THE FINAL VIDEO

it has been a long journey but here is our final video, i hope you enjoy it :)

A simple shot of a tree can be made to look threatening by stripping it of leaves, adding a vulture and some lightening and shooting it in darkness. The same tree can be given a very different look by having children playing beneath its sunlit branches. As an experienced film audience we are able to read these hidden signals of lighting, colour, props and characters and add these to our understanding of what will happen in the film.


In this way, the elements of mise en scéne are an indicator as to the genre (type) of film we are watching. We have certain expectations of the mise en scéne in different genres of films; e.g. Horror; Dark, creepy, evil.
Comedy; Bright, colourful, lively.


The elements to consider in the mise en scéne are:
a) settings & props
b) costume, hair & make-up
c) facial expressions & body language
d) lighting & colour
e) position ing of characters & objects within a frame


Heres a brief look at each of these in turn;


SETTINGS & PROPS


SETTINGS:


The settings used in a film are very rarely just backgrounds to the characters' dialogue and indeed we will often see shots of places without any action taking place. In this way the setting of a film is far more significant than the setting of a theatre and is almost always infinitely more detailed. Filmmakers can choose to build a setting from scratch using the bare walls and floor of a studio set; alternatively, a great deal of time and effort is put in by a location manager in the initial stages of making a fil;m to find a setting which already exists. Invariably this location will then be altered further to reflect exactly what the filmmaker wants to convery.


Settings can be used to manipulate an audience by building certain expectations and then the action takes a different turn, for instance, a tale of horror set against the familiar background of modern everyday urban life is showhow more disturbing than one set a century ago in a house in the wooods. This can be particularaly effective if the setting goes against what we would expect from this genre of film.


PROPS:


Props is the term we give to objects in the setting which play a part in the action, rather than just being part of the background, for example, the glass containing the poisioned wine.




COSTUME, HAIR & MAKEUP


COSTUME:


Costume plays a large part in the mise en scéne because it can be an instant indicator to us of a character's personality, social status and job. It tells us immediately whether the film is set in the present and what society and/or culture it will centre around. It may also provide a clue as to the part of the caracter will play in the action. Certain types of costume are identified closely with indicidual genres, for instance, the black cloak of the vampire with a horror film.


MAKE UP:


In the early days of cinema, make-up was used to highlight facial features as black and white film stock could not register detail very well. Certain genres traditionally use make-up more than others.

Codes and convensions of the horror genre

This type of genre strives to educe fear and apprehension from their viewers by colliding supernatural into reality situations. Everything a normal society values is systematically destroyed throughout the film. It often can be completely paranormal without any reality whatsoever and are based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre. They can also incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction (sci-fi), fantasy, black comedies or thriller. Modernized horrors usually contain graphic violence or bloody gore. Horror films differentiate due to the years and so it is much harder to compare or group them largely and so contrasts between them become very clear.


o Preliminary introduction into ordinary lifestyleo Type of bizarre murder/death – killer maybe known or unknowno Credits follow horror theme – creepy font, title movement, image eg pumpkin, weapon, etc
o Main characters introduced – young/ youthful
o Teenage kids – easy target also vulnerable – home alone
o Teenagers usually a couple – football jock boyfriend and cheerleader blonde bimbo girlfriend.
o Mysterious phone calls – dubbed sinister voice “Who’s There…?”
o Family ties broken
o Sisters killed by brothers e.g: Halloweeno Sometimes unsuccessful acts of heroism
o Victim unprotected
o Superhuman killer – doesn’t die successfully = sequels

Storyboard

Here is our storyboard, it is a brief copy as during filming we lost the original copy.

the benifits of using a storyboard is it gives us a good idea about how we want shots and what we want them to look like while story board i have to think about if the camera angle was possible for us and if the lighting would be correct. we used it during filming briefly but as we were filming we though of new ideas and adapted them to are production and as we went though the filming we realised some shots would look better in different ways .In the origional we put shot duration, sound and lighting and a brief discription of what was happening in the shots.

i had to be efficant with my time as i had to draw alot of shots and at the same time have to make them reconisable for anyone using the storyboard. i obtained the storyboard sheet via mr deVita and used a A3 printed to print it out so i could draw more detail into it also thiswould make things clearer, i used a pencil and pen to draw/write this.

as you can see from the images we have tried to stick to are original idea as closely as we can  here is a comparision of the storyboard vs the video

as you can see we've stuck to the environment shown in the storyboard as before filming we had to go down to the filming location and examine where shots will possibly go. as you can see the charater is wearing the correct clothing as this was decided before the storyboard was created and shadows are drawn in correctly the correct places on connors face

us at the location

Evaluation

Evaluation Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Our film is a thriller/horror genre.  Most of a thrillers codes and conventions come from the audio and editing. Some of the these are: quick cuts, use of camera angles and specific lighting, Shadows are a big thing, used to create tension and suspense (this helps to create an atmosphere and create tension). We chose to film at night, using only natural light (ambience/tungsten lighting).At the start our production, we the main character getting ready, with cuts to the first person view of the victim; adding a black and white affect to the final edit of the killer preparing, this represents how it is in the past. The fast cutting between these creates tension, making the audience anticipates something bad. When the music first starts in our film it is slow and eerie, creating an immediate atmosphere/enigma; foreshadowing the drama later on.  Ryan and I created slow titles that gradually encroach in, this is to match the slow eeriness of the song we recorded; fitting the codes and conventions of a thriller. 
The protagonist in our film is wearing all black, keeping to a typical horror villain, so we didn’t want to use a white hat however, I feel this has added to the character’s persona, representing the innocence inside of him. The word oxymoron is contrast of two opposites for example “bitter sweet”, this is reflected in our character is a as he is a both good and bad, his good side is dominated by this darker alter ego. and bad side represented in his clothes, the back dominating the majority of him and the small white hat showing his humanity. This is a typical representation of a killer, dark colours making it sinister, and showing mystery, fear, and evil, which creates a threatening image. Heather Steele, the victim from our film wears dark clothes, this is to try and not draw to much attention to her. Keeping her monochrome helps add to the emphasis of her red bag, foreshadowing the danger to come; the colour red also represents the villain’s passion to the kill.








Evaluation Question 2

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

Our character is a serial killer; his intentions are not clear until later on in the movie. He goes out of his way to hunt down a woman who has hurt him emotionally, pushing him to the edge of sanity. We have based his persona on a typical horror scenario, killer is angry with someone, killer hunts down said person; killer takes down anyone who gets in his way. His appearance comes across as mysterious and this is shown by the lowered head, broad stance and low camera angles. This highlights his dominance and ominous presence. The unsheathed sword is a representation of his intentions, the moment it is revealed the climax builds. We were influenced by typical tropes/codes and conventions of the horror genre, for example the bright white hat that is prominent when the killer first reveals himself. This is becomes his signature trait making him instantly recognisable to the audience; the colour white foreshadows the character's innocence that is revealed later on in the movie. Both Mike Myers from Halloween and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13^th carry similar traits to our character, such as no dialogue to enhance the mysticism of the character; also adding suspense at the moment of the kill, making the audience want to know more about his story. Additionally, The characters have weapons to symbolise their intent to kill, which is reinforced by their stance and the lighting of the shot, the strong posture and lighting from above creates a sense of power and masculinity. Most shots of the characters are shot in a film noir style, adhering to the use of blacks and grungy colours to make the viewer think of the bad, evil and dangerous. One code and convention we tried to break was trying to maintain a balance of human air to the character whilst keeping the psychopath feel. To pull this off we replaced the lifeless mask with a hat in order to help the audience empathies with him better, giving a more personal outlook on the villain instead of masking his identity. We attempt to portray a character who’s first appearances seem sinister, like any typical villain, and then through the progression of the film as the story is revealed, the audience begin to, or at least try to understand his actions and see him as an ordinary a human being pushed to the limit. A similar story line is shown in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2007 however, the audience has the chance to sympathise with the character (Mike Myers) early on; the character then begins to lose the audiences’ affection, as he becomes a stereotypical villain.

Evaluation Question 3

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?Our production company goes by the name of StandHardProductions, this name was chosen as a metaphor of how we planned to go about our work, to work together as a team and stand against problems we encountered. I created a logo using Photoshop; I tried to keep it simple by making it a circle with SHP inside of it. Our small group, we had to split the roles; I took up the role of editor as I had the most experience in this field.i have also taken up the role of team leader picking trying to pick up the slack, motivating people within the group; I have also had to arrange the majority of the preparation in our filming. 
Another maijor role i preformed was acting as the main character, this allowed me to but my thoughts and ideas straight into the character; manipulating the way the film looked. The other roles, such as filming, story boards, mise on scene etc were done by Liam Oliver, Ryan Newsom and Francesca Williams (with help and prompting from me). As i have said i desided to be protagonist (the murderer), as I feel my body type fit the character persona. Heather Steele, is not a member of our media studies but, we choose her to be our actress (the victim), Liam as a ‘yob’ and William Page as our stunt double; These names are in our titles. 

An idea for a studio would be one like “Haxan Films” a production company headquartered at the Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. They are famous for producing the cult classic independent horror film The Blair Witch Project. The name is taken from the 1922 Swedish/Danish silent movie Häxan ("The Witch"). This is a small company, which is what we would look into using for our film. A small British distribution company we would look into is “Film4” part of the channel four franchise. Know for film such as “Slumdog millionaire” and “This is England”, This is England being another known British thriller with a budget of “£1,500,000 or $2,380,000” (estimate) and a gross revenue of “£5,154,493 or $8,176,544” (estimate) all though this is a high budget film they do distribute some smaller films. Their films tend to have a massive turn over continuing to turn over money, even after the cinemas. Evaluation Question 4

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

Our film would be targeted at an audience consisting men of an age range 18-30 years old. They would probably go to see it with a girl friend, giving free low-key advertising by telling his close friends about the film. These friends would probably view horror movies when they visit the cinema as it provides them with an adrenaline rush; films with blood, gore and action would probably be their type of film, where as the girl friend would find the more physiological side of the film interesting; Some programmes such as true blood, have the same attractions as our film.


Evaluation Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The major conventions we used when making our media was form the genres: Horror and Thrillers, using low-key lighting this is typicaly done in films to create an emphasised sinister and powerful look to our character. The same techqnice was applied to the rest of the media to create a grungy and dark atmosphere, emphasising the sinister feeling of the opening. The backing track was a slow, piano and vocal based piece that added to the eerie atmosphere.

One way our audience was attracted was by; Facebook groups, YouTube channels, and Rough cut viewings. We created a Facebook Group called ‘StandHardProduction’, allowing people to view our news blog posts, videos and updates on what we have been doing, raising awareness for our production. The best thing we took from this group was feedback on videos and polls.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_139347546114394&ap=1

By creating a YouTube channel we could upload shots we were unsure about for the world to view and comment on; this also applied to rough cuts, etc. this gave us a view as to whom potential audiences might be, also helping us tailor make our final product and what it might look like.

http://www.youtube.com/user/StandHardProductions

I have also created a teaser trailer for our film, to entice audiences and start spreading the word a bout a new film that is forth coming.

we not only gained feedback from the internet; Also presenting a rough cut to our class in a Media lesson to get feedback from other students and how to improve on it.


Evaluation Question 6

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

I have used many different forms of technology throughout my media, some that I knew how to use already: cameras, editing software and some, where I have quickly picked up new skills, blogging, etc.  quickly . I have edited the videos and the main title and Ryan’s titles into our production, I have also taken over for Liam as camera man for some shot where he has had to act. My skills of editing where limited, so throughout the production I have been learning new techniques and developing skills I already had. Since this production I have learnt new skill to do with editing such as, titles and special FX, this was through online tutorials called videocopilot. These tutorials allowed me to edit our video and help create amazing titles. Although I did not film, I have understanding of cameras which allowed to offer advice to Liam I also learnt more about filming whist talking with him about camera angles. I also feel we did well to edit the film together against the difficulties of cutting out scenes which wouldn’t be able to be filmed due to lack of special effects, we edited it in a way so that the audience could put it together themselves and be able to work out what happens. My confidence in all the aspects of our production has improved, since we first started. Blogging came naturally tome as I have a reasonably extensive knowledge of computers and there workings; however I had to get to grips with the new software learning to post blogs and add html snippets.

With some of the technical difficulties we had, loosing footage and expiry with software i had to learn how to use new software such as I movie; an editing programme for Macintosh users.

Evaluation Question 7

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Our final production is a greater performance compared the shaky, low quality preliminary product; this due to not only better equipment, it is also due to the new and improved skills that the group has learnt. Such as, editing, filming and preparation; I myself have spent hours looking through different camera angles, and shots to create the perfectly edited final production. After much deliberation and assessment, Ryan, Liam and myself decided on some more shots to include in our production. This is a level of devotion we haven’t show with any project before, will retake shot after shot until we have the perfect take.

when we first made our preliminary exercise we had limited experience with creating a film. for example our editing was over the top and not simplistic, camera work was shaky and uneven as shown on the left screen grab. then comparing that to the right screen grab you see an instant difference; the depth of field is more prominent in our final production were as the appears to be no depth of field in the preliminary, the stability of the shots are also dramatically different.

you can compare the difference by watching the videos at the same time, the shot angles, audio, transitions, acting, match on action and the 180 degree rule. 

Editing of Individual Clips

I have had to edit all of the individual clips for our movie, this is because, the programme we are using (Premiere Pro) to comprise all of the footage together requires the files to be a different format. Seeing as the clips needed to be darkened and tweaked, I did it at the same time using after effects. In after effects I used the brightness and contrast however, i didn't apply it to the clips themselves i created an adjustment layer, applying it to that. this adjustment layer meant that I could delete the clips and add the next one to be edited without having to transfer effects across.if you look below you can see the before and after, (before on the right and after on the left) you can see how the clip is darkened and the shadow more pronounced.

I have also created a CCTV look for the clips which is shown below however, the video is a teaser trailer i made for our film consisting of CCTV footage in reverse. there is also a step by step guide to how I did it.

step one - the first step is to add a vignette, you can find this by typing vignette into the effects and presets tab. this adds a black gradient around the edges.

step two - the second step is to add a pre-made effect called "night vision", once again this can be found by typing night vision into the effects and presets; simply drag and drop it on to the clip.

step three - is to change the colour of the night vision effect, from green to either black or a green/blue, this is to add a close circuit TV camera

step four - after the colour is perfected it is time to add the timecode, this can be found in the effects tab Effects-Text-Timecode you can then change the frame rate of the counter, and the starting frame.

step five - now to create the camera name and date of recording, to do this create two black rectangles, then wright camera number, area, and date. then turn on action safe and adjust the position of the boxes. 

step six - lastly the frame rate of the clip has to be changed, this can be done by pressing ctrl/cmd K then changing it down to about 4 frames a second this will give it the jumpy look you get on cctv cameras

I was also going to add some special effect into the clips such as, blood splats, fog, etc. However, with the technical difficulties with the usb stick I lost all the video copilot files, files containing preset clips of blood, fog, mist and more. These files can be dropped straight on to a clip and edited from there onwards.

Facebook Group

This is our Facebook group, I set this up to firstly draw in people to our productions however, it is also so that we can do some research into our target audience. we can post links to our blogs, our YouTube account and keep people up to date with our production; we also can ask people who follow our group questions such as what films do you like, where do you watch them and many more. we have been able to gather so much information about our target audience due to this group.

we are also going to use this in our evaluation, asking people to post reviews and score our final video.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_139347546114394&ap=1

technical failure

Earlier today, well yesterday, I had some technical difficulties involving the usb storage stick I have been using lately, I stored all of my edited clips for our production on it; this was to take to and from school. unfortunately I didn't create a back up, and the stick has broken, meaning that all the edited footage has been lost along with the premiere pro files.

luckily I backed up all of the original footage, so it should be a simple case of re editing the clips and comprising them together