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End Product

In my opinion I think our film opening worked out really well and communicates our genre clearly . My favorite part is the use of 360 degree movement during the chanting scene as well as the eye-line match of the hand. I think our story line was really clear and allowed for the audience to foreshadow what would happen next. However, I do feel that the lighting wasn't as great as it could have been but this may also have been down to the equipment we were given to film with or the fact we planned to film during the evening. Overall, I am extremely happy with how this turned out because at points I was afraid that when it came to editing we would struggle to put everything together as we wished but this was not the case.

Evaluation Question 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?

We created our with little to no knowledge of professional camera operating or video editing. Our preliminary was much more about just getting the filming out of the way so we could learn how to edit it all together, so time and quality were not our first thoughts when filming it all or editing. After having to manage people's schedules and keep all the equipment and costume available for each filming day we have all become much more organised and learnt how to prepare everything in case of the sudden need for a meetup.


In general we have also improved our teamwork. Compared to the beginning of filming when each of us would just take charge and create the shots we personally wanted, by the end we were discussing shots to ensure everyone's satisfaction before filming. This way we could speed up the process of filming because there were no creative conflicts.


Most importantly however, looking back at the original preliminary that we made, the camera work is shaky and unprofessional especially the moving shots. However looking instead at the final piece, our camera work has become smooth and everyone has a much better ability with manipulating cameras now.


Finally, when we first had a camera in front of us we often found that we couldn't stop uncontrollable laughing. A mix of nerves and embarrassment. Whereas towards the end we could easily do a scene with neither the actors or the camera operators laughing.


Overall, we have improved our abilities behind and infront of the camera and our teamwork in general has improved.

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We used a tripod for the first time and learnt how to set it up. We learnt some of the basic parts of the tripod by research labelled images this helped us as when we filmed it made it a lot easier to use even if it is already very basic.

We had to use two different cameras, we used a friends camera to film the first lot of interior shots. However, the quality was extremely bad and it also had a dead pixel on the screen. We changed cameras and learnt that checking camera quality before going out filming is best.

We also used another camera on the side to take pictures of our costumes and set to avoid continuity issues we found this extremely useful to have an extra camera. We used our phones to take any extra photos and could easily share them with each other by creating a Facebook chat.

Social media helped us publicise questionnaires and videos to help create audience feedback and research on people opinions on horror films. We learnt that by using social media it helped get quick and easy answers for free. Social media also helped us to communicate with each other, when editing I filmed snippets, asking the groups opinion and changing anything necessary.

We used Song Vegas Pro 13.0 to edit out film opening. At first, it was difficult but slowly, with trial and error I started to understand how to create the film opening we were looking for.

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

The way in which we attracted our audience to our product was through social media and family and friends. Just like real media products we used the internet to gather market research on our audience then find out the best way to attract them. We decided on social media for our main attraction tool since the majority of people now use the internet to socialise with each other.

We also told friends in and out of our school and family member about what we were attempting to do. This not only gave us an audience but also a boost of confidence to finish our media product to the best of our abilities.

Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

We were aiming for a target audience of around 15-25 years old as they are the most avid horror movie viewers. Most people in this age range are 'adrenaline junkies' and love scary films because it gives them a rush whenever something terrifying happens. Often they will not go alone and will come in pairs or groups because the films are either too scary to go alone or it is seen as a bit of a laugh and a joke between friends. It is not so much of a family viewing so the only groups you would expect would be young teenage friends who will then spread the news much more rapidly on social media or in person.


We hoped that we could attract fans of other horror films and TV shows. Shows like American Horror Story, there is a new story each season so fans can easily accept new characters and settings, or films such as Insidious, which is also a film based around demons and satanic things. Once again, our film's and their audiences are very similar so by sharing themes we felt that we could attract the right people.

Evaluation Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think our film would be distributed by Film 4 because it is a British company that like to showcase British talent a lot in the film industry. They normally show films and documentaries that other channels would be afraid to distribute. This is because they are open to more ideas and originality. I think this is a great company for our film to work with. Film 4 would also allow us to show our film over the UK and some countries in Europe which would allow for a fan base to arise.

Film 4 aren't as strict as the BBC and less expensive to distribute films with. The BBC is an iconic company where as Film 4 is new and fresh and is viewed very often by the audience we intend to target our film opening to.

To create a buzz for our film we would send teasers to the potential distributor and make posters, trailers and other forms of advertisement to attract the target audience. We would have to think about anything that would rival the film and talk about that with the company and work out a time where our film would be the main interest for viewers at the time of showing.

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main character Chelsea is based upon the stereotypical female, ditsy character that would typically be in a horror film. We wanted to include this type of character because it was a common occurrence in most of the horror films we looked at. We kept all of our characters costumes true to real life. This is because we wanted them to look like teenagers do now as if it was just any normal day and keep the realism of the production. All of our characters are really stereotypical, we have the jock, nerd, level headed and dumb characters.


The Antagonist character was based upon other demons we had seen in similar movies. A lot of these movies have a high percentage of teenage audiences which is who we were aiming our opening at. We all found images of what we wanted our characters to appear like and then base our costumes off those resources.

Our jock character is dressed in branded items, this makes his character appear to have money.

Our ditsy and nerd character are siblings which works well as they are the polar opposite to one another, this is a great juxtaposition of the characters as it is with all of the characters. Not one is the same.


We used the dumb character as the victim as she was vulnerable clearly from the beginning of the piece which means that the audience can almost foreshadow what we going to happen next.


Here is an example of one of our characters:

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

Thriller/Horror films often open with scenes in which it gets the audience asking questions and keep them in suspense by using techniques such as music building up in pace and sound. The locations often give the impression of the type/genre of the film.

Our film incorporated these techniques for example the location, we used a forest area which is traditional of most horror flicks. Like other horror films there is one character that is targeted out of the group. We used this to our advantage and had our character Chelsea be the target in our film.
Dialogue as well as sound/sound effects were used in the traditional horror way as the dialogue for our targeted character was scared, confused and desperate. Horror music was a must for our film opening, so we incorporated it into the tense and suspension parts of the opening.

Mise-en-Scene was also very important for the movie as we had clothing designated for specific characters. Lighting with the candles in the room was important to get the glare effect that we needed for the genre of our film. The time of day was also important as we scouted our areas during the day but filmed at night to get the full horror feel. As most horror films are in the dark we used it as the professional film industry would.

Just like the real media products we had used all different forms and conventions in our movie opening to create a horror film that would be easily recognised by anyone who were to view it. I believe that we developed upon our mistakes and have created a better product out of it.


Frame 1 of my chosen frame from our film, I chose this one because it shows a close up as well as lighting from the candle.
Frame 2 was chosen due to the expression on Kelbie's face since it showed concentration on her task (Summoning a demon). As well as the camera spinning on a Lazy Susan that we made.
Frame 3 was also due to the expression on my face as it showed what was happening on the scene.
Frame 4 was used as the POV was of the demon chasing Rebecca and I picked it since not many media products use POV shots.
Frame 5 was used to show the actual demon as well as the makeup work done by Rebecca.
Frame 6 was picked as it showed eye line match between the character and the object (bloody hand) that she was looking at.
Frame 7 was chosen since it showed the desperate expression on the characters face and the reflection of the phone screen.
Frame 8 was used to show the vision of the demon and the environment of the area where the scene was set.
Frame 9 was picked as it shows that her life is over and the battery on her phone is dead so there is no way of her to contact anyone. This is followed by the title "The Evoke".

Editing

The process of editing was difficult as some of us were inexperienced with this so Kelbie did the editing with input from the other members of the group. We used Song Vegas Pro 13 to edit. We had multiple discussions about what we wanted and how we wanted things to look. Luckily for us we all agreed on point each of us made. It took Kelbie three evenings to edit it completely as we had a lot of different shots, sound effects and over lays that we wanted to include. The editing also included the editing of sounds both diogetic and non-diogetic. Some shots needed to be sped up to fit the speed of the rest of the footage.

Camera Shots

During our process of filming we have used many different shots.
Theses are:

• Establishing shot
• Tilt x2
• Over the shoulder x4
• Pan x3
• Medium long shot x3
• Extreme close up x2
• Rotation of camera
• Medium close up x2
• Close up x3
• Pedastal 
• Tracking x3
• Still deep shot x3
• Wide shot x2

Music

For our film opening we have decied we are going to include non-dieogetic music. This is to create and build an atmosphere and tension. I found a royalty free website that allows people to use the music on the site freely as long as credit is given to the owner. The website is called: Incompetech
I shared this with the group and they agreed it was a great website to use for our music.

This is the music we have decided upon:  Right Behind You

 "Right Behind You" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

We played this whilst watching clips and felt it worked really well with the high pitched violins and ringing as well as the computer generated sounds like breathing.

We also looked on YouTube for free music and found this piece of music which we also really like and felt fit well alongsid ethe other piece of music.

Risk assessment

During filming we did have some reoccurring risks that were present.


TEA LIGHTS AND MATCHES
The tea lights and matches were a big risk so when filming we ensured they were placed on the pentagram so that if they were spilt it would land on that and not the floor. we also made sure we sad away from them when sat around the pentagram so that we didn't burn ourselves with both the flame or melted wax.

CARS
As we were running across roads we had to have two people on the opposite side of the road to make sure no vehicles were coming when we were filming. We also had traffic lights clearly visible to us so we used these to our advantage. The fact that we were filming really late at night also meant that there weren't as many cars as there would have been just a few hours earlier.

TRIPPING
In one shot I had to pretend to tip over a  large branch so we had to be careful that I didn't get hurt so we used a gardening mat that we hid under leaves to prevent a hard impact when I fell. We also tried it where another member of the group were there to catch me after tripping but this wasn't as effective as the mat, which made it appear more realistic.

PUBLIC
As we were in a public place we had to make sure that there were no members of the public walking past whilst filming as this would have caused a large continuity issue if we took multiple shots of the same scene and they were present in one and not the other shots. If this were to happen and a member of the public was around during a shot then it would mean we would have to shoot an unnecessary long take.

WEATHER
Having dry, clear weather was vital for filming as fog would have disrupted the camera's view of what we were shooting. Rain would have stopped us from filming completely which luckily never happened but was a big possibility as we were filming during mid to late winter.

WAITING FOR NIGHT TIME
Meeting up late at night was key as we wanted our shots to be in the dark but this was hard as we didn't all live near each other so it meant we had less filming time as travel was needed for some members of the group to get home. When we were re-shooting our final shots we found we had to meet up at 8-9pm at night rather than 5-6pm which was our original meeting time as the nights began to draw out very quickly which meant we ended up finishing filming sometimes at 11-11:30pm at night which was also a struggle and meant we had to film on weekends as this wasn't ideal filming times during the school week.

Logo change

We decided to adjust our logo and change the way it look slightly. We did this so that it fit with the production better by using dark tones that allowed for smoother transitions and was more modern with the monochrome colour scheme. We all agree that this logo is a lot better than the first one.

BEFORE:


















AFTER: