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.

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.

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.

How did/would we attract the audience

The way in which we hope to capture the audience is from the creation of atmosphere created by music, which was called Spitfire by The Prodigy. The camera angles, which included crane shots, close ups, and quick snappy shots, and the black and white contrast that was sudden when the music kicked in may be another technique in which we may capture the audiences attention. I also find that our opening is more like a trailer at times because its very quick with short shots and doesn't give too much away.

How does our media product represent particular social groups and who would the directed audience be?

Social Groups that we represented was the twenty-first century teenage individuals that drink, we wanted this group as people can relate to same situations, so our film can either make awareness or just be a hard hitting opening. I also believe that we used this social group because it would be easier for us to play a similar age character of ourselves. The reason for why it would be hard hitting is that the story of the opening is a possible situation in today's society.

The audience that we are directing to is one who likes thriller/horrors genre's, this is mainly people of late teenagers (15+) and onwards, but its also depending on those who like this style. 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 possibility 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.

Three film openings

The three film openings that i watched were:






The Hole






The Blair Witch Project







Shrooms




All three of these films helped us in there own way, but the best one for us was The Hole as it didn't give away much, it was based in the woods, not much speech and a great build of tension and atmosphere. Yes the other three were based in the woods, but it didn't have that magic that The Hole did with the main character struggling to run out of the woods as if she has been drugged and attacked, and with posters and leaflets of the four characters including her which were infact posters explaing they were missing, this instantly would draw the audiences attention, and that's the magic we wanted.

So we wanted the first person view and jerked camera shots. e.g. The actors holding the camera whilst running. from The Blair Witch Project, the gore and panning camera shots through the tree's and other woodland shrubery from Shrooms, and the atmospheric scenery from The Hole.