Audio discussion link

Here is the link to our audio discussion in which we discussed our target audience:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A63EV911_qU

Final Production

Here is the link to our final production:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae2YtWcfpOg

6.What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the progression of my production, I have learnt many different things about different technologies. I created the script for our film, so I was mainly using Microsoft Word. However, I also worked on the editing and helped with the camera work, so I can give a full account of how the different technologies worked.

During the progress of our film, I didn't encounter any real problems whilst creating the script. This was because I was using Microsoft Word to create it. The reason why I didn't encounter any problems with this software was because it is a very simple program to use, there are many different options such as text size, font etc. There is also a very simple layout, and it is easy to find different options. The other reason why I didn't encounter any problems with Microsoft Word was because I have had LOADS of experience with it. I have been using the program for at least eight years, so I know how to use the software extensively, and there was no problem that I couldn't overcome. I also learnt that Microsoft Word was quite a useful software, because I was able to quickly create a professional script for my main production with ease.

I also helped with the editing on our main production. The software we used to edit our film was Adobe Premier Elements 9. There were many useful options that helped us to create our horror film in this program. For example, we could use options to change the brightness of certain scenes in our film, to make it suitable for our product. We could also cut different segments of our clip and place them in different areas, so we could easily improve on our continuity editing. Even though there were many useful features in Premier Elements, we also faced many problems whilst editing. The main problem we faced was with the extra audio files. The main problem we faced was with the audio files not playing, they had no volume so this was a huge setback for our film. I knew that this was a problem in Premier Elements because the file worked fine when it was played on Windows Media Player. I didn't know the cause of the problem for these audio files, but luckily the sound files worked in the end, so we were able to add in these audio files in the end.

I also helped to set up the camera positions while we were filming our horror film. The main thing I learnt about the camera during this time was that it was quite confusing to operate. Even though there were the simple buttons for recording and zooming, there were still many different configurations that could adjust the focus and sound levels on the camera. It is clear that there is a fault with the focus in some shots. For instance, in one shot our cameraman tried to adjust the manual focus so that a religious figure would be in focus, while the background would be out of focus. But instead of this, the whole shot is blurry. I also learnt that with the camera we used, we could adjust the brightness the brightness for different locations, similar to the brightness option in Adobe Premier Elements 9.

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

The product that I created attracted my target audience through many different means. The product's plot and characters are both unique, so I attracted my audience through a unique film experience. I also managed to address my audience through the genre of my film. The film I made was a horror film set in a high school, so this would've addressed my audience because they are teenagers who also go to high school.

The main feature that made my product attractive was its unique characters and plot. For example, rather than having stereotypical characters in the film, I decided to create unique characters; also more realistic ones. I decided to have characters like this because it would have made the film more realistic in my opinion, this is because stereotypical characters aren't really realistic or believable. I thought that if I made the characters original, it would also enhance the horror element in our film. If the characters were more realistic, then the audience would be able to relate to the characters, and they would see a realistic aspect to the film. This also made our film unique because there were original characters that had a more realistic personality compared to stereotypical ones. 

The characters such as the student and teacher are both original, and they challenge the typical conventions of horror films. For example, rather than having our student be a typical bad student, I decided to make him intelligent and morally good. This way the audience would be able to feel some kind of sympathy for the student because he was wrongly sent into detention. This would also show that even good characters were vulnerable. Some people in our audience would also be able to relate to this character. 

The teacher is also unique, he also changes the typical horror conventions like the student. Rather than having him be the typical intelligent, upper class teacher wearing a suit, I made him quite the opposite. So instead, he really isn't intelligent, and he isn't of an upper class background. He also may have wrongly accused the student of doing a wrongdoing. These two characters have had a role reversal. Rather than the teacher being the smart individual, and the student being the typical mischief, they have quite the opposite role. I also decided to show these characters like this to show that it can be quite believable in real life.

The other main feature that attracts our audience is the fact that it is a type of slasher film, set in a high school. This is one of the main factors that attract our audience because they will also be attending a high school. The audience can now relate to our product because it is set in a high school, so they will understand the environment and characters in our film.

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

For this question, I have completed an audio recording.
Here is the link to the recording : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUH9xOSlVcI&feature=youtu.be

In this question I talk about the different things I have learnt since finishing the preliminary exercise, I also talk about mistakes that I made, but learnt from in the progression on the main task.

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product would be teenagers (aged 15+), and hound adults. The main reason why our film is aimed at teenagers is because it is a horror film that is set in school, so it is somewhat similar to a slasher film.

The other reason why we decided to create a film aimed at teenagers was because we have a good idea of what type of film conventions would be suitable for people our age. If we had a better understanding of what our audience wanted, then we could create a film that would also be enjoyable for our audience.

Our horror film also contains bloody scenes, so we decided to have our target audience aged 15+. If we decided to rate our film 18+ we would have lost many viewers, it was important that younger people could watch our film because this would increase the chance of our film being a success. We also decided to have our target audience be 15+ because the student in our film is around the same age. This way the audience can relate to the characters, and if they see the characters being in danger, it would emphasis on the scariness of our film, because the audience may feel threatned.

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

The film company that would distribute our film would most probably be Dimension Films, a company that has distributed many popular films, including horror series such as Halloween and Scream. I think that this company would be the most suitable to distribute our film because their target audience usually rangers from teenagers to adults.

Their films, like Scream and Halloween are similar to our media product, because we also have a film that is aimed at teenagers from the age of fifteen or above. I think that because they have had previous experience in distributing these types of films it would help our film to also become successful, because both film series have generated millions of pounds.

The other similarity with these types of films with our film is that they are all slasher films, and they are usually set in high schools. Of course if our film was too similar to these films then the company wouldn't want to distribute it, but because our film is unique because of it's characters and plot, it would be a new movie that would survive on the market.

This film distributing company has also gained lots of money through its release of it's films, so this would appeal to us because we would also want to have our product be successful. I also decided to choose this company because they have good experience in distributing films.

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

My media product represents social groups in a few different ways. For example, some of the characters are represented in quite a stereotypical way such as the teacher, while other characters have a unique representation, such as the student.

We decided to present different characters in different ways to give a varied representation, this would give a fresh view for our audience, it would make our horror film  unique so our target audience wouldn't get bored of our film.

The main unique character in our film is the student, because he isn't the stereotypical bad student who always gets in trouble. He is actually a responsible smart student who be wrongly accused of being mischievous, we decided to have a character like this because the audience would see him as innocent, rather than thinking the character deserved to be killed if he was a bad student. I believe that presenting the character in this way would make the audience sympathise with him, but more importantly I think it will enuance the scary factor, because innocent characters will be the victims of the antagonist, the audience may feel that they too may be vulnerable. It would give a more realistic interpretation in my opinion.

The other unique character in our film is the teacher. He is presented as a casual laidback teacher, rather than a teacher in a suit who is dedicated to his job. This teacher also seems to be quite strict, because he makes his student stay in detention, even though the student may seem innocent. We decided to present the teacher in this way because not all teachers in real life are fair, some teachers in school wrongly accuse students of wrongdoings. We thought this was a realistic view on what happens in school classrooms, so our target audience would understand the situation, and how these characters also act in real life.

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

In many ways, our media product is quite typical of the horror genre, and of real horror films. Our product seems to have many typical conventions that are seen in other products out in the market. This was our intention when we were creating our film, we wanted to create a teen horror film that had similar conventions, but to still have an original and unique story.

The product we have created can be compared to quite a few other horror films, such as Scream (which is set in a high school), and a more recent film, The Cabin In The Woods (which is also a horror film aimed at teenage audiences). The plot of our film is more related to the Scream films, because our film is also about a serial killer who is killing school students. The setting and characters therefore are fairly similar to the Scream series.

It is quite typical for a teenage slasher film to be set in locations such as high schools, so we wanted this adapted into our own film so that our audience would obviously feel a relation to the setting, so that they could also relate to the characters in our film. The target audience for our film would be teenagers aged 15+, so we decided to set our film in a high school so the audience could relate with the characters and setting. I think this will enhance the scariness of our film, and this would be good for our horror film. It could even create a sense of paranoia in our audience, due to the realism also incorporated into our film.

The intro of our film is also similar to teen horror films in the past, we were mainly inspired by the intro of Scream, in which a school student is chased by the serial killer. However, in our opening there are many significant differences, because the teacher is also murdered and also because our main antagonist is quite mysterious.

The way our film differs from typical teenage slasher films is that our main villain isn't revealed in our film. The main villain in our film won't be revealed by the audience, so there will be this certain mysterious factor associated with this character, and this emphasises on the audience's fear of the unknown. We believed that the audience would be more scared of a villain that isn't fully revealed to the audience, rather than a serial killer who you can see in the whole camera shot. This character makes our film unique, and changes the views of the audience about serial killers. Our product can now be associated slightly with a psychological horror, because we don't really see the whole villain in camera shot.

Overall, our film tends be quite conventional of the teenage slasher genre, but there are still a few factors that can also challenge the genre. Factors such as our characters and plot will also create twists in our film, making it unique and original.

Soundtrack for our film

We have had another problem with our editing! Our soundtrack no longer exists. The sound in our film has somehow disappeared, and this has made it harder for us to completely finish our production. We think that the music may not be accessible due to it not being saved on our computer's hard drive, but when we transferred the files, the sound still didn't appear on Adobe Premiere Elements.

It is important that we import our music in our production soon, otherwise we will pass the deadline. Music is crucial in our film because it creates the tension and scare factor in our film. it is also important because it will give us the chance to gain more marks in our production. If we can't find a way to import our music into Adobe Premiere elements, then we will have to find music from a copyright free source.

Evaluation audio discussion

Last lesson we had an audio disscusion. This audio discussion was for our evaluation, we asked important questions such as "What do you think a suitable target audience will be for our product?". These questions helped us to understand what people thought about our product and how we could improve it. Soon I will upload the audio discussion in order to go into further detail about how this discussion was useful.

Adobe Premier Elements

In this blog post, I will talk about Adobe Premier Elements, the software we used to edit our film opening. I will also talk about the different effects that we used during our editing.

In my opinion, I believe that Premier Elements is a decent program. There are loads of different effects that we could use to make our product better. Effects such as lighting and video merging made our horror film more conventional, we were able to enhance the creepiness of our film with these effects.

During our editing, we didn't really encounter any problems. The only thing that frustrated me was that we couldn't adjust the brightness so that it looked the same in each individual clip. But this was because the brightness was changed during filming. The thing that also annoyed me was with the audio, we couldn't add our own recorded audio from a recording device because it didn't sound similar to the audio on the camera. We didn't find any option to make the audio levels the same. So this changed the way dialogue was used in our film.

In conclusion, I think Premier Elements was a good editing software, and we were able to use this to our advantage, by making our product better.

Editing

We have almost finished editing our production! It has been almost 2 weeks since we started editing our product. We have encountered many problems such as with our brightness, and with continuity errors. But we have managed to pull through, our product is now looking more professional than when we started our editing. We have used many different effects such as transitions, fade in/out, cropping, merging etc. Originally we believed that our film would be slightly longer than the 2 minute mark, but now that we have cropped down the clips and organised them, the length stands at 1.50. We just need to add our titles and fix the continuity editing, and then our product will be finished.

Deadline on Friday

We have to completely finish our production by this Friday, but we still haven't finished our editing. We still need to rearrange our clips. We also need to adjust the lighting because it needs to be darker for our horror film. We also need to record the voice for the teacher and the killer, to fill in the missing gaps where the dialouge is meant to be.

We also need to create our own music, we haven't started this yet, and the only place to do this is in our music department after school hours. If we don't finish creating our music by Friday, then we will need to find some music from a copyright free source. We want to make our own music for our horror film because we will have the opportunity to gain more marks, but if we don't then we will hyave to find a quicker alternative.

Problems with our editing

Yesterday, we encountered quite a large issue with our film. While we were filming, someone must have accidently changed the brightness between each scene. This was because the button also changed the volume of the camera, so someone must have changed the brightness instead of the volume. Now we discovered while we were editing that different scenes have different brightness levels.

This creates a problem in our film because the film will look inconsistent, we will have to change the brightness in Adobe Premier Elements, but I still don't think we will be able to match the brightness overall. This is also a problem because the brightness was increased in other scenes, but we want our lighting to be slightly darker since it is a horror film. We are going to have to experiment with the brightness during each scene so we can make the brightness levels look the same.

Preliminary exercise full evaluation

In this post, I will do a full evaluation of our preliminary exercise.

We have the link to our video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfyRMVIzWrU

To begin with, the establishing shot isn't great, Sajjad doesn't fully fit in the shot. Half of the shot focuses on Sajjad, but it also focuses too much on the background. We could've filmed this better if Sajjad appeared bigger in our shot, this would make the audience focus more on him rather than the objects in the background.

In the next shot where we see Sajjad look up at the camera, there is a problem with the camera work because it is a tiny bit shaky. The other problem, (the major problem!) is that we can see our teacher in the background! This is a huge issue since our teacher is not meant to be in our preliminary exercise. The audience also may focus more on our teacher because he is moving in the background. This was the disadvantage of filming our preliminary exercise in an active classroom.

in the next shot when the door is being opened, there is a continuity error soon after. While the door is semi opened in the first shot, it is suddenly fully opened in the next shot. This will confuse the audience because the film is meant to be continuous, and when a shot suddenly cuts like this, it will be seen as a major mistake.

There is also a similar mistake when I sit down in the chair, the camera then cuts to a different angle, but it doesn't look continuous.

Aside from these problems, the preliminary exercise wasn't that bad. We learnt from our mistakes here, and in my opinion, we did much better with our main production.

Finished filming

On 9th February we finished the filming for our main production. It took quite a long time, by the time we left, it was 8pm. We used many different camera angles and many different camera shots in order to film some variety with our film. We used medium shots, long shots, close-ups and medium close-ups in order to create different effects with our film. It was quite difficult to finish our filming because we were rushed, but we still needed to film enough in order to make our film work.

Now we just need to finish our editing and then our main production will be complete, we plan to do this after school because we don't want to have to catch up if we fall behind. We will also need to adjust the lighting in some of our shouts because the brightness was too bright whilst filming.

Filming for main production begins

Yesterday, we started filming our horror movie opening. We got many people to be our actors during filming, but this caused quite a lot of distruption. We wasted loads of time because it was difficult to organise everyone. Many people were being distruptive so it was much harder to film then we originally thought. We also made many continuity errors during our filming: props such as phones and pens didn't stay in the same place after each scene, so the props appeared all over the place while we were filming. Aside from our mistakes, we managed to film good shots. There was an establishing shot of our school, and a wide shot that focuses on a religious figure while people are talking in the background. These shots were good because they were unique, and because they looked professional. In the end, we filmed some good scenes, but we haven't done much. We will need to film after school to finish our filming.

Story for our main task

For our main production, the plot will revolve around a schoolboy who is in detention, however there is also a psycho killer loose in the school. We decided that this plot was suitable for our film because we are able to film in the school, which we have full access to. This is also suitable for our target audience so this what our final product is going to be about. I am now going to start the script and storyboard for our production. We will use many close ups in our film because this will create an atmosphere of confusion, since other things in the background aren't visible. We will also need to focus on the pace for our production since it is a horror film. The pace will need to increase when one of the characters in our film in danger. This means many more cuts to increase tension and suspense. Creating an atmosphere of danger.

Media production : discussion

Last media lesson we had a long discussion about our production. We discussed our plot for our 2 minute horror film opening. We haven't fully confirmed what our film opening will be about so we had this discussion to focus on the plot for our film. We are still divided about how we should put together our main production, so we need to talk more as a group to decide what are production is going to be about.

Audio question session

Last lesson we recorded a question and answer session about the target audience for our product. We asked questions such as, “What is a horror films target audience” and “Where do you watch your films?” We asked these questions because we wanted to find out what was suitable for our target audience. We wanted our target audience to recognize our product and to be familiar with it, so we asked these questions to gain their feedback. In this session we talked about topics such as 3D films and if the film industry was changing through illegal downloads.

These questions helped us because we found out that 3D filming isn’t really necessary to make a film a success, and also that the film industry doesn’t suffer as much from illegal downloads as we think. This made us think that our production didn’t need to rely on modern technology because our audience finds that a good plot in a film makes the film worth watching. From our first question we found out that the people who tend to watch high school horror films are teenagers because they themselves can be scared by our genre. We also knew that the horror genre has a mainstream audience, so our production would have to be suitable for many more viewers, so we might need to include popular elements in horror films into our production, so our audience would understand the genre.

For our third question, we asked our audience to name films that they enjoy. This feedback would give us a good idea of what types of films teenagers like, films such as Machete and Gran Torino were mentioned during this question. Now we can watch these films and take notes on what makes these films successful, whether it is the films camerawork, story and/or editing. We could focus on these elements and maybe even add them to our production; we can gain many ideas for making our film effective from these films.  Even though most the films mentioned weren’t strictly horror films, we could still research these titles because we could implement different effects found in that film into our own, but with our own unique style. Using this type of research will help our production to become in tune with the audience; our production would look professional and would be suitable for our target audience to watch. Se7en was also a film that was mentioned from our audience. I have previously done research into the opening of this film. It is effective since there are loads of close ups, which creates confusion. There are close ups of book pages turning and skin being cut by a knife and overall this creates a creepy feeling for the audience. Even though Se7en isn’t a horror film, it still manages to scare the audience during its opening sequence. We can maybe use this technique in our film to create the same effect.

Weapons in our film

The killer in our film has to have some sort of weapon otherwise he would have no danger factor associated with him. We are thinking of using props such as a knife or gun. We will most probrable use a bladed weapon because then we could emphasise more on the chase scene. We could also use close-up shots to show the power of the weapon and what it can do. We will obviously use fake weaponry because we don't plan to kill eachother while filming. Props such as these will be a good idea for our film:

Scream costume idea

For our main task we want our main villain to look threatrening and dangerous. We also want his identity to be unknown beacuse this will make his identity secret. We can do this with a suitable costume and mask, something that is dark will make the audience associate the villain with death.
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1175821337/
The costume used in Scream is a good idea of what we want our costume to be like. It is important that the killer has a good costume otherwise our film may lose its scare factor.

The Cabin in the Woods

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi660971033/

I have recently been browsing through upcoming horror titles on IMDb. I decided to look at a horror trailer to have an idea of what effects are used to make the trailer look appealing. In this trailer I noticed loads of slow camera movements and slow cuts during the beginning, but throughout the trailer the pace starts to speed up and there are many more fast cuts. This gave me an idea of how we can use fast cuts to increase tension with our film. This trailer also seems like a typical teen horror movie, until further on we see many twists and elements that relate to other genres such as sci-fi. This was most probrably used to make the film seem less typical and suprising for the audience. It subverts their expectations. It would be good if we could add a twist to our film, but we only have two minutes of opening, but we will still be sure to create something that our audience would enjoy.

Summary of lesson

This lesson, we continued our editing and finally finished. We encountered many more problems in our film such as with mise en scene and with audio. There were unwanted objects in the background, and the audio wasn't loud enough. These were amateur mistakes that we should've clearly avoided. These mistakes were mainly due to the fact that we were filming in an active classroom. In our main task we will be sure to be patient and to take more time in filming so that we can creat a better product.

Costume for killer

We plan to have the killer in our film dressed in dark clothing with a mask. This would hide his identity, and the black clothing makes the villain look more fearful. We will film while it is dark to make the killer harder to spot, and to create a dark atmosphere.

Chase scene

In our film opening we plan to film a chase seen between the psychopath killer and the schoolboy victim. This would be a good opportunity to use a variety of shots, and using editing skills such as juxtaposition and match on action.
we can use this clip for ideas:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbvdeG49MI

One of our ideas for production

We were planning to use a CCTV shot of our victim walking through the corridoors but being watched by his killer. As he cannot see his killer, he has the fear of being 'watched'. Much like, George Orwell's, 1984 novel showing a society where you are always being watched. This shot would make our victim look vunerable and secluded, which is often seen in many horror films.

Film review

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dawn_of_the_dead/

Continuity errors

While we were editing our film we noticed many continuity errrors in the film. This was mainly because we were filming in a classroom with other students, and also because we had to start filming again to fill in the lost clips. We will be sure to look out for continuity errors in the future so our film opening will look professional with minimal mistakes. We will also film in locations that won't be interrupted so we can reduce continuity errors in our film.

Editing our film

We finally started editing our clips together this lesson. It was interesting to see how our film would look once we cut different segments and rearragned them in the correct order. We used Adobe Premier Elements to edit our film, we didn't encounter any problems with the tools in the program. We all had some editing experience in the past so the editing wasn't particularly difficult.

Problems with our editing

Last lesson we started editing our clips, however, we encountered a problem when we found out that some segments of footage were deleted from the camera. We then discovered that a few important segments for our preliminary exercise were overwritten while we were recording. This is a common mistake that can happen, but this can greatly slow down production, so it is important that we are careful when filming our main task. So in our next lesson we had to continue filming in order to fill in the important segments that were cut out.