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.