Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The preliminary task has proved extremely useful and beneficial in the way it has taught me the basics to making a small film, from varying the shot angles, to understanding that to fundamentally convey a realistic conversation between two people, you must follow the 180 degree rule.

Planning

The planning element of our mini 'film' took between 10-15 minutes with only thought into narration and the type of shots we were planning on using. From there we sought out a room purely based on whether a class wasn't in it, allowing us to use the space freely, without interruption. We did not get permission for this which is something that was necessary to have in order to film our supernatural opening and shows me already that there were many flaws with the planning the preliminary task. Looking back on the preliminary task i think that if we had planned the film more thoroughly to look at mise en scene and what reading the audience would have had as a result of this, our mini 'movie' would have been much more effective and higher in verisimilitude. For example, in relation to costume, if the group has access to clothing such as formal attire then this would have helped to establish the roles and power of the characters as being high, whilst if we changed it so that i was wearing a suit (icon of power and wealth) and Indya wearing baggy jogging bottoms and a dirty top then the audience would be likely to get a different reading. Furthermore, we used the school as our location with the history classroom as the setting. If we'd have planned further we may have chosen to use the room to show Indya as being a history student, but since we were trying to make it look as if she was going into an interview, the location didn't give the audience the reading we would have wanted them to have, thus it doesn't help to establish the preferred reading. Lighting wasn't an issue for us when we planned the movie and neither was it something we thought about but it should have been a priority for us to give thought to in order to think about creating the right atmosphere for our mini movie. Additionally, the team work made to plan the mini movie wasn't made with the full input of every member of the group and so work was more weighted on the individual which means that in terms of planning, our teamwork wasn't effective.

Production

When producing the mini movie, teamwork was more effective when we shared the roles to use the camera and in giving our opinions on how the shots should look.

Match on action: door knob turns=door opens

In the shots to the right you can see that in doing the preliminary task we used editing techniques such as match on action, providing the audience/viewer with the perception that they are involved in the film because they are closely watching the actions of Indya, walking into the room. Match on action is effective in also creating the mood e.g. more frequent shots following someone's actions such as in our video 'Introducing Jimmy' adds suspense to what's happening in the scene. Furthermore it provides continuity in the film.

Match on action: Indya opens and closes door

Example of shot-reverse-shot & the 180 degree rule

As said before, the preliminary task gave me the knowledge and understanding that in order to create an effective sequence, whereby the actors exchange dialogue, you must use the 180 degree rule and shot-reverse-shot in order to effectively show this and to simply and clearly convey to the audience that different subjects are talking to one another. This video on YouTube is particularly useful in explaining such a rule and how this creates ease and familiarity for the viewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZphHOAcFI .

Example of shot-reverse shot & the 180 degree rule

By actually making this video as part of our preliminary task we learnt about the importance of planning and the use of specific camera editing techniques such as with match on action. Furthermore, the process taught me more about teamwork. As a group Sam, Indya, Katy and i worked efficiently to create our mini 'film' with the roles generally equally distributed throughout the group. This allowed the process of making the film to be much more manageable which is one of the deciding factors as to why i chose to work in a group for the filming and production of a supernatural horror opening.


Editing

As a group we decided together what would be better to be used in terms of the typography style for our title and credits as well as how the overall piece should be edited together. Therefore teamwork was generally effective however it wasn't there wasn't a complete equal share of roles within the group making it teamwork less effective. From looking at the mistakes working in a team when editing i made sure to reflect on this before choosing to be in a group to make the supernatural film opening.

Audience

I think i have learnt a great deal more about audience from having done the preliminary task and this helped to build the foundations of my understanding which i then used in order to finally complete the planning, production and editing of the film opening Katy, Indya and i worked on throughout the course of this project. From looking back on the preliminary task i am now aware that simple things such as costume, location and proxemics are important in showing the audience the relationship between the characters in a scene. From this the audience can gain interpret the film and it's plot easily.

Conclusion

Looking back at the preliminary task i am really happy at how we effectively used camera shots to make our 'story' seem plausible and how we could implement the 180-degree rule, match on action and shot-reverse-shot into our work. By doing it i have invaluably learnt the importance of planning as well as the pros and cons of teamwork. Whilst there are several mistakes to conclude from having done the preliminary task, i have been able to evaluate the effectiveness of such actions to avoid the same mistakes in my film opening which is what makes the preliminary task so useful to have completed.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

*I'd just like to note that i think when i've made reference to our the editing software we used i have written Final Cut Pro when in fact we used Final Cut Express*

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

I have now added annotations to the video of our complete film opening. A lot of them cannot be read in the time that they last so the video will have to be paused every so often to allow for this. As you read through them you can see that i discuss the shots that have been used to convey the genre to the audience due to the conventions. I have also explained that certain shots have been selected as a direct mode of address for the audience who are made to feel involved in what's happening in our film opening.

A lot of features such as the use of filters and specific selection of camera shots, as well as choice of location and props have been developed in order to attract our audience through establishing and giving them the reading that this is a supernatural horror. The annotations explore this a little bit more also.

In terms of our unique selling point, i think the doll is certainly significant as it justifies Suzanne's actions she takes before finding the antagonist but then it goes without saying that the music is definitely our USP for it is integral in building the right amount of tension for the audience. It begins instantly, giving our audience the reading that our movie is a horror. It also grabs their attention as an audience and this provides the sense of suspense and tension which is what attracts most young adults to horror movies (particularly supernatural horrors where the music can be associated with a number of paranormal activities that alert the audience to anything out of the ordinary whilst also fearful).

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Profile

Name: Uma Fitzgibbon 

Age: 19

Where does she shop? Clothes shops like Topshop and Ralph Lauren.

What music does she listen to? Drum & base, trance and any other up-beat songs.

Favourite movies? Disney & comedies

Favourite TV programmes? My Mad Fat Diary and Towie.

Preference for horror films? Supernatural horrors

Uma is a perfect example of our film's target audience, young adults. Here i have gained a profile of her interests that is useful in showing whether her taste in music and shopping relates to her taste in films. As it happens, despite favouring many Disney and comedy films, she thoroughly enjoys watching horror films that are based on the supernatural, rather than gory horror films. This is useful in showing that young adults have an interest in watching supernatural horrors and this helps to secure us a profit in our film because we now know that we are nearly definitely guaranteed an audience because of how young people enjoy watching such a genre as ours. Furthermore, Uma is someone who is really good to look at for her enjoyment with watching supernatural horrors as when she was younger she would watch lots of YouTube videos about ghosts and the supernatural. Since she is my cousin i know this because we would do this together. Doing this gave us a thrill and that's why we chose to have young adults as our audience because they will usually watch a supernatural horror because of the thrill and adrenaline it causes to watch.

Audience- primary, secondary & certification 

Our film is prescribed generally to young adults yet we have not limited younger viewers from watching our movie by giving it a certification of 18. If our film was released at a certificate of 18 it would have to be incredibly scary and horror films have been given such a rating because of the level of gore that is shown. Since our opening looks heavily at the supernatural and sinister side of horror it would be inappropriate to give it a rating of 18. For this reason our film has a certification of 15. Many of the most extreme supernatural horrors do in fact have a certification of 15 because of how there is huge suspense built for the audience e.g. The Devil Inside and Insidious. Yet The Woman in Black, interestingly enough, was rated with a certificate of 12 by the BBFC which caused great disapproval by the public. Originally the film had been made a 15 but after more graphic scenes had been cut out it was later given the 12 certificate. Many people complained because The Woman in Black posed just as much tension and fear as horrors with a certification of 15. It's in my view that this rating was given to allow a wider audience the chance to watch the film and produce the most profit for the film. Nevertheless, as to avoid criticism it would be most appropriate to have a certification of 15 for our film.

The primary audience is largely focused on males between the ages of 15-30 along with the fan base of extreme horror film enthusiasts; whilst women with the same age range make up the secondary audience. On reflection this shows that when collecting audience feedback we could have collected feedback from a wider range of people, possibly in their 20s since this would have given our group a rough idea of the amount of tension that's necessary to build fear and suspense for a slightly older and more mature audience. Furthermore it would have been even more useful to have gotten horror enthusiasts to watch our film opening since they would have probably been more likely to give constructive criticism on our work to make it an even more effective movie opening.

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

*I'd like to add that in comparison to another film that has been distributed in a similar way to which i think the film should be distributed, a film like Warp's Tyrannosaur is useful to compare to since in looking at it in the PowerPoint you can see that it was a British, independent feature with funding from organisations such as the National Lottery Fund, which is similar to our 'ambition' to have Malediction distributed in such a way. (The preference for Malediction's distribution is explained in the PowerPoint).

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 1: In what was does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Setting & Location

In 8 of the 9 shots that i've taken from our film opening you can see a number of the different locations that we shot our film in. The first is an establishing shot of the supposedly 'haunted' house. The house is is located in the countryside, as an old farm house. It is currently uninhabited and although it's fairly modern inside, the exterior appears, as said, to look old and derelict. This lends itself to support the conventions of a supernatural horror movie that takes advantage of the archaic features of a landscape. In shot 2 we similarly use another exterior, establishing shot of the house to show the audience that our opening/the entirety of our film will be based on this particular house. Whilst it is usual for most supernatural horrors to set the film in an immemorial building such as The Woman in Black (which is set in a desolate, yet grand Victorian house, surrounded by marshes), there have been many modern supernatural horrors that use a modern building instead e.g. Insidious. However in reflection, the only reason for films such as The Woman in Black, using an old building as the main location for the film scenes is due to the historical context of the movie rather than in doing so to create more tension. It probably would have been an interesting idea to have filmed in a modern house so that the verisimilitude would have been enhanced but our choice to film in an old house is still an effective one since it is a convention of supernatural horrors to do so.

In some of the other shots you can see that the interior of the house is unfurnished which is unusual for many horror films and other genres aike since they use furnishings to create a realistic environment. I believe that in keeping the rooms bare it helps to create tension because the lack of features makes the building appear less like a 'friendly' home although be doing this we are subverting the conventions of a supernatural horror.

Costumes & Props

In shots 4-6 you can see one of the most fundamental props used in our film opening and that is the small doll. This doll, as said before, is over 100 years old which intensifies the tension in our opening because it is realistically old. Dolls have been used in many supernatural horrors since they connote innocence but also corrupted innocence because our interpretation has been distorted as a result of the number of horror films that have demonised the dolls e.g. Chucky. So in using a doll in our film opening we are conforming to the conventions of a supernatural horror movie.

As for costume, the medium close-up (shot 4) of Indya shows that she is wearing a black, smart dress. This connotes power and sophistication. The audience is therefore already given the reading that Indya is playing a character who works in an office job. The fact that we have immediately introduced the audience to a stock character in formal attire rather than someone in more casual clothing shows we a subverting the conventions of a horror movie because very few supernatural horrors introduce a character in such a way e.g. The Woman in Black shows 3 young girls (stock characters) wearing white dresses (of which connotes innocence, purity and vulnerability/fragility). However in The Ring the young girl wears smart clothing (probably school clothing), but the way in which blouse has been undone in an informal fashion and the fact that the skirt is quite short  shows she isn't dressed formally to appear as sophisticated as Indya's character does. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gIuCfnmPQg ) Furthermore shot 4 shows Indya wearing earrings and her appearance, including the way in which her hair is styled, is also very formal and sophisticated which further establishes an importance about her character although she is in fact a stock character, not entirely important. However the clothing choice does help to establish her character as an estate agent (office worker).

In shot 8 you can see that i'm wearing a white dress. This subverts the conventions of a supernatural horror since many films have the antagonist wearing black e.g. The Woman in Black and Insidious. The colour black has connotations of death, impurity, mystery, evil and power. It also connotes grief which can be used to indicate the plot of a film e.g. The Woman in Black mourns the death of her son and takes revenge on the children of other adults. On the other hand films such as The Grudge and The Ring have the antagonist wearing a white dress to suggest purity and innocence in the way a child is represented (suggesting the antagonist is a child) whilst showing that the innocence is lost because of the juxtaposition of this against the make-up and hair style of the character. For example, The Ring has the girl wearing very dark make-up and long black hair that covers her face sinisterly. In our opening my hair is bright in contrast with the environment but the make-up is dark around my eyes, with the hollows of my face accentuated, and then light around the rest of the face to create the effect that i am dead. We do conform however, to the conventions of supernatural horrors in the way that the antagonist is wearing a dress. The stereotypical female would usually wear a dress as dresses connote femininity, beauty, elegance and yet again, innocence. All of the supernatural horrors i have looked at depict a female antagonist in this way to clearly show that the antagonists are women and by using dark colours the power is enforced, giving the audience the reading that the antagonists are far more dangerous than their archetypal appearance as a fragile and weak female character.

Camera work & Editing

At the start of our opening we added slow motion to our shots to enhance the tension and intensity the audiences' fear. This is conventional of horror movies because it builds suspense. For example, towards the end of Insidious' opening you can see that the shots they have used have had the same technique applied to make the audience feel apprehensive. Shot 2 tilts upwards showing a medium shot of the side of the house whilst shot 4 pans to the right, revealing the doll. I think both editing techniques are effective in building tension through the way the shots are very slow and when coupled with the music, build suspense. Shot 6 tilts up slightly also, when tracking the doll as Indya picks it up. This creates the effect of continuous action and makes the audience/viewer feel more involved with the events of the film opening, as if they were in the scene themselves. Most shots vary in terms of whether they are close-ups, medium/ medium close-ups, or long shots but shot 8 is indefinitely an over-the-shoulder-shot which gives the viewer the perspective that they are in the scene with the 2 characters, thus intensifying the fear.

Typography / Titles

Shot 2 and 3 shows some of the text that we used in our film opening. I have already explored the fonts and sizes in previous posts. In shot 2 the text needed to have a shadow put behind it for the text to be seen above the shots where it would be lightest. Unfortunately this text is thus slightly different to the rest of the opening credits. Nevertheless we have tried to keep the text font, size etc. the same as possible to maintain continuity in our film. We chose to use white writing because it helps make the film more haunting and it is also conventional of many supernatural horrors to use white text. I am aware that many horrors might conventionally use red informal and 'messy-looking' typography to reflect the conventions of horror films of which there are connotations of blood. Insidious does this, for example. Our title in shot 9 fades in from black just as the music fades slowly in again. This creates a scarier atmosphere to our opening. The use of the formal, white typography makes the film look more professional and thus gives the film realism and credibility.

A convention of film openings is the credits. These usually include the production company, actors, director and most importantly, the title of the film. Our opening conforms to the conventional title sequence in the way we have an extensive list of credits that are conventional of film openings.

How does the opening set up the story?

In our opening we have a small preamble at the start as a way of introducing the audience to the general plot in which there is a type of spirit haunting a house where nearly 30 years ago a family of four were mysteriously killed. This is a technique that The Devil Inside uses to establish fear within the audience (911 call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDGxt1aiBJ8 ). The plot itself is quite conventional of supernatural horrors and so the audience is given the reading that this film will involve the murder of more individuals. In our opening is a close-up of a newspaper article we created, along with a document labelled 'Moors Estate Agents' which helps to establish to the audience that Indya (who is then immediately seen in a medium shot looking down at the papers) is an estate agent looking at the house. Thus the story is set up this way. Finally as Indya's character makes her way into the room with the antagonist in, the audience is then given the understanding that the story is based around this ghostly young girl/woman.

How does the opening suggest the genre?

I have already explored many aspects of our opening that have meant our film opening either subscribes or subverts the conventions of a supernatural horror movie. Many of these aspects include costume, location, props and also special effects (filters).

How are the characters introduced?

Between shot 3 and 4 is a shot showing a newspaper article and document made by the group. Following this is a medium shot of Indya which pans to the left revealing her character for the first time to the audience. It is then in shot 4 that we first see the doll. Even though it is not a character, the doll is substantially important to note down in the introduction of characters, since leading on from the sighting of the doll, Indya's character instigates the introduction between the antagonist and the audience e.g. the camera tracks Indya's movements towards the door where we are then introduced to the antagonist in shot 8 (over-the-shoulder-shot).

Conventionally the characters introduced into a film opening are the protagonists however there have also been films to have introduced the audience to stock characters just as we do in our film opening. So just as we may be challenging the conventions of a film opening we are also subscribing to them.

Are there any special effects?

The only special effects that might be considered to be effects are the filters that we used in our opening. We experimented a lot with the intensity of our filters and whether we wanted them to be darker or lighter for certain shots. Many of the outside, establishing shot have had a darker filter applied to them whilst the inside of the house has a much lighter filter because the lighting was particularly dark in the house (which made lightening the shots a necessity). The use of the filter helps to create a more ominous mood/atmosphere and intensifies the tension in our film opening. The fact we use one also subscribes to the conventions of supernatural horror movies since many use one to create the right atmosphere e.g. Insidious uses a subtle blue filter. Without the filters i don't think our opening would be as effective as it is now in its completion.

I used the Apple Macs to edit the pictures together but to do this i had to use Photoshop- as seen above.

Complete Film Opening!

Here is my group's complete film opening which we finished working on editing only yesterday. Whilst we have refined the opening to look as good and effective as possible there are nonetheless elements of it that make the film opening not entirely realistic e.g. the continuity error of the inclusion and exclusion of our bags, poor filming quality (possibly due to the filters used), an unknown cause for a dip in the volume of our score, and, in my opinion, the text: 'Hidden Pictures Presents' which required a shadow in the background which i don't think is particularly attractive but it's the only way for the text to be seen on top of the shots. Despite this we are pleased with the outcome of all our planning and production and we hope that you are too!

*Whilst watching in Full HD on YouTube, the image quality of our shots appears to look quite poor in the way that the image seems to look loose and indistinct. This is in no way part of our editing process to make the shots appear in this way.

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: Adding improvements

Unfortunately today Katy wasn't able to come into our 2 media lessons because of illness. Despite this, Indya and i did what we could and that involved asking our teacher and another member of staff for their opinion on our film opening and on how it should be improved. It proved that they both had feedback to give us with improvements which Indya and i spent adding. These included:

• Cutting down the shot of the antagonist screaming
• Making some shots shorter due to the camera jolting
• Slow down the establishing shots at the start of the opening

In our two-hour lesson Indya and i managed to work on these improvements and then began working on the improvements from our friend's sister. We've added another track of music just as the score gets louder and we reach the climax of the opening. Whilst it certainly adds more tension it's a bit over the top, creating more suspense than necessary. Indya and i have played around with the volume to reduce creating too much tension than is necessary but I think we'll have to see what Katy thinks about this before we definitively make a choice about building the music up at this point. Other than building up the tension with louder music etc. we just need to play around with looking at using lighter filters for the house interior and darker filters for the exterior, establishing shots. At the end of the lesson a friend of ours noted that he thought some of the credits could be moved- particularly the credit 'A Paranormal Production' which should be moved further to the right because the writing is quite difficult to see when contrasted with the light colours of the doorway. 

*As a note, Indya and i are rather annoyed and stupefied because the music at the start of our opening happens to go suddenly quiet before going back to normal volume. We don't understand why it does this since the volume hasn't been altered in any way so we can only assume that it's part of the track itself.

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: Audience Feedback 2

This video shows the feedback the group and i gathered on Friday from a different and yet smaller sample of our target audience. Unfortunately we didn't receive an incredible amount of improvements which is a bit annoying since i would be good to have a bit more to work on. Nevertheless the lack of improvement is good as it does in fact show the audience is actually pleased with the film opening we have produced. One person we interviewed was really shocked by our film opening and it did in fact make them scared which is a really positive sign for us as a group as it shows we have made an effective film opening.

Further Feedback:

One of our friends, who happened to provide feedback in this video, has a sister who is currently studying Design for Film and Television at Nottingham Trent University. Over the weekend she came back to their house and he got her to watch our film opening and provide us with improvements. Below are the improvements she passed on though our friend James, to us.

• The music should be more built up to enhance the tension
• The sound of the door should be slightly louder
• The shots of the house interior should have a slightly lighter filter
• The shots of the house exterior should have a slightly darker filter

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: 3

This is the third rough cut of our film opening that Indya and i finished off editing today (Katy was with us for the start of adding improvements). Once Katy returns (which will be tomorrow) we will be able to get more feedback on our film opening and after editing the film further it will be complete for evaluation.

Publishing the film opening

In a previous post i outlined the difficulties of exporting the film openings into a format that would work with our own computers. Earlier this week Indya and i combatted this problem through finding and watching a very useful YouTube video. Some of the shots in this post show the process we had to follow for a file format that would work with our computers. We had to select options before altering the size, sound and film quality in order to get the right film format for our film and also the best film quality as possible. 

Editing: Rough Cut 3

Today the class has a full day of media which has given Indya and i the opportunity to move forward with editing our film opening and applying the improvements given to by our audience (as seen in the previous post). Katy unfortunately isn't in today so although only Indya and i added the last improvements to the video ourselves, we can't move much further without the collaboration of Katy. To ensure each person is working at the same level and in doing the same volume of work, we have thus decided to not more further in terms of collecting audience feedback in response to our third rough cut. Currently we have spent nearly 2 hours adding improvements to our film opening. On completion we asked a fellow class member what they thought of the the rough cut to which they told us to alter some of the credits. One of the things he told us was that it would be better to delete '&' between the actors' names whilst moving Indya's name closer to the left. We have added this improvement to our film since we think it makes the opening look more professional. Furthermore he told us that rather than writing 'Directed by...' we should say 'A film by...' to make the credits seem less worded. However Indya and i decided to not add this improvement because we preferred to keep this credit the same.

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: Audience Feedback

In the week we came up with several questions to ask our target audience. We got 4 pairs (equal spread of gender) to enter the sound-proof room with us and watch our second rough cut of the film opening. Once they'd watched it we recorded their responses to the questions. It was really surprising how shocked people were to watch our film opening and even more astonishing to see that the film did actually scare people. I think it's quite difficult to think of our film opening as scary because we know what's going to happen which is why we were obviously unsure of whether the film opening would be scary enough for the public but apparently it was! The audience gave us a fair analysis of our work including several points of constructive criticism which we'll work on before creating another draft for the target audience to analyse for us yet again.

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: 2

This opening, different to the first rough cut, has been improved on as a result of feedback given to us by our teacher who told us to alter a few shots in terms of length as well as a few other improvements. One of the main improvements she gave us was to add a very dark filter, darker than the subtle filter that was added at the start. In this rough cut we didn't include a darker filter because we would like the target audience to tell us what they think should be done about a filter before we actually add a very dark one into the opening. (This will be presented to the target audience before more improvements are made).

Rough Cut of the Film Opening: 1

This is the first and initial rough cut for our film opening of Malediction. There are several things, from the volume of the music, to the length of shots that still need to be improved and will be worked on in a further rough cut.

Editing: Title: Audience Feedback

 To the left is an image of the 4 styles of typography we decided to look at in choosing which would be the best title to use for our film opening. This week the group and i asked the target audience which typography style they preferred. From this we tallied-up the results which you can see in the image to the left and in the pie charts showing the choice between males and females. Most people preferred idea 2 despite the fact that we have chosen typography idea 3 for out title. Nevertheless, an equal spread of both males and females preferred idea 3 which makes the idea more suitable because the results show that the title appeals to both genders which can be applied to the general population. Furthermore, despite favoritism towards the seconds idea, our group thought idea 3 was the best because of how formal the typography looked, making the film seem more professional and credible.

Editing: Title Sequence

Our title sequence begins with a preamble to the plot of our film before we used credits conventional of all films. The titles follow in this order:

• On the 11th February 1972 a family of four were found dead in their home
• The causes of death were unknown
• HIDDEN PICTURES PRESENTS
• A Paranormal Production
• Wilhelmina Denness & Indya Clayton
• Directed by Katy Jackson
• MALEDICTION

Editing & Research: Conventional Titles

This prezi discusses only a few conventions of the opening credits for a film. I have included an explanation as to why typography is important for my group so that we can create the best atmosphere and mood to our film opening as possible. Since i didn't go into much detail about the credits in The Exorcist, i thought i'd add an important point about the film using red writing. Red, of course, connotes blood, death and horror. It is a colour conventionally associated with horror films, thus immediately giving the audience the reading that the film is about a horror. The typography is bold and written using cap locks which helps to make the credits stand out and appear violent and threatening, therefore further validating the interpretation that the film is a horror film. The text also appears using fades in and out, creating suspense for the audience. The title however appears immediately and abruptly to shock the audience. From looking at this, i now know how important it is to think about the typography, colour of the text and how the credits should appear. Notably the title is the most important element of the credits and through looking at the title in The Exorcist i can see how my group and i will need to make it have more of an impact on the audience in the way The Exorcist establishes its importance through appearing differently and being made larger than the rest of the credits.

Rough Cut update!

The group and i finished our initial rough cut earlier in the week and we also created another rough cut following receiving feedback from our teacher about how some of the edits should be slightly different etc. She also told us it would be good to have a really dark filter on our opening but we've decided to add one in another rough cut. Using the second rough cut (without substantially dark filters) the group and i presented our opening to 4 pairs within a small room. Initially we were going to present the opening to the class but since a lot of people are behind on their work, we wouldn't have been able to get this feedback until a later date which would have meant we had no work to do. At the moment there are difficulties with transferring the film opening files across to our computers so even though we have the videos and notes showing audience feedback we cannot put them live on the blog. We are trying to deal with this problem as quickly as possible.

Continuity error

Whilst editing, Indya was very particular in pointing out that we've made a continuity error in our opening where in one of the shots of her face you can see our bags in the background yet in another shot they aren't there. It would be much more complicated to go back and film this particular shot again due to factors such as lighting, weather etc. Therefore we are left to deal with the problem. However the error cannot entirely fault our opening since even the best movies have mistakes and so the group deals with this issue constructively as a way of teaching us to avoid such an error if we film another time.

Editing: The Title

There are several typography styles that Katy and Indya looked at whilst i was away and in looking at the variety of them i am happy with the style of typography that they have decided to use in our opening. In this post are some of the fonts that were explored in LiveType whilst some other screen shots have been taken to show the different styles of typography that were given consideration into being choosen.

We decided to stick with the theme of using white writing on a black background for the same reason as with the credit sequence at the start of the opening where we created a preamble to the film. This reason is based on showing the juxtaposition of both dark and light elements such as demonism (the antagonist) and yet sanctity and hope (the protagonist and their heroism). Using upper case letters helps to make the title stand out and it also makes the title look violent, hopefully giving the reading that the film is a dark horror. The font on the right is very clear and the it helps to make the text look more violent and therefore hopefully giving the reading that the film is about a horror, however the font is similar to one used in many western films which makes it inappropriate for our film opening. Furthermore, it deludes from the fact that the opening is based on a supernatural horror.

In this shot you can see a different font with a more formal typography. The bold font makes the title more noticeable to the audience and provides an intensity to the film. I think it gives the reading that this is a horror film, although the typography isn't quite as sinister as i think it should be.





This shot shows two very slightly different fonts that were considered for being used as our title but eventually the font on the right was chosen as our title. I completely agree with Indy and Katy's choice for using this style of typography not only because of the use of upper case letters that makes the text stand out to the audience/viewer but also the formality of the font makes the title appear professional. This lends itself to giving the title credibility, making the film opening seem higher in verisimilitude and therefore creating a more ominous and sinister atmosphere to our film opening.

Editing: Rough Cut Production

So today i looked at the work Indya and Katy had achieved over the 3 lessons i missed whilst in Barcelona. I thought it was very good although i had a few minor criticisms/improvements that could have been applied to make the opening better. This included making some of the shots towards the end of our opening slightly longer and changing the music slightly in terms of fade and the length of it but apart from that we were all pleased with the rough cut. Obviously we don't think it's perfect but for the sake of being a rough cut the opening is looking good so far at the point of its completion.

Editing: development of the draft

Whilst i was away on my trip to Barcelona Katy and Indya continued editing the film opening with permission from me to do so. We thought it would be best to continue the work this way so that we can finish the film opening as quickly as possible. Some of the shots in this post show the development of the work across the 3 hours i missed editing with them.

A very subtle filters was applied to some of the shots 

Indya editing some of the opening

Editing: music

So we decided fairly recently that the music we would be using in our opening would be Fire Prelude (for the main body of the opening) and The Dread (for the immediate opening and when the title appears). We didn't choose to get audience input on this choice because we immediately knew the two songs would provide the best atmosphere. However, just in case our choice was wrong we will be conducting an interview on our target audience asking whether the music is appropriate to further justify our decision to use these two tracks in our film opening.

Draft: editing part 2

When the group and i opened our movie up today we found that the edit timeline and viewer box wasn't appearing so we searched Google for any possible reasons for this. We came across a source saying that the project would have to be edited again.We were just about to switch off the Apple Mac and switch it on again to see if the content would reappear, but when i looked into the 'Malediction' folder on our computer there was a sub-folder called 'Auto save' where i found a copy of the film where the editing timeline was visible. Although it had been saved a couple of frames short of what we completed on Friday it meant we hadn't lost our work so fortunately we were able to get on with editing. We managed to reach around 1 minute and 30 seconds today where we edited together the music with the film. We've had to change the idea that we would hear Indya's heels on the floor because the hum of the background noise takes away the ominous effect. During the two hours that we spent doing this (after school), i was in charge of editing whilst Indya and Katy gave their input on how the film should look. The reason for doing this is because on Thursday and Friday i won't be able to edit with Katy and Indya so on them days they will edit the rest of the video and when i return from my art trip on Tuesday i will have a look at the draft they have finished off to give my opinion on the film opening and whether i think any improvements should be made.

Preparing for showing the draft version of our film opening

This coming week, Katy, Indya and i will be working after school to edit more of our film, aiming to complete as much of it as we can. On the Wednesday, where we would normally have media, we have a day off to study work on another one of our subjects so that means we cannot complete any work on that day. Following this, i will be on an art trip to Barcelona from Thursday through to Monday which means the only editing that can be done will be on Monday this week. Indya also won't be present on the Thursday. Whilst many people in my class will be required to present their draft on the Thursday, we are allowed to do it the following week. Therefore, in roughly two weeks our group will be required to present this draft. Since we find time an issue already we will have to make sure we fit as much editing into the two weeks as possible.

Typography: start of our opening

Font ideas: Goudy Old Style (top), Calibri Light (middle) , Viner Hand ITC (bottom)

Text 'appears'

Using LiveType my group and i began creating the preamble to our film opening. We looked at the different fonts that would be suitable for the preamble and as a universal font for the credits. We decided to use Goudy Old Style because the typography is formal and looks professional. Therefore the viewer's reading should be one of professionalism so that they may believe in our fabricated story. It also lends itself to giving our film and the story within it credibility. As for the edit, we originally wanted the text to appear on the screen straight away but we found an edit that looked as if the writing was being typed using a typewriter and this was appealing because of its effectiveness. In refection we later decided that in using this edit the opening wasn't made to appear as effective as we wanted it to look, so we've decided to leave the text only appearing rather than appearing to be 'typed' in. Furthermore, we were thinking of having either quite quiet music whilst the text appears or a low/high resolute sound so by using the typewriter edit we would have to change our music choice to accommodate for this.

Text 'typed' in

In relation to the colours, we decided it would be more effective to have white text upon a black reason, just as is done in The Devil Inside, to present the reading that the film explored virtuous holiness and dark, satanical demonism. Since the background is black the viewer will
hopefully interpret the text to understand that the antagonist will have more power over the protagonist and light, sacred 'force' in the film.

In the screenshot on the left, the bold font and use of upper case lettering in the typography makes the text stand out more and thus it should grab the viewer's attention. Upper case lettering makes the title appear also very violent which the viewer may interpret as a reflection of the nature of the film showing violence.

Editing: Opening of our film

Progress on FinalCutExpress 27/02/14

So far this week Indya, Katy and have nearly finished creating the first part of our film opening where the opening titles come in. We were just about to finish putting the music into what we've completed so far before we ran out of time. It's taken us about 4 hours to approximately do the first 30 seconds of the opening which shows us that we really need to be getting this work completed outside of school as well as inside when we have our normal lessons. It's quite a stressful and lengthy process since we all really want to make this opening as perfect as possible yet we have to make a draft first before perfecting it completely. Creating the text in LiveType has probably taken the most time out of editing. What's more, we've found that in looking back at our shots, some of them don't quite work for how we envisaged the opening so rather than sticking to the storyboard we have been using some of the extra shots we made on the day of filming. Also we've added different edits to the ones identified on the storyboard because we think they make the opening look more interesting. In terms of improvements, i think there's a lot that can be improved on but since this w are making a draft of the opening it doesn't really matter too much.

Initial thoughts on music

Today the group and i looked at royalty-free music on a website called Incompetech (http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/). So far we're interested in 2 songs (The House of Leaves & Fire Prelude) that would be useful for the main part of our opening as the scene builds in tension. We also found 2 other tracks (Anxiety & The Dread) which would be of great use in creating an eerie atmosphere at the start of our opening when the preamble, credits and location shots are shown. 

Initial problem editing

When the group and i tried transferring the AVCHD camera files to the Apple Mac we noticed we couldn't watch the video clips because the computer wouldn't support the file type. It took around 1-2 hours to sort out this issue where we had to ask the school technicians to help us with the problem. One of the technicians helped convert the files for us into MTS files to support the software on the Apple Macs. He then created a file on my account where the film would be saved, along with all the video clips so that we wouldn't lose the files such as if we worked straight from the clips on my memory card. Once this issue was solved we were able to crack on with our editing.

Evaluation of filming

The making of our film opening

Katy edited a video of the footage we made whilst we were filming for the film opening (which you can see below). We decided to make this mainly because it would show that despite Indya and i acting in the opening, we were also taking roles in filming shots; therefore our roles within the group were still shared rather than focused on the individual (Katy).

Extra Filming

We originally planned an extra day of filming (tomorrow: 19/02/14) where we could finish filming all the shots for the opening as well as any extra shots we may find useful. Since we managed to do all of this today i shall not need to meet up with Indya and Katy tomorrow. The main priority we have to content with now is editing which cannot be done until we begin school again after the February school holidays (since we need to access FinalCutPro, installed on the Apple Macs).

Completion of filming! (Shot Log)

So today Indya, Katy and i got to work on filming our opening and surprisingly enough, we managed to complete it! We got round to filming some extra shots which will be useful since we're still unaware of exactly how long our opening will be; therefore we can use the shots to lengthen the opening if necessary. There were a few shots we did alter due to the reality of how we could actually place the camera in terms of our visions and also there were times where the shots would be different because we misinterpreted the positioning of doors and size of rooms which altered the proxemics. Furthermore, we ended up using Katy's tripod rather than the one provided by the school due to the fact that when we put the camera on the tripod it was in the wrong position (so we couldn't tilt the camera up/down). Another issue with our filming was with trying to do a focus pull on one of our shots. When i tried to create a shot of the doll in shallow focus, switching to deep focus, the camera wouldn't comply with my intentions, thus not performing this action. Basically, we could only create a shot in shallow focus and pure blur, not deep focus unfortunately; therefore we haven't been able to put this into our film opening. Above is a shot log i wrote as we filmed each shot. Indya and Katy used it to record the information into there own shot logs.

After having filmed the shots we looked back over them and did some recordings which would be useful for the opening. These included sounds such as laughter, crying, speech, and short intakes of breath, all performed by the antagonist (myself) using Katy's mic and sound editing software. As of yet, we haven't specified which recordings we'll be using but we do have our preferences which should make the choice easy enough.

Day before filming!

Today i had a look at the equipment that we'll be using to start filming tomorrow and i'm really excited to see how it turns out. I'll admit that it was a little difficult to gather much info from the photocopy of information that was given to us but i managed to figure out how to zoom and also to focus pull! I'm quite pleased and hopefully tomorrow we will create the film opening we originally envisaged!

Filming Equipment

Hi here's my explanation of the filming equipment we'll be using to produce our film opening. Enjoy!

*One thing i forgot to mention is that we'll be using my 16GB HD memory card which is good because the file format will work better with the HD camera, providing the best resolution and also it will allow up to 4 hours of footage to be recorded.*

Planning: Progress

Before creating the storyboard, my group and i had a very debatable discussion into how we wanted to make our film look and what we should happen in the film opening. Since creating the PowerPoint which we presented as a 'big pitch', some of our ideas have slightly altered. In the storyboard there are a few things that we have amended too. One of which is the side at which the door is placed in relation to where Indya (Suzanne) will be standing. We have noticed that one of the doors in our shots is on the wrong side. Despite this, our vision of how the shot will look will not change. Another issue is with the fact that when the diegetic sound of thumping will be heard, so will a child's wailing cries ( this was not noted on the storyboard).

Planning: Storyboard

 

 

 

Planning: Call Sheet

Planning: Props: Documents

Planning: Props

In our film opening we will have Suzanne (Indya) having a a handbag which can be seen in the image on the right. We chose this handbag because it matched the outfit and would reinforce the reading that she is professional whilst still very feminine. This prop will only be seen from shots where Suzanne is reading her notes on a counter.

Additional props also include a black clipboard, black Biro pen, estate agent documents and a fake newspaper clipping discussing a murder that occurred at the house we are shooting the film opening in. These props would help establish greater verisimilitude of the character, Suzanne, and for the opening itself. The props will also reinforce the reading that the house will have a demonic spirit in it for which the narrative is based around.  

A final and most integral prop is a doll. To the left is a male doll which we'll be using for our film opening. Since the doll is a little boy the preferred reading will be of innocence. Old dolls, like this one (over 100 years old), are now commonly associated with supernatural horrors, and so the prop will help to reflect the code and conventions of supernatural horror movies.