BW: Evaluation question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?

To put it simply, I have learnt many things in what was simply a fun and interesting experience. I have learnt how to use equipment such as tripods and tracks and dollies, I have learnt how to use the editing software ‘Adobe Premier Elements 9.0’, I’ve learnt to make use of technical things such as framing and lighting, and also about creating and maintaining a blog on the internet.


The internet played a big role in our coursework. The blogging was a collaborative group task, although it did involve each member of the group making individual posts when required. Our blog was used to illustrate the project being moved along so it included updates on the progress of the project as well as analysis of films that we could draw inspiration from, be it for the actual idea or for certain shots or transitions. As I’ve said the blog was maintained to show the progression of the project and an example of this is the location recce for our group’s horror opening. Putting the location recce on the blog simply helps to show the steps taken by the group and how we’re going to move on to the next step. It’s the group’s collaboration on the blog that has helped each group member with the production and post-production and even with answering these evaluation questions.

A screenshot showing individual and group posts,
this illustrates how we worked collaboratively on the blog

Other websites we used were Survey Monkey, YouTube, and Prezi. We used Survey Monkey as part of our audience research which we including when pitching our idea to the class. YouTube was used countless times for referring to, and taking ideas from, other films. We also used YouTube as the method to get our film opening and preliminary task online, and also as the link we posted on Blogger. Prezi enabled us to create zooming presentations that are easily accessible online. We used Prezi to respond to questions 4 and 5.

When filming our work we had with us at all times a tripod and obviously the essential handheld camera. The tripod was mainly used to keep the camera steady so the shots are of a higher quality but the tripod’s useful ability to tilt came in handy for some shots. Another somewhat unusual and random use of the tripod was for a high angle shot of ours. To make this we simply put the tripod on top of a dustbin. Odd, yes, but it showed the perseverance and adaptability that our group had when it came to using the equipment to get a high class shot. When filming the outdoors part of our film opening we effectively used the natural lighting to create what has been called our ‘A grade shot’. This shot features two gravestones but it is the grey sky that provides the perfect backdrop to make this shot what it is. We used the track and dolly to film the characters as they walk towards the church coming in and out of view behind the gravestones. For that same shot we intentionally made use of the rule of thirds because as the camera tracks the characters movement, as they pass each gravestone they move along to the next third of the picture. The 180 rule was of course used as a general rule of filming. The things talked about here taught me about how to make best use of your surroundings and the light. 

This shot has been called our 'A grade shot'

A problem that arose during filming was when we were shooting the indoors part of our opening inside Salehurst Church. We began filming in the afternoon but darkness crept in much faster than we anticipated. To combat this we lit a load of candles which actually turned out to work rather well with our opening because the soft glow of candlelight provided more opportunities for some nice shots and it also made the place really atmospheric. One opportunistic shot that we used was to shoot the candles out of focus, making it look blurry. A problem which we overcame not during shooting, but during post-production, was how the lighting conditions changed during outdoor filming. We simply added the tint effect using ‘Adobe Premier Elements 9.0’ to counteract the changing levels of light as the evening moved on.

Candles shot out of focus making the picture look blurry

As previously mentioned we edited our film opening on a computer using ‘Adobe Premier Elements 9.0’. Amongst the types of transitions used were, dip to black, dip to white, dissolve and soft glow. Among the many things I learnt about the editing software was how to slow the movement of the image. This came in handy when adding text for our titles. When adding text you find on the timeline where you want to add the text then click the text button and type it in. I’ve also learnt on Adobe how to add and alter sound. A group member, Michael, used a type of music software called CuBase. By being able to alter the sound we could change the placement of certain parts of the soundtrack, e.g. the bang of a drum, onto another part of the timeline to fit in with our footage. We were also able to adjust the volume of the music accordingly in order to give us control over the level of tension generated. 

This picture shows one of our uses of the ‘dip to white’ transition

Our production process is similar to real film production on the most basic level. That is, the crew simply goes to the location or studio and films whatever needs to be filmed there. However looking deeper into the filmmaking process, real film production becomes a lot more different than our production process. Although our group had taken a location recce in order to give us some ideas for shots, a real camera crew and director would also have a screenplay to work by instead of having to think up most shots on the spot. The pre-production part in real filmmaking is a lot more complex too as it involves countless meetings and much more planning first – and a serious idea. However our editing process was very much alike real film production as it involved a lot of tedious work making sure to cut at the right moment, down to the last millisecond, as well as many hours working on editing.



This is how we added titles to our opening sequence using the gravestones



This is a screenshot of 'Adobe Premier Elements 9.0'



Group: Evaluation Questions 4 & 5

• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• Here is our Prezi document that we made to answer the evaluation questions 4 and 5.

Copy of Questions 4 & 5, Group 12 on Prezi

BW: Evaluation question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film opening is perhaps the most independent and amateur media product you could get, so the only companies that would produce and distribute our media product would be small, independent UK companies such as Vertigo Films or Momentum Pictures. This would mean that we would have a very small budget. 

http://www.vertigofilms.com/home.php                                     

http://www.momentumpictures.co.uk/

Only these types of institutions would distribute our film because seeing as the members of our group are completely unknown in the business, distributing our film would be far too risky for the major studios. The risk concerning our group’s lack of fame is that one of the main weapons in a distributor’s arsenal when it comes to marketing is to use famous and acclaimed actors and directors to appeal to a mass audience. Since our group has none of that, we are high risk for distributors. Although Vertigo Films might be more open to our group because part of the company's ethos is to help develop British talent and to show off British independent cinema to the world. 

After we had finished filming and editing the distributors would begin advertising the film. This would mean hosting a test screening for a sample of our target audience, and drawing upon the feedback from that in order to create an effective trailer and advertise the film in the most appealing way to that target audience. Our research of our target audience demographic would mean that we would know the best places to advertise to them, so for example, due to our low budget we would use viral marketing on social networking sites such as Facebook - where we could create a fan page for free. Another reason we would use viral marketing is because our niche audience (the core horror audience of males from 15-24 years old) are some of the major users of social networking sites. 

Facebook logo

Twitter logo

Part of distribution includes selling to exhibitors and again due to our media product’s status as a low budget independent production it wouldn't be distributed to multiplexes and shown by major exhibitors such as Odeon, Cineworld, or Vue where the mainstream audience goes. Instead it would be distributed to and screened in art-house cinemas like Curzon, accommodating for the target audience of horror fans who are much more likely to go to an art-house cinema than mainstream audiences. So we wouldn't be looking at a blanket release. 


We may also submit our film to a film festival such as Cannes, Toronto, or Venice. If our film is successful at a film festival it will provide new opportunities to base our marketing campaign on. 

Vue cinemas logo.
A major exhibitor.

The logo for the Cannes Film Festival

BW: Evaluation question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The first step in answering this question is to identify what social groups appear in our group's opening sequence. The only social group that is featured in our opening sequence are white, middle-class, 17 year old boys.


Our film opening constructs neither a positive nor a negative representation of the social group that appears in our film opening. This is because our characters are not really seen doing anything that would warrant them being seen in a positive light or a negative light. Although seeing as they're not causing any damage or harming anyone, if i had to I would say that they are being portrayed positively. I wouldn't say that there is any particular gender role, male or female, that is featured within our film opening but our characters are seen to be conforming to social norms in terms of their fashion. In our opening the characters are wearing the sort of mainstream clothes you would expect from teenagers.


Our film opening could be interpreted as to represent teenage boys as very confident because the non-verbal language of our characters is overtly casual and over confident when walking towards the church, which could possibly be interpreted as arrogance. The confidence is again shown when Michael says "I knew there was another way in" without any hesitation.


A common ideology among British youths these days - one that has been constructed by its portrayal in films and TV shows - is gang culture. Gang culture places a lot of emphasis on being 'hard' and is common in the inner cities. But it has spread out throughout the country into British towns and so you have youths in places like Tonbridge imitating gang culture and acting 'hard'. The very casual way in which our characters walk in our opening sequence shows them imitating gang culture by acting 'hard', with their body language displaying an attitude that nothing around can really harm them. The actions of our characters here simply reinforce the ideological discourse among British youths that gang culture is cool.

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

In my opinion our group's film opening conforms and uses many of the conventions of a horror film and doesn’t really challenge those conventions in any proper way. One of the main conventions used concerns the location and the plot of our group’s opening. A lot of horror films are set in old buildings that usually have a dark past, and it is also iconic for horror films to feature something supernatural going on. What better place to exhibit the supernatural than at a place of religious worship - religion, of course, being strongly associated with the ‘spiritual world’). The plot of our horror opening again draws upon the supernatural theme as amongst the props is an enchanted, or possessed, object which turns out to be the catalyst for events. This object is a gargoyle pendant which helped the supernatural theme because gargoyles have historically been associated with spirits. 


The enchanted object

The mise-en-scene of our horror opening is also very conventional. For example the lighting outside the church is dark and dull, and the only source of light inside the church comes from candles. The candlelight makes our opening very atmospheric and also makes it rather gloomy. Horror films often work upon the fear that some people have which is the fear of the dark. People can get scared of the dark simply because they don’t know what’s ahead of them which makes them uncomfortable. Our opening offers low levels of light from the candles because we were hoping to create this sense of uncertainty as the audience doesn’t know what’s around the characters. The topic of people feeling scared because they can’t see what’s ahead of them brings me onto our title. The title of our opening is ‘The Unseen’ which, much more blatantly, suggests that our characters are unaware of what’s ahead of them and that there’s some hidden force working inside the building. This all explains how our opening uses more conventions of a horror film. 

"The Unseen"

Our characters’ costume was simply normal, everyday clothes. This displayed them as regular people, which again builds upon another convention that is, that horror films portray their characters as regular people in order to make the situation seem more real and possibly to show how everybody is vulnerable in some way or another. So our opening can be compared to the Amityville Horror (Douglas, 2006) where the audience sees how the antagonist, Ronnie, was a regular person as the film shows the audience pictures of him graduating for example. Then for the audience to see him as possessed really brings home the idea that everybody is vulnerable – shown in our opening when one of the characters becomes unconscious by holding the pendant.


Yet again another convention of horror films is used and this time it was for the soundtrack. Horror films commonly feature a constant sound that gradually builds up, creating tension, until the shocking thing happens that sets the course for the rest of the film. The same sort of thing happens in our opening as the soundtrack features a constant low bass drone, then whispers come in that continue building up the tension until the character falls victim to this dark object, at which point the whispers and the drone abruptly halts.

A final comparison to be made could be between our opening and the opening of Suspiria (Argento, 1977).  In the opening of Suspiria a flash of lightning reveals the shadow of a mysterious figure which creates enigma. Enigma is created in our opening as the camera slowly zooms in on the enchanted gargoyle pendant until it becomes blurry. The audience begins to wonder what is up with this object.


Overall it is difficult to think of ways in which our opening challenges conventions of the horror genre but I will say this: the non-verbal language of our characters is simply very casual as they stroll up to the church whereas in other horror films they would naturally be uneasy and on-edge. Another means by which our opening challenges conventions of horror films is that in a lot horror films, they will try to anchor the audience towards a young child as they are the most vulnerable and innocent of all (again using ‘The Amityville Horror’ as an example). They do this to create emotive feelings amongst the audience; however, in our opening no such attempt is made. 

Group: Final cut questionnaire

This is a copy of the questionnaire we created for audience feedback for the drama studio screening. 

Group 12 Questionnaire

Do you think any of these would have been a better location? (Please tick one)

Castle          (   )                        Woods                           (   )
Old house    (   )                        Abandoned building        (   )
School         (   )                        None of these                 (   )

Did you think the font was appropriate for the genre? (Please circle)

Yes / No

Did you think the sound track was effective in creating mood? (Please circle, 1 is low and 10 is high)

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Was the lighting useful to set the scene? (Please circle)

Yes / No

On a scale of 1-10 how effective was this film opening at conveying the common features of a horror/thriller film? (Please circle, 1 is low and 10 is high)

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Do you think the victim was a good choice of character? (Please explain why)

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What did you think of the location we used? (Please expand)

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How believable was the storyline? (Please leave feedback)

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What did you think could be improved? (Please leave feedback)

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What is the strongest aspect of this production? (Please leave feedback

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Group: Final Cut

On March the 23rd we made out final cut. We fitted the finished soundtrack to our piece and we edited the music to fit the video and vice-versa.

Here is a screenshot of our work on Premeire. In this screen shot Ben was adapting the shot by adding names and titles to each gravestone as the dolly passes them on the track and the boys walk past.