Evaluation begins

We have started making our DVD extra for our evaluation to the project and as it stands, we only just have enough footage to cover the entire voiceover. The voiceover is about eight minutes long meaning that we now how to find just over eight minutes of footage for it to work to. We also need to put parts of the footage in the right place so that it coincides with the part of the voiceover that has the description of the effects used and also explaining what we really did. This is difficult because more than one piece of footage can relate to the content of the voiceover at some points so we have to decide which part is most suited to the voiceover.

Evaluation of the Rough cut

Last Friday we ensured that we had a rough cut so that we were able to find out what the other people in the class thought of what we had accomplished so far. This allowed us to make an evaluation of how much we still had left to do. We found out that at some points it was difficult to follow what was going on on our opening sequence because there were parts that did not link together very well and they jumped a little bit. We realised that we still had to add a title and also add the soundtrack to the opening sequence in order to make it flow better and to make it easier to understand what is going on in the storyline.
Some members of the class said that it was difficult to tell whether or not the character was in the dreamworld so we added blurring and ghosting onto the points of view shots to make it appear as if the character is disorientated and also to add the effect that he was confused and had no idea where he was. This helped us to portray our idea of confusion and also worked quite well because it kept people guessing at where he was going. We have also added the soundtrack which contains exerpts from several films, with piano and drums which allows us to use the idea of eerieness and also to build tension.

Preliminary task

This is the preliminary task that we made in order to get used to continuity editing and using the cameras properly. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5p8j2Hu6tKQ

who did what during the shoots

During the shoots we decided that it was best for us to stick to the roles that we were better suited to in order to minimize the possibility of somebody ruining the shot. For this we decided that it was best for me to do most of the camera work because of two reasons. Firstly, I do not like being on camera and secondly, I have a habit of looking into the camera. This meant that the camera work was the best thing for me to do as I was unable to look into the camera and get camera shy.

This left Jamie to do the acting because as we saw in our preliminary task, Jamie was better at acting and he really knew how to act. This made it easier for us to shoot because we had a capable actor on set. During the final shots, we realised that there was a difficulty in us both being in the shots because I was a dead body and Jamie was supposed to find me laying between some rocks. This meant that we used our make-up artist to shoot the final parts because neither of us could operate the camera from the angle that we were shooting from. This worked out quite well because we decided that a hand grabbing Jamie's shoulder would work really well because it adds eerieness to the shot because nobody knows were the hand is coming from. This meant we could overcome these problems by using the extra person we had with us.

Problems during the shoots and who did what

During the shoots, we had minor issues like people walking through our shots in the woods, vehicles in the background and people laughing in class.
Such issues were overcome by taking multiple shots of each frame, giving us three or four copies effectively of our storyboard. This was incredibly helpful, as not only did it avoid problems, it gave us options to choose from when putting our sequence together, which meant we could choose which piece of action we prefered, the shot with the better framing and gave us the opportunity to remove anomolies without having to reshoot or cut ourselves short.
Rain was a problem on one of our shoots, but we made sure we protected ourselves and the equipment by using its bag and covering it with jumpers etc where appropriate, we made sure we had protective clothing on whilst traveling through the woods, to keep us warm, dry and safe from extending branches.

During the woods scene, I directed the shoot and was the main character, Scott did almost all of the filming as he was usually off camera. I did some shots for example the POV shot walking towards the fist shaped rock. Most of the shots I did were taken out, as we prefered the shots of my character in the sequence, rather than when i was not, so we only kept my shots where appropriate. The shots where I find Scott dead in the rocks, were shot by our makeup artist, whom made scott look dead and me gradually more worn and scared.
(Scott did most of the blood on me, and when attempting to do my neck, he applied to much pressure and it shot down my shirt, I was not impressed as I thought it had ruined my shirt (which it didnt) but when it came to it, it actually looked really good.

In the school scene, again I directed it, I set the room up how I wanted it, put all the props in correct places and directed the extras where they had to be and what they should be doing. Scott filmed this section as he did not want to be on film and decided he would like to use the more advanced equipment we were given to work with.
We had a couple of problems with this scene which was overcome by the fact that we took multiple shots, one problem was unsteady panning shots, and another was too much light coming through the windows, which we overcome by pulling down the cream coloured blinds, which look good becuase the give a silloutte of the surrounding building.

Editing wise, I have done most of it, Scott captured the footage and it was my role to cut and edit what we had. We removed the entire sound section from our woods shot and decided to add sound in ourself. This was neccasery because we had a railway crane and a car in the background that sounded really stupid within our footage. It was a shame becuase it is difficult to make sounds follow the footage we have, as movement changes pace often and rapidly.
Scott and I have found soundtracks that we like, and have sought advice and criticism from Jason the technician which has helped greatly.

These sound track will be downloaded and captured by Scott and then we will work together to insert them with the work we have so far.

Our deadline is friday so we are both putting in whatever time we have to ensure that we have made our opening sequence the best we can. I am editing furiously, chopping up film and trying to conform to the conventions of our hybridised genre.
Scott is working hard as the producer, ensuring that all our paperwork is in order and advising me on what he thinks would look better and how to improve certain things.

Music

We have decided to use multiple sounds tracks in our piece. We already have continuous downpour where apropriate, footsteps for the appropriate surfaces during walking, and wildlife sounds where acceptable. We have a couple of sound effects to go in, that we will make ourselves such as gasps etc.
Music wise, we have an idea that we are looking at for the teen sections, and as we go into the horror "dream sequence" we are going to use the "halloween" or maybe "hellraiser" theme. We also have a track from the matrix soundtrack that we intend to chop up and use, as this will be ideal for certain sections within the piece, such as building tension and working towards the enigma.
Our sounds will blend in together to sound diagetic where needed.
Music will be in appropriate places to the action and some tracks will need to overlay eachother.

"Dare to Dream"

We are now in the process of making our title graphic to go on the end of the opening sequence. It needs to be catchy and look appropriate as it is at the vital point of our explosive enigma. This screen needs to flow well and be easily accepted by the audience.

Title of the opening sequence

Our original title did not work very well because it was more like a sentence so we were unable to use it. We each decided to put new titles forward and eventually we have now decided that the new title will be Dare to Dream. We have also split up which sections of the evaluation we are doing because there are some sections that one person in the the group did that the other didnt so we assigned the parts to the people in our group who had done the relative parts. This means that the person who did camerawork and selected the location will evaluate the mise-en-scene aspects as well as the parts that bear reference to semiotics and aural and visual effects.

continuation of editting

We have now added our titles to the piece and we are in the process of adding osund effects in order to give the effect of a horror but also using school bells in order to conform to the conventions of a teen movie. We experimented with a red colouring for our font but it did not work very well because the red did not stand out against the scenery and white only stood out a little better. We changed the shots that the titles were om so that it was possible to read what was being noted down on the screen because on one of the scenes that we were using, it was difficult to read the subtitles underneath because of the scenery because of the leaves in the foreground.

evaluation of our 2nd shoot

We have now done our in class shoot and we are relatively pleased with what we have as we are now able to place together what we have because we have all the footage that we require for our opening sequence. Now we have to create a title sequence to go with the footage and we also have to add the audio track, along with the song that we have decided to use. This will allow us to complete our edit and we are sure that we will meet our aim to have the edit completed within our two week deadline. With the script for our second shoot, we decided to use the media technician as our teacher as our regular teacher decided that she preferred being behind the camera than being captured on camera.
We tried to create a script for our acting teacher, but we required a little bit of improvisational work as we struggled to think of ideas for the script and we also did not want to make the teacher seem too strict and only wanted him to seem as dull as students often see some teachers.

Editing

We shot our footage, not only in reverse order of location, but also in jumbled up frame sequence, IE. We shot all footage in each area and condition together so that our edit flowed. We made sure each frame was clearly marked which made it easier to find what shots go where. We also doubled all takes so that we had more than one to chose from.

Shoot #2 - "Classroom"

We shot our in class shoot last week. This was the only part of the footage that we wanted to keep the natural sound of. So we found the appropriate looking classroom that did not have computers buzzing in the background.
Our teacher decided that she'd rather not be in our shot, as it was unfair to have skilled actors in one shot but not all the others.
As such, our media technician was the acting teacher and was given directions on how we wanted his performance, but we asked him to talk naturally to make the sound flow. We got the class to act as we wanted them to, but had to retake shoots as we all laughed at the unexpected topic that he spoke about.
At the end of the shoot we captured the footage and were very pleased with what we got. We now have all of our footage and have almost finished our rough cut. So now we can piece together what we have, Scott and I are very happy with out footage and we feel positive at the prospect of our two week deadline.

Beginning of editing for the finished piece

We have begun to edit our work and we have managed to experiment with a blue wash to give the effect of the sequence being set in a dream. This allows us to use our idea of being unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality. We did encounter a problem when we realised that we had left the camera running without realising, which added extra time to our shoot. We editted the shots we were using and personally I thought one of our shots of blood looked like rhubarb crumble so we decided that we could not use the shot because it did not look right. We also realised that there we some scenes that we were unable to use because they looked as if the actors were not ready and also scenes where we left the camera on and we were speaking randomly and what we were saying was picked up by the camera resulting in us having to remove the scenes.

The shoot

We were pleased with how the shoot went, we learnt a lot on the day about surroundings and techniques that can be used with the camera.
I was pleased with the performance from our cameraman and director as a dead person. Our makeup artist did her best to make scott look dead but to be honest, we all agreed a brick would have given a better appearance.
We used fake blood and natural scenery to give the affects that we wanted. Rain made my hair look appropriate and being as it was a damp day, shoes and trousers etc became muddy naturally.

The weekend Shoot

We did our shoot at the weekend, of frames 4-12 of our storyboard. Leaving just the first three frames to be shot in school this week.
We shot the footage at the locations we had planned to do, but there was some variation from the storyboard, mainly in the mise-en-scene region.
We were pleased with what we got on the day for a number of reasons:
I as the main actor had very little sleep the night before, so looked appropriately worn.
We started filming in the afternoon, and the rain gradually got a little bit worse, but as it got worse, we were in a section where we shot scenes back to back, so hopefully in the edit you wont notice any jumps in weather.
We managed to get shots that we wanted, and the outtakes we have, mostly can be used as filler shots as they are mostly appropriate to the filming that we needed.

Write-up of shoot.

We decided that we would shoot our opening sequence on Sunday day and in our opinion, we think it went relatively well. There was a problem though. Halfway through our shoot it started raining which caused problems when shooting because we were trying to keep the camera dry. It was difficult and in the end we had a break just so that the rain could ease off slightly so that the camera would not get too wet. This allowed us to prepare for the next shot and to have something to eat. We all had a couple of cases where we forgot to turn off the camera and where something went a little bit wrong and we both started laughing. This delayed one of our shots as we had regain our composure before we were able to shoot again. We also had to avoid background noise but it was awkward because there were cranes and people moving around in the background. We did stray from the storyboard a bit as we realised that there were some parts of it that we were unable to do either due to weather or because we decided that there was a lack of practicality about some of the shoots that we were aiming to do. One of these was the blood in the river shot because what we were using got washed away in the stream, making it difficult to do the shot. So we improvised by using a shot by the stream as if somebody had fallen and left a bloodmark by the edge of the stream, adding to the idea of an attack.

Location Shoot preperation

Our storyboard is complete and ready, so we have worked out what we will shoot and how we will do it. We have created and given out our callsheet to the relevant people, as we got closer to the shoot we did our risk assesment and were given the go ahead to shoot.
We sent in our request to use equipment with plenty of time for the technician to prepare it for us.

We have had our almost final discussions of how we would like the location shoot to go ahead, so we think we are ready to go. We have the lighting, props and costumes prepared. Appropriate extras and make-up artists, as well as a trained first aider on set(an extra) who can deal with any incidents.

Our classroom shots will hopefully take place next week and then we will have all footage ready for the cut.

Fonts for the coursework

We have decided that we want to use one of these two fonts for our title and credits. One of them is Blood Gutter and the other is Blood of Dracula. These are both fonts that I found on 1001freefonts.com and they are on the eighth page of the B section of this website. These fonts conform and relate to the horror aspects of the opening sequence that we are looking at doing as they connote gore or blood in the sequence.

Opening premiere to create new file

We have now opened a new file on premiere so that we can capture the footage from our shoot and it has been sensibly named AS coursework so that we know what the file that we are using is. However we have not started adding footage yet as we have not done our shoot which we plan to do this Saturday. We ensured that the scratchdisks of the file are the same as the settings that we are using for the file and it was important that we set the video file to DV PAL so that we have the best quality that we can use for our coursework.

CF feedback background research

Well done Scott/Jamie – this blog demonstrates proficient research. You are carrying out research into target audience and product and mostly informing your creative process with this information. Your pitch was well planned with an excellent treatment – very entertaining! You have used scripting and storyboarding to plan your shoots carefully. However, at times, Jamie you have not met the set deadlines for tasks and although you have added an extra moodboard, the teen element of your horror product is not as evident as it could have been from the background research.

Nevertheless, you have now completed all necessary tasks and this currently stands at a level 3 for Jamie and 3+ for Scott, who has met all deadlines and whose technical analysis is at a level 4.

Well done – and to ensure that you achieve at least a high level 4, you must ensure that your shoots are well planned, including actors and equipment and that all subsequent deadlines are met.

Finally, your preliminary task and pitch slides should be uploaded to the blog.

script continued.

due to computer failure it did not post the whole piece. The rest should be,..

Harry is climbing up onto the rocks.

We hear harry breathing hard, sounds of the scenery getting louder and sharper. We hear Harry gasp for breath as we get a (POV) shot, we see a body laying face down in the rocks. Most of the body is in shot.
We cut to an overshoulder shot, Harry turns the body over slowly to reveal the dead lad’s face. A hand suddenly lands on Harry’s shoulder.
Flashcut round to see Harry scream in terror, with a hooded figure over his shoulder.
CREDITS/TITLES

The script that I wrote for the crew to work from.

The script that I wrote works in conjunction with the storyboard so that the cast and crew know what is to happen. It is not very detailed, and wouldn't be the sort of script that you would sell your idea with, but it is a good working instruction for those involved in making the shoot.

Script
In the middle of a lesson in school, we enter the scene with an (MLS) of the teacher at the front of the class.
“(teacher mid flow)”

The camera then pans around and we get a shot of the whole class. We hear the teacher still talking over the top of the class noise as the camera tracks into Harry(CU), he looks bored and appears to be daydreaming.
The shot fades to black.
We fade into the scene, Harry is laying in the woods. He sits up, looking around in confusion(MCU). The camera tracks out to an establishing shot to reveal his surroundings.
Harry looks around, nervous and confused.
“Hello??”
No answer.
He continues to look around and starts to walk in a general direction, following a stream. He looks down at the stream, the camera tracks in towards the water at what seems to be blood.
(CU) Reaction shot. Harry is frightened, he doesn’t know what is happening. Sounds around the woods are scaring him.
“Hello?? Is anyone hurt?”
Still no answer.
Swish pan as Harry looks around. Fade to black.Fade in to handicam(POV) walking towards some rocks. We then get an (MLS),

Questionaire Analysis

This analysis has been posted rather late, even though we touched on it in our pitch. We went round to the various people within our target demographic who would be willing to answer a questionaire and got some interesting responses.
We used a variety of questions that were mainly quick answer, because we didnt want to have to spend a long time asking long answer questions that people didnt have time to think about.

We found that:
people that enjoyed Horror also liked these genres: action, gangster,comedy.
people that enjoyed Teen liked: action, comedy, sci-fi.

They liked:
Tense, eeire music that had tempo and texture that suited the nature of the drama.

We gave a selection of names for the film, the target audience chose:
"Daydreams can hurt you" although comments suggest that the name is not long enough or enigmatic.

For teen location, they suggested:
lockers, woods, school, outside school, bedroom, parties, dates, campsite.
For horror:woods, campsites, church, desolate houses, cemetry

What would you expect in the protagonist?
Honesty, caring, compassion, mischievous,helpful.
From the antogonist?
Sadistic, psychotic, dishonest, scary.

We concluded that of lots of options given, the same conventions were popping up, enabling us to work out exactly what is required from the target audience to create a popular film.

Costume

Having had further discussion with Scott. Harry, the lead character will be in school uniform in the class, and in the woods will have Jeans, Trainers, White polo shirt and possibly a jacket. The corpse will be in casuals, with some form of white make up to make him look pale. The hooded figure will have some form of hooded coat or cloak, and the face will be concealed.
We will have a friend working as make up artist, to work the effects of emotion and location. There is possibility for the use of bruising/cuts(not real) when Harry wakes up.
Heat, and sweat can be made up by our artist to show fear and panic.

Storyboard and Script

The storyboard and script have been drawn/written. This means that all of our plans and ideas have been put together, and is a final plan for the shoot. This may of course change as shooting and editing happens, but it is a strong idea of our plan.

Ideas of costumes and props

As we are planning on making the opening to a teen horror, Jamie and I have discussed what should be worn and we decided that we should wear costumes that reflect the current style and trends for teenagers. This would help us to conform to the conventions of teen. We also plan to use fake blood so that we can make our idea of a body being found work. The only thing we are having difficulty working out how to portray the blood in the stream. The main idea that we have for this is mixing ketchup and paraffin as it makes the ketchup thinner. This would provide a great effect to provide fear as the ketchup and paraffin mix would then begin to take on a look as if it were blood.

Synopsis

This is our film synopsis:
Harry is a lonely student. He is very clever but his exam stress is wearing him down. He has a flash in time, he was in his classroom then suddenly in the woods. He does not know if whether he has just lost or forgotten time, or whether he is just imagining things. As the mystery be,comes a query within his head, Harry decides to follow up what he saw, or at least what he thought he saw. How could he just appear in the woods? Why is there blood in the stream? And what will happen when someone realises he found the body? As the man appears just above him, Harry suddenly flashes back into the classroom.
The film rolls out in a way that we don't know if the 'wood' sequence was another memory that he was thinking about in the classroom. Later into the film, we realise that the wood sequence had happened before the classroom scene and he was just reliving the event to try to understand some of the facts and objects that he saw. This creates the enigma and make the consumer want to see more. After the titles, the film starts to unfold and we find out whether what Harry saw was real or a figment of his imagination. Hanging out with his friends at school, he tells them to meet him in the mall and having been out for pizza, he tells them of his story and they decide whether to helphim in his detective events. What are they getting themselves into and is it too dangerous? Will they find that he is dreaming or will they get hurt.
Later on they find that he really did see this and was so tired and stressed it was unclear. It gradually unfolds and when he thinks back things become more clear. They find that the person involved is someone very close to them within their school and social lives. The battle for their lives becomes intense and their rocky road is treacherous. Can they defend themselves and will they unravel the truth?

Institutional Research Part Two

A film shoot could have hundreds of people on set when they are being shot. It is difficult to keep it on schedule and budget. It starts with principal photography, which allows the funding to be released. Sound teams ensure that the sound is of high quality and sometimes add dialogue replacement. The camera department is the team responsible for ensuring that the correct footage has been shot and that everything that the director and producers need for the story is ready and available. The scene can only be shot after soundchecks and after the actors have had their make-up finished. It is very important for the actors and actresses to create an emotional world in order to enthrall the audience. Special effects are created carefully and it is important for the minimum amount of risk of injury to the cast and crew to be available. If the film production falls behind schedule, it is treated along the lines of military precision. The financiers and insurers may even step in.
After production, it is the editor who steps in to put the scenes together in order to create a suitable narrative sequence for the film. After locking the picture, again the sound department works on the audio track by laying, creating and editiing every sound. The sounds used can be either diegetic or non-diegetic sound. Digital effects are added by specialist effect compostitors. These people add titles and credits to the production in a compositing suite. The final thing that has to be done in the picture edit is to adjust the colour and also to establish the fine aesthetics of the film. The final mix involves the rough sond mix going to a dubbing theatre, which is where the sound mixer sets the final levels. This leads to the final cut, which means the film has been fully locked and is ready for duplication. The question is, who does the final cut go to?
In order for the film to be sold to the distributors, the producer enlists a sales agent to help. This would normally be a film sale specialist. As a way of helping to sell the film, a trailer is made to show busy film buyers the most marketable aspects of the film. The producer and sales agent then collect all the information required to sell the films to the distributors. As the market is saturated with films, the producer must go to great lengths in order to attract more attention for her product. A high-profile screening at a to film festival can be great for generating 'heat' or interest around a film. Now the producer has a hot product and is now able to negotiate good deas with worldwide distributors.
The marketing team gives the producer ideas of how the film should be sold and ways of influencing people to see it. Knowing the audience is essential, the marketing team decides to run test screenings to see how wellor poorly the film is received. The target audience is then targeted with poster, cinema trailers, tv spots and other materials also used in marketing. Television, radio, newspapers and magazines are also used as forms of positive advertising about the film. Digital media and the internet flood the world with information but allow the possibility of niche marketing. The distributors are then responsible for getting the film to the audience, so they negotiate a deal for screenings by cinemas.
The film is launched by a high profile star studded premiere so that it can be launched to the public with an explosion of media coverage. Not all cinema screens in the UK are neccessarily British owned or show British films. The distributors provide exhibitors with prints eThe of the film so it can be shown on more screens. The exhibitors take their share of the box office receipts after the ditributors recoup marketing costs. After payment of distibutors, the financiers recover their investments as laid out previously in the recoupment schedule.
Additional revenue can be brought in from hotel channals and inflight entertainment. Uk audiences then spend more on DVDs than on a cinema ticket so DVD success compensates box office failure. Television also brings in revenue with pay-per-view showings and terrestrial broadcasting. Computer games rights provide additional revenue. As the theory goes, once the film makes a profit, the producr and creative people reap rewards. It is never known just how much moey a film makes but it is defenitely a lucrative business.

further discussion of ideas

We have decided that we are going to have one of our friends helping us out in our opening sequence as an actor. Its Jonny Wesson, a friend outside of school and we have discussed it with him as to whether he can help or not. This allows us a little more flexibility as it allows us to do filming in the areas we want. This is the only actor we have outside of the group so it is simpler as well as only three people need to ensure that they are available on the day of filming.

Discussion of music for blog

As our opening sequence is about a daydreamer who cannot tell dreams from reality, Jamie and I have discussed the idea of the music that we can use that would be suitable for the genre that we are using. One of the songs that we have discussed using is 'Welcome to my Nightmare' by Alice Cooper. It is suitable as it is about nightmares and it seems suitable for our opening sequence as it is effectively about a daydreamer having nightmares in his daydreams.

Working runs, One-Liner

"Dreams are your's alone, but can you avoid their harm?"

This is our one liner that has been well recieved by our target audience and was appreciated by our teacher during pitch delivery.

Pitch Evaluation

In the last lesson before the term break, Scott and I delivered our pitch to the class.
We found this a successful event, as not only did it give our class mates an idea of what we intend to do, but it gave us a chance to express our ideas and deliver them in linear form. This allowed us to realise exactly what we intend to do as it is no longer mixed up in our minds.
Our pitch was basically the two of us talking in a relaxed fashion, delivering to the class our intentions. I created a powerpoint presentation to create the foundations of our speech. This had a few basic slides, coloured and styled with teen and horror motifs, allowing the persons of our audience to get into the mood of our setting.
We delivered our synopsis, treatment and one liner. We also showed the class our reccie shots from the woods and rocks, this was well accepted by the class and the teacher said they were ideal locations.
We got some positive feedback from our pitch, people liked the plot, the locations, the characters and the idea in general. We only got one down comment, this was about our working title as it is too long and is more like a sentance than a catchy title.

Our pitch was successful in my opinion as it gave us a chance to air our ideas, get them in line, see what is to be accepted and where we can improve. Since delivering our pitch and looking at the feedback, we have been able to start our storyboard and piece together a script and screenplay.

evaluation of pitch and treatment

We made our pitch at the end of the last half term and we got some good general feedback. We had to include our ideas for the film title, our one-liner, our treatment and also the synopsis of the film that the sequence is attributed to. This was so that we could show how much we had planned and thought about the opening sequence and the storyline of the film.
This is the treatment that we used:
'Friday, late afternoon, Harry,s sitting in class, staring at his teacher. Soon his mind goes out the window, but he doesn't realise, he thinks he is still in his conscious state. Harry is in the woods, there is little light, the ground is damp. As he moves he hears noises around him, his senses are on fire, he can hear and feel everything, but his vision is dark and blurry. Everything seems to be flashing, his eyes seem to be bouncing off whatever he looks at. He is tense, drightened, something is scaring him, he hears music, but does not know whether it is in his head or somewhere in the trees. He tries to shake it off but becomes dizzy and unaware of his surroundings. As he continues to walk he comes across a stream, he sees something red, is it blood? He passes the muddy stream aside and heads towards some rocks. He feels ill and afraid as he climbs up behind a rock and tree, he sees a body, panics and turns around. He moves away, turns around and trips onto his knees, someone is above him and he collapses in terror. He wakes up but cannot be sure if what he has seen is in his imagination or if it is more real than he could ever dream of. His mind is full of confusion, he argues with himself whether to go back and explore what he saw, but is it too dangerous????????'
This allowed us to give the audience an idea of what might happen without giving too much away, thus adding an air of mystery to the opening sequence.

Technical Analysis

For my technical analysis I worked on two films. Each a seperate genre, to establish the conventions. I did a teen film and a horror film.

In the horrors I found a lot of use of cuts, close ups and point of view shots. In comparrison, I found that the teen film had less use of cuts, and more panning and tracking. There were less POV shots but more establishing shots. Close ups seem popular in teens to show emotion, whereas in horrors they are usually used to strike fear into the audience, as well as show emotion in the character.

In the horror, I found a lot of non-diegetic sound, many sound effects added in and use of music that represents the mood of the action. In the teen, i found less use of sound effects, more sound that was clearly within the filming and more happy music that follows the demographic of the text.

I found when comparing the two films that not all conventions have their own meaning, that some have many, which is a gift and a burden in respect of film makers, because it can make it sometimes difficult to determine how an audience will intercept a particular message. But it also makes it easier to construct the narrative if the audience are thinking along the lines of what is happening, without burning out the conventions left open to you before they know what is happening.

Institutional Research

Here is my institutional research, my task was to analyse the first six sections of the skillset.org website.

A film always starts with an idea, this idea may be inspired by anything that the creator has access to, sometimes personal experiances or sometimes books, films etc. They take their idea to a producer, to see if they like the idea. Producers are always looking for good, fresh material that they think will attract audiences. The producer then contacts a director, the director usually works with the producer to turn the idea into something that can be filmed. The writer then confirms and defines the idea, the plot, the characters etc and turns it into something tangible. The writer then writes a treatment, a one page description of the story and characters. The pitch is then written and delivered, this is needed for the producer to take away to source funding for the material to be made.
The writer then produces a synopsis and the writer and producer decide what the key scenes and events of the film will be. There are many ways of writing, but most writers create a step outline. Part of the writer’s fee is determined on the delivery of the first draft, which makes the writing incredible difficult. Once the draft is complete, and the producer and writer agree, it is sent to the financiers, all of whom have their own ideas. Once all is agreed, the draft becomes a final draft and gets locked off, now the writer is paid. When all this is done, the final sales treatment is written.
The producer and director must now package the script into a comercial state, ready for financing. A common way to make a script more commercial is to attatch well known stars to it. Potential investors will want to know exactly how much the film will cost to create and how the director intends to make the money back.
Most investors will secure a completion deal so that they dont lose out if the film is dropped. Once the financing is completed the film gets a green lights and the stress stops in one state and begins in another.
Pre-production begins in earnest. The heads of department are positioned and the script is circulated. The casting director, along with the director beign the long task of deciding which actors play which roles. Storyboards are the idea of how the piece will be framed and in what order they will be shown. These are vital to everyone involved, to give an idea of what is desired.
The sets etc are designed and the first ad is released. More time and money is spent looking at constume and location and any special effects required.

Discussion of ideas

Me and Jamie have discussed our film titles and we are currently using the working title ' Daydreams can hurt you' but we are trying to think of new titles that do not sound like a sentence. We also agreed that Jamie should handle the storyboard as he has a greater ability at drawing than I do so it is my job to create a script for opening sequence so that we have an idea of what we are or will be saying in the opening sequence. We also came up with one-liner for the film, which was ' Your dreams are your own but can you avoid their harm'. This is just to give an idea of what might be involved in the film and gives an insight into a small one line summary of the story.

Evaluation of shot analysis - Freddy vs Jason - Sean S. Cunningham - 2003

The film that I analysed for my technical analysis for the planning of the project was 'Freddy vs Jason' and it is also a slasher horror which ties in with one of the themes for the opening that me and Jamie are aiming to make. I analysed the camera shots that were used in order to make the opening sequence which helps conform to the idea that the scenes are being continuously filmed. A light blue wash is used when you are given a BCU of the antagonist's face which gives the effect of coldness and provides a feeling of cold maliciousness in the eyes of the character. It also connotes that the character has a cold and emotionless heart because of the way that he is talking. This means that the audience is being introduced to the antagonist because it is one of the main characters who will be wthe main reason behind the suffering of some of the characters. The film 'Freddy vs Jason' is a crossover between the 'Friday the 13th' series and also the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' series of films, meaning it is hybridised between two different film series, which adds depth to the storyline and the attributes of the antagonist or in the case of this films, the two antagonists. This adds an air of mystery to which character is actually committing the murders and taking victims. I have learnt that in horror films the cuts and shots come in thick and fast. Most of the shots in this film lasted about three or four seconds, barring the shots that allowed you to see the characters faces in order to establish who they are. This is continuity editing as all the shot fit together without a jump and the also conform to the 180 degree rule. The shots link together even if they may have been shot at different times to the order that they were shown.

Moodboard of teen and teenhorror

This is our third moodboard, which scott and I did together. We used key words that we thought related to the conventions mainly of teen movies. We then put in some words for teen/horror films. We have learnt, just by looking at google images, what some connotations of words are and what the audience may think at certain words. This is the start, before we run our audience questionnaire of finding out what some people think of at certain words and images.

Feedback #2

Jamie / Scott, this does show some promise, however you must document your idea and ensure that your research is focused. you mention that you want to do a teen horror, but you haven't analysed any openings from this sub-genre, or mentioned again any of the teen conventions. Your mood boards certainly don't reflect this choice, including images from films such as 'The Shining'. Your research must be clearly focused on the response to the brief.

Jamie- you must also catch up in terms of the film analysis - this is a key part of planning.

Moodboard of horror film characters and locations

This is my moodboard that I made to show stock locations and characters that conform to a horror genre. I have also included quotes from the films and this has helped me to learn how there are normally similar locations used in horror films. The quotes have been attributed to the films that they came from and I have also learnt how the mentalities of the antagonists in horror films are also similar because they normally turn out to be sadistic psychotic killers.

Shots of locations that we wish to use.

These are the shots of the locations that me and jamie are looking at using for our opening sequence. They are from Ramslye Woods and we thought of places that would fit into and conform to the conventions and stock locations for a horror film and we also plan to use a school as another stock location to help us conform to the hybridised teen/horror opening sequence that we are hoping to create.

Preliminary Task editting

Today saw the finished cut of our preliminary task video. We have exported the file and posted it on to "youtube". We decided to put our film into black and white to make the experience seem more realistic within the gangster style.
We shot our clips and scenes in orders of practicality, not in order of how the scene plays. The camera was positioned carefully, in order to make viewing easier and to obey the 180 degree rule. Shot reverse shot was easily created as we knew where the camera needed be on our arc to shoot dialogue and throw a sound bridge over the cut to a reaction shot. Match on action was an element that required careful planning as there were only two of us filming and acting, thus meaning many cuts and reshoots with a different camera angle.
We learnt how to plan by using a story board, to give us an idea of the shots and positioning that we wanted to create the desired look. Our storyboard told us how to make each shot, and where we wanted the camera to be. In our storyboard we had an idea of what would look good, we filmed a panning shot and tracking shots as written in our storyboard, however in our edit we decided that the panning shot was not going to work within the working scene.
We have some shots spare and parts of individual shots have not been used where we have made errors or have decided we only want specific parts of a scene, so used the editting software to cut in and cut out.
Some scenes look uneasy, with repetitive dialogue but these were planned to fit within our filming style. One shot, which is shot over the actor's/cameraman's shoulder looks mis framed, but the second actor comes into the shot, this could potentially have been better framed but we like the feeling it gives with the uneasy framing as it looks like the audience is in the scene.

Film opening analysises.

As seen in my two films analysed so far, and in scott's films too. There is a tendancy for certain elements to be repeated in horror films, which we can now start to look at and compare which features become vital in the stability of a films genre.

"He'd only do it once" 1992

This film is very intrigueing in that its elements are not stable, so you cannot feel comfortable as an audience. I find the film hard to watch, and dont particularly enjoy it for this matter. The film opens in black and white, with scratchy footage that feels as though it is very old. The first shot is over the shoulder of a young man, into a mirror, we see his smart jacket and his face under his hat. The camera then moves forward so we can no longer see his shoulder and becomes an MCU in the mirror. We see his worn face and tired complexion. The character walks away from the mirror and the shot cuts to a tracking shot alongside as he walks. Light is very directional and clearly very closely behind the camera by the way it glares across the sreen, there is much use of natural light as the camera follows the character walk across the room. We get a point of view shot as the character leaves his house, steadicam is used here, but the steps give a feeling of unsteadiness in the way he walks. As the man walks along the street colour inobviously fills the screen.
There is a poster on a tree, a picture of a knife, which could be a leading connotation of crime or danger. As we realise colour is now all over the screen, we notice a dark blue wash over the screen. On screen there is use of foliage in the corners and figures and objects of interest take away direction from the character walking down the road.
We suddenly hear a bang, clearly added in later as only the main actor seems to react to it. Possibly meaning that the other persons within the shot are not actually actors or aware of what is going on. There is a swish pan as the man looks about. Music slowly starts to come in in an ery tone. The man then suddenly starts to run and there is a freeze shot, showing an establishing shot. This freeze is set as the credits start to roll along the bottom. On screen we see the person's body language, we see his fear and confussion. His costume is jeans and a brown working jacket. The surrounding people are dressed in 80s style so the man looks out of place. The road is empty and houses and trees line the frame. The sudden speed up of movement and music create excitement and then with the use of a freeze shot creates engima and hooks the audience to continue viewing.

Preliminary Task

We finished the story board for our preliminary tast today. We had two hours at our disposal so found a suitable location to get what we were looking for. We used a mixture of camera angles and movements and shot various shots and scenes in appropriate order to make the edit seem effortless and allow multiple shots, regardless of where in the sequence, to be made together to seem flowing and keep the camera in the same place.
We have now started editing, getting rid of what we dont want and making the shots flow together, and creating sound bridges. Our intentions for the final piece are to be in black and white. We went for a gangster style and tried tried some Horror type shots.
We are very pleased with what we have so far and feel the continuity editing will be fairly free flowing and easy to watch.

Discussion one

Me and jamie have had a discussion about the genre of film that we should do and as you can see by the films that have been analysed, we have chosen to try the opening of a horror film. Also as the moodboard states we have decided to attempt to hybridise it because we have images of from horror films as well as teen films. This allows use to be more inventive because we have chosen two genres to work with.
Our original intention is to shoot the opening sequence using the woods in the local area and utilising what we have at our disposal, e.g. a school and woods. This will help us to use stock locations of these two genres.

Friday the 13th - Sean S. Cunningham - 1980

The film 'Friday the 13th' is a film that falls under the genre of horror and the sub-genre of a slasher horror, which entails the conventions of violence and gruesome deaths. This film conforms to the conventions of a slasher horror because in the opening sequence two people die after being attacked with a blade. It also has the the first victims of the monster or killer shown as a romantic couple, which is a traditional convention of horror because the first victims are normally people that resemble forces of evil or sin. This also adds a convention of psycological horror with the reference of good and evil. the title 'Friday the 13th' is enigmatic as it links to superstition because this date is often seen as a day of ill fate, which connotes that bad things are likely to happen to the characters. The fact that the title hints bad luck gives the impression that somebody is likely to suffer some form of misfortune and hints at what might happen during the film. The narrative in this film is an asynchrounous narrative as it flashes back to show the time that the first murders took place in and and only has one story going on at a time, meaning that it is being explained throughout the film. The film is also set at night which also conforms to the conventions of a horror film because it denotes that the murders occur in the evenings and connotes that it is more dangerous to go around on your own at night than during the day.
When the title credits appear on the screen, there is the sound of breaking glass, which denotes that something has broken and connotes that it may possibly have been a from a shattered window or a broken glass. This gives an indication on how some of the victims may die or how they may become victims. When the opening sequence starts, diegetic sound is used to set the scene, such as crickets and the crunching noise of twigs under foot, which denotes a person walking around and connotes presence in a woodland area. A traditional sound within the conventions of a horror film is the creaking door which connotes somebody or something sneaking around, searching for blood. The singing in a camp hut connotes high spirits as it appears they are celebrating something and could possibly be used as a sense of foreboding because of the person creeping around outside. When the antagonist is sneaking around looking for victims, in this case a pair of counsellors, slow low toned music is used in order to build tension before the murders as it helps to build fear and possibly curiosity about what will happen next, thus building an enigma.
By using semiotics to analyse mise-en-scene, we can say that the subtitles used at the beginning of the opening sequence gives the audience an exact idea of the time that the film originally started in, 1958. Tracking shots are used to give the audience a view of the area, slowly tracking towards the hut as the people sing and a BCU is used when the first two victims are shown to highlight the fear in their eyes. This is used to portray the terror of the characters at their fate and this helps to give an insight of the character of the antagonist and what they maay be capable of. High shots are used when looking at the first two victims because it portrays them as people who are rulebreakers and and this gives the impression that they are going to be the first to die. A handicam is used from the characters point of view to give the audience the impression of being in the film and it means that the antagonist can be followed and can show the route that is used to show how the antagonist tracks their victim. There is no direct view of the antagonist so it leaves the audiences guessing who could be portrayed as the antagonist. The crackling fire in the hut connotes warmth and high spirits and no knowledge of the fate that awaits them.

In terms of ideological discourse in the film, the traditional views of women are represented as well as reinforced because the common gender trait of women being vulnerable is portrayed because they are the first to die. The traditional gender trait of males thinking that they are tougher than women and not thinking bout consequences. However they are also challenged later on in the film when an elderly lady appears to be the reason behind the murders and apparent curse at 'Camp Crystal Lake'. Semiotics also portray the women all vulnerable because they all say that they are scared and rely on the male characters to defend them, which connotes that they believe that the male characters are actually responsible for them.

The intended media audience of the film is people over the age of eighteen because there is lots of blood in the scenes and explicit violence. This means that the main intended audience of this film is young aldults and other adults because of the content. The probable reading of this text is that it is dangerous to be on your own at night and that there is danger at the campsite. A possible audience reading of this text is that the past does come back to haunt you and you should never go out at night alone because that is when you are most vulnerable.

My first moodboard was created by using google images and searching key words that relate to our genre. As we are doing a hybridised genre of teen and horror, this moodboard was created around the genre-horror.

thirteen ghosts analysis - steve beck - 2001

'Thirteen Ghosts' is a film that conforms to the conventions of the horror genre because it contains the styles that are commonly attributed to horror films. One of the main conventions that it has is a man who can communicate with the afterlife and appears to be possessed. The audience's generic expectations of this text are met to a great extent because with the involvement of the individual that appears to have been possessed, it suggests that this character is going to be pivotal with the storyline. The title 'Thirteen Ghosts' can be seen as slightly enigmatic because it makes the viewer wonder where the ghosts came from and how they died.

When the opening sequence starts it is not neccessarily a typical location for a horror film because it is in a junkyard, however there police and army officers which denotes that something serious has happened and it connotes that it there is something very dangerous behind it. The fact that the possessed man is being used to track the creature or person that is behind the situation connotes that the person behind it could be a supernatural being or creature. This means that it is from the supernatural horror genre because it conforms to conventions related to this genre and subgenre. This film has an asynchronous narrative because it only has one storyline going the whole way through the film, meaning that there are no other storylines being followed or focused on throughout the film. There is what appears to be a flashback or flashfoward in the opening sequence which is a classic convention of film noir, but it is only used to show the victims of this supernatural being, which denotes that the being committed the the crimes on the humans, but also connotes that it is a sadistic, heartless being searching for revenge.

By using semiotics to analyse mise-en-scene, we can say that the car wrecks on top of one another are signifiers because they denote that the setting is a junkyard, but also connotes that there is something hiding. The cars driving through the junkyard are leading lines as they lead your eyes towards the area that is being searched by the army and police officers. The low music is used as a way of suggesting tensity in the area and it connotes that something sinister or even horrific might happen to the people investigating the area. This gives the idea of the creature being demonic because when its victims are shown, it connotes that the being has no remorse and can do things to people that no human being could. It is also filmed in a night time setting meaning that a filter may have been used to give the illusion of nightime and a light blue wash has been used to connote coldness or something terrible that might happen.

Slow motion is used when the possibly possessed character is trying to take some painkillers to take away some of the pain that he is experiencing from his contact with the creature from the afterlife. This suggests that he has been having regular contact with this creature or person as he say the painkillers are ' to take the edge off' meaning that he may have used them before so that he could find the being without suffering immensely. The slow motion is used to give the impression of the tabets falling slowly and the mans pain is highlighted as he watches them fall in front of his eyes. BCUs r used to show the pain the possessed individual is in and also to show things or people that may be significant to what is going on in the narration, e.g a body or a main character. Tracking shots are also used to follow the vehicles so that the audience has an idea of the area that the sequence is set in. Finally a steadicam is also used when looking from the creatures point of view so that the audience can feel as if they are looking at exactly the same think and feel as if they are in the sequence. The scene is also blurred to connote that the being is moving quickly and the sounds made also connote fast movement because we hear panting.

In terms of ideological discourse invovled in 'Thirteen Ghosts' traditional gender traits of men and women are reinforced as the men and women involved in the scene appear to be treated differently, for example, the male opinion is valued higher than the female opinion. This relates to the two characters giving their views of what is going on or what has occurred just before they arrived at the junkyard. because the main people shown are a high ranked detective and a man who is used to contact the supernatural being or to trace it. Semiotics can indicate that the detective is highly ranked because of the way he talks to people and also low angle shots are used in order show emphasise his superiority over the 'possessed' man. When a female character is introduced, she is stereotypically treated as less able to perform the tasks than a male character. This is reinforcing the typical stereotype that men are commonly perceived to be supposedly better than women. The ideology of gender is therefore represented due to this because it is using typical stereotypes of men and women as the male characters are represented or perceived as more dominant characters. The female characters are treated as if they are lower down the order in terms of rank, meaning that they appear to be the more likely victims of this being.

With the supernatural being involved and the connotations that it caused the injuries and murders, the probable reading intended for the target audience is that this super natural being is behind the murders. A possible reading by the target audience is that these beings or creatures may exist and they can possibly be extremely dangerous. Therefore the target audience for this film is young adults as they are more likely to acknowledge the probable reading of the film and to understand what is going on in the film and opening sequence.