Evaluation Question 6 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? - Laura Mossendew & James Bolton

A media institution that might distribute our horror film could be 20th Century Fox who distributed the film '28 Days Later'. This is a British film directed by Danny Boyle.

This company would help to advertise and distribute our horror film, spreading the word to our target audience to let them know that the film may be something that they are interested in and that the film is worth seeing. This can be done by using trailers to put on television and on movie websites such as
www.imdb.com or www.rottentomatoes.com as these are frequently visited by movie fans and is a good way to advertise.

As our films certificate is a 15 and as identified in Evaluation question 3 we have a fairly young target audience. The film Buried (2010) used viral advertising to promote the film, in particular they used Facebook. They ran an interactive poll on the side of the homepage asking 'If you were buried alive, what would you want with you?' and offered options. This gives the possible audience an insight to the film and the main reason why I researched and then went to see Buried at the cinema was due to this viral advertising. While Buried is a thriller rather than a psychological horror, we can draw comparisons between it and our production. Viral advertising using social networking sites is a great way to advertise to our young target audience.

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience? - Laura Mossendew

The target audience for our horror film is people aged 15 years and above. Our film is targeted at ages 15+ because through our research on http://www.imdb.com we found that the majority of people who watch horror films are aged under 18, therefore making a horror film for those under 18 made the most sense. We wanted to cater for our target audience, making it appropriate for this age group meant that there were certain things that we could not include in our film. I think that we targeted our audience quite well as we included many of the conventions of other horror films similar to ours and those that would be suitable for our age group.

In the film we chose to have a young actor as this would help the target audience to relate to him and imagine themselves 'in his shoes', as they would be of a similar age to the actor. We also chose for the threat within our horror film to be hidden therefore playing on the idea of the 'fear of the unknown', where the threat is not seen directly by the actor or the audience.

Final Evaluation Question - Everyone

What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?
Please see grey hyperlinks for links to other sections of the blog mentioned within the paragraphs.

Andrew


During the planning stages I completed my share of the planning work. I did the some of the storyboard and the shot list which was shared between me and James. I also did and did plenty of other tasks and background research in the planning stage. I also completed a mind map of possible film ideas in which we took some of our ideas from.  I went to a range of different possible shooting places and did recee sheets. I also spent time looking for different places to shoot the film during weekends. I also went to see our final shooting place before we filmed. Another thing that I did was researched title design to see things that we wanted to have our titles similar too. I completed the film outline with timings and each different sections of shots for our film.

In the production stage I help put the set together with the head in the clamp the arm on the wall and I also helped putting the sheets up in a way suitable for our film. I filmed a range of different types of shots and helped with some others. I filmed shots such as the shot down the ladder and the shot of the actor falling against the wall after seeing the head. I also helped in shots I didn't film by holding the script for actors. I also kept track of which shots we had done and which shots we needed still to do and also making sure that any tripods or sheets etc were not in any of the shots.

In the post production stages I spent a large amount of time editing our piece and adding effects and transitions. This was often done as part of a group.  Also as a group we worked on the soundtrack with everybody adding in their ideas. Also I did a lot of watching through our film and checking for continuity errors and for small pieces that needed to be edited.

James

In the planning stages when completing the folder, as well as completing my share of the planning including my textual analysis grid and other planning sheets, I came up with the brief outline of the plot for our film when brainstorming and then collaborated with Andy to complete the storyboard and shot list for the shoot as well as contributing to the group task of writing the script and coming up with a slideshow with Laura that we would use when pitching our idea to the class. I did research online as to possible locations to film our horror film and initiated recee trips that Andy also attended. I found a few abandoned or derelict buildings in Nottingham that people had previously used for photography projects and went to investigate them, but this did not prove suitable or realistic for our film. I therefore opted to use a family member’s garage and went to check the suitability for myself before asking Andy to accompany me on a full recee where photos were taken etc. As you can see from early recee photos, the location was not in suitable condition for shooting, so I spent time cleaning and dressing the set for the shoot before the final touches were made by the group. Another thing I managed to do in production was find both of our actors to play both parts in our film. Make-up was key in making our film look as authentic as possible so I felt it was important to get wounds and engravings look realistic. Therefore I spent time practising make-up possibilities with our actor and took test shots and photographs so we knew what we were doing on the night. In addition, I organised booking out the necessary equipment and props from college as well as organising lifts to and from the location in order to make the shoot as efficient as possible. Finally, I tried to upload photos and clips onto the blog to show our inspirations such as the ‘Paranormal Activity’ clip, ‘Dead Mans Shoes’ screenshots, ‘The Grudge’ title influences and make up ideas from the film Buried.

In the production phase I loved watching the piece come together. I directed the shoot and filmed the majority of the shots displaying a wide variety including point-of-view shots, tracking shots, high angled CCTV shots as well as close ups down in the pit. I was also responsible for communicating with our actor and telling him what to do and how he could help to create the atmosphere and look we wanted for the film. Andy and Laura both helped on the shoot, filming some shots themselves. As a group we all gave ideas and made sure continuity was as good as possible, which proved successful as we encountered only one or two issues when editing.

In the post production stages it was really exciting being able to piece our film together to get the final product. I was the main contributor to the editing process and made sure everything ran smoothly. However, everyone played a part in the editing by adding their own input and ideas for transitions, titles, effects and shot order. One problem that we encountered when using the iMovie software was that the title banner for our newsreader intro would only last for 5 seconds then would disappear. Despite my attempts to search the different effects I couldn’t find a solution. So I got in contact with my teacher and managed to get the problem resolved with some guidance. It was done using PhotoShop and creating a green screen effect. By adding a green background then recreated the banner adding colours, text as well as a BBC logo I was then able to transfer this image onto iMovie. Then I used the green screen effect to overlap our original footage so the new news banner would remain throughout the 25 clip. Finally, I extracted audio from the original clip to solve possibly the biggest issue we faced when editing. After adding cast and crew titles to the film, I then helped to contribute towards composing the films soundtrack, something that was done as a group. It was then upto me to integrate both video and audio together to produce our final copy of our finished project.


Laura
Before I joined Andrew and James' group I helped with lots of the research in my previous group with Alex and Joe, looking at the narrative of many horror films and the kinds of titles they used. I also helped with audience research, looking at the codes and conventions of what could be in a horror film rated 15. And practiced the make up needed for the horror film that we were planning to make as a group.
Link to previous work with Joseph Louth and Alexander Parsons

In the planning stages for our horror film I helped with the research into other horror films, looking at the kinds of fonts used for titles. I also helped to put together the material for the pitch, working with James to create the powerpoint presentation. I also helped to complete many of the sheets in our planning folder, including production research in textual analysis and make up design sheet. And lots of other research into the types of things that we could include in our film.

 During the filming of our horror film, I helped to dress the set, working with the group to put up the white bed sheets for 'Lights Out'. I also helped with some of the filming, tracking the actor as he walked along the pit to climb up the ladder. I also helped film some of the other shots, making sure that the camera was positioned properly and that you couldn't see any shadows of people in the group.

In the editing and post-production of our film I helped with some of the editing and worked with the group to create the soundtrack for our horror film and found the font that we wanted to use for the title, 'Forbidden' in our title sequence. Adding links from websites such as YouTube to show the kind of look we wanted for our horror film.

Evaluation Question 8 - Looking back at your preliminary tasks, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product? - James Bolton

From our preliminary tasks that we have taken part in throughout our project we have been able to learn from mistakes made when it came to filming our main production. Probably one of the biggest things we have learned is the importance of continuity. In our practice pieces we had issues with continuity, such as seeing reflections of the camera in windows or glass doors. In our main production we took this issue very seriously in order to limit mistakes. We filmed each shot at least 3 times and in the case of some shots up to 10 times in order to get them right. One thing we learned is that you have to think while on set in terms of where actors put their hands, where they stood, where props were etc in order to get every shot correct. We have learned that these continuity mistakes can’t just be fixed in the editing suit and post production. However, while big continuity problems such as bags in the background, one of the mistakes we made in an earlier task, we can use iMovie software to solve continuity errors such as placing hands in different places on different shots. We therefore were able to cut shots together so they flowed and error was no longer visible. Although, this was only possible for us as we had so many versions of each shot to choose from.

Another thing we learned was time is a huge issue. It is crucial to give yourself enough time for your shoot and having everything prepared when it comes to props, make up and necessary equipment. Something we learned in a preliminary task was natural light plays in a big part in the outcome of your film and you have to give yourself enough time for a shoot than can last for upto 4 hours as ours did.

Something else we have learned is that you have to think on your feet when filming and while its important to stick to your shot lists and storyboards, some shots may not work when you get round to it, so you need to be ready to improvise and come up with new ideas to replace things that don’t work.

If we were to film our production again, I would look even closer for continuity errors to totally eliminate any possible problems when editing.

Evaluation Question 7

We used many different types of technologies while researching and making our film. We used technology such as Garage Band, iMovie, the internet and blogger. We found the internet very useful for researching films, the way we did this was by using the website www.youtube.com and finding out about starts of the horror films on there. We also researched title design on there. Also we used movie review websites to research movie ratings and age limits. Another thing that we found useful was blogger. We found it as an easy way to keep all of our work stored online; also it helped anyone reading the blog to see how our ideas were developing as the weeks passed by. iMovie was used a lot during the process of editing and putting our final film together, we all found this a very useful piece of software. Cutting our film up was made very easy using iMovie, also adding transitions and effect was very simple on iMovie which I felt really enhanced our film, it also helped us keep a large amount of control being able to cut out the bits that we didn’t need. It allowed us to be creative as we were able to try things that we couldn’t do without the effects and transitions, which I thought really made our film run smoother and more effectively.  Garage Band was also very useful while making the soundtrack for our final film, with the soundtrack playing in the background I felt it created more suspense and gave our film more realism.

Link To Laura Mossendew's previous work

This link takes you to the work that Laura did before she moved groups.  Work From September 24th 2010 to November 19th 2010.
Link To Previous Work

Introduction to the evaluation

Question 1: Introduction: what did you make, who did you work with and where did the original idea come from?

The type of film that we were asked to make for our coursework was a horror film. We researched ideas for horror films by watching and analysing existing horror films.  By doing that we picked up little bits and pieces from lots of horror films that we liked the look of and hoped to partially recreate in our film. We also looked into the age rating that we were going to aim our horror film at and we decided to categorise our film as a 15 due to the findings that most of the people who watch horror films are 15-24.

Our initial idea was inspired by a “Saw” type of situation. 

Finding stranded people in a dark cold room was something that people found scary and freaky, which is why we decided to look into that type of horror. The fear in the person in the film is reflected in the audience reaction to what happens on the screen. Also the CCTV aspect of our film was influenced by the ‘’Paranormal Activity’’ films which have been released in the last couple of years.

We thought that brought an extra realism to the film and it made the viewer more engrossed by the film. We are trying to create a psychological horror film which scares the audience but also makes them think about the situation. We chose psychological because we felt that it was the genre that we could get the audience involved the most in and make it seem the most realistic. The first 2-3 minute clip of our film does not reveal too much about what has happened to the character, which is why it makes our clip and attractive film to watch the rest of.

Our production has worked out well. We have encountered problems along the way, them being the struggle of finding a location and the switching of groups, but now everything has settled down the group is working effectively. Our group consists of three members, Andy, Laura and James. We have gotten along well and we worked effectively as a team through the planning phase and also while we were filming. The problem that we first encountered was working in a group of 4. We felt that it was too big a group size and that everybody wasn’t getting enough work to do, which is why we felt that it was a good idea to split into 2 groups of 2. Then Laura joined our group to make a 3 which was something which we were happy with. The other problem was finding a location; we were looking for an abandoned derelict building. We had found many which looked good on the internet but none of them were approved and safe to enter, we finally found a location which was suitable and it was easy to access due to it being owned by the family members of one of our group, this proved to be our final location and it was very good for our film.

Evaluation Question 2 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Laura Mossendew

Some of the conventions of the horror genre are of blood, death, victims, monsters, weapons, gore, violence, ghosts, villains, fear and many more. There are also many different types of horror films that incorporate some of these different conventions, these include: psychological, Thriller, Slasher, Paranormal, science fiction, supernatural etc. For example in the zombie film, 28 Weeks Later conventions such as blood and gore are used to help provoke a fearful response from the audience.

 From the research that we conducted we were able to find out the kinds of things that should be included in a horror films and also the things that she should not. We also found out the things that we were allowed to put in our horror film to make it suitable for the age certificate 15 and the things that were not allowed to put in. For example, fear of the unknown is often used in horror films to help build tension and suspense, as often not being able to see the threat can be more frightening than if the audience could see what the threat was. Therefore we decided to include fear of the unknown in our own horror film, the man is trapped in an old dirty room and he doesn't know how he got there, why he is there or who it is that trapped him there.

 In the making of our horror film we chose not to challenge the conventions of the horror genre as they are what help to make the horror film a horror and without them the film would not be as realistic as other horror films that include the conventions.

Evaluation Question 4 – How does your media product represent particular social groups? - James Bolton

         In our film, we have both challenged and supported the traditional representation of social groups. Our main character, Ryan Marshall, the victim who has been abducted is a young male, so we casted this role to fit that. He is not a child but a young adult, as stated in our first shot in the news reporter’s dialogue he is 19 years old. An adult male is also a victim in Saw 1, as you can see in the screenshot. By making a strong male a victim of physical harm, it strengthens the representation of our unknown threat as he himself becomes more dangerous by his ability to capture a fully-grown man. A lot of victims in horror films are female, as they are stereotypically vulnerable and represent a ‘damsel in distress’ image. We have challenged this, which strengthened the position of the villain.

            We also used mise-en-scene to accommodate these representations and in particularly with the use of make-up. Below is a test make-up shot that we did in post-production. We engraved ‘Behind You’ on the victims arm, to show how vulnerable he his as the villain is commanding him and appears to already have a plan laid out for the victim.

When we screened the film to our class in an early stage of post production, we got a positive response and people thought that our casting for the main role was good. They were told to grade certain sections of our film out of 10 and under the "Mise-en-scene appropriate for the horror film' which includes the make up featured above, we achieved an average score of 8.25 which shows we have been successful in representing groups effectively using mise-en-scene.

Evaluation Question 3 – Who would be the audience for your media product? - James Bolton

The target audience for the media product we have created is older teenagers and younger adults. This is also suitable for our chosen certificate which is 15. Using research from the International Movie Database website (imdb.com) there is evidence showing average ratings given for films based on their ages.

Aged under 18	1,567	7.0
Males under 18	1,208	7.1
Females under 18	352	6.5
Aged 18-29	40,490	6.8
Males Aged 18-29	34,538	6.8
Females Aged 18-29	5,812	6.8

Aged 45+	2,424	6.0
Males Aged 45+	2,035	6.0
Females Aged 45+	360	6.0

            Taking Paranormal Activity (2007) as an example as it is a psychological thriller like our film, and is also one of our inspirations, you can see, the users that gave it the highest rating were under 29 years old, and in particularly under 18. The average rating given to Paranormal Activity by viewers that were over 45 years of age was just 6.0, meaning that we have to cater for the audience most likely to watch our film. Older teenagers and younger adults like horror films so much because they enjoy the feeling of being scared, having their heart pumping and taking risks. Our film will do this by not actually revealing who the villain is, but by implying out victim is being watched through the use of CCTV style shots. Keeping the victim hidden is common technique used in psychological horrors. Also, we will include slow movement with a sudden incident to scare the viewer, as they are not expecting it to happen as the slow pace makes them feel secure.