Here is our two minute opening sequence. If our final film cannot be viewed from my blog there is also a link below to Youtube from which is can also be viewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq1OLkmkO4I
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Question five of the evaluation for the two min opening film
What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?
I believe that the audience we are trying to target are the who likes thriller/horrors genre's, this is mainly people of late teenagers plus. But the pleasure we are trying to provide is one that is hard hitting as the characters are young, what is being shown is a possibilty to reality, and so this is more likely to draw them in. I am pretty confident that we have succeeded this as ours could be a portrayal of reality, and because of the black and white contrast colour and the fast paced speed in the woods, it is most likely to be successful.
Looking at a basic model of Uses and Gratifications theory, why would an audience member seek out to watch our film? They would come to watch it to fulfill a need of entertainment (due to a lack of boredom), plus as previously said the characters being young it's easier for younger audience members to connect. Being fast paced and a lot of tension is built this creates a film that will never entertain.
Question four of the evaluation of two min film
Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you 'play' with the genre's codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?
Personally I believe that our whole piece is a sort of pastiche/parody of horror/thriller concepts. This is because it is set in the woods, a girl gets killed from the stalker who's face is hardly seen, a lot of running, same camera angles as that genre style uses, and heavy breathing with shouting of names. So I believe it is as a whole. I don't believe there is any intertextual moments where we hint to other film references. Where our original idea came from was one day me and Whitney were having a discussion about my poetry, then how we could have a narrator reading a poem, then how it would involve a stalker and a girl. Looking at how many films use the horror in the woods idea it seems quite clear that it is a popular one as fourty plus films from the 1970's up to the modern day has used this style.
Personally I believe that our whole piece is a sort of pastiche/parody of horror/thriller concepts. This is because it is set in the woods, a girl gets killed from the stalker who's face is hardly seen, a lot of running, same camera angles as that genre style uses, and heavy breathing with shouting of names. So I believe it is as a whole. I don't believe there is any intertextual moments where we hint to other film references. Where our original idea came from was one day me and Whitney were having a discussion about my poetry, then how we could have a narrator reading a poem, then how it would involve a stalker and a girl. Looking at how many films use the horror in the woods idea it seems quite clear that it is a popular one as fourty plus films from the 1970's up to the modern day has used this style.
Question 3 of evaluation of two minute film
At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fill the 'contractual' nature of film genre or will it subvert film expectation deliberately?
I find that our film and it's genre is one that reflects horror/thriller films, as watching some of the same genre films before filming I could get an idea as the main cameraman to know which camera angles angles to use and certain shots, as i need to know how to build tension with shots and angles. so I believe that it may be a typical reflection on a macro level. It does reflect the genre really well though, it is probably down to the camera angles, and the location, yes the woods is typical, but thats because it's effective, and will draw the audience in just like 'Shrooms' did. I believe that it will fill the 'contractual' nature of film.
I find that our film and it's genre is one that reflects horror/thriller films, as watching some of the same genre films before filming I could get an idea as the main cameraman to know which camera angles angles to use and certain shots, as i need to know how to build tension with shots and angles. so I believe that it may be a typical reflection on a macro level. It does reflect the genre really well though, it is probably down to the camera angles, and the location, yes the woods is typical, but thats because it's effective, and will draw the audience in just like 'Shrooms' did. I believe that it will fill the 'contractual' nature of film.
Question two of the evaluation of the two min opening film
The mistakes made, seemed to be greater in this main task compared to the prelimanry task which had non with my previous group. The problems that occurred was that the original cast that we used were perfect but we could only get them on a certain day, so after we filmed one day and then uploaded it another, we discovered that it could not up load due to the camera we used, so we had to use another camera and film. But we could not get the same actors, which then caused another problem that we then had to re-film everything, and find new actors within a short space of time before the deadline. Another problem was that because we filmed outside was the weather. At certain periods of the day it rained, and because we could not film in one whole day, some days were darker than others, and when we tried filming one day we couldn't because it was too dark for the audience and camera to pick up anything. One other problem we came across whilst filming was the battery life of the camera, and the problem as discussed is before with not being able to up-load, but due to the battery's short life, this caused the filming to be done on separate days, which led to the weather changes. Being that the first camera wasn't a school one, we now learnt that we should stick to the school's handheld cameras.
I have also learnt a way in which to capture a moment as I was the main camera-man in this task, whilst compared to the preliminary task I was the main actor.
So i believe that for both tasks, there were more problems for this one, but both had separate problems.
Question 1 of evaluation for two minute opening of a film
At a micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity, the language of the film and the grammar of the edit?
When we found that we had to create an opening title of two minute for a film, already we instantly had similar ideas. We wanted to create a thriller/horror based in the woods including:
a victim-Karly-Whitney Mckernan,
a stalker-Simon-Kevin Smibert
a boyfriend of the victim-Sam-Nik Jones
and the friend of both boyfriend and victim-Dannii-Lauren Kirby.
a stalker-Simon-Kevin Smibert
a boyfriend of the victim-Sam-Nik Jones
and the friend of both boyfriend and victim-Dannii-Lauren Kirby.
With the micro aspect, to show the representation of our film about a girl being attacked by a stalker we decided that the perfect genre for this would be a horror/thriller. So for the macro to work, we needed those vital micro elements. First being camera angles and movement.
The original idea for the first scene was for Karly to get drugged by the Simon at a house party, but this idea wasnt idealy possible to create so we ended up with the stalker sitting outside the pub away from both Karly and Dannii while they were having a chat and drinking. When both left for a short period of time, Simon grabbed the opportunity to spike her drink. We used a few different camera angles, for example for this scene we used a close up to show the focus of the drug being placed in the drink so the audience could see what he was doing, and then he leaves. So when Karly returns we see that she has an effect from this drug after she has the drink because we used a crane camera angle, then a close up of her face with the camera tilting from each side. This then follows up to both Karly and Simon running through the woods, at this poibt in the film, the colour changes to being a black and white contrast. This was an up-side as it was filmed in the woods because it gave us the opportunity to create even stronger camera angles through shrubery, and above/crane shots from the advantage of hills.
The next aspect for our opening to work was the song choice. We didn't exactly want a typical tension music, where it starts quite and gets louder, and not to be classical. So ours was an up to date song which was Spitfire by The Prodigy. This song gave an eerie feel to it at the start and when it kicked in we went to a sudden scene change from the pub which was filmed in colour, to the woods which we edited into a black and white contrast. we done this so there was a greater impact, drama and tension between characters and the audience.
On our final edited film opening, we didn't realise till it was too late that we did not include the title of the film, unless a member of the group added it, but the title of our piece was called Obsession. But the font of our writing I found to be more western, but we had to stick to it as it was the closest one to a horror opening title. We included all the names of the actors used and who done what in our group.
When it came to using dialogue we did not want much as we thought this would create more tension for when there is dialougue.The main speech was at the beginning scene between Karly and Dannii about Sam. We used Me and Lauren mainly shouting "KARLY!" and towards the end we had Simon almost shouting why he is doing this to her, and how long he has wanted her. But over-all not much dialogue, we also covered the heavy breathing whilst running with the backing music.
The setting was easy for us, but it was finding the right spot within Mousehold Woods to film. First we started at the outside of a pub where the pace was slow and naturalistic, but as said before the pace we went along with was because of the music, when the music kicked in the pace got faster and the camera shots were sharper and faster. Once again this was to create the genre of a horror/thriller film.
Over-all these aspects created the macro of our film, and how we represented a possible modern day situation of teenagers lives within a horror/thriller based film opening.
The original idea for the first scene was for Karly to get drugged by the Simon at a house party, but this idea wasnt idealy possible to create so we ended up with the stalker sitting outside the pub away from both Karly and Dannii while they were having a chat and drinking. When both left for a short period of time, Simon grabbed the opportunity to spike her drink. We used a few different camera angles, for example for this scene we used a close up to show the focus of the drug being placed in the drink so the audience could see what he was doing, and then he leaves. So when Karly returns we see that she has an effect from this drug after she has the drink because we used a crane camera angle, then a close up of her face with the camera tilting from each side. This then follows up to both Karly and Simon running through the woods, at this poibt in the film, the colour changes to being a black and white contrast. This was an up-side as it was filmed in the woods because it gave us the opportunity to create even stronger camera angles through shrubery, and above/crane shots from the advantage of hills.
The next aspect for our opening to work was the song choice. We didn't exactly want a typical tension music, where it starts quite and gets louder, and not to be classical. So ours was an up to date song which was Spitfire by The Prodigy. This song gave an eerie feel to it at the start and when it kicked in we went to a sudden scene change from the pub which was filmed in colour, to the woods which we edited into a black and white contrast. we done this so there was a greater impact, drama and tension between characters and the audience.
On our final edited film opening, we didn't realise till it was too late that we did not include the title of the film, unless a member of the group added it, but the title of our piece was called Obsession. But the font of our writing I found to be more western, but we had to stick to it as it was the closest one to a horror opening title. We included all the names of the actors used and who done what in our group.
When it came to using dialogue we did not want much as we thought this would create more tension for when there is dialougue.The main speech was at the beginning scene between Karly and Dannii about Sam. We used Me and Lauren mainly shouting "KARLY!" and towards the end we had Simon almost shouting why he is doing this to her, and how long he has wanted her. But over-all not much dialogue, we also covered the heavy breathing whilst running with the backing music.
The setting was easy for us, but it was finding the right spot within Mousehold Woods to film. First we started at the outside of a pub where the pace was slow and naturalistic, but as said before the pace we went along with was because of the music, when the music kicked in the pace got faster and the camera shots were sharper and faster. Once again this was to create the genre of a horror/thriller film.
Over-all these aspects created the macro of our film, and how we represented a possible modern day situation of teenagers lives within a horror/thriller based film opening.
Monday 3 May 2010
Costume for 2 min film
Being that Karly was the main character, we wanted her top half to stand out, so by doing this we made sure she was wearing black jeans, then above a grey blazer (to show sophistication), a patterned top (to show individualality), a green patterned scarf, and black hair.
We wanted her hair down so she came across as a relaxed person, and so when running it will look better. We can also see her rock/indy style from the nose peircing, and the green patterned scarf.
We also wanted her to stand out being the main so we did need her costume to be better than Dannii's as she is more of the leader out of the two friends.
As you can also see up close, from her badges we can tell that she is also quite an outgoing person who believes they have no limits.
Dannii
Being Karly's best friend, we didn't want her clothing to be as detailed, but we did want the same concept that the audience will focus on the top half due to her bright purple hoody.
Compared to Karly, Dannii has less make up than her this is so that her eyes stand out more. Also her hood is up, this is after many days of filming we were all getting cold and feeling rough so we let her have her hood up.
This purple hoody is simple but so colourful it will instantly draw the audiences attention to her facial reactions.
Her shoes are really the only sign that she is up to date with her fashion, and also we have made sure these have been seen in some running shots at times.
Simon
As we can see he is in all black, this is so he instantly becomes the villain, his hood is up so we can never see his face which creates more suspission. Because we had no where for the audience to focus we ended up placing the camera on parts of him to show the audience what we want them to see.
Un-like Sam or Karly, Simon has actually got gel and other products in his hair. This was so he stood out more as a Character.
This gold chain necklace creates a chav appearance more, and this shows that he maybe stronger than the rest of them.
Another association wth chav, is the Nike sign on his glove, we wanted him to wear gloves so it looks like he has been planning this for a while. Once again another gold chain.
We needed his shoes to be chav as the rest of him is, but we also needed them to be comfortable whilst running, so we ended up using these.
Sam
For Sam we used an opposite concept, have the bottom have colourful as the audience will focus more on the running. He also has a indy look about him, just like his girlfriend.
Like Karly his hair has been left naturally curly which is the actors natural hair, this is so it creates an effect of atmosphere with the wind blowing directly at him so his hair will then push back, and this creates the speed he is going at which also creates panic and desparation when running.
The shirt maybe black but it has a star pattern on it which creates this indy look. Also the coat is creating a slight sophistication just like Karly.
Unfortunately the shoes dont match with the rest of the clothes but the actor needed to be comfortable whilst running, but on the up-side the blue stripes also draw attention to his lower half.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Well out of all the distributers the most probable institute is Lionsgate due to the fact that they have distributed a lot of horror/thriller films. But the only other thing is that most of those films of that genre are American, but the British distributer of Lionsgate does have quite a few thriller/horror genre films. So I believe this is most likely to be our distributer. I say this as it has ditributed quite a few successful films of the same genre, such as: The Wicker Man, Saw IV, My Bloody Valentine. Lionsgate also distributes other genre's and age groups that range so much. So this is why it is the one for our film.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Well as i have previously said about our problems with the camera and the editing process, i would say that compared to modern day film technology ours would not be as good. Yes we may have the same concept and ideas, but we do not have the money for the technology as a hollywood blockbuster, so we were limited to a handheld camera. The first camera we used recorded the film but it wasn't able to upload due to either the tape or the camera, as both were not provided by the school, while the second one we used went well. With the sound quality, because we don't have a microphone, so with the speech we had to shout, but it worked becuase of the genre of our film.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)