Evaluation 7

Evaluation Question 7 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation question 6

View more PowerPoint from LukeDixon1995

How did you attract/address your audience? evaluation 5

f

What the final focus group said is that they wanted to watch on and see whats happening next. We have gave the audience that and left it with the audience thinking what is going to happen next. What the audience want for the location is somewhere that looks abandoned, which gives the audience thinking on where this location set. We have giving the audience on what they wanted and shot this opening sequence in a abandoned building which i thought the establishing shots was amazing and so did the audience.
One of the questions we asked was that "can you still clearly understand the storyline" there response was very positive as they all said "yes" and also we can tell there is a a lot off mystery in the opening sequence. The genre is quite clear from all the canted angles and the sound in the background this is most likely a very stereotypical horror film.
In order to engage the audience there has to be suspense. According from the final focus group response, our final opening sequence is what the focus was expecting, so this is a success for us, and they would also love to continue watching this.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As we research about our opening sequence before filming, we had many idea's on what genre
to do this in. As a group we ended up to do this in horror so we had to do a focus group
and find out with other people in the public what age will represent this. However instead
of the focus group we also have done a question air to ten people of the audience to find
out what age would this video be suitable for. This is what the questionnaire we have done
to the audience looks like;

This has gave us a idea as a group on what age to do. The target audience is between the
age of 15 to 30 years off age and this is more directed to the male instead of female because
we feel that men have more of a threshold for fear. The social demographic we are targeting
are those who fall into the categories of C1, C2, D and E, this is down to the fact of
that we believe that they are more likely to enjoy horror/thriller films.


This is a video of our focus group we have done before doing our opening sequence
to get ideas from different people of the public to know what target audience this
is suitable for.

Evaluation 3

Evaluation Question 2 on Prezi

What kind off media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

Film distribution is when the media companies attract an audience through the use of media technologies therefore there is a larger profit margin and more awareness. They will use this is cinema's when showing adverts on the screen or even on poster and on the TV. An example of this would be when advertising a family film, they would not place a trailer just before or even after a rated 18 as this is not the correct audience to do this. Also they want to be unique as possible so their distributions stands out and also is remembered.
There are some pacific companies that are well known off using distribution and that is Warner Brothers. They are one of the worlds largest film companies with a huge amount off money to spend, not only on the film but also making it a distribution. They are also aware and well known that the audience know that this would be a highly well made film.
One way how the Warner Brothers distributed and also thinking how to attract a larger amount off audience. An example off this would be the film 'Hangover' and the reason off this is that is the target audience is teenagers and young adults and to get their attentions they would advertise this on Facebook and other social networks because this is there target audience. They engage their audience by doing quiz blogs and photographs and clips to engage there audience. Companies such as "Shutter Island" and other types off horror films will be suitable for opening sequence.

Evaluation 1

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Final Video

Feedback Of our opening sequence ROUGH COPY

As we finished our opening sequence as a rough cut we uploaded the video to YouTube to gain some feedback from others and more importantly from our teachers. With feedback we could then improve on our opening sequence to gain the best mark possible.

The above screen grab is a comment from our media teachers on our YouTube video to help us improve. Due to the feedback we received we are going to make some changes to our opening sequence:
First of all we will alter the font as this is dropping our marks. Not only shall we take on board the comment and make it more scratched we shall also change the colour as I believe it looks too blood red which therefore doesn't really relate to our storyline on it being based on a possessed girl.
Another element that we will add to our opening sequence is another scene at the end after the title. This would make this look more like an opening sequence other than a trailer. We have decided to film 4 teenagers walking through a forest and finding the abandoned factory.
The four teenagers we will use are Michael and Luke from our group and our two friends George and Katherine. So we do not have the problem before whereby our characters were busy with other commitments we have decided to film in the half term where this wouldn't be a problem.

Directors Commentary

Final Focus Group Questions

1) What do you like about the opening sequence?
2) Can you still clearly see the story line or is there still a mystery?
3) What do you think could be improved, and why?
4) What were your favourite parts?
5) What did you think of the sound at the end?
6) Would you still carry on watching this film judging on the opening sequence?

Filming (Cat Litter Factory)

When we started to film in the abandoned

Titles and credits

 This is a rough idea on what our title would look like, so our title is called "Malignant" and this seems like a very stereotypical horror title with the point writing and the hot red, representing blood and death. The reason why we chose the title "Malignant" is because this is the meaning of a possessed, also this word means "born to be bad". As this really sets out the opening sequence as are younger character (daughter) is possessed and suits the evil character. The titles you can see is also shown to be red as this symbolises death, hate and anger. The font is slightly crumbled and crack to show it is not looked after properly, this is why we chose this font as this suits the horror genre. This font is called chalk-duster.

This is also another credit i played around with as this is just a simple text with a white font and black shadow, playing around with this text putting in movement and effects this could make the writing seem very disturbed also with sound effects this could look good. With the white font this will make the credit stand out so the audience could see this very clearly also with the black shadow this gives the audience a suspicious feeling something is going to happen. Also with the darkness and the light, this can symbolise good and bad. The effect we used in the titles which ran very smoothly was called creation, this fades of to the screen then slowly fades out, so the audience could still get a glimpse on what the title of the film is and who the directors are etc.

Actual Filming location

After looking around for different locations, we felt for a chilling thrill to our audience, we would need to find a location which seems abandoned, such as a abandoned building. Researching online to try to find one, as a ground we found a cat litter factory in Redhill. This is a perfect location to do our filming as this is a authentic and eery place to put our characters in such as Katie and being in this building, this shows that this character is not looked after properly and treated badly by the conditions which are around her.

Here is the location of the building we filmed in, there are pictures on this site to show you the conditions of this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/landie_man/sets/72157624022107387/

This is a great place to shoot our opening as we played around with the establish shots etc. Really gave the right atmosphere for the right genre.

Production Blog Entry

Filming day number 1

This is the first day we started to film different shots which could build up different types of tension. We was doing shots such as walking down the stairs, shots of different locks in the building etc. We had different idea's such as locking the female character "Katie" in a cellar which as you can see from these pictures there is a lock which can show that this character "Katie" is locked in the cellar.  There are a variety off clips that will be at the start of the opening sequence and therefore will acted as establishing shots, they will also be genre/narrative signifiers that will successfully determine that she is trapped in a dirty place and is away from the real world. 

There are just a couple of examples of the shots we have took...



















As a group we could not do a lot really because we had no main characters to film with. But we had really good idea's such as filming in abandon buildings etc.

Representation In Films

Men

Men are often seen as to be very masculine and brave dominant, powerful, god a labour, aggressive but can also control their emotions,intelligent and physical. This is all very stereotypical for the male in films and examples of real characters of real films can be Vinnie Jones who plays the character of Big Chris in the film of "Lock stock and two smoking barrels". The reason why this character is a very stereotypical man is because from his mise-en-scene this is shown that this character is wearing a black leather jacket to symbolise that he is wearing protection, also the colour black can represent that this character is very cold inside but also seemed to be very powerful and masculine who is against any religious views. 

Women

The representation Of women are shown to be  very feminine and powerless towards the male kind. However they are shown to used more verbal language than physical. The mise-en-scene of the two female characters i got here are shown to be very stereotypical as their outfit are shown to be short skirts, low cut tops to show more flesh of their skin and the hair colour are blonde to show they maybe not smart at all. The colours of the outfit are baby blue and hot pink to show that these are very seductive colours, and they are out to only get the males attraction. With films that have very stereotypical female characters they would always prefer to use extreme close up's on there private parts so the audience can get a idea how old these characters are or how good looking they are.

Ethnic Groups 




In film, there are many different stereotypes of different ethnic groups. One ethnic group portrayed a lot in a negative light are black people. They are usually represented as being criminals and being involved in dealing drugs and violent. A film that shows this representation is Attack The Block (image on the left).

Another ethnic group represented is white people, however they are stereotypes in a lot of different ways. For example one way is that they are intelligent and smart. White people are seen as the heroes in films, especially in horror films. For example, you will usually find that there is a white policeman who catches the murderer and solves the case; such as Dewey from Scream (image above).



Different classes

In a lot of films, especially horror films, the characters that usually are the weak ones are of a lower class. People from a lower class are usually represented as being stupid, quite dim and scruffy. They are usually dressed unusually and quite untidy. This is to show that they are of this lower class, and it makes the audience judge them.


On the reverse of this, you do then get the people who are of a higher class. The upper class are usually dressed smartly and very sophisticatedly, this is simply done in order to show their status and that they are higher than the rest of them. They are portrayed as being smart, quite posh and a lot of the time seen as snobby and arrogant. (Woman In Black, left).








Different Ages


Age is yet another way in which people are stereotyped upon. If you are young then in films you are stereotyped to be a 'hooded yob' or involved in crime of some sort. This is seen in films such as Kidulthood and Adulthood. Then in other films you will see young people as always partying and socialising and always getting drunk and doing drugs. This is shown in a whole variety of American films. One being Jaws at the start before Christy's death, they are all partying on the beach.

The middle-aged are the class that are usually the main characters in films, they can be stereotyped in numerous ways. The way that middle-aged people are represented all depends on the type of film and the storyline. One example, if the plot and storyline of the storyline is that there is a serial killer, the serial killer might be being chased by a middle-aged, clever policeman as they have lots of experience and therefore carb use this when solving the case.

Older people are represented as being weak and always requiring help. They are the reliant on everyone else's services and help. They are seen as frail and unable to do anything on their own, this is how they are portrayed in films. However, you do also see old people as being crazy and quite skeptical. For example, the old woman in Drag Me To Hell is a crazy, psychotic woman who turns out to be a witch. 

Script

Key:
Normal text = what is going to happen on screen, the action so to speak.
Text in italics = the music and sounds.
(text in brackets and in red) = show stage directions.

Script:
Long shot hot of the house that slowly zooms in.
Cuts to a long canted shot of a corridor inside the house.


Natural sounds likes wind, wild and scary animal sounds played softly in the background.


Shot of a swinging light being switched on by a man.
Cuts to a shot of the man facing away from the camera walking towards a set of stairs.
(Should be standing in the middle of the corridor to show isolation.)

Girls eye quickly appears, shocks audience.
As this appears on screen there should be a loud and fast but slightly distorted sound of a girl screaming played over the top of it.


Man is walking down the stairs again. He gets around half way down.
Lords Prayer being chanted with quiet, monotone and ominous music playing behind it should start playing.


Cuts to the CCTV type shot of the girl in the room. Jump cuts will happen here.
(Girl should be sitting in the corner of the room.)
To accompany the jump cuts, white noise should be the sound every time it jumps. 


Shot of the metal lock and then cuts to a shot of the girl at the bottom of the stars.

Cuts to the shot of the wall with scratches.
Sound of scratching should be heard here.


Cuts back to the shot of the bottom of the stairs but the girl is gone.
Lords Prayer and music behind it should get louder and more prominent.


Shot of the mans face.
Lords Prayer and music should end suddenly.


goes back out into the CCTV shot, the girl sitting in the corner.
(Girl should be sitting in the corner of the room.)
No sounds or music should be heard at the moment, should be dead silent. Until the numbers on the CCTV change then you should hear the white noise again. This time loud.

Encoding Our Text

We are going to encode our opening sequence with signifiers that our audience will decode when viewing our sequence in order to communicate the following:

• The type of product = Opening sequence for a film

We will communicate the fact that this is an opening sequence for a film by making sure that we leave the audience wanting to see more/the rest of this film and also by leaving some unanswered questions such as what is wrong with the girl, who was the girl and why was the man keeping her locked up.

• The genre of this product = Horror

We will communicate the fact that the opening sequence is of the horror genre we will film a lot of low key shots, we will film  a lot of extreme close ups and we will have the girl in our sequenced dressed in an ould raggy nightgown/dress. Also our locations are all abandoned and secluded or have an uncared for look.

• Representation of = Gender

We will communicate the representation of Gender by having the male character in smart clothing suit or trousers and shirt, and we will shoot him with some low angle shots. the female character we will have wearing dirty baggy clothes and we will film with alot of high angle shots and extreme close ups.

Motifs

A motif is any recurring element that has significance in the story. A motif can also create a theme or mood through its recurrence. 


Motifs are often used to enhance the viewing of a film and to make it more interesting to watch. A film can include 1 motif or several.


One of the most famous Motifs, in film, is from the film Jaws (1975) directed by Steven Spielberg. In the film jaws whenever the shark is present there is a unique film score that plays. This film score is a motif because it reoccures throughout the film and establsihed its self as a tune that strikes fear whenever it is heard. Whenever this score is heard it creates fear, even if there is no image present the sound of this is enough to create a tension that most films would need images to create.


The Sixth Sense (1999) directed by M. Night Shyamalan. This film has a very obvious motif throughout the film and this motif is in the form of colour; the colour red. throughout this film the colour red appears e.g:

• wife in red dress
• red flowers
• red lipstick
• dead cyclist has red helmet
• red doorknob at malcolms house
• church doors are red
• red balloon floating up the staircase
• anti depressant pills are red

The use of red in this film is used to give a hint into the twist at the end of the film and to make the auduence have this subconsious feeling about death and ghosts.




Our opening sequence will not be containing any motifs.
Although if we were to do this again we would mostlikely try to add in a few motifes to make the film more enjoyable for the audience.

Contingency Plan

• Cast dropping out/ being unreliable/ being bad actors . 
• Crew being late . 
• Locations not letting you film there/ being too noisy/ having too many people in the background . 
• Battery running out on the camera . 
• Continuity problems (eg; filming one scene with a characters wearing a shirt with two buttons done up, and then accidently filming another scene with the character where he has three or four buttons done up)

 As a group we had to plan for our film in terms on what should we do if things go wrong such as, cast dropping out or being unreliable. If this situation occurs then we would have to have a understudy who would be up for doing this film opening sequence. This would also happen if our characters are bad actors, we would ask someone who is in the drama department who would be a good actor or actress and also if that he or she would take part in the opening sequence. 


If the crew is always turning up late, as a group we have to organize different meeting dates before so we would have more opportunities to film a certain shot, or direct the positions of the characters. 


Before filming as a group we would search up different locations and have a rough idea where we would like to locate our film and also find the correct setting, so if the location we chose will not allow us to film there, this would mean that we would have different ideas where to go next, as we have researched before actually just turning up to the location. If the location is being to noisy, the best possible idea to do is to move to a different location where as a group we have researched, or even attend to the location another day to see if the noise has lowered down. If there is too many people in the background, this could be very off putting as the film only consist with two characters only. This could mean if their is to many people shown in the background maybe move to a different location to film the characters. 


If the battery is running low on the camera we are filming on, the best thing to do before is to make sure we have another spare camera, so when the first camera run out of battery, we would have another camera to continue with the filming, so this will run very smoothly. 


For making sure that their is no continuity problems, we should put one person in charge of the continuity problems so they will have to write down before for the male character how his hair looks like, the costume that he is wearing, and this also means the setting in the background, if there is something on the wall then the camera comes back to the wall again and that something is gone, this is a continuity error, so as a group we would need to put one person in charge so hopefully no continuity problems will occur when filming.

Audience Questionnaire

Audience Questionnaire Results

Audience Questionnaire

Story Boards

Costume and Props List

Costumes needed:

• -Lucy - XL nightie.  - Primark/Charity Shop 
• George- Dark blue suit trousers, white shirt, black waistcoat, smart shoes.    - Own clothing

Props needed:

• Plain white contact lenses- Lucy will wear these as we are going to do an extreme close up of her eye that will be pure white with the only colour coming from the pupil.    -Antique shop in sutton
• Old rusty padlock- This will be used on the door to the basement to show that she is locked in there. Could represent that she has spent possibly years locked in the basement.    -Tommy
• Candles- We will use candles which will be used in the basement next to Lucy to show that this is the only light that she has within her basement.     - 99p shop
• Cutlery- We will use lots of dirty plates, knives and forks to show how she is trapped away. - Drama Department
• Teddy Bears - There will be lots of teddy bears within the basement that are old and ripped up - Hannah
• Bucket - This bucket will be shown as Katies source of toilet. This again shows she is trapped and is not in reality. - Tommy

Equipment List

For our opening sequence, we will need:

• Digital Video Camera; this is the most important piece of equipment that we will need this in order to film our opening sequences as this is what we will use to film the actual film. The camera must be of high quality as it will make the film look a lot better if the camera's quality is high. If we were to use a camera with a low resolution and low mega pixels then it would look more fuzzy and hazy therefore meaning the quality of the clip would not be as good.

• Tripod; we will also need a tripod in order to stand the camera up and keep it steady for certain shots that need more or less height and/or shots that need to stationary. We would attach the camera onto the tripod to film shots that are not moving shots. For moving takes we would most likely just hold the camera to create the effect of a hand held shot, or if need be a dolly, however this is extremely unlikely so I do not think we will need include a dolly in our equipment list.

• Apple Mac Computer; this is also an essential piece of equipment that we will need to use. This is simply because we need to use the software Final Cut Express in order to edit our opening sequence to make all the different takes fit together and look good. This software is only available on Mac computers so we need to be able to have regular access to one in order to complete the opening film

• Digital Audio Recorder: We will need the digital audio recorder to record the non-diagectic sound of the chanting. We have decided to use the audio recorder instead of the video recorder because this would sound more successful and also more clearer. 

• Lighting: For the lighting we would be using candles to show a ominous presence on the screen. The lighting would make the main character feel trapped as this would show that the female character is trapped from the light, such a electricity and day light. 

Shooting Schedule

Day/Time	Location	Shot Description	People Needed
Thursday 8th March 2012 AM		Long canted angle shot of a corridor in the house.	Filming Crew
		Close up of a light swinging.
		Medium close up of a man’s hand pulling the light cord and turning the light on.	George, filming crew
Thursday 8th March 2012 PM		Medium shot of a man facing away from the camera at the top of a set of steep stairs.	George, filming crew
		Extreme close up of a girls eye.	Lucy, filming crew
		Medium shot of the man walking down the stairs.	George, filming crew
		Long shot of an old derelict house that slowly zooms in.	Filming crew
Sunday 11th March 2012 PM		Long high angle shot of the girl sitting in the corner of the room. (CCTV shot)	Lucy, filming crew
		Close up of the rusty metal lock on the door.	Filming crew
		High angle medium long shot of the girl at the bottom of the stairs.	Lucy, filming crew
		Close up shot of scratches on the wall.	Filming crew
Tuesday 13th March 2012 PM		Medium shot of the stairs where the girl was, but she’s gone.	Filming crew
		Long high angle shot of the girl sitting in the corner of the room. (CCTV shot)	Lucy, filming crew
		Close up on the man’s face to catch his facial expression.	George, filming crew
		Long high angle shot of the corner of the room where the girl was but she’s gone again. (CCTV shot)	Filming crew