1b danny

We have added a non-diegetic score to the project that really sets the atmosphere of the film. Its tone is much like the scores heard in psychological thrillers and so it fits perfectly.

1b danny

We have tried to use typical mise en scene in our film with the use of adventurous camera angles and also colour change in the pictures. In a way we have tried to make a very psychological film with the use of an axe for a weapon.

Also we have made it similar to other films by using black and white for the shots based in the past. Although the shots were in black and white, the majority of the lighting is natural lighting in the park and on the open plain.

We have tried to create mise en scene by giving the characters simply identities used a lot in horror films. Both the female victims are alone and scared (basically full of emotions), while the killers are calm and expressionless as if they have no emotions at all. Even if the second killer is killing for revenge.

1b danny

Our horror is more of a psychological horror and it test the mind to fully understand what is going on. Even when the narrator is explaining the story it can be quite a challenge at first to realise what the plot is and so I agree with the fact that this film is A-C1 of the socio-economic scale.

1b danny

We have chosen two locations to shoot our film. One location is a open plain of land with a run down hut in the middle of it and the second is Witton park. We have chose these locations because a park can look danderous easily with the use of cameras and editing equipment on mac computers. We chose the hut in the open plain to keep to a stereo typical narrative. We wanted to give the audience what they expect, however we also wanted to do something different so we put a twist in the story to add effect.

1b danny

This is our original story board. Although the writing is not clear the images show that our film was pretty much shot to the scale of this story board.

1B Leam

We decided to keep costume quite stereotypical and applicable to our age group to give realism to the film and so we don't have to spend too much time sorting out elaborate props. We have decided an axe shall be one of the primary weapons as it is cheap, easy to conceal and obtain and may be realistically used by a person of our age in a killing. It is also iconic in horror films and adds a flair of gothic due to the age and nature of the weapon.

1B Leam

The Socio-economic scale ranges from A to E and classifies individual citizens according to the type of job they have. A being top professionals and E being unemployed. When making a film it is vital to take in to consideration which groups to target.

Personally I think we should target groups A-C1 because this group has the largest amount of disposable income to use of cinema tickets, merchandise etc. Also as this is an artistic and independent film with physiological undertones it takes someone of high taste and the will to value realism over escapism.

1B Leam

I redid a rough computer version of it our storyboard to display some of our intial ideas

1B Leam

These were photographs taken on our initial location scout when we were looking for eye plaesing locations which fit with the piece we wanted to make

1B Leam Evaluation: AS Media: Foundation Portfolio

Introduction

For my AS Media project I decided to produce a two minute long opening sequence with my partner Daniel Collinson. Rather than cast individual roles we decided to each do a bit of every role and equally contribute half to the project. I drew a storyboard, came up with the final synopsis, filmed part of the sequence, featured in part of it (in the abandoned shooting cabin), edited half of it and picked music which fitted the mood.

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

As a horror opening sequence the main aim of the piece is to successfully hold the attention of an audience of horror fans and make them want to watch the rest of the film to discover the narrative resolution. I think the sequence is effective to this end as it establishes the genre as horror by incorporating the conventions of the horror, and creates enigmas to keep the audience wanting to watch.
The conventions used were the eerie non diegetic soundtrack, isolated and derelict settings such as the forest and the shack on the moor, low key lighting, restrictive close-ups, a general gloomy undertone, a victim and a killer who’s face is not revealed.

To create an immediate enigma and to challenge the general horror opening conventions which establish the isolated location we decided to open straight into the chaos and disequilibrium of the flashback. This is intriguing and immediately grabs the audiences attention. I think this works well as it creates immediate enigmas and is a change from the classical narrative version of horror which some fans may have become slightly bored with.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In terms of our representation we chose to keep them simple and quite stereotypical so that we could give our full attention to creating a mood with our film piece, and so audiences could easily relate to the characters we have portrayed.
The killer is represented as the stereotypical “criminal”. We dressed him in dark clothing with his hood up concealing his face, an average height Caucasian male who preys on females in secluded locations.
The victim is also represented in the classic way, a young blonde woman. The mise en scene shows that’s she is a teenager as she is dressed in converse, skinny jeans and eyeliner, the typical attire of today’s youth.

Also like a classical victim her only use in the narrative is to die and thus give the male protagonist a quest to partake in. She adheres to the common horror convention of the female victim and we kept her simple as to not confuse the audience about her role, they should pity her and nothing more.

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

As this film is a category A British film it will only sell well in Britain, therefore a British Production and distribution company would be required. The British Film Council may help fund the film with their New Cinema Fund and could help with distributions through their Prints and Advertising Fund. Another distribution company is Blue Dolphin who are a small British distributor/financer who would fit nicely with the style of our film. I think they would consider making our production as it is an innovative category A film which provides realism and an accurate representation of Britain whilst being entertaining and having a chance to draw a wide audience due to the hybridity and artistic flair used.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Are target audience for the production are people between the age of 16 - 35 years old, because this is the most frequent cinema going group and also the group with the most disposable income to spend on cinema tickets, DVD’s and merchandise. As for socio-economic status I would say A-C1 as again they have the most disposable income, they also have the knowledge required to fully appreciate the complex enigmas and artistic style used in our film. People from lower socio-economic groups are less prepared to sit and watch an independent art film as they are more attracted to the escapism Hollywood provides. The must also be fans of the horror genre, but as our film is a hybrid fans of the thriller and drama genres may also get something out of our film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our target audience we made our film visually interesting by playing with colour and black and white plus the use of lighting to help improve visual impact. The soundtrack was carefully mixed and timed in order to create maximum visceral effect and horror undertone. In order to give an experienced horror audience something new we decided to start with disrupted equilibrium with quick pace and editing, and have the odd slow paced colour shot to add intrigue and create an interesting sequence whilst maintaining the horror conventions.

What this does achieve is creating many enigmas which make the audience want to keep watching so they can find out what is truly going on. The film “Memento (2000)” also uses non chronological editing to create enigmas, in that film the viewer must watch the entire film to find out how it begins. To make sure our film wasn’t too confusing though we used a narrative voiceover to roughly clarify what is happening in the sequence. As the film is a category A film stars were not used as we thought a star would detract from the gritty realism we were going for. By opening with a chase scene a binary opposition is immediately established which creates interest in the audience. Why is he chasing her?

The most simple of enigmas but it can also be the most effective.

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

product?

Technology has been an invaluable part of making this project a reality for the zero budget and time scale we had. The editing programme “imovie” allowed us to use otherwise expensive editing effects easily and for free. Carrying portable hard drives allowed us to transport data, images and sound from computer to computer with ease. Using digital video was the greatest point as we could easily import, edit, export and burn our film with no cost of having film reels made, or cutting by hand. We also used dynamic microphones and a mixing board to allow us to record the voice over, this again worked well as we could split up the digital voice file in editing and make sure the timings were right, also it allowed us to do multiple takes without incurring any extra costs. Video sites such as Youtube have proven useful in the planning stage for looking at opening sequences from other horror films we didn’t have access to and seeing what worked well in their productions, such as “Dog Soldiers” for example. The use of video to document our audience feedback was also very useful as you can see peoples real reactions to the product.

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

I think our final product is far superior to our preliminary task. My film making skills have vastly improved during the course of making the opening sequence and this becomes evident when comparing the two pieces. One of the biggest let downs in our preliminary task was the badly done match on action. But the match on action when the victim falls over in our final piece is smooth and does not draw attention to itself. We also developed a far greater knowledge of the use of sound to create a mood. I think the soundtrack in the final piece fit’s the action perfectly and lends to a much more visceral feeling than the sound used in the preliminary task. Our composition and use of cinematography in general is probably the most noted change. In the preliminary task it didn’t go far beyond just pointing the camera at the subject and capturing them on film. In our final piece however we used every type of shot from extreme close up to extreme long shot. We also incorporated the rule of thirds to make the film visually appealing, as well as using cants and high and low angles to give hints about characters personalities. In our final piece we also played with lighting more to make our film look more visually interesting, in the preliminary task we hadn’t even given a thought to lighting. The same applies with the use of colour, our main piece contrasting black and white against colour to make the colours seem more vivid and the black and white more cold and sombre.

Conclusion

The project went rather smoothly and I managed to work well with my partner and produce a visually interesting opening sequence which sets up enigmas and establishes genre. I think a strong point of the project is that it is very effective in the way it creates a dark sinister almost disturbing visceral tone. An audience of horror veterans would enjoy this feeling and would expect good things of the rest of the production. My only criticism is that we did not include any close ups of the killers sister in the future to display her distraught expression. But I don’t think the absence of this shot distracts from the overall feel so it is not a big loss. I very much enjoyed working on the project and my only wish is that we had had a bigger production budget and the chance to make the full feature film as I would have very much enjoyed the challenge.

Leam Burfield

1b danny

Evaluation AS Media: Foundation Portfolio Daniel Collinson

I decided to work in a group and so our project was a two minute opening to a film. The person whom I worked with was Leam Burfield. I made several contributions to the project by directing half of the film also I starred in it (the scenes in black and white). I have also edited parts of the film using the technology of the program imovie. I also made contributions to blogger.com.

We decided to use the genre of horror since it had a wide audience, plus it makes the narrative much simpler to create. The conventions we have used are elements like black and white shots mixed with coloured shots to show the past and the present. We have also added little shots of slow motion which helps raise suspense for the audience. We made the horror film a little different from all the others by showing two points of time repeatedly switching to show the past and the presence it also helps to tell the story quicker. I believe that it is vital to change elements and conventions in genre’s, especially horror because although the audience enjoy seeing repeating conventions they do get bored and demand something new or changing and want to see the films that are different from all others but with the same genre. I believe that the innovations were likely to prove successful they are idea’s that have been tweaked to a point were they are old ideas but they are shown in a new way which makes the film look good. The choices here did work effectively for the audience because as the video feedback shows, they could definitely tell it was of a horror/thriller narrative. I also believe that it has the requirements of an opening sequence, especially a horror sequence with the use of a running girl. The actor’s names staring in the film are shown plus there is a narration which is quite common in film openings. The narration sets the seen and explains what is going on in the shots.

The shot below is the best shot to show and prove it is a horror/thriller film (by using a stereotypical weapon, an axe).

Below is the first shot as an example. A running shot to set the pace of the scene and open the film filling it with enigmas.

We used black and white to show it was in the past as you can see below.

The media product represents particularly young people. The actors are in their teens and are wearing everyday clothes that teens wear. Also we have used the stereotypical idea of a teenage girl being hunted down by a killer which helps emphasize the genre of the film. The main activities and actions in the film show that the first killer is a fast paced and on the spot killer. However the second killer who is killing for revenge is slow and more planned, which was the effect we were looking for. The function of the narrative is to show revenge and why a revenge murder is taking place. The function of the narrative shows that sometimes in life there is not always a happy ending and the young society of the time are always affected by that, like the violence among youths in this present time of society.

Below is a shot that shows the victims costume. She is wearing everyday teenagers clothing and so it helps the audience relate to the character.

We used a narration to explain what was going on it also gave a good insight into the character who was narrating state of mind. Also to show that the running female character was obviously scared we used screaming to show her fear.

We have also picked a stereotypical setting for our film. We used a wood and a broken down hut in an open barren plain. This demonstrates the idea and sense of no chance of escape. It also leaves an enigma ‘why are they in a forest’?

Below you can clearly see it is a woods plus it shows that the victim has no chance of escape, which is why we chose this location.

The shot below is a shot of the open plane with the broken down hut. This is a good location because it shows that even if the victim escapes, the killer will still be able to easily find them because of the lack of cover.


We used different shots, from high to low shots and point of view shots we also have some canted angle shots to add distortion and confusion, which clearly shows the victim’s state of mind. We also wanted the shots to look like they are set in the past and so we added the black and white effects to the shots that show the first victim being killed. Then for the shots set in the present, we left in colour to make them more atmospheric and relate to the mood and theme of the film. This also represents social ideas that being young is not all fun and colourful.

Both of these shots below show the variety of different shots we have used from canted low shots (on the top), to a twisted point of view shots (on the bottom). The twist affect on the shot on the right was done by swaying the camera from left to right multiple times while running after the character in a point of view shot.

The shot below is another good low shot that helps carry on the story when the narrator says ‘the weapon with which she was struck was never found, nor was the killer’.


I believe that the characters in the film are adhering to stereotypes that we commonly see in the media. The killer is wearing mostly black with his hood up which is stereotypical to society’s youth of today. Plus he first victim’s clothing is stereotypically seen everyday. It might not be a well known brand of clothing like ‘Nike’ but is still common for teenagers to wear. We have represented the victim and the other characters in this way because the audience can relate to the victim and then they will fear the killer because they might dress or act like the victim. I believe the audience has responded to the representation since some of the audience dress like the victim.

I believe that this film could have a realistic chance of being made and it could be funded by the film council, however I only think it could make it as a British film. I believe the film ‘Dead man’s shoes’ directed by ‘Shane Meadows’ (2004) is a good example of similarity of our film. It is about a revenge attack, the main character who is a soldier comes home and finds that a group of thugs have brutalised his mentally challenged brother and so he goes to kill each and every member, resulting in making the final member of the group kill him. The production companies that helped the film to be made were ‘Warped films’, ‘Film4’ also ‘Big arty productions’ and finally ‘EM Media’ who were the executive producers. Hopefully one of these production companies would help get our film ‘An Eye for an Eye’ underway. The production companies would consider backing up our film because of the hybridity used in the film which films like ‘Dead man’s shoes’ have used. Genres like thriller, horror and revenge. Also the film would be a class A film and so it is a more of a reason for all four British production companies to get involved.

Below is a shot from ‘Dead man’s shoes’ (to the left). If it is compared to our film, (on the right) the shots and ideas are pretty similar.

The main target audience for this film would probably be 16-25 year old males. Since this would be a category A film then it would most likely relate to the nation of Britain. This film would also try to get across to all social economic statuses but mostly the common man since the characters are neither rich nor poor. This film would obviously appeal to the fans of horrors and thrillers also action since the film is a hybrid. The audience is a good target because it is a large audience and it is that audience that mainly watch films, especially at the cinema. They are right for the product financially because they are loyal fans who would pay to watch the film and even buy the DVD. The film would have a secondary target audience because as said before the film has a variety of genres creating a bigger audience. We asked an audience of ten for feedback on our film. Our first question was; What genre does the sequence belong to and how can you tell this? We got a positive response because immediately one of the audience members said horror and thriller due to the non-diegetic sound track and the use of narration. We also asked the question; Does it feel visually interesting? Are the shots interesting of fairly typical and OK? Our response was that it is a typical horror with isolated settings and close ups of the character’s faces. We got the expected and positive response we wanted.

The picture below is a good example of a medium close up the audience mentioned.

Below I have created a graph to demonstrate and show how much of the two main genres are in the film, (horror, thriller). This can also relate to the first question that was asked in the audience feedback (What genre does the sequence belong to and how could you tell this?). Although the audience member mainly specified thriller this film was designed to be a horror and this chart is from my opinion.

Because two minutes is such a small amount of time we did not set an equilibrium to the opening to the film. We wanted to show the audience a proper horror sequence and we do not give away how the narrator or brother finds the killer’s sister. We used the narration to tell the story and introduce the characters. Also the narration helped with the chronology part of the film because we used the narration to create a sense of time, i.e. the the narrator says ‘on the 23rd of August 2003 around 7:30’. The narrator also sets the location for the film as he says ‘in the woods surrounding Highgrate Cemetery’. We use the pictures and the narration to create enigmas, because as the narrator speaks of the shots in the past (the ones in black and white), both them and the shots showing the present are merged together and the story flips between them. Then the narrator starts to talk about finding the killer’s sister and that is when the coloured or present shots are clear. We created binary opposition with the characters because the killer is obviously the bad guy in the film and the victim’s brother or the narrator is a good guy but this is twisted and turned when the brother or narrator goes off and does the same thing to the killer’s sister for revenge. So using binary opposition we also created similarities with the characters. We used the idea of becoming what you were fighting and against. We used the narration to create atmosphere and tension and to also tell the story to the audience as simply as possible. We used the soundtrack or score to build up suspense and tension the best part is when the score kicks in at the end just before the brother kills the killer’s sister. As shown below.

The shot below is where the effective score kicks in, parallel to the shot.

The ideologies or message that is in this film is really in the title ‘An Eye for an Eye’. We are not spreading the message that this is a good way to deal with life’s problems and situations and that if everybody believed in this message the world would be in a much worse state there would be no forgiveness or happy endings.

We did not use stars to appeal to the audience because it seems less realistic we wanted and we did use average teenagers as our actors because then the audience can relate to them and then feel fear, thus the film is fulfilling its duty and expectancy of its genre.

The pace of the editing is quite quick in our film this is to create tension and show how quickly the victim was murdered. Also the transitions between the past and the present shots are quick; this shows that the narrator or brother wanted to kill his victim quickly.

Below you can see how we used various different kinds of shots to attract the audience.

From the process of constructing this product I have learnt to use various technologies. I also used the internet with websites like youtube.com to find information about similar types of films and to also give me ideas on how to shoot ours. I have also used blooger.com to process and note down my work and progress we had made throughout the weeks. I have also been able to upload clips onto blogger.com to show my ideas. I have also used pen drives and disks to save my work and also store photos and clips so then I could upload them on the film or on blogger.com. I also used a pen drive to save the voice over for the film.

I have learnt how to use the ‘Mac’ program ‘imovie’, I learnt how to import files, edit, add effects and also add sound. We used a program called ‘cool edit pro’ which records sounds from speech to songs, to create our narration. We did have limitations like the fact that we did not have as much shots or clips that we wanted; the film was shorter than expected. The Mac’s programs allowed us to slow down the pace of the picture and put the shots in black and white which was key to our film. We had to re-shoot a shot of the killer running so that the film starts with a less confusing plot. As shown below.

Below, the top picture was the original starting shot but it looked a little too false and it made less sense we thought it would look better with a high medium shot of the killer’s legs running and it does, this shot is the bottom shot.

Below you can see we used the technology of video cameras to film the audience feedback, this way we cannot miss anything said.

Below is a shot from the video response and the feedback audience.

From my preliminary task to my full product, I have learnt to use technology from cameras to Mac computers and I have also learnt about how different types of shots and angles can give different effects. Our final product is better because of the more appropriate location plus the more use of adventurous shots. I have asked a second audience of three to examine the preliminary task; I then asked them to watch the main film. I then asked the question; ‘What has improved and in what ways? One of them said that the shots were much smoother and they looked more continuous. Another member said that the characters were much more established and the story was clearer. Another character said the setting and location was much more interesting and the use of the black and white added effect, also the narration merged with the images is a good effect to tell a story.

In conclusion I believe that the final product is a success, it’s key strengths are the use of narration and the use of black and white shots to show the past. However when the film switches between past and present it can be a little confusing, if the narration was not in the film it would probably have no sense at all, for an audience member. However I do think it is as close to the real article as it comes and we have used all of our film knowledge to portray this.

1B Leam

Here was our final idea for the finished piece:

- The protagonists sister is killed whilst out walking in the woods surrounding a cemetery. The killer flees the scene and is never found. Twisted by vengeance and hell-bent on revenge the protagonist starts to conduct his own investigation and manages to track down the killers sister. He decides to even the score by taking her life in the hope that this will draw the killer out. -

This is what we plan to shoot as our opening sequence. We think it works well and will set up many enigmas for the rest of the film. As we went for more of a psychological horror we want to create lots of enigmas which will confuse the audience and make them want to keep watching to find out what is happening.

The rest of the film will continue on from here becoming chronologically edited from this point. The film will follow the protagonist quest to find the killer and showing him becoming more and more akin to the man who killed his sister as vengeance consumes him. The climax will show him finally finding the killer and murdering him in cold blood, showing the total change in his character. The whole film will have a very cold horror fell to it.

1B Danny & Leam

This is our audience feedback, we asked ten people to watch our film. We then ask them eight questions. They responded with both positive and negative constructive points.

Some of the positive points were:
# Good non-diegetic soundtrack
# The pace of the editing fitted well with the pace of the soundtrack
# The locations used worked well and our location scouting skills were good
# Good horror conventions

Some of the nagative points were:
# Unclear that the change in location also brought a change in character  

1b danny and leam

This is our final cut of our film. We have edited it so that it tells both past and present parts of the story in two minutes. We have added the black and white effect to the shots set in the past and the present shots are in colour. We also added a non-diegetic score which emphasizes the atmosphere. The story is not that clear so we added a narrator to explain the story to the audience. We used various camera shots to create a more atmospheric look by using canted angles and high shots.