evaluation

final film 2

Question 7 from evaluation

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Since we filmed our preliminary task we have made many changes to our full sequence and have used many different tools in order to improve the film opening and make it better than our preliminary task. In our preliminary task we used many different camera angles such as over the shoulder shot, close up and pan, these shots were again used in our opening sequence. However in our preliminary task there was no music or sound added in and we decided thia must be included in our opening sequencve in order to heklp create a suitable atmosphere and to make our sequence more intriguing and realistic. The editing in our preliminary wasnt very good either as there were many continuity errors and thsi could get us a lower mark overall, so we worked hard on editing to make sure there were no errors and our clip made sense with scenes flowing better between each other. From our preliminary to our actual sequence we learnt how to manage our time better for example, in our preliminary we edited once we had all our footage whereas in our actual sequence we edited whilst we filmed each scenes as this gave us more time and helped us correct mistakes.

Question 6 for evaluation

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


Firstly, we learnt different camera techniques which helped us get better shots in our sequence, Such shots we used were over-shoulder-shot, pan and POV shot which was essential in our clip as it showed how the psycho teacher grabs hold of the dead student to lift him in the teachers' chair. During this scene, we used a fade in the background music being played which creates an eery mood and this fades out well when the camera pans over to the students. In an earlier scene when the first two students are walking in to the classroom, we had used another background music fade out as dialogue is used in this scene. We used Garageband to help the music blend in with the scene as the dialogue begun. Throughout this horror sequence of ours, we have leant in detail more about different technologies, such as; Final cut Pro for editing our sequence, Garageband for our background music that is played and the camera itself for when filming throughout.

Question 5 For Evaluation

How did you attract/address your audience?

Before we begun anything major for our short horror sequence, we had already planned that our audience were indeed a niche audience of school students to university students. One of the ways in which we attract our audience is through making our actors in the same age bracket as our audience so that they find it easy to relate to the characters' lifestyle and make it seem believable to the audience. We did this by dressing the school kid characters in school uniform and we shot it at The Windsor Boys' School and a majority of the filming took place in a class room as this makes the detention seem more realistic.

Another way of how we were able to address our audience is through again making the characters in the horror sequence have a similar demographics to divide people up to the targeted audience we have set out to. We have done this through targeting our horror clip at; the class E people, as the characters in the clip relate to the same class. 12-30 year olds, as most people in this age bracket are either school students, or even university students. Giving our genre ratio a 65:35 to men to women. It features a stereotypical argument between men and women since we have no female characters in our sequence, as we felt it would be more suitable for a psycho teacher to attack males.

Question 4 Of Media Evaluation

­­­Who would be the audience for my media product?

For our opening horror sequence, we established as a group that we are going to aim our product towards the age range between 12 – 30 year olds and also doing team research on the BBFC we decided to put a rating on our film as 12+ as it is a ‘young-teen-friendly’ horror as there is no foul language used or either any use of drugs, sexual abuse or gore in our horror sequence. Also another reason for giving an age range between12 – 30 year olds is to attract young school students as the characters in the sequence are wearing their school uniform, talking in slang and also has the general atmosphere of the school setting. The class we have aimed for in our product are those in the C2 and mainly E class people as E class people are students. The gender ratio we have set as a group was 65:35 between men and women as all the characters in our horror opening are all male as it is preferred that way, and we have also found that recently a wide range of females have begun to watch of horror movies as been checked on with recent cinematic gender counts. Our product gains the attention of ‘The Aspirer’ within the ‘Seven Kinds Of People In The World’. The Aspirers are very materialistic and acquisitive people who are driven by others’ perception of them rather than by their values. Meaning that with aspirers, it is the image that counts when engaged in a movie, or in real life terms. We believe that our short horror sequence reaches out to these people because of the roles played within the characters are in the clip, as you have the typical rebellious and brave character, the two quiet and humble characters and also the psychotic, murdering teacher. From our targeted age range, we are hoping for students to have a strong aspiration towards the heroic and brave student who confronts the psychotic teacher.

end of filming

We have finally finished filming. We adapted to various possibilities for our opening to get the best possible combinations of our theme, camera angles/shots and actors.  However we did stick to the original theme of the psychotic teacher in a classroom who murders a child.

We also had theme music which we made on garageband, which was essential to our opening to give it it that edge of an actual horror opening.

Lastly we had to edit the footage together. We decided to use final-cut pro to edit the footage and add in our logo, production names, sound, also we needed fades for certain parts which also added.

Evaluation question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

Our film is a low budget independent film targeting a niche and defined target area. The types of distribution companies would be small independent companies such as Studio canal who distributed 'attack the block' or Pathe pictures international who distributed 'Adulthood'.

        The content of the movies consisted of a low budget, actors who are yet to be established or well-known actors and the films didn’t really have any special effects opening it up to other markets or audiences. Just like our film these films may also skip the cinema stage and go straight to DVD to save money and increase their profit, as in a cinema they may not receive as many viewers and would have to pay cinemas to show their film and they would have to promote it further which would be difficult for companies on a tight budget.

       The film may come straight to DVD and may be shown in art centres for the public to view, as you can see this is more local and is easier for a company to be able to target their audience with their budget as they have to advertise the film Having the film localised the advertising becomes a lot easier as the scale of promotion becomes a lot smaller and in the result a lot cheaper. They would promote such films on local channels e.g. in the UK it would be UK channels such as 'comedy central' or 'E4', this type of advertising would not cost much and they would also use radios and local billboards/posters.

        Lastly the production of synergy products would not happen due to the tight budget and the with scale of the film, it just wouldn't be worth it.. The main reason for all of the examples above would the budget. The greater the budget the greater scale of the movie. 

Feedback over our rough cut

Over easter our rough cut was uploaded and marked, we were told the idea was unique and smart and the acting was portrayed very well. However we were also told that the camera angles weren't very great and due to this the sound didn't come out clear enough and this led to the sequence not being seen as an actual horror movie. We were told to improve our clip by filming certain scenes again to have a better quality of sound and to also film our main killing scene in a more horrifying way to make it seem realistic and more intriguing.

Evaluation Questions 1 and 2

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

- Our clip is of a horror genre which has a gripping feel to it as it displays a group of students and their fear of a particular teacher who is shown to be psychotic in the clip. It ends with a cliffhanger stating that there is more to come and the teacher will play a key role in the remainder of the movie. Many if not all horror movies have a suspensful and horrifying opening which makes the audience intrigued and wanting to see more of the movie. In behind the scenes footage, horror movies often show how they create a dark and scary effect and how they make fake blood if a character is killed off, we could also have added something like this at the end of sequence to show how we chose to make the movie look like a typical horror. We challenged the typical horror setting of at night as our scene is in daylight, this is done for it to look realistsic as it is meant to be a detention which is straight after school. We had the psychotic teacher close the blinds during the clip to show how he is evil and also to try and make the sequence slighly typical of a horror movie too. A dark setting is typical of a horror movie as this makes a creepy and scary atmosphere from which audiences can predict that something bad will happen. Despite our clip taking place during the day we added in the blinds and lights being shut during the sequence. This makes our clip challenge the horror genre as it is done during the day since most detentions don't take place at night.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

- Social groups can be made up of race, age, class, gender, etc. Our media product represents a two specific social groups, one is the 2 friends who go to detention together and are portrayed as scared and cautious beforehand of the whole scenario as one of them points out how the lights in the hallway are off. The other social group was of the other student in detention who was portrayed as a careless, arrogant, and rude teenager who stands up to the teacher and in a result he is attacked and believed to be dead. These are two social groups which are seen as stereotypical as they are displayed in almost every horror movie. In movies as such, the careless and arrogant type of characters usually end up dead and the scared and cautious character often survives or gets killed in a surprise twist. Our clip does well to portray these social groups as both types are in the detention with the careless type playing its typical role when the student is constantly on his phone and even puts his feet up on the desk whilst the other social group sits quietly and does as told.

Final version of sequence

We decided to film our entire scene again with manmit playing the role of the evil teacher as we found it easier to direct a teacher than a student. This was in order to make sure the clip turned out like we had hoped it would. The location of the clip still remains the same however we filmed in a different classroom with different actors featuring in it aswell.

logo

We have completed out logo 'MAN ON MOON PRODUCTIONS'

Evaluating The Work

We will be working on tthe evaluation part of our project and will spend the rest of our school year evaluating how we felt the sequence went and what we could have done better as well as what we felt went good and according to plan.

Music In Our Sequence

We were unable to add in any sound effects or create a musical piece for our sequence but we hope to do this when we get back to school after easter as this needs to be worked on in garageband and as a group with all group members present.

Filming Finished

We've now come to the stage where we have completed the filming task, and have also handed in our edited film in to our teacher leaving us to add in sound. We shall then work on the feed back we get from our teacher and look on to improving it.

Final piece of filming

Yesterday we went to the science lab to film as we knew miss vloderczech wold be there and luckily for us she agreed to play the role of the teacher. We gave her directions and told her how to play the role and she did it well and her acting was very realistic. This was really great for our sequence as she is an actual teacher and her portrayal of an evil teacher was done very well therefore it will be shown as a believeable story.

filiming

Last friday sadda was playing the teachers role in our clip but decided that we might need an actual teacher playing the role so we could focus more on the filiming. So we have we filmed the majority of our work and will try and find a teacher for the teachers role. possible candidates for the role are : mr jessop
                                                                                                                            : miss vlodercheck
                                                                                                                            : mr van de merwe
                                                                                                                            : miss. kalem

Production Name and Logo

Our production name is going to be Man On Moon Productions and the logo is going to be a picture of a moon with a silhouette of a man eitehr standing on it or alongside it. We still need to work on this on photoshop and we're hoping this wont take more than just one lesson.

Editing Stage

We have begun editing some of our work on final cut and it has worked out how we wanted it to however we still have one or two more scenes to film and then we can finish our editing process and work on adding in a soundtrack to the sequence before it is finally going to be complete by he end of the week.

Halfway through filming

We have now begun filming and are looking to complete it by thursday since tomorrow the 3 of us wont be in school due to a business trip in bristol. So we will continue filming on thursday and will spend today blogging and working on other elements of the project.

Comparing two thriller movie opening sequences By Mohit

 Comparing two thriller movie opening sequences

In this essay I will be comparing the two movies 'Drive' and 'Panic Room'. Firstly, drive is a movie starring Ryan Gosling, the sequence opens with upbeat techno music and shows an extremely slow pan of buildings lit up at night in a busy city. During this, the main actor; Ryan Gosling's is shown in pink italics and the scene cuts to him sitting in a car, with a low angle shot and this shot makes the main character look superior, and after a brief second the movie's title is shown in the same pink italics. When the shot opens with Ryan Gosling sitting in the car, one will instinctively know that the film is about cars and driving, which relates to the name of the film. After this the music stays the same however the camera angle changes to an over the shoulder shot of the main character driving his car through the night life, busy city and more actor credits are shown during this. Throughout the opening, there is low key lighting used to create a dark and intense atmosphere. Then from the close up on the main character's face, the camera angle changes to a high angle birds eye-view, showing the car from above on the highway driving around in the city, during this the name of the composer who created the piece of music is also shown in pink italics as well as the production designer and editor. The next shot shown is of the car pulling-up in a car park, and this is shot at a medium shot at level of the car. Then the main character Ryan Gosling is shown out of his car and walking through a hallway with the camera angle as a dolly tracking shot, which is over his left shoulder. This type of camera angle is very interesting as it is a mix of three different angles composed as one, which are; a dolly shot, tracking shot and on over the shoulder. Then the rest of the opening scene is of the nightlife of the city that Ryan Gosling is in.

For the next movie, the opening sequence opens with the production company; Columbia Pictures, then there's a fade out to a high shot of buildings and the production company name written among this. The credits of the cast and crew are shown by a panshot alongside buildings. Each credit is shown on a different building or location in the same city. Then the title credit is shown in a panshot sliding left to right. An interesting shot is a high angle shot looking down at a building which features the name of the person who casted the actors. Another interesting is of another credit, which is of the film editors, and the camera looks like it is on a crane as it is on a low angle slowly rising up. The sound throughout the whole sequence is non-diegetic and is an intense orchestral piece of music and this keeps the audience alerted about the fact that this is a thriller movie, the last shot of the credit is of the directors name, which features a whole entire view of the city, and during this the non-diegetic sound slowly fades out, as a female voice can be heard speaking, however the image is still of the directors name.

To conclude both movie sequence openings share both similarities and differences. as they both are shot in a busy city with skyscrapers shown, in the credits are amongst these buildings. however, they both have differences as 'Drive' is shot during the night and 'Panic Room' is shot during the day, and Drive also features characters in its opening sequence whereas, Panic Room is just of buildings and credits. I feel these credits suit both the movies.

latest filming

Today we managed to get the half of the shooting done as planned. We have filmed the the student saying goodbye to his friend and going to his detention. We have up until he has walked into the classroom where he encounters his teacher. We will be continuing the rest of the clip soon as it wont be very long anymore.

Day 1 filming

Today we are going to start filming. we are going to shoot the opening scene of the school and the two friends walking together and talking amongst themselves about the detention whilst on their way home.

Starting Filming

We are hoping to start filming our sequence sometime this week as we dont have long before the deadline. We must get all the filming done and out the way before easter so we can start editing and adding in sound effects or music too. It should take us no longer than 1 week to complete the filming as we dont need many different locations we just need a classroom and an outside area in the school.

Nine shot analysis of horror genre

The nine shot analysis we used if for a zombie horror movie called Zombieland. The opening sequence of Zombieland features many clips of zombies running around and people being killed in slow motion in very gory ways. Each clip in the sequence features a zombie and has either the name of the cast or crew in a small caption during the scene. The clip in the analysis is on the top right and shows a zombie throw a human off an edge, the name of the production team (Columbia Pictures) is also shown in the shot. The name of one of the actors in the movie (Abigail Breslin) is also shown in one of the shots and is placed in a clip in which police officers are shown fighting off a zombie. The title logo of the movie Zombieland is shown halfway through the opening credits and is also displayed alongside a clip in the movie in which a group of zombies are seen behind a man who is defending himself with a weapon. Towards the end of the sequence, fire fighters are shown trying to fight off a fire which has presumably been caused by zombies.





Target Audience (nightmare on elm street, friday the 13th)

A nightmare on elm street and Friday the 13th are the types of movies we studied and our opening sequence is going to be for a similar target audience to these movies. We are hoping to aim at 15 - 35 year old horror fans who enjoy the suspense and mystery in a horror movie rather than the gory killings part. Since our sequence takes place in a school and classroom we hope to target many students through this and the costumes also help with this as the students are gonna be in their uniform to make the detention look more realistic.

Storyboard

Comparing 2 thriller movie opening sequences

The two thriller movies I chose to write about are Casino Royale and Se7en. Casino Royale was part of the James Bond franchise and therefore it already had a wide target audience, it starred Daniel Craig as the role of Agent 007 James Bond. Whereas Se7en was a psychological thriller that starred Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. With these two actors being well known it helped attract fan base and so it too knew it would have some people (mainly fans) to aim at.

          The opening sequence of Casino Royale is typical of a James bond movie as it features the James bond theme with animated images of people such as bond himself, the movies villains and bond girls. The infamous 007 is used in a type of way that allows it to fit in, as the 0’s used in the words casino Royale are in such a way that they link with the 007.

         The next opening sequence of se7en features objects alongside which the names of the cast and crew are listed. For instance, a book is seen being flicked through, and photographs of people are shown on a desk and whilst these are in the audience’s sight, the crews name is listed alongside. The title and credits are shown from medium close ups whilst close ups are used to show the objects appearing during the credits.

        A similarity both opening sequences share is the sound, which is non-, dietetic, as it sods not play a part in the movie itself and is just an effect. Casino Royale has the well known James bond theme tune playing and these suites the credits well with it being a bond movie and all. On the other hand, se7en plays different kinds of music, which varies, from techno, guitar, drums and others. This too suits the movie as it is a psychological thriller and the intensity and upbeat tempo helps build an intriguing atmosphere, which will make the viewer understand what kind of theme the movie is going to be. Another similarity is that neither of the films show any of the actors in the opening sequence, casino Royale shows an animated James bond whilst se7en features objects and police equipment.

       However, this could also count as a difference as se7en has no actual person in the sequence whilst casino Royale at least has animated characters and tries telling a story in its own during these opening sequences and it does so to give the audience a feel for the movie and what to expect from it as bond is also seen holding a gun at the point

      To conclude, both movies share similarities such as their use of themes and choice of music to suit their genre, as one is a famous secret agent movie whilst the other is a psychological thriller, which hopes to intrigue the viewer and present them with something fresh and new. So I think the opening sequences in both movies are similar but also different at the same time, however I also believe the movies do well by using these very different credits because they depict the movie itself in a way that suits it.

Hassan Khan

location pic of our opening shot

The clip will be shot at the windsor boys school and this is the exact location of the opening scene where two friends are walking at the end of the school day and are and talking about their teacher. A close up and tracking shot will be used to film these two characters.

recruitment process

Today we spoke with mr higgs about playing the role of the teacher in our clip and he expressed interest in this and has agreed to do so as long as we inform him about the time we will be filming a few days earlier.

Finding Actors

Today we are going to the drama department to find an upper sixth drama student, who will be willing to portray the role of the teacher. This is because the teacher must not look like an average schoolboy and must look older as this will make our sequence seem more realistic.

Actors in the clip

the three of us (hassan, sadda, mohit) will all be acting in this opening sequence but we will be asking either a teacher or a sixth form drama student to act as the teacher.

Ideas and Props

Today mohit joined our group. We discussed the clip and how we might need a teacher like mr titheradge to act in it. We also discussed the use of fake blood which will be needed and could be created by mixing together golden syrup with red food colouring. We will be looking to use a small amount of this as we are not tryng to make our sequence full of blood and gore.

Watching thriller/horror movies

We saw opening sequences of scream, nightmare on elm street, casino royale, law abiding citizen and zombieland as they are of the horror and thriller genre and this helped us see how these movies made their opening sequences. It also gave us an idea that by ending the sequence on a cliffhanger, the audience will be left intrigued and will hoepfully want to continue watching more.

Actors in our clip

we are discussing who will be the actors in the sequence. We will need around 3 actors for the role of the teacher, student and friend.

stuff about sequence

we have decided that our entire sequence will be filmed within the windsor boys school as it based on a teacher and student and the events that transpire during an after school detention.

pic no 1 classroom

the majority of our clip will take place in a classroom similar to this one.

opening sequence

an opening sequence analysis of a movie.

   Spiderman opening sequence

The film Starts off with the distribution company, then goes into pictures of the movie that are animated into a comic book reel. It then goes on to the production companies name and then a list of three stages and people involved. It starts with music and throughout it has music. They have used a web theme to match the Spiderman theme and shown a dark background with a thin web with all the names of the cast and crew involved. They have used editing techniques to create a flow throughout the opening sequence and showed the writing on the web which lies on a background that varies from one to the other it show the villain, the hero, the city and introduced the us into the film.

presentation plan

Today we have decided to plan out our presentation. We have pictures that we will upload and the rough idea of our plan. The date for our presentation is friday 24th feb 2012.

initial idea

our first idea that we are considering is a horror. We are thinking of having a scene where a student goes into a teachers classroom after school for a detention and encounters some strange happenings.

preliminary Video

about are task

our idea is based on our school life and the events that happen around the school. the first main idea we came up with was a detention after school and having a school teacher having a go at the school kids. we did not stick to this because we thought it was too difficult to get a casting crew of 20 odd people. so we changed the idea to school bullying and a scene involving confrontation of a bully and a helpless school kid and using match on action, shot reverse shot, 180 degree shot, a pan and over the shoulder shot we film a chase scene and a fight scene.

preliminary storyboard

file:///Users/student/Desktop/wbsmediagroup5/IMG_0015.JPG