Evaluation task 7

Before doing the preliminary task neither of us had any experience in the whole filming and editing process so we used it as an opportunity to learn the basics. During the preliminary task we had to use three key techniques including, the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action. When filming we were very focused on these meaning that the clip did not flow aswell as it could have done. We used match on action to show Hannah walking through a door, we used a close up on this as we thought it clearly represented the action to the audience. We also filmed a conversation twice using shot reverse shot and then using Adobe edited to make it appear as if they were having a conversation. Although this was effective in our preliminary task we decided not to include this type of conversation in our final opening as we believed a phone call conversation would have been more effective. Using Adobe to edit the preliminary task allowed us to learn the basic skills of cutting and cropping clips together that we could then put towards editing in the future. While editing we could just play around with different transitions etc to see what effect they created, this made it easier when we were editing the hood.  When filming the preliminary task we were very conscious of the 180 degree rule as we didn't want to break the line of continuity. As we had used this rule we were more aware of this when filmed our final piece as we wanted to make it appear as professional as possible. However in the preliminary task there was a few messy jump cuts which broke the rapport with the viewer, from this we learned to do much shorter jump cuts and not cut large distances in between shots. We were able to experiment with different shot types and see the effect they create, this allowed us to take ideas on what shots we wanted to include in our opening to create the horror effect. Our preliminary task allowed us in the planning process because we were able to look back on what things worked and what didn't. We felt like our preliminary task was planned very briefly as it set at the start of lesson and we had to have filmed it by the end and upload footage onto our computer so planning it was very quick but with our film we were able to plan the dialogue

Evaulation task 6

The camera we used was the school camera which although was a simple little camera the quality was goo enough for us to be able to film our final opening two minutes on. Despite the camera being of a high enough quality for the purpose when moving onto next year we would film on our own camera this is due to two different reasons. One, it was very difficult to film during much darker lighting as the camera would not pick up much of the movement. This made it difficult for us to use the lighting we had originally planned to use and instead had to film it in a brighter natural lighting, which is not conventional of horror films. Second being that the sound quality was not great on the camera. Although this was not a major issue it did take up more time than we originally thought as we had to re film some of the sound and then edit it in over the footage.


The editing software we used was Adobe premier elements, this was because it was simple and easy to use but still effective at editing our footage together. Adobe allowed us to manipulate different shots with tools including cut, transitions and crop while also allowing us to alter the pace of the shots. In horror films one of the conventions is that it will be very fast paced and this software allowed us to do that. This software also allowed us to add titles to our opening making it appear more professional and have the properties of a real film. As we had a great success with this software this time we have decided that we will also use it when editing next year.


Blogger allowed us to easily post all the research and planning and follow the process we followed as a group in order to end up with our final opening two minutes. An advantage of blogger is that you are able to customise it and change the designs and templates making it more personal to you. The features on blogger allow people within the same group to have individual pages that represents themselves. Also now looking back at previous posts it is clearly displayed so we can follow the journey all over again.


Youtube was very useful throughout the journey as it is very easy to upload and access other peoples videos. As it is one of the most popular video websites there is millions of videos for people to watch in order to get inspiration from other peoples work. It allowed work within the group to be easily  transferred to the other group member and also allowed us to gain a better understanding of how it all work. For example it allowed us to annotate our opening with the annotation tool on Youtube which I was previously unaware of.

Evaluation task 5

Evaluation task 4

Our target audience is typically 15+ however films of this genre tend to become less popular in people aged 30+. However the type of film would differ depending on what gender you were targeting, horror films tend to be more popular with males. From the researcher and planning stage we realised that we would want to create a horror film and these films are usually rated either a 15 or an 18. Horror films are not typically rated a 12 as the events may be distressing for someone of this age. Ours only involved a small amount of violence hence why it was only a 15, this enabled us to realise that the lower end of our target audience would be 15. Also the majority of people that go to the cinema to watch films of this genre are between the ages of 15 and 25.

 Females of the age of 15 tend to be more into popular culture and enjoy things that the majority of people also enjoy. This would mean they would shop in shops like Topshop, Jack Wills and Urban Outfitters aswell as cheaper alternatives like primark and h&m. At the age of 15 pop music is very popular with artists like Taylor Swift and Rihanna being very popular. These sort of people tend to be more into romantic comedies. However when they get slightly older like 17 their interests change and they tend to be more interested in horror films and thrillers, so we targeted this age range to our audience. However boys between the ages of 15 and 20 are more interested into crime and horror films because of games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. This meant that we targeted our opening to males rather than females as its more appealing for them.


We used the result from our questionnaires in order to try and appeal our opening to people of the ages between 15 and 25. In our questionnaire we asked people of different ages and genders to allow us to incorporate characteristics that appeal to them all. Many people liked the idea of a female lead as it made it more relatable for girls so they put themselves in their shoes. We wanted the story to be based around the stalking nature of the antagonist helping to build tension and this was also popular choice for people in targeted age range. However next time I think we could have made sure the situation that was occurring was also relatable for people so the atmosphere was more tense, because although people could relate to the characters they may be unaware of the situation that is unfolding. The film can be watch by anyone over 15,as nowadays people are into detective films or TV dramas like 'silent witness' and 'Walking Dead' and they create fan fictions. We can tell who likes these sort of films as they like dark colours and are linked to heavy music they are stereotypical who would watch horror films, but anyone can watch this with different stereotypes.

Evaluation task 3

Discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies
What does a production company do? 
At the start of the opening the production credits our introduced whom are distributers of the film, we created 'Lion Productions' and  'Wave Films' and because we created them ourselves they become associated with our film. The role of the production company is too help make them film and the budget involved with making the whole film. They would also help script the film, cast the characters and scheduling the film from start to end . The logo we used is a lion and a wave which links in with the name and make it more rememberable to the viewer and they are able to recognise it in the future.

The idea of a distributor and who that might be and why? 
A distributor is responsible for marketing the film and setting the release date and where the film is able to be viewed by the public. This film release does not only mean in cinemas but also on things like DVD, Netflixs and love film as the cinema is becoming increasing less popular.

Where the money might have come from for a film such as yours
The money for the film will be funded by the UK film council and will help plan the budget for each area of the film. Also the budget would be calculated based on how much money is received from the producers and distributors, for example if a large producers like WarnerBros is used then the budget is likely to be a lot higher than if Working Title were producing a film.
Why the various people are named in the titles- which jobs appear in titles and in what order and how have you reflected this?
Various people are named in the titles purely because they have distributed the film and this should be credited in the film. Also the key actors were named in the film because if you had a very famous cast it may encourage people to watch the whole film as they recognise some of the people in it. The names in the opening should appear in the order of who had the largest involvement in the opening. For example the people in charge of story boarding tend to appear later than the camera man.
What your film is similar to 'institutionally' 
The plot of our film is similar to The Ring which includes a young girl alone in her house, and danger occurs when an antagonist grabs her and attacks her. This is similar because in our film a young girl is by herself in a isolated surrounding and gets attacked. The film is distributed by Universal studios and Dream work Studios which leads to the financial success of the film. However our film is more similar to Working title as this is a much smaller British production company.

Evaluation task 2

Our opening two minutes conforms to the stereotypes of young girls, which is conventional of horror films. The girl in our film is portrayed as vulnerable and alone which follows the stereotype of them being innocent. 
We compared our main character to the girl in the film 'The Ring' which also has a young girl who is stereotypically portrayed. This girl is also represented as young, vulnerable and innocent making the audience pity her when the antagonist eventually kills her. We decided we also wanted to show our main character in a similar way as 'The Ring' is a very successful horror film. Both characters are shown in this light by the use of close ups. The close ups highlight their facial expressions therefore showing to the audience how they feel intimidated in the situation. Both of the characters in the films are very similar and conform to the stereotype, we can easily compare them as they film has very similar plots and isolated locations.
However in the film 'Scream' the main character is also portrayed as vulnerable and innocent but different locations are used. As our opening was filmed outside the protagonist had a big coat on making her appear less vulnerable as the main character in scream is just in a white jumper, which connotes innocence. This is something we can learn for next time as we could use the costumes to further follow the stereotypes.

Evaluation task 1

The title of our film was 'The Hood' we decided to call it this as the antagonist in our opening is wearing a hood so the viewer is unaware of their identity. During our research we noticed that many other horror films have short snappy names that do not reveal much about the plot of the films, so we decided to stick with this idea. Examples of this include 'The Conjuring', 'The Exorcist' and 'Annabelle'. The bold font is quite typical of horror film openings however the pattern we decided to fill with the words with are more typical of older horror films. In more modern films they tend to use a bold white text or something very plain when we decided to use more of a blood splattered effect which was more common in older horror films. The title of our films appears at the end of our opening two minutes to make sure the title is imprinted on the viewers mind making them want to watch more.

In our opening two minutes we included two locations, one being the woods and the other being a house. The use of the woods is very conventional of horror films as it connotes danger. Also as in the woods you are very isolated meaning their is no one around to help if anything was too happen. The second location we used was in a house for a phone call that took place between two of our characters. Also by including the train track in our opening two minutes it connoted danger to the audience which is also conventional of a horror film. Filming in the woods had its difficulties because it is a public place we had to make sure we were not in any ones way, also as we filmed in the natural lighting it made it difficult to film in the lighting we would have hoped for. Originally we wanted to film in a more low key lighting but after the first day of filming we released this would not be possible. As the location was key for our genre we wanted to make sure we used long shots to highlight this to the viewer. This is also conventional of horror films as they usually incorporate establishing shot to create the eary atmosphere expected in horror films.

 

The costumes for our protagonist were very simple and standard for someone of that age, we did this as we did not want the viewer to pay too much attention to them. This is not portrayed in all horror films as sometimes they are dressed more childish in order to make the viewer feel pity for them as they may be helpless and unable to care for themselves. The majority of horror films portray the protagonist as normal and vulnerable which is what we wanted to stick with. By using normal clothing it makes the opening seem more realistic. The protagonist was wearing a grey jumper which would connote innocence, this is contrasted by the dark clothing worn by the antagonist. Our antagonist was dressed in dark clothing so you were unable to see their face, we did this because we didn't want to reveal their identity to the audience therefore building tension. We decided to not change the identity by putting a mask on them as we still wanted the viewer to be able to relate to the situation. This helped to build tension and portray the genre of horror. The dark clothing and hidden identity of our antagonist is conventional of horror films as the mise on scene plays an important role in highlighting the genre.

In our opening two minutes the main props we included were a knife, a scarf and fake blood. Fake blood follows the conventions of all horror films as its can be found in the majority of them. Without the use of fake blood it makes it difficult to portray the genre and to create tension hence why we included it. However we could have gone into a lot more detail with the make up in order to make it more realistic. If we decide to incorporate make up into our media next year we would carefully plan how we were going to do it rather than making a last minute decision to use it. The knife was one of the key props in our opening two minutes, which is portrayed by the use of several close ups on it. Although a knife is not directly conventional to horror films a weapon of some sort is usually included in some way. We decided to use a knife as its a more relatable object as its something everyone has at home, making it scarier for the viewer. Using a knife had it difficulties because we filmed in a public places we had to be careful that people wouldn't be concerned about what we were doing. Despite it having its difficulties we believe it helped to add tension and create the desired atmosphere. The scarf was just used so the viewer had something to recognise when it was discovered later on in the opening, we put some of the fake blood on it helping to build the tension. This would also follow the conventions of horror films as their is usually a item that the audience can pair with the protagonist making them feel pity towards them.

In our opening two minutes we tried to include a variety of different shots that are conventional of horror films. We open our opening two minutes with an establishing shot to introduce our main character and the setting, the woods. As the camera begins to follow the main character it creates the effect as if she is being stalked/watched thus building tension. The name of our institution can also be seen written on the bottom of the shot displaying to the audience the production company we designed.  We faded in and out these words so the tension of the shot was not disturbed by anything drawing away the audiences attention. Also we used white as the colour of the font to make it more sinister contrasting to the usual connotations of white being innocence and peace. The fading in of the non-diegetic music also helps to build tension within the opening and works well with this establishing shot. Throughout the opening we used lots of different close up shots to portray key aspects of the opening to the audience. An example of the close ups include over the shoulder of a phone and of the knife. By including multiple different close up shots we follow the conventions of horror as close ups are often used in lots of successful horror films as it helps to build tension. Another shot we used in our opening was a high angle long shot of the antagonist walking away from the killing. We decided to use a high shot as it highlights the location and portrays the body language of the antagonist and how they are unaffected by what is happening. The high angle shot allowed the audience to feel as if they were looking down on the situation and playing god almost. On the other hand next time we think we could have included a low angle shot to make the antagonist seem more superior and intimidating.

Our opening starts with the establishing shot so immediately the viewer is introduced to the location and the main character. We decided to introduce the character straight away so that the viewer doesn't suspect what is going to happen, they notice the girl is vulnerable and alone. To improve on this we would include more shots of the location and the protagonist before the antagonist was introduced. This is conventional of horror films as it gives the audience time to think about what is going to happen.

The genre of horror is portrayed from the start of our opening, especially through the location choice. Using the backing music from the start of our opening also helps to portray the genre of horror, as non-diegetic music is also a convention of horror films. Once the antagonist is introduced it becomes obvious to the audience what the genre is and also the use of the inception thuds when the antagonist is revealed. Someone being followed/chased and killed is a common theme in horror films so we decided to stick with this idea to portray the genre.

The first character to be introduced in our opening is our protagonist, the reason she is first to be introduced is because we wanted the audience to be able to relate to her which they are only able to do if she's on screen. As the audience do not yet know the plot of the film they can tell that something bad is about to happen because there is a young girl alone in the woods, normally suggesting horror film.

The second character to be introduced is the antagonist who is the person stalking and eventually killing the protagonist. This is conventional to horror films as the antagonist is usually introduced second so the viewer can piece together in their head what they suspect is going to happen.

The third character to be introduced is the protagonists mum, we decided to included her to make the situation more relatable for people and they think about what the effect of this is. This character is also given prevalence, shown last on screen, this is so the audience feel pity for them. This challenges the conventions of horror films because the viewer is not normally shown what happens after someone is killed and the effect it has on other people.

The only special effect we incorporate in our opening was the use of a time lapse. The time lapse was of a sun setting and we used this to represent the passing of time. We were unsure of how we would portray that time had past apart from this but this was quite a rush decision. Next time we would make sure that we carefully planned each shot before filming/editing because the time lapse did look slightly out of place.

Class Feedback

From this we received both positive and constructive feedback from our peer group. Some of the feedback we received was on our sound, including the non-diegetic booms as it created tension, However the sound from the train could have been removed as it made it more comical when the genre was meant to be horror. In the area of mise-en-scene people like our choice of costume for the antagonist as it made helped portray the genre and further build tension. However some people believed to create further tension we could have kept it all in our main location, the woods, as this would help to build the required atmosphere. With the use of camera shots people enjoy the use of several close ups to show the key aspects. If we were to film our opening again we would have increased the pace of our jump cuts as in places it appeared a bit slow pace for a horror film. The feedback was very useful and will come in handy when we redo it.

Evaluation Presentation

Evaluation Feedback

Caitlin, for a student of your capability and intelligence, responding to your production in a well considered and evaluative way should be a straightforward and rewarding challenge - so complete the tasks to the standard I have grown to expect from you.

In your responses to your final production make sure you are clearly referring to choices and outcomes in an evaluative way - make sure you are addressing the areas outlined by me below:

What did you do? Explain a transition or effect you opted for in the editing process.  What effect did you achieve?  Explain how the choice you made was intended to make the target audience think or feel.  How does this show progression in your use of skills? Explain how this is better than your AS production's outcomes by linking to what you did in your portfolio last year.

These choices are really important for you to reflect on to show you fully understand how you have developed your skills - and make sure you evaluate the comments made by the test audience (the class) using specialist terminology.

We do not have long until the deadline, Easter Monday, for this final stage of your portfolio - so make sure you are pushing yourself and achieving the marks your efforts this year deserve!

The Hood Opening two minutes

Pre-filming diary

Before filming we had to do several make up attempts. On the first day of filming we had planned extra time in order to complete the make up to the best of our ability. For Hannah's make up we used a combination of Vaseline and flour, mixed it together and applied it to her neck. Once allowed to dry I put foundation matching Hannah's skin tone so the cut would look realistic. I used a cocktail stick to make a slit like a real cut and applied fake blood. If we had more time we would have liked to include some shading around the cut to look like bruising and therefore look more realistic. Although we only used very basic technique it worked effectively for what we wanted to achieve.

We also did some make up on Chloe in order for her to appear older, as she plays Hannah's mum in the opening two minutes. If we had a larger budget we would have liked to have used a more complex technique of creating wrinkles. As Chloe did not have prevalence it didn't matter that her make up was not up to a high standard.

Production credits

Influence of Production

Location

The majority of horror films are set in quiet locations where there is not many other things going on, this may be an abandoned house or in our case a woodland. A film that inspired us to use this location was 'The Cabin in the Woods' this film also uses a woodland for its location and targets the same target audience as us. We felt that by watching the film we got ideas of how to target a male dominate audience. Also the location of 'The Conjuring' made us consider the time of day to film and what weather conditions we wanted. On the front cover of the film there is a thick fog which is only slightly revealing the house behind it. Although we didn't film in the fog, as it would have been too unpredictable, we did film part of our opening the dark/dusk to see the different effects that it would create.

The costumes of our actors were not influenced by a specific film, in many films within this genre the antagonist is kept as a mystery in dark clothing with their face covered. An example of this can be seen in the film 'Scream' the antagonist is covered in order to hide their identity and thus building the tension. We wanted our victim to see more vulnerable and innocent hence why Hannah was dressed in light clothing. In our opening we intended to give the antagonist the most prevalence in order to build the tension.




When we were planning our opening, as a group, we discussed multiple different locations which we both agreed should be in a remote place where there is no people/cars around. This sort of location helps to build tension as it presents a fear of the unknown. If the victim dies in this location no one would be aware for a long time.
The characters we included are very stereotypical as the girl is very young and innocent but finds herself in a difficult situation, this is inspired by multiple different films.

Filming diary

Friday 18th December (arrived at 2.30pm left at 4.30pm)
The first day we went to the woods we went for walk through it just to get a feel for the woods and find the most appropriate place to start filming. We went to the woods straight after school but by the time we had done Hannah's make up it was about 2.30pm. During filming, as we were in a public place, we had to make sure that there were no people around, making it more difficult to film.  We included shot reverse shot during the head turning which also took a few attempts as we were cautious of the 180 Degree Rule. The reason we stopped filming at 4.30pm was because of the change in lighting and would have been too dark to continue.


Wednesday 23th December (arrived at 4.30pm left at 5.00pm)
Due to other factors, we did not arrive at the woods as early as we had originally intended to, resulting in it being too dark to film anything. Although we did not film any footage we decided to use this opportunity to discuss when we would next be filming in order to have the correct lighting.


Monday 4th January (arrived at 3.30pm left at 4.30pm)
As the second part of our opening two minutes we wanted the lighting to be noticeably darker to allow the audience to work out that time had passed, we arrived later. When we got there we had the correct lighting but had to be very quick when filming as it started to get dark quick. We experimented with several high and low shots to see which one would create the best effect. Also we filmed several different sounds to edit over the on top of our opening, like birds etc.


Wednesday 20th January (arrived at 3.00pm left at 3.45pm)
After editing we realised that there was several shots that we should had included in order for it to make more sense. When the antagonist had killed Hannah we thought there should be a shot of the antagonist walking away and leaving the body which we had not previously filmed. Also we filmed a tracking shot of some feet walking as we were intending to include it in our opening.

Storyboard

Interview with characters

Transcript

walking though the woods listening to music 

stops to texts her mum to say she'll be home in 10

carries on walking 

looks at watch

antagonists grabs her 


[SCREAM]

Antagonist slits her throat, disposes of the knife and walks away.

dissolves into the next scene

Mum picks up the phone

Chloe: (shaky upset voice) 'Hi, have you heard from hannah?' 

Friend: 'No sorry Chlo, why?'

Chloe: 'She texted me two hours ago saying she will be home in ten minutes and I'm really quite worried'

Friend: 'Okay I'll be right over and we will go looking for her'

door bell rings 

answers the door crying

Walks into the woods

comes across a scarf with blood on it.

Mum- this is Hannah's (crying)

Camera pans from the mum cradling the scarf up, when the viewer can see a dark silhouette of the antagonist standing in the woods.

Consideration of Stereotyping

We decided to work on the idea of the 'damsel in distress' in order to make the audience feel sorry and pity for Hannah. Also as just under half of the people interested in the film are female they could relate to the situation. They may relate to feeling unsafe when walking home and the feeling of helplessness if anything was to happen. Also as Hannah is of a young age it appeals more to our target audience as they will also be in the young adults category. This is very stereotypical of a female in a horror film as we tend to think of them as the ones getting into danger and needing help.

Typically the antagonist is a large strong man but we wanted to subvert to this and use an ordinary person who could be anyone. We wanted to illustrate that anyone could be the antagonist because there is a dark side to everyone. Although we didn't use a man as the antagonist we still used someone taller and stronger than Hannah so the opening stayed realistic. With the other two characters we tried to convey the concern and upset that any mother feel if her daughter had not returned home. We wanted her to appear visually upset to the audience but this was difficult to achieve while filming. This is very stereotypical of mothers in films as they are portrayed as the ones who worry for no reason but in this case there was a reason.

In the majority of horror films, especially older ones, it will always be a female who gets into a situation where they shouldn't be and inevitably ends up getting themselves killed, so we wanted to stick to this idea.

Soundtrack reasearch

Non-copy right music
This is when you can use the track on your own openings without having to get permission from anyone to do so. You can find copy right music on the internet but is more difficult to access. In our opening two minutes we will use non-copyright music so we don't have to get permission.


Copyright music
This is when a track or piece of music is owned by a person/company it would be illegal to use this music without their permission. In independent film making you tend to avoid the use of copyright music as it can be expensive. We will not use copyright music in our opening two minutes and will research different types of non-copyright music in order to create the scary atmosphere.


Diegetic sound
 This is when the viewer can see the source of where the music is coming from on screen (the sound is visible to them) For example dialogue would be diegetic sound as you can see the person that is speaking.


Non-diegetic sound
This is when the sound that the viewer can hear does not have an on screen source. In other words the characters can not hear this sound. For example a voice over or a sound track playing over the top would be non-diegetic sound.


In our opening two minutes we intend to use a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound will be the noise of a text message sending, heavy breathing and a conversation between the mother and her friend. However, when the scene becomes more tense we will use a sound track over the top of it in order to create a much more tense environment making it more scary. Non-diegetic sound tracks are commonly used over the top of horror films as it makes the film much scarier for the audience, without the use of non-diegetic sound the film would not be as scary. An example of this is 'Drag me to Hell' which starts the film with spooky music playing.

Result of questonnaire

From the result of our questionnaire we gathered many key ideas for our opening two minutes. We were un-sure on what location and props to use but used the results to gather that it should be set in a woods and the main props should be blood and a knife. Also from doing the questionnaire we were able to see that they majority of the age range that is interested in chosen genre is 16-20 year olds allowing us to adjust the theme for them.