least hint at the element of gore, which is why we used the special effect of the blood hitting the camera and splattering down the lens to reveal the title.
According to the survey, most people feel that tension and suspense is key to a good horror film so we tried to create a situation in which the character has feelings of tension and horror and ultimatley build a sense of suspense for our audience. Most people that we spoke to before hand told us how the music within a scene tends to build up the tension, so we put a huge focus on building up sound within the first scene.
The clip below shows the impact music has on building tension and shocking the audience. Taken from the classic film, Psycho.



We also had to make our opening believable

After the melodrama of the pre-title scene, we felt it was necessary to tone the drama down a considerable amount in order to keep the audience alert and intrigued. We tried to capture the realism using a handheld camera, naturalistic lighting, quirky jump cuts. The dialogue we used was only loosely based on our script, we stuck to the story but improvised much what we said in an attempt to make our film seem more realistic. We used these elements in order to ground the viewer and slow down the dynamic of the film in order to slowly build up into a shocking finale.

The certificate we have decided to give this film is:

               

This is because, after reading up about BBFC's film classifications, this rating seemed the most appropriate.

Evaluation: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

 QUESTION 4
The audience we want to attract to our film looks something like this:















Males and Females Aged 16-24!

WHY??

• More likely to have the time and money to go and see a film
• Will relate more to the storyline and characters
• They are the age range that most enjoy horror films
• They are big into social media which can promote viral marketing

But what are these guys into nowadays?
With all of the special effects and gore in horror movies of recent years reaching an all time high, it begs the question: Is this what we expect in a horror film? Is it all necessary?

With films such as The Human Centipede and Saw investing millions of dollars in nonstop blood, guts and gore, (all made to look as shocking and realistic as possible) the horror genre has certainly raised its bar high in recent years. And obviously, we aren't even going to try to compete with these kind of effects, we simply don't have the money! Instead, we are going to subtlety imply blood and guts and gore to the audience and build up gradually to a bloody ending, rather than De-sensitising the audience too early on. We want to leave the best till last, as it were;)

BUT....
Is there any market for fairly tame, implicit and suggestive horror? A story one might actually have to think about? Will it keep our audience interested? Is this the kind of film they'd like to watch? So many questions to think about and since everybody is different, we decided it was only appropriate to have a discussion with a mixed group of 16-24 year olds to see what they look for in a horror film...

Evaluation: What Kind of Media Insitiution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

QUESTION 3

Evaluating the final cut of 'The Next One' I think it is more a film to be released by an independent company rather than a major Hollywood studio. This is because although the narrative follows 'Urban Legend' and 'Final Destination', which were both released by Hollywood studios, the style of film, which is similar to 'Blair Witch Project' would be better suited to be released by an independent company such as 'Haxan Films' who released 'Blair Witch Project'. The budget for a film like ours would also be similar to a independent film, because most of it would be filmed in handy cam so therefore wouldn't need any special camera software or devices. A typical budget i think would vary from 100,000-300,000 in comparison to a major Hollywood film like 'Final Destination' which had a budget of 23 million.

The choice of actors also supports the idea that this film would be an independent film as it features unknown actors, which is very typical of a independent film. Also, by having unknown actors it makes the audience unknown to anything they have featured in before and makes them fully focus on the film rather than thinking about the actors as they were in a previous film.

 

Some of the themes in our film opening (a terrifying note that states the doomed future) are often used in big Hollywood movies such as 'Final Destination' which was distributed by New Line Cinema

These type of themes have gone onto feature in other Hollywood films such as 'Knowing' which was distributed by Summit Entertainment

 Although this theme could mean our film has the potential to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, the film would need a further narrative and back story which makes the plot and story more interesting. This is something that we haven't yet thought about and if we wanted it to be produced by a Hollywood studio we would need to look into deeper storyline for the characters. For example in 'Knowing' there is a love story which gets highlighted at the end. In Hollywood, in order to be sure that a movie will make a large profit, it is best not to take a risk with something more experimental and rather use a pattern that has been tried and tested time and time again. This is the main reason why major studios,such as Universal and Warner Bros often turn to remakes or chose to make stories that already have a fan base (eg Twilight) into feature films and why similar story lines seem to reoccur. This could also be a reason why our film has some potential to be produced by Hollywood, because it could have a narrative of being the student/youth version of Final Destination/Urban Legend.

As was said, our opening sequence shows great similarities to existing products. For example, the plot shows links to Urban Legend and Final Destination in finding something that will predict deaths. Also the choice of handy cam in scene 2 and 3 relates back to the filming style of Blair Witch Project.

Although I mentioned that 'The Next One' would probably be an independent film, I don't think it would be an art house, indie or small British film, despite the use of British actors and the unique style of digital (this new media technology allows independent and low budget filmmakers to create good quality pictures due to its low cost) cinematography.

The story offers nothing thought provoking or mentally challenging as a typical art house film would. Instead, 'The Next One' is made to appeal to young adults which although may not turn into a mass audience, would still attend their local cinema to watch it. Furthermore, our film doesn't focus on any social/political issues but simply contains a fictional narrative.

Due to the idea that our film would be an independent film, marketing it would be a difficult task as there would be less money put towards marketing it. In order to make our film known, we might need to send it to a film festival, to be distributed by a bigger media conglomerate which could help create marketing products such as franchises and merchandising.

If the film was to be picked up by a big studio such as Summit Entertainment, as part of the marketing, a film trailer would be created to play before other films in cinema chains, directing potential audiences to the films official website prior to release (Thenextone.com) having a website is vital for marketing as most people now have access to the internet. Viral marketing would be one of the main ways we would market our film, though social media and also through our own website.

Similarly, although it is possible to distinguish the film industry, media convergence meas we no longer live in a world where films, games and music exist separately. This creates the perfect opportunity for marketing.

Aside from the profit that exhibition would provide, 'The Next One' could show potential of a good opportunity for merchandising. Although there isn't any key elements such as jewellery which could appeal highly to our target market, there is other opportunities too. For example because the story is filmed in college, and the main character is wearing the college lanyard, an accessories company such as Claires could create their own lanyard using the same colours but have the name 'The Last One' on it instead.

In order to increase money made from this film, we could incorporate a key piece of jewelery or clothing that could be sold at a company like Topshop where our target audience like to shop. This could create more interest and create a bigger audience for  our film.

As well as merchandising, our film could also draw revenue from ancillary products eg DVD and Blu-ray release. This could include a directors cut and added extras such as a behind the scenes video (which we'd have to make) and directors commentary. An extended edition of our film could perhaps be released after the initial DVD release in order to draw in extra profit.

I think that the main way we can create profit is from a soundtrack (we would have to make sure the music was original)

I think if our film was to become successful after appearing at a film festival, it could be released by one of the Hollywood 'big six' studios (Columbia, Warner Bros, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Walt Disney) 

Directors Commentary

This is our Director's Commentary for our film 'The Next One'

Evaluation: How Does The Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

QUESTION 2

 THE  VICTIM

                                            Alexander Jervis                      Casey (Scream)

THE SKEPTIC  

                                            Dr Gregory House, MD        Matilda Beattie

 

THE LEADER

            

      Heather (Blair Witch Project)    Sophia Asilah Kelly                    

                  

 

Evaluation: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

(QUESTION 1)
TITLE

 The title of our film 'The Next One' was inspired by a line spoken by the character Sophia in our film opening. I think it is quite typical of conventions of a horror genre as it is quite short as most film titles are because they try not to be too cryptic and easy to understand so that they get a mass audience interested in it and wanting to see it; more importantly ensuring that the title makes it obvious that it is a horror film. The way our titles are presented are also very typical of the horror genre as they fade in from blood. The whole idea of someone dying straight away and their blood being the main focus is also something that feature a lot in other horror films. I think 'The Next One' was a good choice for our title as you can tell straight away that it will be horror because it immediately connotes the next death, or the next frightful event so for this reason I think it is very typical of a horror film.

SETTING AND LOCATION

We had 3 main locations for our film opening, a saw room, a college filming studio and a library. When analysing film openings, none of these settings seemed to appear which shows that our location/setting challenges typical horror conventions because our chosen settings don't appear very often in the usual horror film. The reason we chose these settings nevertheless, was because it was based around the typical lives of students which meant we had to go to their everyday locations and try to have good verisimilitude in our film opening.

COSTUME AND PROPS 

The costume of our main character in scene 1 is something that doesn't feature a lot in typical horror films, but it connotes a 'damsel in distress' personality so it therefore does use some horror conventions. A main prop for Alex is his scarf, which inevitably is what causes his death. This is very typical of a horror film as the death is usually due to an item that has some relevance to the character.

The other 3 characters who appear in scene 2 and 3 wear quite dark clothing- this was to connote a sense of death approaching and also to give a sense of fear and mystery, which is very relevant to the storyline. The use of dark clothing is a very typical feature and convention of horror films and is used to set the dark mood for the film. The girls' costumes juxtapose with Alex's clothes as his are quite light and he doesn't wear any black. This was done to reflect his outgoing personality and immediately present to the audience that his death is inevitable (like Drew Barrymore in Scream)

Another key prop was the big, olden book they found in the library. Using a book like this to hide the note behind is a very typical feature of a horror film as it gives a sense of history and gives the note some depth.

The last main prop in our film opening is the note. By having a mysterious note with a creepy poem listing names of those who will die is a typical feature of a horror film as it gives the story a narrative to work from and is a scary element to include as it makes the audience fear the note in a way.

CAMERAWORK AND EDITING

The shots used in our first scene were very typical of a horror genre as most things were in focus and the regular shots were used such as long shot, mid shot etc. This was to make sure the audience were clear on what was happening and didn't get confused.

Another camera technique we included that used the typical conventions of horror was the regular close ups of the main character being scared and the machines that could be the cause of his death. We knew that using zooms and close ups would be essential as it gives a sense of discomfort for the viewer especially when we show an extreme close up of the saw, which tells the audience that the saw will probably be the cause of his death. It also creates suspense and tension which is what our target audience wanted to see.

In scene 2, our film opening challenges the typical conventions of horror as it is all filmed in steady cam from the characters point of view. This meant that most of the shots were shaky and on a canted angle. Although most horror films aren't filmed like this, our main inspiration for this technique was inspired by Blair Witch Project which is also filmed in the characters point of view. We did this to create a feeling of verisimilitude as we go back to normality and the college life of these students. The shakiness also gives a sense uncertainty.

The camerawork in scene 3 is very similar to scene 2, challenging the typical conventions as it is all filmed in steady cam.

 

Our editing in scene 1 was very fast paced and had many shots within a short space of time. This is very typical of a horror film as the fast pace creates a sense of rapid movements which makes the audience a little uneasy as they don't know what's going to happen next.

In scene 2 the editing is very different to scene 1 as it develops the typical conventions of horror films. This is because although the pace is a lot slower in comparison to scene 1, it is not all in one cut which does make the film lack realism but it wouldn't have been possible to do everything in one cut.

The pace in scene 3 is even slower as we build up to finding out Matilda is 'the next one'. This also slightly develops typical horror films as we are back to normality here and by slowing down the pace we are adding to the verisimilitude of the clip.

We also used some cross dissolve in scene 1 during the first few shots to build tension and to slow the pace down so that the pace built up to the big climax of Alex's death. Using transition effects is very typical of horror films as it helps develop the feeling of tension and suspense.

Overall I think our opening sequence design is quite typical of a horror film as it starts off with the establishing shots fading in which creates the tense atmosphere and the first scene builds up with the pace getting faster, leading to Alex's death. The opening sequence also ends in a big cliffhanger when we find out Matilda is 'the next one' which is also something that most opening sequences include as it makes the viewer want to carry on watching and keeps them interested. I also think our opening sequence challenges typical conventions of a horror film as the other 2 scenes are filmed in steady cam and it features the credits in the second scene, when typically the credits appear usually in the first scene. I also think that because it is filmed from the point of view of the character, the audience get a different perspective than they usually would in typical horror films.

TITLE FONT AND STYLE

The title font and style is very typical of a common horror film as the style is quite a distressed font with fast strokes to link in with the fast paced cuts of the first scene. Although, we found that a lot of opening sequences had their title in black font, we wanted ours in white as it stood well against the blood dripping in the background. The actual title 'The Next One' also sounds very conventional as it connotes the next death of something.

STORY

The story of our opening sequence is quite typical and conventional of a horror film because it is about a mysterious poem which includes the names of those students who are 'next' on the list to die. There is some references to films like 'Final Destination' and 'Urban Legend' where they have a similar narrative. This was our inspiration for the film. It was also set up in quite a conventional way with the first scene being the death of a victim whose name we later find out was on the list, then the next scene going back to normality and the 3 students talking about what happened to Alex which leads to the 3rd scene of them finding the note and also finding out that Matilda is 'the next one'.

GENRE

The genre of our film was obviously horror which was suggested through mise en scene like the characters in scene 2 wearing a lot of black and red to highlight back to the death of Alex which the audience saw through his blood splattering down the camera which was one of the key features in our film that really showed that it was a horror. The blood is a very key convention in all horror films and the death of a character is also a key form of horror genres. The music for our film opening is also very typical of horror films as we have a deep bass beginning and then the slow screeching off key strings build up to the end.

CHARACTERS

The first character Alex is introduced to the audience first through him appearing behind the curtain singing Lady Gaga. This immediately shows him to be quite a fun character which is quite typical for horror genres, because as we were analysing other horror openings, we found that it seems to always be the fun, lively character who gets killed off in the first scene.

Sophia is the first character that gets introduced in scene 2 as the clip begins with her checking the camera is on. By being the character to first be in control of the camera introduces her as the character who is in charge and the one who has the most knowledge. This is very typical of a horror genre as there is always that one character who will have the most screen-time and is one of the main characters in the story.

Matilda is the 2nd character to be introduced as she swivels around a chair. This introduces her to be a fun, bubbly type of character. Once again, like Alex we have made her personality to be fun because her name is next on the list meaning she will be the next one to die. This again is very conventional of a horror film as it seems to be the bubbly characters who die.

The last main character to be introduced is Bita and she is shown through Sophia's point of view as she walks on with the camera in her hand. Bita immediately covers her face demanding she stop filming- this introduces her straight away as quite a contradicting character and that she doesn't want to be involved. Throughout scene 2 she is also disagreeing with what Sophia says, this is also very conventional of a horror film as there is always one character who doesn't believe what the other characters believe or maybe doesn't want to be involved.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

We only included one clip of special effects which was at the end of scene 1 to show Alex's blood splattering everywhere. By making special effects of blood it shows close similarities to typical horror films as blood is a key convention of horrors and by having 10 seconds of just blood it links very strongly back to the usual forms of horror film openings.

Overall I think our opening sequence does develop most conventions of an opening sequence through the way the characters are introduced because you can tell straight away who the next possible victims are and because it is filmed from their point of view, you know who the central characters are going to be. Also, our style of editing and cinematography is quite conventional as the pace slowly builds and the first scene includes very fast, straight cuts to build on suspense and tension. I also think our opening sequence does challenge some horror conventions as scene 2 and 3 are filmed in steady cam from the characters point of view which doesn't feature in many other horror films.

INFLUENCES

The main influence for scene 1 was 'scream' this is indicated through the character Alex and how he behaves towards the machines turning on and his eventual death. The close ups of his face also indicate his fear.

The influence for our filming style was definitely 'Blair Witch Project' as it is all filmed from the characters point of view in steady cam. The influence for our opening credits appearing in the 2nd scene was 'Breaking Bad' as we decided not to draw any attention away from the suspense in the first scene.

The narrative of our film opening was inspired by 'Urban Legend' and 'Final Destination' with the note which had a poem including the names of those who will die.