MS: Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our horror opening uses two males, lower-middle class as can be seen by the clothing and accent of the protagonists, with a curiosity over the abandoned church.

Scruffy Jeans, and tracksuit bottoms make the protagonists appear more innocent and  childlike.

We represented teenagers as being independent but somewhat unreliable, hence why one of the characters dies early on due to walking away from his friend. It reflects a residual ideology of teen horror films, and is typical of a horror/thriller film to make these assumptions of teenagers as being a bit careless, or thoughtless, with the ambition to do their own thing.

They are stereotyped by wearing tracksuit bottoms and low hung jeans, with sports trainers and slightly lazy walks. The costume defines the characters ages, and the location adds to the interpretation of the characters independence due to the fact that they are in an isolated church, walking up a hill with no-one around.

The 180° rule was used to show the left side of the characters face all the way up until the death scene. 

Left side of both characters is shown. In a 2-shot

 When the main characters are shown walking towards the camera, the walk off to their right. Showing the left side of their faces, keeping to the 180° rule.

Left side is shown once again. It also follows the rule of thirds, staying to the right hand side of the screen.

After the death scene Josh is seen walking towards Me (Michael) showing the right side of his face, showing that something has happened that has changed his perspective and emotions; realizing that something is wrong.

After the death scene, the right side is shown of Josh's face.

They are seen as being typical teenagers, when it comes to dialogue as they don’t talk much, and when they do it is only to point out the obvious, hence when I (Michael) say “I thought I knew another way in…” when it is obvious to the audience that there was another way in anyway. We deliberately used little dialogue to express this and dumb down the characters more so to relate to a typical horror opening death, which is usually inflicted on the least intelligent of the couple/group.

MS: Question 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Q1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The final cut of our Thriller film opening has been as successful as we expected it to be. All elements of acting, camera techniques and mise-en-scène have been met to a standard that we are happy with. We reshaped our plot line as we filmed due to circumstances such as: timings of the day & limitations to the use of locations; however much of the initial idea has stuck.


We filmed in 2 locations, both of which were churches, as it was our most popular choice in our questionnaire, and it also fitted our storyboard well. The outdoor scenes were filmed at Bidborough church, the indoor scenes were shot a few days later at St Mary's church, in Salehurst. We wanted to use 2 locations due to the lack of a horror feel outside Salehurst church, as it is next to a pub and close to houses, whereas Bidborough church has a large graveyard and is on a hillside.

Our Location at Bidborough church.

In our opening we began with our two protagonists walking up a hill to a church. Immediately enigma establishes itself as we do not know why they are going to this church or where. The boys are portrayed as having the residual ideology in that they didn’t talk to each other much, except from when they need to, or if something important is needed to be said. It is also a stereotype to have young teenagers in a horror film, as they can be portrayed as being innocent. The fact that the boys are heading into a dark church and everything is lit by the candles they hold is also typical of a horror/thriller film. Similar themes are addressed at the beginning of certain films such as The Hills Have Eyes (Aja, 2006) where the first character, to be killed, is alone. Our opening does follow a typical thriller theme, however our location is unique and therefore it differentiates itself from its competitors.

An initial idea we had was to bring the idea of a stalker, or killer, into the film. Similar to the opening of It. 

The titles we used were also very interesting as we twinned the actor’s names on the tombstones with the soundtrack emphasising the name with obscure drum sounds. This works well with the following pan on our protagonists, combined with the natural dim daylight and the dark clothing worn by the characters.

Our cast members and crew were "engraved" on the gravestones using "Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0".

The lighting helped to boost the fear factor in our opening, as most of the opening is shot using candle lights and dim lighting from outside of the church. It came across as a major challenge and payed off well, a note we have all taken for future benefits is to film earlier in the day and change the darkness via "Adobe Premier Elements 9.0" or by any other software, this would allow a slightly clearer image than ours. Nevertheless, we are happy with the way our church scenes turned out.

This is the lighting technique we were aiming for, similar to that of The Grudge. Note how it is almost black and white, but it has a strong blue tint

Our favourite shot, using the natural lighting for the stain glass windows, combined with the candle lights.

Our amulet of a demons face on a necklace was our main prop, as it looks demonic and expresses an enigmatic horror presence to the film opening. We innovated our ideas substantially over the course of filming, as our original ideas included a crucifix, a floating/hovering artefact and a hooded figure spying in the background. 

This was our original idea of a sculpture for our horror, similar to this Pazuzu sculpture from The Exorcist; we decided not to get it , and instead got an amulet necklace. That way we could hide it inside a book.

We wanted our demon necklace to look similar to this scene in the Excorcist. We couldn't, however, get a statue similar to the Pazuzu one above. This link directs you to a video from the Exorcist. It includes a few features that we added to our opening.  

The idea of using a Demon medalion/necklace came from this scene from the Exocist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD0RJ_iuBPo

Our demon necklace, that mysteriously kills one of our protagonists.

Overall I do believe our film expresses that of a typical teen horror/thriller film, as it challenges the teen stereotypes of "lack of communication" and "incapability to be alone" however our creative, and original idea creates an eerie essence of disturbance that differs from most other predictable horror openings. It drags the audience into the film, without entirely giving the plot away as to what is going to happen to our other protagonist, Josh.

MS: Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?

In the process of developing and filming the thriller film opening, I learnt how to use the Google “blogger” website. On this blog you can write and upload documents and notes of recent tasks and assignments. On the Blogger system you can upload photos and videos directly from internet sites such as Google images, and Youtube.

The Blog. We made independent, and group posts.

The technology on the schools computers that we used is called “Adobe Elements Première 9.0” it is professional editing software and was ideal for editing and producing our product. The software provided many effects such as using a “Tinting”, “Adjusting Contrast and Brightness”, “Sharpening the Image” and many more!

We attempted to stay to stick to the rule of thirds and keep the protagonists in their own third, whilst framing the characters properly. We achieved this by filming from different angles, most of which were from the tripod; however some were from the dolly & track. When we filmed the characters walking the first time, we decided that standing next to each other was ideal, however it made it harder to keep “lead and head room” so on all of the angles from the side of the protagonists, one is always a step or two ahead.

An example of a high angle, to make sure our characters were in shot.

The dark night worked to our advantage, strongly coinciding with our natural blurry, and our of focus scenes inside the church, with the natural candle light. The camcorder naturally blurred at a certain darkness, which we happened to intercept during the time of filming, nevertheless we used it to our advantage. Our white balance had minimal adjustments, which saved time and saved the over complications of editing on “Première”.

We had a shallow depth of field for the majority of our filming, up until the church scene where we used candles. The natural glow of the candles had a sinister glowing effect when we zoomed in and out, we preferred to zoom out for these scenes and let the depth of field increase, as it added to the enigma, and mystery, of the scene.

Natural Deep Focus, making a blur when close up.

It also allows one to add a soundtrack and increase the pace of the film and it also helped us by allowing the process of cropping and cutting unwanted scenes. It was a difficult process to learn, and was stressful after the soundtrack had been made, due to the long process of adapting the music to the film. 

We liked the idea of a slow start, so our pace of editing begins quite slowly and increases over the course of the opening up until the death. Using fast fades between numerous scene we gently segued between them, it made it look more professional and similar to most thriller films that we had watch such as "Scream".

We included a montage to show all of the weird objects and sculptures inside the church in a montage style to allow the audience to know what is there without have to see the full church. This is  quite prolific in such famous openings as "Se7en" and "Saw".

Finally after all the editing was complete we exported it to our D-Drive in a folder related to our horror opening. In order to export we changed the export quality to 1080p, and changed the frames per second to 25. Once the export was complete we uploaded it to YouTube, it helped our audience see our opening.

In comparison to a real film production, ours lack the funding and equipment as well as the time, preparation and actors on hand, the software was fun, and quite easy to use, however I can imagine a real film production may use CGI and other Adobe softwares that we do not possess. I believe that ours differs from a real film production because of the idea and atmosphere of amateur filming, skeleton cast, time and commitment involved.

MS: Question 3 – What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media product? Why?

From our research I believe that a film making institute such as Vertigo Films would be ideal to air our film, as they are renowned for distributing low budget films, with high production values.

Our favoured distributor, the English company "Vertigo Films".

If the film were to gain a theatrical release it would be the niche audiences of thrill seekers and scary movie fans that we would aim for, commonly in the 12-29 year old range. We would prefer to target the art-house audiences as opposed to making the film mainstream and having a company such as “Dreamworks” or “Working Title” to distribute it.

Dreamworks is a company that we would only consider if our film were to gain plently of international recognition.

If the film were to reach an audience, ouside of England, we may consider looking at companys and institutes such as Vertigo Films, Miramax Films or New Line Cinema to produce and distribute our film, as we would prefer word of mouth and a surprise film as opposed to a film that has been seen many times by everyone on television.

Our prefered distributor. If we made it to the USA, and the rest of the world.

However I believe that our film could be aired or broadcasted on a film channel such as “film4” because of the fact that it is a low budget British film appealing to a niche audience. Understandably the film may not become a Box Office hit, or even be aired in the cinema; but we have aspirations for it to be released in the UK. However we see a future in the film being shown on a late night viewing on a film channel.

If our film did not go global, we would air our film on national television. Film4 would be our prime candidates and prefered exhibitors for such an event.

In terms of advertisement we can use viral marketing and newspaper articles for the promotion of our film, listing release dates and cast members. Using websites such as “facebook”, we could set up a campaign to advertise and promote our film. If we had a suitable budget, estimated around £500,000; we would invest in posters at train stations and numerous bus stops to help to gain an audience.



Facebook Logo. Where we would with to place our viral marketing scheme.

 Visiting film festivals to present our film to different audiences in different counties, and countries would help to gain a national or global recognisance and will increase further opportunity for future screenings & booking for cinemas, future fan bases and a possibility of obtaining a buyer or larger film company to take on our film. Festivals such as Viennale, in Vienna, Austria; Brussels International Festvial of Fantastic Film, in Belgium; or Cannes Film Festvial, in France; are very good places to start, therefore exhibiting our film at such festivals as these could attract buyers, interest and even a fanbase, for future sales and recognition.

A Belgian film festival specializing in horror and thriller films.

In conclusion our opening represents a film that is likely to use a low budget with high production values, appealing to a niche audience under an independent, or lesser known, label. It categorises itself under a media product that undergoes a traditional exhibition such as films like “Psycho” (Hitchcock, 1960) and “The Exorcist” (1973) which started as independent films, finding success and a large audience over the premier weekend. Our film will aim to achieve this upon release to the public.

Group: Presentation style for question 4/5, & 7

Concerning questions 4 and 5, we will create a multi-media presentation using Prezi. The presentation will include slides with stats from the audience research and also one or two embedded video clips of feedback from the audience. Other slides will include information on: who our target audience is - specifically mentioning age range and gender, how we positioned the audience, how we tested our sequence to an audience throughout the project, the results of our audience research, and finally, how important is audience feedback when making a film?


For question 7 we will be making a directors cut, composed of clips from the preliminary task and our film opening with a voice-over commentary explaining how we have progressed from the preliminary task and how we used some ideas from the preliminary task and used them for our film opening. During this video we will also make comments on what we have learnt personally.

Group: 19th & 20th of March

Lessons:

During these lessons Josh & Ben continued to edit our final version of our horror opening.

We discovered a section of footage with Josh where we may need to re-concider shooting due to poor dialogue, acting, lighting and more. Despite only being a small segment of the opening, it nevertheless is quite imortant and will need to be re-done. During the lesson Ben and Josh discussed dates to do this. They settled for the 21st of March.

Soundtrack Update:

The soundtrack is only a draft so far but it includes a bass drone throughout with obscurely reverbed drums and strings section. We can decrease the volume of the background music once our characters begine to talk, and increase it again after the characters dialogue ends. Towards the end of the soundtrack the tempo and velocity increases and more instruments play discordantly.

Our "killer" character will have a sound that refers to him. A certain theme lasting for only a couple of seconds that allows the audience to know that he is the antagonist and that something bad is about to happen.

MS: Re-shoot

I shall be helping the group by re-shooting a few scenes on Wednesday the 14th of March.

We have a scene where the camera pans over engraved writing on the floors of the church. This has been attempted twice, however both times were unsuccessful and lack enigma.

We also have a few montage shots that need to be re-shot. Only 2 shots have been made on the stain glass windows, and only 1 has been made on a statue, however there are many more to be done.

Once these minor errors and shots are corrected we would be on course to completing our opening.

Group: Location Reccie (Questions)

Where and when did we go?

• 

•On Thursday the 8th of March we went to Bidborough to record the outside scenes of the church, and the playground scenes prior to the introduction of our protagonists. We started filming at 5:00pm until around 6:30pm, as this was the most suitable time for the beginning of a horror film, as well as the most suitable for the camera.

•On Sunday the 11th of March we filmed all of the indoor scenes of Salehurst Church and finalized our opening here too. We started recording at 5:30pm, due to lighting, however we re-shot a couple of scenes as the darkness crept in.

What was the purpose?

• 

•The purpose of filming at these two locations was because of enigma and the effect of a typical thriller opening. We didn't have permission to use the inside of Bidborough church, however we did at Salehurst. The only drawback to Salehurst was that the outside of the church has signs and boards everywhere as well as houses, making it seem less frightening.

• 

•What did we do?

• 

•We filmed all of the outdoor scenes in Bidborough and all of the indoor scenes in Salehurst. We experimented with many camera techniques and angles, the use of prevalence and dialogue, and the good use of mise-en-scène. (Inside the church)

•We spent a good 3 hours altogether filming and positioning, accumilating aproximately 15 minutes of raw footage and possible takes, for our final piece.

 

What worked?

• 

•The scenes we filmed earlier on inside the curch worked well with the lighting however, could not be completed, leading to the decision to use candle-lights. This worked to perfection as the natural grainy camera and warming glows of the candles add fear and enigma to our opening.

•Another element that work was when our protagonists walked up the hill to the church. We developed many new and creative camera angles to film them walking up the hill. Panning shots from foot level and though brances and gates added to the effect of the main characters not being alone.

•We have a shot which worked to perfection whereby the camera is attacted to the dolly & track and pans with the characters. Gravestones obstruct their path and makes the intese prevalence of our characters grow. In this scene we are planning to add the cast names and title on each gravestone that they pass.

• 

•What didn’t work?

• 

•Occasionally we encountered camera focus trouble. This was due to our poor timing of recording. The lightness of the day outside decreased to fast for some of our filming, meaning that we had to re-shoot. However this lead to better ideas and was countered very well.

Group: Filming Part 2

On the 11th of March we had finished the filming of our horror opening. We shall hopefully complete all the editing by March 16th.

The shoot was successful and we have included many different camera angles as well as new and improved dialogue, and innovative storyline.

Here are some photo's of the location and props:

Here is the outside location, which is in Bidborough.

There are many stain glass windows, which helped with the lighting in the earlier filming.

This is a statue we were hoping to use in a montage.

This is our establishing shot of the inside of the church.

This is our main prop. It is a secondary alter, we used this to show the amulet/neclace, inside the bible.

 

Group: March 9th

Today we have allocated ourselves to these tasks:

• Josh is Editing - Part 1 of our Opening on Premier
• Ben is Developing and Editing the Title and Credits, using our chosen Fonts, also on Premier.
• I (Michael) have been working on a draft for the soundtrack on CuBase 4 in the music department.

The music I have been attempting to re-create is similar to that of this video. It will use almost identicle instruments, however it will sound more eerie, and will be fully edited and timed after the final thriller video has been made.

Group: Title Name Ideas

We have a few ideas of titles such as:

• A norse name related to death or the paranormal. We have searched on these web-pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Norse_paganism
• A greek god, for example "Hades" as he is god of the underworld. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades
• A sumarian phrase, as it is known as a dead language and is often related to the devil. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~piotrm/DIGLOS~1.htm
• A title revolving around "Necromancy" has also been favoured. As it is a mystical, and often evil form of sorcery or magic.

During the weekend we shall post clearer ideas for our opening, using Premier.

Group: The 8th of March - Filming (Part 1)

On Thursday the 8th of March our group completed the first part to our horror thriller film.

We filmed in Bidborough on a sunny evening, around 5:30pm. The lighting was ideal, and with the extra camera equipment including the Dolly and the Track we filmed a very smooth scene with the track. In this scene the two protagonists are walking down a path to the church with the gravestones obstructing the view every second as the dolly glides along the track. We are planning to use this as a way of introducing cast names and the title of the film.

We experimented with a few different camera angles such as High Angles, Canted Angles, Following Pans and Mids shots. These shots have been rather successful.

After a successful shoot we have about 10 minutes of accumulated footage to be edited on Friday the 9th of March. The second half of our shooting will resume in Salehurst on the 11th of March, from 6pm until 7pm. These scene will be shot inside the church and will be the final part to our horror opening.

We are hoping to complete the editing by Friday the 16th, ready to evaluate our task for the last week. Currently our plan is on course.

Group: 7th March Lesson

Today in the lesson:

•  Michael posted a blog about the titles and fonts  are going to consider using.
• Josh started editing the lost footage of our Wilderness Woods piece. Our D-drive had been erased, so he was helping the group by redo-ing it.
• Ben has been editing our Thriller opening sequence. We have chosen a black and white tone to the footage, as well as large blackouts between the different shots. This gives an undefined effect or uncomfort.

Group: Title Examples



We are planning on using a Gothic title font. Here are a few of our ideas:



This one is slightly more Germanic than English. Apparenly used in the 13th and 14th Century.



This is our favorite so far. The faded effect makes the writing look older, and slightly creepy.

This is also a good Gothic title, however the individual letters are tallers than they are wide, and therefore may not make a good title.

This is one of our first choices and quite a good font too. It is far more medival than the other fonts and also looks aged with the extra little details and specs by the letters. We may use this in our final edit.

All of our fonts for our title have been from the website http://www.dafont.com/. The title for our film is still undecided. Ideas will be posted later in the week after recording has taken place.

Effects:

We have a recurring idea whereby the casts names will appear between the opening scene of the playground. A black background with actor names in the corners. It will be slightly shakey, which contrasts to the still framed shots of the playground. The title will appear after the 2nd protagonist gets killed.



MS: Ideas for Discordant Music

I have had a few ideas for soundtracks and music. The Steve Hackett track that I posted earlier has a good circus theme reference in it, this can depict dissyness and illusion from the protagonists point of view after fainting.

I however have done more research on soundtracks to take inspiration from. The first song is by Harry Partch and experimental musician and instrument maker:

The second song is by John Cage who is also prolific for his experimental and discordant musical style (music starts around 5:04):

I am planning on making my own soundtrack, taking these artists as inspiration. However I cannot guarentee to please the audience as well as these artists do. I am aiming to complete the soundtrack to the thriller opening once our final edit has been made.

Group: (5th March) When we are going to film:

We have talked about filming the outside of Bidborough church during this week, due to misunderstadnings during last weekend (Sunday the 4th of March) and therefore we shall complete our first scene within this school week.

We have the inside of St Mary the Virgin's church booked for the upcoming Sunday (11th of March) from 6pm until 7pm. We hope to finish our entire opening sequence by this upcoming Sunday. Gaining the last 2 weeks of our deadline to edit and evaluate our Thriller opening.

We are each taking turns to star in the opening sequence as well as using the camera, for filming, and editing our final piece on the "Premier" software on our school computers.

Additional Notes:

We have since decided to make our opening sequence in Black & White to add a thriller effect. We will film in colour and edit the colours on Premier, this way we can keep the colour of the candle-light and also keep the blood on the knife/weapon as being a bright red.

MS: Technical Analysis

The Hills Have Eyes (Aja, 2006)

1.

Camera technique and Mise-en-scene	Duration of shot
Information about Nuclear tests	5 seconds
Establishing Shot	1 seconds
Panning Right & Down	12 seconds
Following Pan	5 seconds
Low angle of scientist	3 seconds
Extreme Long Shot	2 seconds
Over the Shoulder (Scanning the ground)	5 seconds
Through the Goggles	6 seconds
High Angle ("Help me...")	3 seconds
Shot reverse/shot (Axe through head)	2 seconds
Low angle	1 seconds
Two shot/Three Shot (death of workers)	8 seconds
Low angle/Canted angle	2 seconds
Crabbing Left	2 seconds
Following Pan (guy on the axe)	3 seconds
Mid shot (Guy climbing the up hill)	3 seconds

 Pan up (back of car)             6 Seconds

2. The use of soundtrack is very important. From what I can identify there are 2 layers of sound. There is live sound (mostly recorded on a boom) and studio sound (soundtrack). The soundtrack creates enigma as it increases in volume gradually until the mutant is scene, whereby shouts and loud live sounds are seen and heard.

3. What I learned from the opening sequence is the extreme amounts of jump cuts and motivated cuts are reinforced by the music to create a horrific opening. Enigma is reinforced by the soundtrack and tension from the live dialogue and metal scanner. It is important that a thriller film contains these elements as it grips the audiences and makes them suspect that the worst is about to happen, despite not knowing how or when.

Group: Animatics

This is the video for our Group's animatics. We have an alternative ending due not knowing whether or not the Organ in the church can be used. Animatics and Editing by (Myself) Michael Steadman.

Group: Music for Wilderness Wood

We had an idea for the Wilderness Wood video that we would add a sountrack before we publish the final piece. The soundtrack will the chorus of a song called "The Chase Is On" by Hoodie Allen, as it suggests someone is following our protagonist. I shall edit the song by cropping the chorus and then editing the sound to make it sound distant and eerie, the software I will be using is "CuBase" which is available from the computers in the music department.

Once this soundtrack is finished we can publish our video as soon as possible.