Question 1 - "In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"
Our film opening mostly conforms to the majority of the conventions of a real slasher themed media product, developing some of our own ideas within the extract, making it unique.One of my main areas of influence within making our film opening was through mise en scene, specifically props and room layout. I carried out several thorough deconstructions into specific items within the "killers den", looking at two main films, ATM and pretty little liars, to ensure that the layout that we ended up making fit conventions of a "killers den". <Deconstruction of Mise en Scene of Specific Items>
Developing on from this, I started to look at specific props to incorporate. We ended up including two specific items, the killers trophies and the killers diary. The killers trophies are foetus' in jars, inspired by a deconstruction on the trophies taken by the killer in Creep, along with our own ideas, linking to the slasher genre through the controversial subject of collecting foetus'. <Killers Diary> I created our own "killers diary", by deconstructing the TV series The Fall where a diary was used as a prop. I added my own twist, making it fit the slasher genre even more by making the killers writing red- signifying the idea of gore and violence <The Killer's Written Diary Investigation> .
Our film opening generally conforms to the conventions of a slasher film opening. <Bring up Perks of Being a Wallflower opening sequence deconstruction>. I deconstructed the opening sequence of Perks of Being A Wallflower and this gave us some ideas for our opening. This gives us an insight into the protagonist’s mind and where he feels most happy. We used this idea when including lots of shots of the villain murdering his victim as that is where he is in his element and feels most happy. The locations in our film opening are also similar to the conventions of slasher films. When thinking of the stereotypical villain’s den, a dark cramped room comes to mind so we thought about using either a basement, shed or garage and eventually chose my Nan’s garage due to its accessibility and its usefulness for mise en scene. <Bring up PRACTISE SHOTS BLOG POST>. Here you can see the earlier shots that I took to see whether it would be successful or not. I also took some shots of nearby areas that we could film in, and this is where we did end up filming. However our chase scene location isn’t what you would expect as typically the victim is running away in an abandoned isolated location, whereas our victim was in a modern, urban area near a motorway. This was chosen to highlight her job as a prostitute so she would be hanging around in dodgy areas trying to pick up customers and when she gets caught at the end under the bridge, it is extremely dark to heighten how alone and trapped she is, which slightly conforms more to the conventions of a chase scene.
Real slasher films have conventions of lots of gore, a deranged, troubled killer and a weak victim/s, to name a few. Our film opening conforms to most of the typical slasher conventions; however one way in which we (to some extent) challenge conventions is through the use of dolls which have been vandalised. [Practical post] I came across some pictures of Rihanna lying in a heap of undressed dolls and had the idea of decorating the killer's den with undressed dolls to emphasize his obsession with women. I decided to write all over the dolls; I wrote words associated with death, sex and evil as those are the key themes of our media product and most slasher films. I wrote words such as 'sin', 'torture', and 'whore' to really reiterate his insanity and his overwhelming obsession with women. On the day of filming, I found a box of nails in the shed and decided to put some in the X on the doll's stomach to highlight to the audience that 'X marks the spot' - that THAT is where the killer's 'treasure' is. [Decon post] Only a few horror/slasher films (which I have deconstructed) have dolls in them such as The Conjuring and the Chucky films. Dolls in horror films are usually added to bring in a supernatural storyline/theme, like the examples I've just mentioned, to make the film more entertaining. Therefore, you could say featuring dolls in our opening challenges common slasher conventions because our use of the dolls was just for mise en scene and to add depth to the killer's character.
Link to: Deconstruction of dolls, Practical
Question 2 - "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"
Age is a significant aspect of how our film opening represents certain social groups. The killer is around 28 years old because he is a doctor which requires years of training. The victim is around 19 years old – we did not want her to be too young because she is pregnant but we wanted her to be a teenager to evidently juxtapose the difference in age and their strength. [rep of age post] A stereotypical convention in horror and slasher films is for the killer to be older than the victim to connote intelligence and power versus the victim’s inferiority and lack of tactfulness because they are younger. This is present in many slasher films such as the Saw films, The Human Centipede and the TV series Hannibal. In both Hannibal and The Human Centipede, both the killers are surgeons like our killer. For example, in Hannibal the killer used to be a surgeon but instead became a psychiatrist and took advantage of this by toying with the victim's mind, making it look like the victim killed lots of people when it was in fact the doctor. In The Human Centipede, the villain is a retired doctor who is fascinated in joining human beings together - this is similar to our film opening because our doctor is fascinated by foetuses and manipulates his talent to get them. Also, as you can see from the pictures, the doctor in THC is dressed in an overall and the doctor in H is in a suit, however because our doctor is younger we dressed him in plastic overalls and later in the sequence, a leather jacket.
link to: Representation of Age
In our film opening, we only have two characters, a male and a female, and in terms of gender they conform to the stereotypes of their characters. I analysed the representation of gender in our film opening on this blog post. <Bring up Representation of gender blog post>. We wanted to make sure that in our opening, the gender roles are clear and follow the stereotypes of slasher films.
Prostitutes are typically female and this is shown in the chase scene where our victim is wearing revealing clothing and cannot defend herself against the male who is significantly stronger than her. Stereotypically the villain in horror films will be male as generally women are seen as not being emotionally and physically capable of injuring or killing another person. We used close up shots of her face so you can clearly see the amount of make up she has on, and mostly high angles to show her inferiority against him. Society generally looks down on prostitutes, especially those of a young age, but I feel our film opening portrays them as innocent, vulnerable girls who are being forced or have no other choice and this makes the audience feel sympathetic towards our victim compared to disgust.
<"Representation of Sexuality within our film opening"> Looking at the characters within our film opening, they signify to the audience two very opposing social groups through only two individuals and no dialogue.
Sexuality is a large aspect of the representation of social groups in the extract. As explored within my blog post on the representation of sexuality in the film opening, the victim presents a very confident and overtly sexual woman through mise en scene including her costume, body shape and profession, being a prostitute. The fact that she is pregnant and a prostitute would create a contrasting twist on the way that the audience would view her, seeing her as "wild" and irresponsible verses feeling sympathetic towards her for the fact that she is being murdered. The use of a "Taboo" topic, the murder of a pregnant woman, again links to the conventions of a slasher film, challenging controversial topics- linking to films such as the Human Centipede for example, where a pregnant woman is also involved. Juxtaposed to this open view to sexuality, the killer is completely against anything sexual, kidnapping and murdering women who live their lives with the victims social views. This is depicted to the audience in our film opening when the killer is writing in his diary, and through the titles that Raman made with words such as "whore" and "disgusting".
The idea of these extreme outlooks being developed further would allow more controversial issues to be looked into more in the rest of the film adding more depth.
<link to ghost house pictures blog post>
I deconstructed existing production companies. I considered the appearance, the films they have released and the conventions of their films. [decon of existing pro companies] We wanted our production company to be one that is known for making horror/slasher films and to have an eerie appearance to denote our film opening’s slasher genre. I looked at the production companies of horror films such as Evil Dead and American Mary and most of the films I deconstructed had production companies which weren’t particularly scary-looking. [ghost house prod company] However, there was one called Ghost House which has a skull on it and on Final Cut Pro, my group and I added a darkening effect over the Ghost House clip to make it black and white so it seems more unsettling and further denotes the slasher genre. Also, Ghost House's conventions for their horror/slasher films is to have lots of gore (eg Evil Dead) and scary-looking deranged characters (The Grudge & Drag Me To Hell). I thought this would be suitable as our production company because we have a scary-looking character because he wears a menacing mask and has something etched into his forehead, and we have lots of gore. Other prod companies I looked at such as Universal produced horror films with a supernatural element (Mama and The Thing) so I felt Universal would not be appropriate as our production company.
Link to: Ghost House Production Company, Deconstructions of Existing Professional Production Companies
<Homemade Production Company Deconstructions> Being that we were given the opportunity to create our own production companies, I started off by deconstructing others that previous media students had made, shown in my blog post. This process was really important, allowing me to get an idea of what I could create and properties such as genre, time frame and image that I could incorporate.
<Evaluation of the Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound > Moving on from this, another feature that would attract the age range that we have targeted as an audience is the diegetic sound throughout the entire sequence. Linking to the blog post that I made as an evaluation of the Death Scene Non-Diegetic sound, and another looking over sound ideas, I explored sounds that would be appropriate. I also discussed how the sound that we decided upon is stimulating and of a genre that is current and popular at the moment to a younger audience, being "industrial rock/ action" themed with a quick, upbeat pace.
I investigated age and how that may attract and address our audience. The killer is 9 years older than the victim; the killer is an adult and the victim is a teenager. It is common for films, especially TV series to be set in school to attract teenagers as they are the age group who stereotypically watch the most TV and will be able to understand and relate to the characters and storylines better. This results in the films/series getting more of an audience, so more commercial success. [Attracting & Addressing Audience post] The Vampire Diaries – a horror and supernatural TV series – it focused around teenagers, as are horror films like Jennifer’s Body and Carrie. In Jennifer's Body, Jennifer is presented as a stereotypical teenage girl primarily through her clothes, she often wears pink or her cheerleading outfit. Therefore in our opening, we dressed the character as a stereotypical teenage girl as well because she is wearing a red tight top and a tight skirt (red = love & danger) (tight = sexualised because she is a prostitute). Another way in which teenagers are represented as teenagers is in Carrie, the main destruction scene is set at prom which is at school. Carrie is dressed in a silk pink dress and causes the place to burn down. The prom aspect is relatable to teenagers however the destruction is not and that is what makes it entertaining. In our film opening we have realistic and relatable themes such as a prostitute and a surgeon however the surgeon's foetus obsession is what is different and therefore entertaining.
Link to: Attracting & Addressing Audience
When thinking of how to attract the potential audience, we looked at the results from the survey that we sent to people who were aged around our target age and this is the blog post where I analysed them. <Bring up survey results blog post> They agreed that our villain should be male and thought that having a diary to record his murders and keeping souvenirs from the body would be effective which is what we went with in the end. They also liked the idea of our villain having an obsession with teenage pregnancy and the fact that he could surgically remove the foetus from a young girl is a change from stereotypical slasher films where the villain just kills for the sake of it, as our villain feels he is benefitting the world by removing pregnant teenagers. We included the “Adore +Endure on his forehead, to link the opening to the title of the film. I was in charge of costumes and I looked at a variety of outfits that our characters could wear. <bring up costume blog post> Eventually, we chose our victim to be quite young but still old enough to work as a prostitute, we wanted her to dress like a stereotypical teenager but also still look like a prostitute so young females watching the film would be able to relate to her or a friend and that would hopefully frighten the audience.
[A+E post] I attempted making an A+E sign to put during the fading between the chase and death scenes and I wanted the plus sign to be thick and red like hospital plus signs. However, this ended up looking quite shabby and unprofessional so I tried out a normal plus sign, but this did not work either. In the end, we decided not to put an A+E sign there because it would only appear to one second because the fade out was too quick.
Link to: A+E, Typography on Photoshop, Typography cont
Through the process of editing the film opening, I have learnt how to use four complex new programs.
<Editing the death scene and flashbacks> During the editing process of our real film opening, we used Final Cut Pro as the program to fabricate our final product. This is another piece of editing software, like iMovie. With this program, I was able to experiment and specialise with the manipulation of our footage, initially experimenting with the different effects and carrying out trials in how I could change the nature of the clips- by speeding them up, reversing them or slowing them down. The Death scene was where I was able to take what I had learnt from experimentation and apply appropriate effects and edits. I also increased the pace of editing by making the clips shorter towards the end of the extract to build up the intensity as it progressed. Evidence of using this program can be seen in this blog post.
<Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound Creation>Lastly, I learnt how to use was GarageBand. This program enabled me to manipulate and develop my own sounds creating the original audio for the death scene in the film opening. I played with the different features GarageBand had to manipulate the sounds it had within its libraries, ordering, layering and merging them. The first version of the Death scene's sound was my created piece on GarageBand with an action themed non-diegetic sound background, inspirations taken from the audio from film opening Se7en, and a selection of diegetic sound effects linking to the visuals in the footage.
For me personally, I found using Final Cut Pro for editing difficult at first but with continued use I feel I improved greatly. <Bring up Editing Candles Blog Post> For example I took shots of the candles from different camera angles and experimented with different effects and options to make it seem more professional. I also used a program called Garage Band to create music that we could use for our piece, this was extremely confusing at the beginning and took a lot of getting used to, but with the help of an experienced Garage Band user, I managed to learn my way around the program and use it more easily. <Bring up Garage Band Chase scene music blog post> This is a example of a blog post which explains how I created the non-diegetic music for the chase scene. I was able to create pieces of music using the piano and altered the pitch, pace and volume to make it build up towards the capture scene. I then layered more tracks over the top to make it more intense. I also used the speed ramp tool to make the volume of the music change throughout and gradually increase towards the end.
Link to: Improving Sound from Preliminary Task , Practical Investigation of Graphic Sounds, Deconstruction of Graphic Sounds
<Prelim filming Evaluation>Within my blog post, I explained how one of the main difficulties with filming was getting the camera angles correct, and so for me, this was an issue that I wanted to ensure that we resolved during the planning and filming process of the real film opening.
<Point of view- Victim/Killer Deconstruction> Carrying out multiple deconstructions on camera angles including one for point of view of the victim/ killer and one for using camera angles so that the audience doesn't see a characters face,<Deconstruction of camera angles- not seeing a characters face> I learnt a lot of how to use multiple angles and where to place them to create a consistent piece. For example, I found that the use of close up shots of characters facial expressions was a convention within horror and slasher films to allow the audience to have an insight as to their reactions of, usually, the killers actions. This research helped the group, making it so that through our planning, we didn't have to re-shoot because of bad, un-imaginative camera angles or footage not being consistent.
The initial major problem that we had was when looking at the first filming session footage. <"Evaluation of looking at our footage"> Within the evaluation that I completed, I explained how we were not happy with quite a few aspects of the different shots, rendering us with no option but to have to re-plan and re-shoot the chase scene.
We made the decision to change the location from the woods to an urban area. This change making the setting more appropriate for our characters. The killer and victims costumes were also changed, the killer wearing a more kempt suit with a white mask, and the victim wearing a short skirt, a low cut top with a much smaller baby bump. The timing that we decided on needed to be changed from sunset- where we were having problems with the camera adjusting to the changing light-, to at night with torches illuminating our "set".
I feel that I have learnt how to plan out, design, research, film and finally edit a piece of film well, linking it to the genre that we chose- slasher.
link to "Evaluation of looking at our footage"
Thinking back to when we planned and filmed the preliminary task, I remember it was quite rushed and that we hadn’t really planned it properly, but during the filming for our real piece, I felt that we planned it a lot better and knew what we were doing for each different shot. In terms of preparation, shooting scripts were an important way of making sure that everyone involved knew what was happening on the day and what to bring so there weren't any major mistakes. <Bring up SHOOTING SCRIPT: FLASHBACKS> This is an example of a shooting script that I made for the day we filmed the flashback clips. Also creating storyboards were helpful in setting out exactly what shots we wanted to film and for how long and from what camera angle, so that on the day filming could go as smoothly as possible. This is the chase scene storyboard which <Bring up CHASE SCENE STORYBOARD> I made for the chase scene when we re-filmed it. On the blog post I also included actual pictures of the locations where it would be filmed so the others would have more of an idea before we got there. For me personally I think the most important thing that I’ve learnt is to consider all the aspects when preparing to film as if we had planned out the locations properly for the chase scene we wouldn’t have needed to re-do it twice.
<"Representation of Sexuality within our film opening"> Looking at the characters within our film opening, they signify to the audience two very opposing social groups through only two individuals and no dialogue.
Sexuality is a large aspect of the representation of social groups in the extract. As explored within my blog post on the representation of sexuality in the film opening, the victim presents a very confident and overtly sexual woman through mise en scene including her costume, body shape and profession, being a prostitute. The fact that she is pregnant and a prostitute would create a contrasting twist on the way that the audience would view her, seeing her as "wild" and irresponsible verses feeling sympathetic towards her for the fact that she is being murdered. The use of a "Taboo" topic, the murder of a pregnant woman, again links to the conventions of a slasher film, challenging controversial topics- linking to films such as the Human Centipede for example, where a pregnant woman is also involved. Juxtaposed to this open view to sexuality, the killer is completely against anything sexual, kidnapping and murdering women who live their lives with the victims social views. This is depicted to the audience in our film opening when the killer is writing in his diary, and through the titles that Raman made with words such as "whore" and "disgusting".
The idea of these extreme outlooks being developed further would allow more controversial issues to be looked into more in the rest of the film adding more depth.
Question 3 - "What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"
When thinking of the production companies that would support our film, we obviously had to consider the important factors such as genre, target audience and age rating. After a group decision, we decided to go with “Ghost House Pictures”, although we had to edit the clip to fit into our film opening as it was too long and we wanted to make it more creepy so we edited it on Final Cut Pro, adding the Cold Steel effect. I deconstructed.<link to ghost house pictures blog post>
I deconstructed existing production companies. I considered the appearance, the films they have released and the conventions of their films. [decon of existing pro companies] We wanted our production company to be one that is known for making horror/slasher films and to have an eerie appearance to denote our film opening’s slasher genre. I looked at the production companies of horror films such as Evil Dead and American Mary and most of the films I deconstructed had production companies which weren’t particularly scary-looking. [ghost house prod company] However, there was one called Ghost House which has a skull on it and on Final Cut Pro, my group and I added a darkening effect over the Ghost House clip to make it black and white so it seems more unsettling and further denotes the slasher genre. Also, Ghost House's conventions for their horror/slasher films is to have lots of gore (eg Evil Dead) and scary-looking deranged characters (The Grudge & Drag Me To Hell). I thought this would be suitable as our production company because we have a scary-looking character because he wears a menacing mask and has something etched into his forehead, and we have lots of gore. Other prod companies I looked at such as Universal produced horror films with a supernatural element (Mama and The Thing) so I felt Universal would not be appropriate as our production company.
Link to: Ghost House Production Company, Deconstructions of Existing Professional Production Companies
<Homemade Production Company Deconstructions> Being that we were given the opportunity to create our own production companies, I started off by deconstructing others that previous media students had made, shown in my blog post. This process was really important, allowing me to get an idea of what I could create and properties such as genre, time frame and image that I could incorporate.
As we only have two minutes for our opening, it was important that we used or made suitable production companies for our film. I feel that the combination of Ghost House Pictures and our own company, Kills Productions really represents the slasher genre before the audience has even seen any of the film, including the visuals and the sound. Name is a big part of a production company and we decided to go with a combination of our names as we would be the founders, creating “Kills Productions”, the name shows that we would mostly be responsible for horror or slasher type films and anybody seeing that a film was produced by us would know that there would be a strong amount of gore.
As seen in this blog post, I experimented with the idea of dripping blood and the words "Kills Productions" in Photoshop, linking the slasher genre with the gruesome blood dripping letters.
On speaking to my group however, we decided that it didn't have the effect we wanted. <Editing of Production Company and making changes> So, Raman and I worked together to create a more appropriate one. Raman created the footage of a bloody wound, using special effects makeup, and taking this footage, I went onto Final Cut Pro editing it by adding effects such as "colour emphasis" and the Title "Kills Productions". Once the extract was edited suitably, I added theatrical sound effects to really make the clip sound gripping, finalising our production company nicely.
Leading forward, I feel that this homemade production company would be a suitable media institution to distribute our film opening as it links to the slasher genre in the name "Kills" and also in the visuals- the bloody wound. A connection to the dramatic sound effects used also makes it fitting.
Link to: Deconstruction of Age Ratings
<Target Audience of our Film Opening> Linking to my blog post on the target audience, I looked at the limitations of an aged 15 film, seeing that points such as strong violence and portrayals of sexual activity (the subject of prostitution), linked to our film opening. This research confirmed our choices of age rating, reducing the limitations on user views that an 18 would have done, but also conforming to the limitations of age limits with the level of "slasher" themed shots, such as the cut open stomach within the death scene.
Thinking about the target audience related to genre preference, again discussed in the blog post, it would be those who like slasher films and are enthused by the aspect of blood and gore within them.
One of the most important features in our film would be the high level of gore, so it is important that any potential viewers would be able to deal with the death scenes of numerous young girls. Even in the two-minute opening, the mise en scene (thanks to Annie!) of the death of our victim is pretty horrific and a lot of people would find it really disgusting. Obviously they would know what the film is about going in to watch it but hopefully it would shock and scare them a bit seeing it on screen. This means our target audience would have to be people who are not affected that badly by gore and murders as if they were, they probably wouldn’t watch it in the first place knowing that it is a slasher film.
As seen in this blog post, I experimented with the idea of dripping blood and the words "Kills Productions" in Photoshop, linking the slasher genre with the gruesome blood dripping letters.
On speaking to my group however, we decided that it didn't have the effect we wanted. <Editing of Production Company and making changes> So, Raman and I worked together to create a more appropriate one. Raman created the footage of a bloody wound, using special effects makeup, and taking this footage, I went onto Final Cut Pro editing it by adding effects such as "colour emphasis" and the Title "Kills Productions". Once the extract was edited suitably, I added theatrical sound effects to really make the clip sound gripping, finalising our production company nicely.
Leading forward, I feel that this homemade production company would be a suitable media institution to distribute our film opening as it links to the slasher genre in the name "Kills" and also in the visuals- the bloody wound. A connection to the dramatic sound effects used also makes it fitting.
Question 4 -"Who would be the audience for your media product?"
Our audience would specifically be anyone who enjoys slasher films, who likes gore and killer versus victim storylines. It also appeals to people who enjoy twisted storylines; in this case a surgeon who used to save people as his job is now killing people as a hobby. [decon of age ratings] The age rating for our film opening is 15 because it contains a lot of gore and some violence which can upset younger audiences. I deconstructed the age ratings of slasher films to see decide what our product’s age rating should be and I concluded that it should be rated 15 from investigating slasher films such as Evil Dead, the Saw films, Final Destination films and The Crazies. The Crazies and Final Destination were rated 15 because they contain strong gore but Evil Dead & Saw were rated 18 because they contained bloody violence as well as strong gore. Our film opening contains strong gore but not strong bloody violence and that is why I decided to rate A+E 15. Also, if it were a real film, making it an 18 would mean our ‘company’ would lose a lot of potential income because we would be excluding younger, more interested audiences. Therefore, by rating the film a 15 we would appeal to a younger audience, thus making more of an income as well. If we were to make the rating any younger, we would have to restrict the amount of gore used and that would reduce the gory slasher effect my group were aiming for.Link to: Deconstruction of Age Ratings
<Target Audience of our Film Opening> Linking to my blog post on the target audience, I looked at the limitations of an aged 15 film, seeing that points such as strong violence and portrayals of sexual activity (the subject of prostitution), linked to our film opening. This research confirmed our choices of age rating, reducing the limitations on user views that an 18 would have done, but also conforming to the limitations of age limits with the level of "slasher" themed shots, such as the cut open stomach within the death scene.
Thinking about the target audience related to genre preference, again discussed in the blog post, it would be those who like slasher films and are enthused by the aspect of blood and gore within them.
One of the most important features in our film would be the high level of gore, so it is important that any potential viewers would be able to deal with the death scenes of numerous young girls. Even in the two-minute opening, the mise en scene (thanks to Annie!) of the death of our victim is pretty horrific and a lot of people would find it really disgusting. Obviously they would know what the film is about going in to watch it but hopefully it would shock and scare them a bit seeing it on screen. This means our target audience would have to be people who are not affected that badly by gore and murders as if they were, they probably wouldn’t watch it in the first place knowing that it is a slasher film.
Question 5 - "How did you attract/address your audience?"
The way that we attracted our target audience, in relation to genre preference and fans of slasher films, is by really conforming to the gruesome aspect.<Evaluation of the Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound > Moving on from this, another feature that would attract the age range that we have targeted as an audience is the diegetic sound throughout the entire sequence. Linking to the blog post that I made as an evaluation of the Death Scene Non-Diegetic sound, and another looking over sound ideas, I explored sounds that would be appropriate. I also discussed how the sound that we decided upon is stimulating and of a genre that is current and popular at the moment to a younger audience, being "industrial rock/ action" themed with a quick, upbeat pace.
I investigated age and how that may attract and address our audience. The killer is 9 years older than the victim; the killer is an adult and the victim is a teenager. It is common for films, especially TV series to be set in school to attract teenagers as they are the age group who stereotypically watch the most TV and will be able to understand and relate to the characters and storylines better. This results in the films/series getting more of an audience, so more commercial success. [Attracting & Addressing Audience post] The Vampire Diaries – a horror and supernatural TV series – it focused around teenagers, as are horror films like Jennifer’s Body and Carrie. In Jennifer's Body, Jennifer is presented as a stereotypical teenage girl primarily through her clothes, she often wears pink or her cheerleading outfit. Therefore in our opening, we dressed the character as a stereotypical teenage girl as well because she is wearing a red tight top and a tight skirt (red = love & danger) (tight = sexualised because she is a prostitute). Another way in which teenagers are represented as teenagers is in Carrie, the main destruction scene is set at prom which is at school. Carrie is dressed in a silk pink dress and causes the place to burn down. The prom aspect is relatable to teenagers however the destruction is not and that is what makes it entertaining. In our film opening we have realistic and relatable themes such as a prostitute and a surgeon however the surgeon's foetus obsession is what is different and therefore entertaining.
Link to: Attracting & Addressing Audience
When thinking of how to attract the potential audience, we looked at the results from the survey that we sent to people who were aged around our target age and this is the blog post where I analysed them. <Bring up survey results blog post> They agreed that our villain should be male and thought that having a diary to record his murders and keeping souvenirs from the body would be effective which is what we went with in the end. They also liked the idea of our villain having an obsession with teenage pregnancy and the fact that he could surgically remove the foetus from a young girl is a change from stereotypical slasher films where the villain just kills for the sake of it, as our villain feels he is benefitting the world by removing pregnant teenagers. We included the “Adore +Endure on his forehead, to link the opening to the title of the film. I was in charge of costumes and I looked at a variety of outfits that our characters could wear. <bring up costume blog post> Eventually, we chose our victim to be quite young but still old enough to work as a prostitute, we wanted her to dress like a stereotypical teenager but also still look like a prostitute so young females watching the film would be able to relate to her or a friend and that would hopefully frighten the audience.
Question 6 - "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"
[typography post] I learnt how to utilise Photoshop to make the typography for the opening. I tested out many fonts such as Chalkduster. This was a good font because it looked like handwriting however it was written and chalk and our killer uses ink so it was not appropriate for our opening. There was another font I tried called Nanum Brush Script and this resembled handwriting however it still looked like block letters, however I found one that resembled neat, formal handwriting called Zapfino, as if it were the killer writing it as he does in his diary. I then tested different colours like dark and light reds and oranges, and decided for the main title to be red and the background text to be white. When I inserted this into Final Cut Pro, Annie and Hayley told me that it was hard to read the red text but easy to read the white. So, I switched the colours to make the main title more legible. I had inserted backing text on all the titles (words such as soulless and prostitute) however when I put this over the sequence in Final Cut Pro it looked unprofessional so I removed most of them. There were some I kept such as ‘foetus’ so the audience can read it and realise the killer is taking out her foetus. I also distorted most of the text to reflect the killer’s way of thinking and his sick thoughts. On all the titles and the backing text I added a warping effect - my favourite being fisheye [bottom of post] because it distorted the text, yet it was still legible. I felt the distortion of fisheye reflected the killer's twisted thoughts, how he is clearly not thinking straight because he is ripping fetuses out of pregnant women. I used other warp effects such as arcs, flag, and fish which completely twisted the text into 3 curves to resemble a fish. I liked this and did use it however when I put the titles on FCP, it was hard to read so had to get rid of it. [typography cont post][A+E post] I attempted making an A+E sign to put during the fading between the chase and death scenes and I wanted the plus sign to be thick and red like hospital plus signs. However, this ended up looking quite shabby and unprofessional so I tried out a normal plus sign, but this did not work either. In the end, we decided not to put an A+E sign there because it would only appear to one second because the fade out was too quick.
Link to: A+E, Typography on Photoshop, Typography cont
Through the process of editing the film opening, I have learnt how to use four complex new programs.
<Editing the death scene and flashbacks> During the editing process of our real film opening, we used Final Cut Pro as the program to fabricate our final product. This is another piece of editing software, like iMovie. With this program, I was able to experiment and specialise with the manipulation of our footage, initially experimenting with the different effects and carrying out trials in how I could change the nature of the clips- by speeding them up, reversing them or slowing them down. The Death scene was where I was able to take what I had learnt from experimentation and apply appropriate effects and edits. I also increased the pace of editing by making the clips shorter towards the end of the extract to build up the intensity as it progressed. Evidence of using this program can be seen in this blog post.
<Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound Creation>Lastly, I learnt how to use was GarageBand. This program enabled me to manipulate and develop my own sounds creating the original audio for the death scene in the film opening. I played with the different features GarageBand had to manipulate the sounds it had within its libraries, ordering, layering and merging them. The first version of the Death scene's sound was my created piece on GarageBand with an action themed non-diegetic sound background, inspirations taken from the audio from film opening Se7en, and a selection of diegetic sound effects linking to the visuals in the footage.
Question 7 - "Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?"
[improving sound from prelim post] One thing we have learnt is improving the sound. In the preliminary task, Annie and I chose most of the sounds and music and looking back, it did not properly work and the preliminary task was not consistent. We have greatly improved the use of non-diegetic sounds because before they did not fit in well with the sequence. For example, the ‘jolly’ music when the students are leaving school was not professional. However, the diegetic sounds such as the school bell was quite believable but it was too loud – something which we have all learnt from and applied to our film opening. [practical graphic sounds post] I produced some graphic sounds including squelching noises which could have been used for when the killer is cutting open the victim. To make this noise I simply used a spoon and moved some food around and it produced an effective squelching noise. I made a knife slashing noise if we were to show the killer opening the victim (which we did not directly show). I did this by taking the knife out of the knife holder quicker to make a loud slashing sound, [decon of graphic sounds post] similar to the sound from the V for Vendetta film which I deconstructed. I also made a sound resembling bones breaking and did this by using a silver bracelet and dropping it onto a pile of other jewellery. I created a blood dripping sound because I thought it was be effective to include a sound like that because it was used in Haunting In Connecticut's opening and made it more eerie and gory. I did this recording water dripping from the tap because it sounded similar to blood dripping.Link to: Improving Sound from Preliminary Task , Practical Investigation of Graphic Sounds, Deconstruction of Graphic Sounds
<Prelim filming Evaluation>Within my blog post, I explained how one of the main difficulties with filming was getting the camera angles correct, and so for me, this was an issue that I wanted to ensure that we resolved during the planning and filming process of the real film opening.
<Point of view- Victim/Killer Deconstruction> Carrying out multiple deconstructions on camera angles including one for point of view of the victim/ killer and one for using camera angles so that the audience doesn't see a characters face,<Deconstruction of camera angles- not seeing a characters face> I learnt a lot of how to use multiple angles and where to place them to create a consistent piece. For example, I found that the use of close up shots of characters facial expressions was a convention within horror and slasher films to allow the audience to have an insight as to their reactions of, usually, the killers actions. This research helped the group, making it so that through our planning, we didn't have to re-shoot because of bad, un-imaginative camera angles or footage not being consistent.
The initial major problem that we had was when looking at the first filming session footage. <"Evaluation of looking at our footage"> Within the evaluation that I completed, I explained how we were not happy with quite a few aspects of the different shots, rendering us with no option but to have to re-plan and re-shoot the chase scene.
We made the decision to change the location from the woods to an urban area. This change making the setting more appropriate for our characters. The killer and victims costumes were also changed, the killer wearing a more kempt suit with a white mask, and the victim wearing a short skirt, a low cut top with a much smaller baby bump. The timing that we decided on needed to be changed from sunset- where we were having problems with the camera adjusting to the changing light-, to at night with torches illuminating our "set".
I feel that I have learnt how to plan out, design, research, film and finally edit a piece of film well, linking it to the genre that we chose- slasher.
link to "Evaluation of looking at our footage"
Thinking back to when we planned and filmed the preliminary task, I remember it was quite rushed and that we hadn’t really planned it properly, but during the filming for our real piece, I felt that we planned it a lot better and knew what we were doing for each different shot. In terms of preparation, shooting scripts were an important way of making sure that everyone involved knew what was happening on the day and what to bring so there weren't any major mistakes. <Bring up SHOOTING SCRIPT: FLASHBACKS> This is an example of a shooting script that I made for the day we filmed the flashback clips. Also creating storyboards were helpful in setting out exactly what shots we wanted to film and for how long and from what camera angle, so that on the day filming could go as smoothly as possible. This is the chase scene storyboard which <Bring up CHASE SCENE STORYBOARD> I made for the chase scene when we re-filmed it. On the blog post I also included actual pictures of the locations where it would be filmed so the others would have more of an idea before we got there. For me personally I think the most important thing that I’ve learnt is to consider all the aspects when preparing to film as if we had planned out the locations properly for the chase scene we wouldn’t have needed to re-do it twice.
