AS Media Evaluation Question 9 By Niall Page

9. What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?

I feel as a group we have all performed very well with each task we had to do and we have all equally shared the workload.

During the planning we all did our own storyboards, I was assigned to the scene where the victim enters the clubhouse, walks through the corridor and enters the first room. I feel we all contributed well to this task.

I also watched a few horror films like The Shining to get some ideas for our horror film as we wanted to base our horror on a psychological horror, so we all watched a number of films to help us with our film.

For filming I concentrated on the mise-en-scene of the scenes to check that there were no errors in any of the shots, we all focused on a different bit with the filming so we didn't miss anything vital or missed any mistakes, I also took photos of the place where we did the shooting.

For editing I feel I was mainly responsible for making most of the music with Conor and Rachel sharing there opinions with me on how good the music was or not, I also shared my opinion with the editing on iMovie as Rachel and Conor did the editing on iMovie.

I was also responsible for matching the music up with the actual finished edited film with the help and aid of Conor and Rachel, I feel that this was the stage where I personally did my best  by doing most of the music and matching it to the film and making sure that it fit.

I am very happy with how I contributed to each stage of the film and I feel that Conor and Rachel also did very well with there contribution to the film and were a vital part of getting the film fully edited and finished in time. We all came in during our free time to help film and edit our movie and we have all equally done as well as eachother.

AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation - Question 9 by Conor

What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?

I feel that like everyone else i contributed well to the task and was responsible for the success of several critical areas of the project on the whole.

Planning:
I would say that i did my part in this area of the project from drawing up my section of the storyboard:

This i feel was done well by all members of our group!

I was also along with Rachel responsible for the search for a location, we went on several trips after college looking for a suitable environment for both our preliminary and final film.

I also watched a few Horror films in the hope of finding ideas for our attempt, these were in several ways successful as watching films like "Paranormal Activity" and "1408" gave me inspiration for the mental side of our piece.

Myself and Rachel also produced a Powerpoint presentation which we delivered to the class on the basic concept of our film (the video of this presentation is on our blog)

Filming:

I was always involved with this stage of the project. I attended every shoot aswell as often carrying lots of the equiptment both to the location and back with one or both of my group.

I personally did the filming with Rachel and Niall assisting and helping with both the mise-en-scene of the scenes as well as aiming to cancel out any continuity errors. This system worked well as i was used to working with the camera and therefore did (in my opinion) a good job.

This was a a prime example of what i would say was our tactic of each working to our strengths in order to come out with the best film possible.

Editing:

Again, i was heavily involved with this aspect of the film.

This section was split into two halves...the film itself and the music.

I was in charge of the film for which i did almost all of the actual editing (cutting up shots etc...) while Niall did almost all of the music himself. Rachel played the vital role of splitting her efforts between the two in the hope of seeing any unnoticed errors or reccomending another way of doing something.

I feel very comfortable with the Sofware (iMovie) and personally feel like a did a very good job with my work in this area which i feel is my most influencial role! I believe that without me in all areas but particularly this one, the film would have suffered

This is an example of a shot which i constructed that i am particularly proud of. In this scene (with the help of Niall's music) the tension rises and shots like this one will hopefully create nerves amoung viewers who may feel intimidated by being in our characters situation.

This is also an example of the P.O.V shot which all throughout this project i have pushed forwards as a good idea, i feel it has worked tremendously well particularly sparingly which is how we have used it.

Conclusion:

I am very happy with my input to our film and feel as though i have played several vital roles.

I have absolutely no complaints about m,y group who have been apleasure to work with and each deserve full credit for their roles in each stage of the project.

We each acted to our strengths and that is what i feel benefitted us the most throughout this course.

9. Final Question by Rachel Nolan.

9. What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?


I contributed to every stage of our film, as did Conor and Niall.
To begin with for the planning I drew up two of the storyboards out of the four, I composed the script on my own for our film,  I and Conor produced a powerpoint outlining our ideas for our film and then presented it to the class. I also watched a horror film every week to gain ideas for our own films and to understand the conventions of a psychological horror, from this I would do a textual analysis sheet and these can be seen on the blog. I also went to the first location to fill in the recee shit with Conor, this helped us to gain an idea of what the location could offer us for our film and the strengths and limitations of it. Furthermore for the planning I took test shots of our actress, with before make - up and costume and then after too, this helped us to gain an idea of what she would look like in our film.
The image below is an example of one of the storyboards I completed for the planning process of our film:

For the production of our film I was also greatly involved. I went along to every shoot, helping to take the equipment from college to our location, then helping to set up and actually film. For the production I would say we all took a pretty much equal role and all did what we were good at. Generally Conor would film, with me helping, whilst I would instruct and oversee what is happening - making sure we avoided any continuity and technical errors. I would ensure we followed our step outlines as best we could and kept to our film outline, I think if I had not of done this then we could of gone slightly off track and our film would not have turned out how we had anticipated.
Below is an example of our film outline that I tried to follow when we were filming:












Finally for the post production stages I took a major role. I helped to edit our film each week, rendering each clip, cutting them up etc, whilst Niall focused more on our music on GarageBand. I also updated our blog each week, noting our progress etc and what we were achieving in each session. I also came in twice outside of lesson to ensure our film was finished and to the highest standard possible, this involved trying to find any continuity errors and cutting it down so it was the correct time. As a group we would meet up to work on our film and regularly keep in contact so we knew what one another were doing and how far along our film was.

This shot shows our film on iMovie and the editing box on the right hand side which I used to lighten and darken each specific shot of our movie, it also shows how the music from Garageband has been added on to our film and each shot that we had to edit.






Overall I feel that I contributed a lot to each stage of our film, helping with everything to the best of my ability and taking control over certain aspects in each stage when it was necessary as other people weren't. I feel we worked well as a group and our film is a success because of this and without each one of us it would not have worked as we all contributed different skills and commitment to it.

Question 6 by Rachel Nolan.

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

Film Four are a British production company who produce a wide range of films, some of these being horror films. They hold 'Frightfest', a four day film festival held in London that promotes short British horror films. It has grown in population over the years and has premiered horror films that have gone on to be hugely successful, such as Pans Labyrinth, Hatchet and The Host. 

Below is a shot from Pans Labyrinth, capturing conventions shown in all genres of horror films (dark lighting, one victim alone etc)

If we were to look to getting our film produced and watched by huge audiences we would need to start off in a smaller scale film festival, which is more local, to gain public interest etc before moving on to bigger film festivals, attended by a larger audience, e.g. Frightfest. An example of this would be 'bang', a Nottingham film festival, which showcases films made in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. This would be ideal for our film 'Alone', as it could gain recognition and could then hopefully move on to larger film festivals, i.e. Frightfest and become produced. Companies such as Film Four could get our film disrtributed to large audiences in Britain, through cinema, tv and dvds. They could also market our film, gaining a lot of public interest, making it become known etc. 

Insomnia is a film shown at the Frightfest that is a psychological horror and has gained the recognition that we would hope we would achieve if our film could be shown at a film festival, whether it is starting off in a more unknown smaller one like Bang, or a more well known, popular one like Frightfest. Below is a shot from the film Insomnia:

AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question 5 by Conor

How did you attract/address your audience?


We targeted an audience of young (15-25) adults, mainly men and we feel we have done a decent job of this. We have suspense and action which is similar to the likes of paranormal activity. Due to this similarity we researched into their viewers and feedback of the film:

From this you can see that our prediction of audience was accurate.

We also had a fellow student analyse our film and fill out a feedback sheet which is below:

You can see that our sheet points out the same audience however female rather than male, this again reinforces our original ideas for target viewers.  He also comments on the good use of close ups and sound which are vital components of a good horror movie! We tries to increase the tensity of the situations by adding whispers and other creepy sounds to freak out any potential viewer.

We also had several examples of mise-en-scene which could appeal to our target audience. Our "writing on the board" scene, although not completely right, could appeal due to the out of the ordinary style of it! People would be intrigued to find out why this was happening and also what would have happened if the film had carried on which is why we left it on a cliff hanger, showing intense horror:

Question 4 by Rachel Nolan.

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


Our horror genre traditionally represents certain social groups and it is visible in a lot of psychological horrors that we watched. Typically you see women, who are stereotypically vulnerable and of an age between 18-30.






Here is a shot of the victim in the psychological horror the ring and she represents the typical social groups that you see in most psychological horrors:









To accommodate these representations in our own horror film we chose an actress who fit into the criteria, a young woman, who is blonde and seen to be vulnerable and weak. I feel this made our film more of a success, as it was followed the conventions of a typical psychological horror and an audience would feel more sympathy towards a helpless character who is a victim in a horror and who is also quite relatable for the audience.
Below is a picture of the actress featured in our film as the victim and the only character in the film throughout, as the threat is unknown and never seen by the audience:

From out audience feedback we can see that we were effective in representing the social groups seen frequently in psychological horror films, as they said they thought our character was effective and did follow the conventions of a psychological horror film.
You can see this on our audience feedback sheet below:

AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question 2 by Conor

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

The conventions of a psychological horror are that it is generally an unknown threat, something that cannot be explained, (e.g a ghost), a vulnerable character, commonly a woman, a lot of dramatic, tense music and in Paranormal Activity for example, point of view camera shots.

We decided that we wanted point of view camera shots to be used in our film, as they created a tense atmosphere and suspense, as the audience feels like they are actually in the movie and watching the drama unfold first hand - we saw how this happened in Paranormal Activity and how effective it was

This is an example of us trying to emulate the likes of "Paranormal Activity" who like to intimidate their audience by using shots like this (Point of view) which make it seem as though the viewer is actually in the situation, they feel what it is like to be in the characters shoes and therefore feel the same emotion and vulnerability which the character may display.

Another convention which we stuck to was the use of a female actress. This choice is often made due to the ideological thought that women are more vulnerable than males, this makes the storyline more believeable and also enduces more sympathy from viewers as the female victim could theoretically do less to defend themselves and therefore, there is more t feel sorry the the character about. 

This is our actress who we feel fits the stereotype of a young woman who would be more susceptible to attack! I feel as though this was the right way to go and compared to the thought of a male playing her role, we feel that this is significantly the better option.

This is Paris Hilton in "the house of wax" who fits perfectly into the stereotype and is who in a way we shaped our character on.

Also, we aimed to build the same amount of tension and mystery through sound which other similar films do! We looked at again the likes of "paranormal activity" who use both shocking sounds as well as more creepy, eerie sounds. We have examples of both of these:

 We had this shot of the door slamming behind our charcter as she entered the building, this is a prime example of the type of effect used in paranormal activity...

This is the scene which we indented to in a way replicate. We wanted to vary this iconic scene in which the bedroom door slams out of the blue causing massive shock to any viewers! This is what we hope to have achieved in our attempt which we feel should cause some jumps from the audience!

As i mentioned, aswell as the shock factor of sound...we also wanted to introduce creepy types of sound which would add to the tensity and mystery of its respective scene. We use whispers which we created ourselves on GarageBand using our own voices throughout the film, i personally see this as a massive positive in our film, i believe that it adds a significant amount of threat whilst visibly causing our character discomfort.

Equally, we wanted to optimise the use of editing in our film in order to increase its effect.

Myself being the main editor of the film itself, i intended to keep to two general rules.
1) when the film is calm and quiet, i wanted to use as few shot cuts as possible keeping the calm atmosphere alive and at the same time luring the audience into a false sense of security before the action begins.

2) when the film becomes tense and loud i wanted to include as many cuts as possible building tensity and making the viewers more alert to everything, this would hopefully keep the viewers on the dge of their seats, anticipating what may be around the corner.

These two a usually kept to in well known horror films like again paranormal activity which goes to the extreme of only using one shot until the action begins.

They have the one standard shot of the bedroom which if honest begins to bore the audience and therefore make the shock of for instance a door slamming all the more alarming! We did not go to that extreme but have attempted to keep a certain amount of its effect in what we have done.

Other things which i feel come from conventions of typical physcological horrors come thick and fast during our film, another example of that of the image at the top of this post which i will post again below:

This shot is typical of similar horrors of the same genre. It is a closed door, nothing special, but accompanied by fast paced music, whispers and everything else which this scene combines in our film, it becomes a mystery filled shot which should enduce intrigue and interest in what lies behind...but of course in our film you never find out what lies behind the door which is ANOTHER convention of physchological horrors...that of leaving the audience on a cliffhanger.

 

 

In conclusion i feel that we stuck to the conventions in general and did it well.

Final Film.

As Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question 8 by Conor

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

For our preliminary task we had to choose a film, that had been created by previous students and basically use the idea and copy they way in which they had filmed it etc. At this point we weren't very experienced with using the camera, as we hadn't done a lot of filming prior to it, like we have now.

We used a lot of basic mid-shots like this one (left)








There are a lot of differences between our preliminary and the production of our film, the main one being the experience we had when doing our production and the lack of it we had for the preliminary task. This meant on the production of our film we used a far wider range of camera shots and angles, kept to the rule of thirds and the 180 degree rule, ensured we had enough light and we learnt, through the development of all these things, how to best capture the action to achieve the desired effect and produce an effective opening to a horror film. I feel that in our final film we used a lot more risky shots which could either add to a good atmosphere or ruin the film, to be honest i feel that we have done both:

We attempted to have a action shot of the door being mysteriously slammed behind our actress as she flooded through it, this in-particular i feel was a success of our film, it added real pace and tensity to our film. Therefore this was a risk worth taking as it could have looked fake and shabby but i feel we made the most of it making it a real stand out point in our film

This shot was supposed to be a main scene in our film but the creation of it brought up several problems. We wanted the writing be be being written as she watched it, however there was no-one actually writing it. We used the star board, hoping to combine the writing with the shot of the empty board to do this but had sizing problems fitting the writing on the board, we then settled for just the writing without it being written which in itself takes away massively from the scene and the film in general. We also have timing problems as for a split second, the writing stays on the screen after the board has gone. Due to a combination of these problems


If we were to do the production again we would ensure that there would be no continuity errors so that we wouldn't have to keep re-filming, when the footage is all correct but unable to be used due to lack of continuity -which was very annoying for us!  Also, if we were to do the production again we would ensure we had completed the storyboards fully and clearly, we feel this would have helped us when filming because we would have known exactly what needed to happen in each shot and how it needed to be filmed etc.