Closing:

This blog is now complete, and it is now ready for assessment

Evaluation

Here is our evaluation

Final production!

Here is our final production! Yay it's done. 

Organisation: titles

We have decided to use the title 'Buried Secrets' for our sequence as it fits in quite well. I have used Adobe Premiere Pro to make the titles look effective. I have managed to make each letter of the title glow as the timer goes over it which we will be using for our final sequence

Production: Editing

We have almost finished our editing, but we are thinking about our titles, whether they are put in the right place, and if they are called the right thing. we may change them to fade in, and fade out rather than just fade out. also "Directed by..." should come a bit later as it is too soon.

Production: Editing

Today were put all of our clips onto premiere and we have put some music along side it. We now are just deciding how to have the music, and wha bit to cut from the film as it is 9 seconds too long.

Production: Filming

While we were filming on Wednesday, we decided to change our opening slightly. We took off the letter bit at the beginning, as some viewers of our animatic said it was confusing, and also because we were worried that it was going over 2 minutes long. Also at the end we took out the bit of her falling over, and replaced it with zooming in on a smoking cigarette, this was to save the girl falling over and hurting herself, because after clearer observation we saw that the quarry floor was not safe to fall on. And plus it was raining, and she would get soaked.

Production: outtakes

time update:

Looking at the time scale we have left it is going to be important that we meet the dead lines that we have set.

After looking at the calendar we are in the last week of us filming so we need to make sure that we begin the editing process by Friday.

Production filming

We shall be filming tomorrow (Wednesday the 12th) We shall leave in our media lesson to go to the quarry.
we will attempt to film the remaining shots which are:


shots
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32


We will film in the quarry first, and then when they are al done, we shall go indoors and film shots 1-7 because we can control the lighting.

Planning: New shot list

Our shot list from before was not very detailed, and because of this when we came to film we were not very organised.
Here is our new shot list:


shot 1- Establishing shot, we see the quarry, the camera will flash to different parts of the quarry.
(fades to black)
shot 2- Medium close up of side view of a table, with an envelope on it. A hand comes to pick it up


Shot 3- Close up, shot from above table, hand grabs letter


shot 4- mid shot of side of girl looking at the envelope.


shot 5- extreme close up of girls eyes looking at it (she opens it)


shot 6- close up of hand (still side view)


shot 7- close up of girl (still side view)


shot 8- mid shot of getting in the car (in front of car)


shot 9-long shot of her driving away


shot 10- point of view shot driving


shot 11- long shot of her driving down the road near quarry, camera pans as she goes past.


shot 12- long shot of her pulling up and opening the car door.


shot 13- mid shot (in front of car) of her getting out, goes to lock door


shot 14- extreme close up of locking door


shot 15- mid shot of walking to the boot


shot 16- mid shot (from behind car) goes to open boot


shot 17- extreme close up of unlocking boot


shot 18- mid shot, open boot, grab spade, close the boot and look around her.


shot 19- long shot, girl walks towards camera towards quarry. pans as she goes past.


shot 20- mid shot, walks to gate throws spade over and puts foot on gate.


shot 21- close up of foot


shot 22- close up of hands


shot 23- (other side of gate) long shot of her climbing over gate. look around picks up spade, and walks further in.


shot 24- mid shot, her digging, hears a noise, looks up quickly


shot 25- side shot, extreme close up of her eye


shot 26- long shot, (in front of her) grabs box, drops spade and runs


shot 27- hand held camera on her feet


shot 28- hand held camera on her face


shot 29- hand held camera on the box in her hands


shot 30 medium close up of her face as she trips (side view)


shot 31- side view, close up of her face as she hits the floor/on the floor.


shot 32- close up of eye


(Title appears)
(fade to black)

Production: editing

I have just finished editing shots 13-19 that we filmed on Wednesday. Premiere was behaving today, so i was able to do this quite quickly, after trying to do it Friday, and it wouldn't work properly.

Production: filming update

  Filming shot 19, first take

 Shot 15, take 2

shot 15 take 2 again

Shot 14 take 3


















This is evidence of us filming shots 13-19, doing these shots took about 2 hours to film. So we have learnt that we need to get filming now! Shots 1-7 can be filmed any time, as it is done indoors, and we are in control of the lighting, but the rest of the shots are filmed outside and we cannot control the lighting, or the weather. At first I was worrying because I thought we had a lot to film in one day, but I have now realised we have a few days, and am feeling less worried now.

Planning: filming risk assessment 1

What shots are we filming?

Tomorrow we will be filming shots are shots 13 to 19 we have arranged to meet at the location around 2.30 pm to set up and begin filming. We have organised one of the crew (me) to bring along a spade, and Dom have brought along the music box and torch. Also the car that we will be using in the filming is Dom's which he will be using to get to the location.    

Here is our risk assessment
Risk assessment for shot one Wednesday 5th January.

Making sure that road signs are out to inform traffic of what is taking place.

Making sure that props are used in the right manner (spade).

Make sure that camera box is left in the car to prevent cast falling over when filming.

make sure that we have our fluorescent jackets are warn as filming at dusk.

Making sure that cast take care when driving and pulling on to the side of the road.

Organisation: First Shooting

Today in our media lesson we are going to start filming. The shots we are going to concentrate on today are all the shots but shot 2 as we wanted to get the location ones done first. However, if we do not manage to get all of the location shots done by today due by it getting dark early we will have to break up the shots and do them on separate days.

Planning: Animatic

This is our photo animatic. Yet again it is not 2 minutes long, but it will be more padded out with clips of the girl at home reading a letter, and more of a running away sequence. Obviously we are aiming for 2 minutes for our opening

Time menagement

To manage our timing and deadlines we have created a 'google calendar' so it layouts out clearly what days we will be preparing for our film or filming etc

Organisation: Location

This is our location that we are going to use. The photos would have been used in our story board, but we found that the drawn one was better.

Risk assessment December 2010

For our media product, we will be filming our opening sequence at Martley quarry. There are different risks that we will need to take into consideration when filming at this location. 

Making sure that the camera and the box are not in the way at anytime to prevent students from falling over. 
Making sure that students stay away from the water as there is water at our location. 
If there is still snow on the ground we need to make sure that students have the right foot wear on. 
Make sure that students are wearing a seatbelt when travelling to our location. 
When walking up a road make sure that students are in single file, and they are aware of surroundings e.g. cars 
Do not leave equipment in road. 
When the filming is taking place of the car make sure that students are stood well away at all times.


To help Prevent problems from occurring jurying the filming we have made sure that all of the students taking part in the filming are aware of the traffic situation. we have wisely decided to choose a road that is quiet as this will limit the amount of hazards when filming.

we have also made some "Filming in progress signs to put on the trees to make sure that the small amount of traffic are aware what is happening.

Organisation: Cast

We are currently looking for two people to cast in our sequence, we have asked people, but are currently waiting for a reply.

Organisation: Costumes

The characters will not be limited to any certain type of clothing. Everyday casual clothing will be perfect (as long as it is warm, to show how cold it is in the quarry, and add to the atmosphere) the woman should be wearing trainers, to add to the "normal" view of her. And also so she can run without hurting herself.


The man who will appear in it should be wearing dark coloured clothing to make him more creepy.

Organisation: Props

For our opening sequence we will need to consider the props we will need:


A spade- I will be bringing this
A letter- Emma will be making this
A music box- Dom will be bringing this
A car- Dom will also be sorting this

Planning: Animatic

This is our animated storyboard. It shows what we want our opening to look like.
Obviously this sequence is only 19 seconds long, in our actual opening it will be made longer by a longer shot of her driving, and digging. So our actual opening will not be 19 seconds long, it will be the full 2 minutes.

Planning Animatic

The story board is done! I have now taken pictures of it and later today i will try to upload them onto movie maker to make the animation. Then i will upload it onto youtube then send it to our audience group.

Time management: update

In lesson today I carried on making the drawn story board to make into an animation, while my team members made an animation from photos taken at the quarry and decided what music would be best. the looked at music box music

Time management: update

Today we went to our location: Martley quarry. And it looks perfect for our film opening.

Planning: shot list

Shot 1: Establishing shot of location (Quarry)
Shot 2: Medium close up of girl reading letter from a side angle eventually zooming into her face
Shot 3: Hand-held camera in car focusing on her driving
Shot 4: Long shot of car pulling up
Shot 5: Long shot of the girl walking towards the quarry, showing her and the location
Shot 6: Close up of 'Danger' sign covered in leaves etc
Shot 7: Tracking shot of girl walking towards gate and climbing over it to enter the Quarry
Shot 8: Long shot of girl shown walking around the quarry
Shot 9: Close up of girl digging focusing on the hole and shovel
Shot 10: Extreme close up of girls eye as she hears rustling noises
Shot 11: Long shot & Shallow depth of field of silhouette of man in background
Shot 12: Extreme close up of girls eye as she begins to cry in fear
Shot 13: Medium long shot of girl throwing shovel down, beginning to run
Shot 14: Fast paced jump cuts of girl running showing her feet & face
Shot 15: Close up of her falling over showing her head hit the ground
Shot 16: Camera zooms into her eye as the titles fade onto the screen

Synopsis

Our opening would start with an establishing shot of our location, the camera would pan over the trees, and will focus on a keep out sign, using shallow depth of field to give it a creepy feel. After the establishing shot we will try to use a number of jump cuts of close ups of a woman running, making it look panicked and adds an enigma codes. The camera would then go to a different part of the location showing another figure stood at the top of the cliff looking lost. The camera would flick twice from the figure looking lost to the jump cuts of the woman shouting his name, giving a sense of two different feels from two different people.
It flashes back to earlier that day showing them camping, and how happy they are. But while we see this we are hearing the noises happening in the future, of the woman running and screaming. We hear one blood curdling scream in the open with the camera on the floor and a body falls in front of the camera, and the title fades in on the screen in the woman's dead eye

Genre research summary

From the film openings I looked at, I found that for a thriller/horror film the font could be a font that resembles blood at should be in red, or white and the text could fade off the screen, because it gives it a ghostly quality. Also the background could be all one colour-black because it looks threatening. The pace tends to be quite slow in some cases, so the viewer has longer to wonder what is going to happen.

I have noticed that in the openings of films I watched, both of them and some kind of high pitched music, such as a piano playing. This would be good to use in our opening as it sets the mood of the film.

The characters in the opening sequence would seem fairly ordinary (such as the man in The grudge) but there may be something wrong, for example if it is the victim they may have blood on them, and in the middle of no where. and if it is the bad guy then there may be distortions in them for example may, and her lazy eye. there would be quite a bit of sound, and fast paced editing in the opening to create fear and tension.

From my research I have found that normally in a horror/thriller film the setting is somewhere where there are not many people. The lighting is often really dark, and there may be some weapons as props.

Barthes' enigma codes are often used in horror/thriller films to keep the tension, to do this a range of close up shots could be used. Tense music and fast editing would be used to create action codes. Also in an opening there is often a sense of who is good, and who is bad. This may be what we want to look out for in our opening.

Audience research focus group meeting analysis

For our genre moodboard we got some positive feedback from the members. They said that our moodboard relates to our genre well and also using a certain font to connote a scary look to it pulled off well. They also said that the choice of photos of popular, well known movies also helps the audience know what this particular moodboard is about.


Next was our audience montage, we managed to get a little bit of feedback for it but not as enough as we had hoped.










One piece of feedback that we got was that our montage is good but could do with a little bit more masculine things eg sport. So from that partly negative response we will aim to make it a a fair movie which demonstrates male and female gender.


After some consideration from the feedback we received we have thought that the genre that we have picked is a good genre to do as many people seem interested in it from the positive comments. We have also thought about our planning that we will be doing and now we will be considering peoples interests that our opening sequence is aimed at. After all of the research we have done we have decided that we will definably do the genre of Thriller/Horror as many people seem to enjoy watching films that are related to that genre.

Audience research focus group

The next thing we did was we created an audience focus research group on 'Facebook' as we thought it would be the best way to get feedback from our friends and to get information and feedback on our genre moodboard & audience montage.

Members in the group are
Alex Lam
Nathan Grosvenor
Kym Robbins
Christopher Spencer

Target Audience

Our target audience is mixed gender, 16-19 year olds who fall into the mainstream hedonists who are C1s and C2s on the Jicnar scale. At first our characters would be introduced as hedonists who are out for a good time however they will also been seen as fairly intellectual who have aspirations to do well in life and aim to achieve their dream careers.
We have also created a montage to visually demonstrate what target audience we are aiming at and what their interests are so we can relate to them for our opening sequence.

Genre Analysis "May"

At the very beginning of the titles sequence it fades into what looks like blood soaked denim, this suggests straight away that the genre of the film may be a horror. Red is always linked to horror films because it connotes blood, and blood connotes death.

When the titles are coming up it doesn’t scream horror film, It looks as though it might be a nice indie film about dress making maybe. It’s odd and quirky, because the shapes that are made/cut out don’t have straight lines, are not perfect and it all seems nice and home made on a sweing machine. This is a classic convention for a horror film, because it shocks to audience when they see the next part of the sequence. The film makers, try to make it look all normal, and then throw the viewer straight into horror, it creates fear and works really well for a horror film.

After some sewing machine work happens to the background the title of the film comes up, and a spot of blood dips onto it. This will tell the audience that the fim is likely to be a horror film. After the title of the film has been shown the whole screen fades to black. This sets the scene back is a really common coloured used to represent death, its threatening because it takes up the whole screen. Five seconds after the fade to black it suddenly shows a girl covering one of her eyes with blood everywhere whilst screaming. Imediatly this creates enigma codes; who is she? whats happened to her? But not only are there enigma codes, it also makes the viewer jump slightly because it went from a black screen to a screaming girl which definatly proves that this film is a horror film.

The non diegetic music is quite high pitched and soft, if you listen to it you can also hear whispering which makes the atmosphere of the film more intense because ghost children can be asociated with some horror films, because they are creepy and frightning. The images of the dolls parts falling also adds to the sense of creepyness because they are only body parts, and not whole dolls, the non diegetic sounds along with the body parts of dolls adds to the atmosphere of a horror film very well.

The doll that the girl gets for her birthday really sets the genre, It adds a freaky touch to the film becasuse it is always staring through the glass box that it sits in all day, and dolls can often be used in horror films because they seem inncocent, another example of a doll in a horror film is Chuckie.

The mother acts like verything has to be perfect, and she can be seen as a “freak” for this. Because she wants everything to be perfect she is making her daughter isolated. Being isolated in a horror film, adds a sense of tention, because you know they are alone and vulnerable. This makes the film scary, because something will happen to that character.

Genre Analysis "The Grudge"

First of all it is clear the film is going to be a horror/thriller film because of the production team. The production team is called Ghost House Pictures and their logo is a skeleton looking through a key hole, which immediately shows the viewer the genre of the film.

It is clearly evident from the opening of The Grudge, that the genre is likely to be a thriller, horror, or a mystery. This is evident in the way it starts; there are titles that come up on the screen in ghostly white writing on a threatening black background, the sentence stays there for a while then the words fade away which makes the opening seem unnerving and one key word written in blood red writing is left “Curse” “Death” “Fury”. This connotes that this film may be a horror because red connotes blood, and the words tell us it’s not going to be a happy film, it may be gory or even psychological. 

The writing was used to introduce the story before we see any characters, and it is not uncommon for exposition to open a horror film. When we get more into it and see the characters Barthes’ enigma code theory is present as we do not know anything about the people; who they are, what they are doing, for example we do not know why the man is up early. The establishing shot showing where the film is set seems fairly ordinary, but the man shows us something is wrong by the way he keeps looks around, like he is looking out for something bad. And we are left wondering why he is on the balcony and why he is not in bed with the girl. Enigma codes would often be in horror films to keep the viewer wondering what is going to happen next, making tension in the film.

The narration seems to be restricted narration because we do not know the man is going to throw himself off his balcony so the narrative is only tied to one character at the start, creating a sense of mystery and horror right at the beginning, showing the audience what kind of film genre this is going to be. I think most horror films would be based on restricted narration as it keeps the sense of mystery and un-knowing about it, which makes it scary. However the narration may slip in and out of restricted and omniscient narration, because if the audience know more than what the characters know in the film, it makes it more tense, and creates a sense of fear because the audience are waiting for something to happen to the characters.

Non diegetic sounds have been put in to add to the atmosphere of the genre, when the man has fallen a high key piano plays, this suggests that it wasn't just a suicide attempt and maybe has deeper meaning than that. The music creates a creepy feel to it, proving that the genre in in fact horror.

Genre Moodboard

This is our genre moodboard showing the types of things we would want in our opening titles.

First Ideas

We have decided that we want our genre to be a horror/thriller for an audience of 16-19 years olds.
I will be working with Emma, and Dommm.

Dexter: From script to screen

The idea of Dexter initially came from the name "Dexter" the letters in the name can be turned upside down, or back to front and they still look relatively the same. Eric Anderson found this important for the character he was about to create, because Dexter doesn't change much from his everyday life, to when he becomes a serial killer.
Eric was also fascinated by crime scene photographs, for example a photograph of a window looks ordinary, until you find out it's background and find out that it's the window from which Martin Luther King was shot from. Which reflects back to Dexter, he seems ordinary until his background is found out through the way he carries out his morning routine.
 Everything has a sense of violence to them, an example of this is a blossoming flower; the petals opening up could be seen as an explosion. This bleeds into the morning routine that Dexter has, because all of the normal activities have been twisted into a sense of violence, for example tying his shoe laces reflects him strangling someone. even though it is a normal everyday the way he does it makes him seem scary, and violent, allowing the audience to see what kind of character he is.
Noir lighting and shallow depth of field has been used to hide a part of Dexter (with shallow depth of field it was his face in the mirror, and noir lighting it was half of his face being put into shadow) These techniques have been used to connote that Dexter has a dark side, or a secret, making the viewers see him differently. Non diegetic music and jump cuts has added more to the atmosphere and makes Dexter seem all the more scary because he is portrayed as a "normal" person, and we know from the way he does things that actually he is not.
Eric's first choice of music for the sequence was Xploding plastix but after some advise from the show creators he changed it to the track that is being used now. Xploding plastix seemed too dark for Dexter, so non of the other techniques were being focused on as much (for example Barthes' enigma codes) The music didn't give the sequence as much mystery, because it gave too much away. The music that was finally used lets the audience listen to the music along with the pictures and see that Dexter is in actual fact not what he seems. And that there is something wrong about him.

Analysis Of The Opening Of Juno

Key Conventions

Main Task

Our main task is to produce the titles and opening scenes to a new fiction film. It has to last a maximum of 2 minutes.
I have a number of deadlines to stick to, they are as follows:


26/11/10 research deadline
3/12/10 photo story board deadline
7/1/11 filming deadline
28/1/11 production deadlines
11/02/11 evaluation deadline

Targets

to make my work in the future the best that I can achieve, I will set myself some targets:

1. describe and explain everything fully in my evaluation.
2. Prepare everything (cast, location, script) before filming starts.
3. Make sure I use a wide range of techniques while filming to show my full potential. 

Evaluation (continued)

Getting the video on my blog

First of all I had to upload the video onto my youtube account, once it had uploaded I then obtained the embed code and put it into my blog under the 'edit HTML' tab i then clicked publish post and then view post and the youtube video was on my blog.

how blogger helped me

Blogger has helped me with my work, because it is well organised, it is presented into chunks so therefore it is easy to follow. it is a very effective way to present work, because it can be easily changed if need be.

Evaluation

Post-Production

Just finished the editing now! after we knew how to use onlocation and premiere, editing was fiddly but we knew what we were doing. It was laborious at times because we kept having to put in the same clip over and over again to crop out the parts we didn't want (that will teach us to be lazy on onlocation!) 

Production

Finished filming! Apart from forgotten lines, laughing and trying to figure out how to turn the camera on, filming went surprisingly smoothly. using the camera is so easy when you know how (and when you can turn it on in the first place)

Pre-production Tasks

Before we started filming it was important that we made a photo-story board, the story board is important because we could refer back to it while we were filming, making sure that we knew what we had to be filming and where.
Also we had to find a location and cast, luckily a friend from class was kind enough to act with my partner, and our location was an empty classroom so no problems there!

Continuity Editing

Continuity editing is editing that is almost invisible, the scene should seem continuous, and not look as though it is made up of different shots. The piece should flow naturally. 
It is used to make the audience involved in the story, and forget that it is a film/programme. It makes the piece more realistic and enjoyable!
The main ways to do this is:
-The 180-degree rule
-Eye line match
-shot/reverse shot
-cutting-on-action
-establishing shot

Preliminary Task- Video Production

Preliminary exercise: we have been given a task to film and edit a scene where a character opens a door, walks across the room and sits opposite another character, who then exchange some lines of speech. This task should be an example of match on action, shot/reverse shot, and also the 180-degree rule.
We also have to include a cut-away, and a cut-in.

Heyy! : )

Welcome to my media studies blog! I will be using this blog to provide updates on how my media studies practical work is progressing.