7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Below is mine and Liam's continuity task from the beginning of college last year. Looking back at it it immediately springs to mind some cringe-worthy mistakes. Fortunately I feel like I've improved in editing and filming quite a lot. When looking through both my continuity and my final cut there are some prominent differences, such as:
Mis-en-scene
Costumes
Sound and lighting
Below is a snip from Final Cut pro showing how we edited it. It's pretty bare with not much sound included in it when compared to my final cut.
When recording our continuity task the sound isn't too bad. The background noise of people moving around and talking sort of blends into the theme of the task; Casualty. It gives off the vibe of a bustling hospital. However when in the 'office' room, the chairs shuffle a bit and disrupt the dialogue. Compared to our final cut, 'The Untold', we used a higher tech microphone (Rose Videomic) which picked up voice much clearly but also white noise was made more prominent. I feel I edited this nicely though, so it's not as noticeable.
Using our final cut video I chose to annotate everything that would appeal/attract our ideal audience of 15-25 year olds. Our USP is definitely the effects, not many horror films open up with special effects but we felt this enhanced our film as it's supernatural, psychological based.
Audience Feedback - YouTube
We got some good audience feed back from our YouTube video, below is a comment from someone who attends our college and has mentioned some positive points about our opening sequence "gripping" and "intense" being a couple of the best comments.
Below is our opening sequence video views. We've had 186 views so far and 6 people have liked it! No dislikes as of yet which is brilliant! This show that our audience is responding to it positively and also indicates their interest!
I also found a way to view the videos statistics. Below shows the top demographics for our video audience and it's exactly what we wanted. Age ranging from 13-24 years mainly females. This pinpoints exactly what we aimed for indicating positive feedback!
Facebook Feedback
A few weeks back, Farhath posted up our final cut video for our friends to see and give feedback on. I was really surprised and happy with the feedback as everyone commenting was people our age and mentioned how they thought it was "amazing", "wanna see more" and that it's "very impressive!" The feedback from both social networking sites really makes me feel like we've chosen the right actors, costumes, props and story line. All the positive comments and 'Likes' on the video and on the comments it really enforces this.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
I took the time to create a "Media Networking 'Web'" to represent and identify all the different types of media and networking our ideal audience members would be using; allowing me to analyse exactly who our ideal audience members are based upon the media they consume. An example would be to identify an audience for BBC One. For this we'd concentrate of both genders around the ages of 30 right up 50+ as the BBC are a media industry suitable for all genders and ages but mainly attracting the maturer audiences. Our product would then have to appeal to such criteria in order for us to capture this particular audiences wants and needs in a media product.
However our audience is not aimed at those who consume media from the BBC but audiences ranged between the ages of 15 - 25. This is the ideal age for our film as it's not a 'serious', deep concentration, mature film. It's aimed to be serious but in a subtle/low amount compared. Through research I found that many people ages between our ideal figures use social networking sites on a daily basis. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Our particular audience would be those who enjoy the thrill and mystery of psychological horrors and though who favor the special effects in minimal doses. They would also be people who'd occasionally attend a film festival but mainly spend their time upon said social networking sites. Films such as the Saw franchise, Silent Hill, The Number 23 and Silence of the Lambs are popular among our age group. I found in an earlier post that Saw had their own website - this influenced our ideas on how to broaden our audience market. With an official, interactive website it's likely to attract the younger and young/mature audiences as it's viable through the internet which is something of daily use. Facebook pages and official Twitter pages will also be something we'd look into to get more marketing awareness as they are the two main social networking sites around to date.
To conclude our ideal audience members would be both genders (more so males) between the ages of 15-25, with access to the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. They would also be interested in the occasional trip to film festivals and would gain most information through word-of-mouth.
3. What kinda of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Every great movie company has an ident. The ident is of great important in the film industry and plays a major part in representing the type of institution that may distribute our own film. Below is my ident for Nightfall Entertainment:
I used some footage I found on YouTube of a beautiful full moon passing through clouds in the middle of the night. I felt this was appropriate for the company's name and the subtle hint of clouds trailing past the move gave it a more eerie feel which suited our horror/thriller opening sequence perfectly. The music is a delicate, haunting piano piece that flows nicely with the video. I felt I achieved a very unique and chilling ident.
My production company: Nightfall Entertainment.
My production company, "Nightfall Entertainment" is responsible for all budgeting, scheduling, scripting, supplying the talent, the resources, the production itself , distributor, marketing and post-production. Nightfall Entertainment are the direct company responsible for fundraising the production of our media product and to accomplish this they'll either turn to a parent company (i.e Warner Bros), partner or a private investor who is interested in horror/thriller films for young/mature audiences. Events such as film festivals will help accumulate funds with donations from film-goers who enjoy our specific genre and will also help raise awareness for our film. Films such as "Sinister", "The Exorcist" and "1408" and many more hit horrors were all distributed by Pathe and are popular among our ideal audience age.
The titles we used in order of importance to our film. We were influenced by the opening titles from "Napoleon Dynamite" as it too is an independent film; including such things as both associated production companies (mine and Farhath's), above the line talent, music, production designer, photography, writer and producer and of course, the director. Our film has light usage of special effects as it's a paranormal/psychological thriller bringing forth individuality to the independent film table.
The distributor.
Pathé was the company we decided to go with in the end. Pathé is known to distribute films over wide variations of genres which is what makes this perfect for our film. We wanted a distributor with flexibility and confidence to distribute our film and Pathé ticked all these boxes. Pathé are also known to be associated with a bigger company, "20th Century Fox" who are owned by one of the Big 6, News Corporation. This is a huge beneficial factor for our film as it opens up the doors to better advertisement and wider audiences, giving our film a greater chance at success. Below are the idents for both Pathé and 20th Century Fox and as you can see both hold unique and interesting company idents. Pathé being more creative and arty compared to 20th Century Fox's extravagant and loud ident.
2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
For our movie the social group we aimed for in the audience was 15-25+. Our characters we're aged between 20-25 years of age so we had to dress them accordingly; but how does a 20-25 year old dress? Everyone is different but for our protagonist Charles, a man who works 9 to 5 seven days a week he's pretty plain. You usually find in pyscological horror films that the murderer or suspects are always the quiet 'ordinary' ones due to their eerie, unsettled, too quiet image.
We got our look for Charles through personally interpretation and influence from the protagonist in The Number 23, Walter Sparrow.
Our costume designer was to base it on your average man. Most 20-25 year old working men dress casual throughout their daily lives. Both characters from both movies took this on board and it gives the audience knowledge and a sense of suspicion not to trust the 'normal' man merging with the conventions of a real horror media product.
A simple Google search for '25 year old male' brings up a wide array of men in very casual, comfy, office suit/shirts. I believe our character fits into this social group very well and portrays the easy hidden identities of murderers and psychos through the ordinary man.
As for the young female we originally wanted her very made up, seductive, flirtatious looking. Due to actors dropping out due to unforeseen circumstances and limited time we had to settle for something more casual and innocent.
Farhath played the young woman dressed in a green blouse, smart black jeans and black flats. For a 20 year old woman this is very common, being 19 myself I know that most women these days opt for comfort over style and more often than not mix the two together to get a nice in between I feel Farhath's outfit choice was appropriate although not fitting with the typical 'home wrecker' image of a young woman she is quite the opposite and opens the audiences eyes to the innocence and different tastes of men. 20 is a young age and most 20 year olds are students and can't afford designer clothes, bags, shoes and high end make up. Our choice to put the young woman in more casual, 'natural' clothes was to uncover the fact that not all social groups in this age gap are the same as you'd expect in the movies - I feel this adds originality and a sort of social shock factor to our media product.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Overall I think our open sequence includes many conventions of our chosen genre - horror/thriller. The main issue I found was the title sequence and where to include it and how. I didn't want it to just pop in and out distracting the audience from what's going on but also not to be too camouflage. When finding a title sequence to compare to, I turned to Art of The Title to find something. I spent a lot of time looking through several opening titles and finally found one that had similarities to ours. I decided to choose the movie Dreamcatcher. Although it differences it also holds similarities and the two together give dimension.
I feel our product uses the forms and conventions of a real media product as it blends together many typical codes and conventions together to give the audience a clear view of what they are viewing. Not only does it use these clearly it also challenges the typical conventions of a real horror opening sequence with its in depth, thought-provoking plot fitting into not only one solid genre but a genre with a sub-genre of psychological which is a popular new wave of horror/thriller.
We did many things to fit into the horror/thriller genre and for it to slot nicely into this category. For example, we used plenty of 'artsy', close-up shots and made sure the locations for each shot were very desolate and isolated.
Our mis-en-scene we used props such as food colouring for fake blood and a knife, a very typical prop in the horror/thriller scene, to capture more of these qualities.
Right from the get-go the atmosphere and setting was tense. It was alluring and left questions. The silence from our protagonist, Charles leaves the audience question his somber look and tense facial expressions; evoking a sinister, mystery element to the film. Most horror/thriller movies, especially those with the sub-genre of psychological build there strengths around the elusive mystery plot. This gave us a lot to play with to get to our final cut.
Our influences were films such as Saw, 100 feet, Se7en, Dreamcatcher and Number 27.
Our protagonist Charles is similar to the one in 100 Feet; although being a different gender, both characters murdered someone leaving sinister consequences.
Lo and behold, The Untold final cut is finally here!
Aw, man it's been such a journey getting this opening sequence done. Me and Farhath teamed up today to get this finished and by George, we did it!
We spent the entire double lesson, 3 hours, working on this although nearer the end I felt we was rushed for time but we were able to muster up the strength to stay on through break to get it completed. I'm really proud of what we did and how it turned out!
(Click off the annotations to have just the opening sequence playing. The annotations are for my evaluation question - 5.)
I thought I'd make a little Prezi 'Prezentation' (see what I did there?) on the feedback another Media Studies group gave mine and Farhath's opening sequence. The comments are good and really helped us look at things different and take into account how another person would view our sequence without being bias and noticing all the tiny things me and Farhath would of. So here it is, my little Prezi:
Over all the group gave our opening sequence a 7 our of 10 which is pretty darn good considering the amount of time we had. :)
Today was the deadline for our rough cut to be finished. I felt extremely under pressure as I was on my own today and had to edit it by myself. It wasn't even started. The trouble of not getting it all filmed in time and having to dip into editing time to film the last bit did hold us back; but i've managed to get it up to scratch with the extra time put into it.
The included video is our rough cut. It's very rough as you can probably tell and a lot of tweaking is in order but I'm pleased with how it's going. Things to include in the final cut are as follows:
Music
Titles
Sound effects
Visual effects (colour changing)
We also got to take a look at the rest of the groups work today which was exciting. I was looking forward to seeing where everyone else was at as we were a little behind schedule but i found out that not everyone is done either and there's still lots to be finished on everyones behalf.
I volunteered to be the first to show my rough cut; I felt like I didn't have much to lose or feel anxious about as I already knew it was in a lot of progress and I spotted more errors than everyone else did. I decided to stay in the room while my work was critiqued as I love to hear feedback on things. It wasn't all bad and was mainly positive which was nice to hear. Some of the comments are:
Over all I thought the day went pretty good. I got as much as done as I could in the time given and I felt that it's a serious step in the right direction. Below you'll find our very rough cut of our opening sequence: The Untold
That's a wrap! It's finally the end of filming and I couldn't be more happy or as equally sad. I've had such a blast shooting with Sam and Farhath it hasn't felt like college work at all. The final shoot was just as much fun as the other times and in some ways more as we knew today would be the last time us three would get together, drive about in Sam's little red car and pretend he's a murderer. It started off with us shooting his hand washing scene once again as in the previous time our camera decided to die on us and it was a shame...r.i.p. Anyway, so we got that all done and dusted and quickly moved on to filming the very last parts of out movie - by this time we we're all pretty stoked and very tired. I haven't had such a busy week in a long time and the buzz of finally getting things finished was definitely in the air! We arrived at the beach location, I don't know if I mentioned before but the reasoning behind this location is for Charles's (Sam) retreat, a thinking space if you will. Some class members we're slightly confused by his choice of location so I wanted to clear that up, hah. So we arrived at Birnbeck Pier and we got some nice stills of the location and some silent panning shots to see how they would look later on in editing. Today was also the day that Farhath would make her big debut as an Oscar winning actress, so that was exciting. :p We spent a little while chilling in Sam's car, going over what to fil, how to go about it, how long certain shots would take and also keeping an eye on daylight - we needed a generous amount. In the car we got Farhath all dolled up, mascara going awol down her cheeks, looking seriously p-off at Charles and suffering from sleep deprivation and decided on that note it was time to get on out there and wrap this puppy up. Below are some screen shots from our shoot, looking through these doesn't half put a smile on my face; especially Farhath's fabulous make up (I am an artist.)
I'd like to end this little post with a video Farhath quickly put together of us vlogging on day 1 of shooting, I thought it'd be nice to end our final shoot post with a little blast from the past.
Today is the day me and Farhath hopefully get all filming complete. We're hoping to film the outlying shots of Charles washing blood from his hands, Farhath's death and Charles exiting the building. Unfortunately today I feel we won't be able to complete it as the weather is a bit drab and our time might already be taken up by other things. Hopefully though we can squeeze in a trip to the beach to film reaction shots and the final driving off scene.
We're behind on editing out rough cut which is a little worrying, but I think we can get it back up to speed with making lots of time to edit out of lessons as well. Also getting filming done today will be a large help. Our deadline for our rough cut is Tuesday 12th and then the final cut has to be done by the 14th Thursday. It's a tight schedule but fingers crossed on getting things done in time. Today I'm going to really push getting the filming finished in time.
Day 4 of filming, Monday 4th March. Today was a bit of a late start for me as I had lots of trouble sleeping and the day seemed to drag. I came into college at 2:45pm to film with Sam and Farhath - our mission today was to get as much done as possible, hopefully even finish! But, alas we didn't get it all completed but we got some vital footage captured. We filmed the argument scene between Charles and the young woman (now played by Farhath.) It was very trial and error and we had lots of times where we would all burst into laughter at how 'serious' the situation had to be. Although we laughed a whole lot we did get things done and it was one of the most enjoyable moments in the past week of filming. In total we spent 4 and a half hours in college filming, it felt like forever as we was cooped up in one room trying to perfect everything. It was a little difficult directing by myself but I did enjoy it. I found propping the camera up on the tripod was a little annoying as it kept becoming unlevelled and shaky, but after a few weak takes I finally got it looking a lot better. Below are some screenshots from the shoot:
Above is some messing about with lighting and colour balance. As you can tell, the original picture on top is quite yellow and orange whereas the lower image is more toned down and has cooler tone to it. it doesn't look so artificial. While viewing some of the footage we chose to change the colour balance to the cooler tones as we felt it looks more natural but on some shots it look way to washed out so we kept it original. Hopefully during final but editing we can edit it so it blends more naturally.
The last shot of the young woman and Charles's conflict was the hardest to film. we had to take several takes to get it right as Farhath had to do some 'stunts' and after a few it gets a bit painful. But she was a good sport and kept going till we got a good shot. Conclusion: I felt today went really well. We got a lot done and had a good time filming so it didn't feel like work or something we had to do. We covered a lot of ground and got a variety of shots to play with while editing. Over all another productive day!
