Evaluation Questions- group script

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Representation of Gender:

Although we only have two characters in our film opening, the stereotypes and representations of gender are clearly displayed in our victim and villain.

The stereotypes of males are that they are strong, dominant, in control, more violent and have power over women. The stereotypes of females are that they are weaker, more vulnerable, more emotional and can be under the control of a man.
Our two characters conform to these stereotypes as the villain is expressing his power over the victim and feels like he has the right to end her life as punishment for being a prostitute and becoming pregnant.

In horror films, the villain is often a male as they are seen as more threatening, more scary and therefore more likely to be capable of harming people without feeling guilty. The victims will generally be females as they are more innocent and vulnerable and will be easier to 'be murdered' by a man.

The fact that our victim is a female also ties in with what people first think about prostitutes as she is wearing revealing clothing and is hanging around in a dodgy area, if we chose a male to be the victim it wouldn't be as obvious and might confuse our audience which isn't really our aim.

People look down on prostitution and dismiss those who work in the field and in the media they are mostly portrayed in a negative light and that they like what they do, which is true for some cases but we wanted to show the other side, how some are forced into it and don't have a choice, making the audience feel sympathetic for them, which they wouldn't usually do.

A+E- Two minute Film Opening

First Draft Responses:

We were told to complete a first draft by the 28th March which would then be shown to other media students who would comment on it, saying what they thought worked well and what we needed to improve on.


 

After uploading this, we realised some of the sounds were at a different volume than what we wanted and the overall quality of the opening was reduced, therefore Annie edited the volume so it was all sounded how we expected it to be and re-uploaded.





What they liked: 

• Most people got the fact that the genre was a horror/slasher and said that it was clear. 
• The main feature that was mentioned was our mise en scene - the blood and gore etc, most people thought it looked really effective and as that was the main aspect of our opening, it was good to see that they thought it looked good.
• The diegetic sound effects such as the squelching was effective.
• There was a good range of shots, particularly the camera angles in the chase scene.
• The jump cuts at the end worked well as the tension builds up.

What they thought could be improved on:

• Some people had problems with the typography and the amount of time it remains on screen as they felt it flashes on and off too quickly, making it hard to read, in addition to this some weren't some if the "A + E" shown in the transition between the chase scene and death scene was effective.
• Title at the end is too short, needs to remain on for longer so people get time to read it properly.
• Adding more pace to the beginning shots (chase scene) especially the struggle, as some thought it should look more frantic.

What we're going to do:

• We removed the "A + E" title in between the scenes as it was unnecessary and if people didn't think it worked it wasn't really worth trying to edit it. 
• Extended the amount of time the forehead is shown at the end so it is easier to read. 
• Edit the timing of the credits so they stay up for longer.

Music:

The non-diegetic music has always been a problem for us and this was highlighted in the comments, when we received contrasting feedback, with some saying it worked well and others saying it didn't fit the genre and was quite repetitive.

A few people said that the death scene music becomes too action-like at the end, however as it is one clip, if we were going to try and edit it, it would mean we would have to change the music for the whole death scene which would be quite difficult.
In my opinion, even if it doesn't fit the genre that well, I feel it works well as music for a film opening and helps reinforce that.
Most people seemed to think the chase scene music was okay, however that was the bit we weren't happy with ourselves so it's highly likely we're going to change it, if not then edit it so it sounds different.

Sound Ideas

At this point in editing, all we needed to do is perfect the audio and do some minor touch ups to the footage. However, as a group, we decided that the ideas for our audio that we have had so far don't really work. For the chase scene, the music created is too classical to fit with the "slasher" genre, and for the death scene, what I have made sounds too much like Se7en's opening title sound.

Going on an intensive research session in our media lesson, we came across four sounds, on YouTube, that worked better with our footage that what we have currently. Below shows the sounds that we found, with annotation on what we are thinking of doing with it:


We liked this sound track initially for the chase scene having the strong beats of which we could link with the editing- changing in shots.


However, on further research, we came to prefer this sound for the chase scene, it sounding more "scary" than the previous one. It also has this intensifying sound at the end of the extract, that would link really nicely to the struggle between the killer and the victim at the end of the chase scene.


Starting at 1:18, we found this sound track that we felt would work really well for the death scene- with the diegetic sounds that Annie has planned to incorporate playing over the top in the appropriate places. It adds suspense, brings more of an atmosphere to the footage, and links nicely with the intense and gory footage.


To be on the safe side, however, we decided to carry on our research to find one alternative soundtrack that we could take inspiration from to go along with the death scene footage. We chose the sound shown above as it would be good as background non-diegetic sound if putting more focus on diegetic sounds that would play along side it.

To conclude this post, we now have more of an idea of what to do for the audio of our film opening. Its just a case of manipulating the sounds at our disposal and creating an audio that is of top quality.

Final Storyboard of all the Scenes- for editing

This is a collated post of all of our storyboards, making up the final storyboard of our entire two minuet film opening.

Chase Scene

 Death Scene

 Flash Backs

Editing as a group

Below is a record of the editing that we completed, as a group, during that time.

We decided to go with Ghost House Pictures, but to make it slightly different and more relatable to our genre we added the Cold Steel effect to make it darker so more sinister - conforming to our horror genre.

Next, we sped up the sequence so our opening did not go over 2 minutes because we still must include our homemade production company, the chase scene and the death scene.

We tested out different fonts, sizes and colours for the A+E sign to go in between the chase scene and death scene (during the fade out transition). We decided on a large white sign because white stood out the most. However, we soon realised we did not like this and Raman created a new one using photoshop.

Next, we checked the titles however agreed the colours did not go well with the clip's colours so Raman changed it all (see here). The red was difficult to read but the white was not so Raman swapped it - the main title was white and the 'shadows text' was red.

We changed the speed of the clip where the killer is underlining Adore & Endure to make it slower so the audience could read the text better. Also, the slowed effect adds suspense and makes the audience feel nervous and hesitant about this killer.

Also, we tried different effects for the end clip which shows 'Adore + Endure' carved into the killer's forehead. We did this to try and make the writing more legible however it did not work very well (however Blessing made a gif on photoshop which corrected this).

Practical Investigation: Non-Diegetic Sounds

For my practical investigation, I decided to look into using a music software called 'Logic Pro' to create some examples of non-diegetic music, with help from my friend who took GCSE Music.

For our current idea of our opening, I was thinking of where we could include non-diegetic music and if it would be effective or not. The beginning chase scene would be the most likely place for us to have diegetic music but it could work just as well if we had it quieter with diegetic sounds like heavy breathing and footsteps.

If we are going to have a lot of opening titles then sometimes it can be quite effective to have non diegetic music playing over the top as generally nothing that important happens during the opening titles. Contrary to this, in our opening we are planning to have our villain murder a pregnant girl (although not that much gore will be shown) but I like the idea of blending in the opening titles would make it more like a film opening and also less shocking, almost as if he does it everyday and it's the normal routine.

First of all, to get used to using Logic Pro, I decided to try and edit a well known tune to sound more creepy, I chose 'Frere Jacques' and played it slower than usual on the simple Grand Piano option.
I then played around with the different instruments and sound effects to create the ominous rumbling sound below and then after that merged them together, editing the timing so it sounded more sinister and creepy, I especially like the ending part as the rest of the song is building up to that moment.




My friend also played a quicker yet still kind of creepy version of Frere Jacques

The only problem is that it would be quite difficult to explain why Frere Jacques would be relevant to our film opening as it doesn't really have any links to what happens.

Editing the Chase Scene:

As I had directed and filmed the majority of the chase scene, I knew what editing techniques I had in mind and so I was left in charge of editing it.

We were happy with the majority of the videos taken although there are a few which are slightly dodgy where the lighting isn't bright enough for example.

First I imported all the videos into Final Cut Pro. In total, they came to nearly 3 minutes and as we want our chase scene to be really quick, it's my job to cut it down to around 20-30 seconds.

After trimming down most of the clips and removing the audio from them, the time was reduced to just over a minute, not taking into consideration that some clips are going to be alternated and others sped up.

I retimed most of the clips so they were slightly faster than normal, therefore reducing the overall time of all of the clips. The majority were around 130% faster and when they were all retimed, the time came down to around 35 seconds.

When thinking of what music/sound to put over the chase scene, I liked the idea of having sad, emotional music rather than intense loud upbeat music as in my opinion, I want the audience to feel sorry for our victim while at the same time, not using diegetic sounds gives the impression that he does this a lot and she is just another girl like numerous others that he's taken and killed.

This could then be contrasted against the sounds/music for the death scene and flashbacks which I imagined to be more urgent and upbeat, showing how happy and comfortable he is in the situation and to emphasis how disgusting what he is doing is.

I liked the music from the video below, but mainly the section from about 45 seconds onwards where the violins build up and it makes it more intense yet still creepy and sad. The only problem is that it's described as "Epic and Dramatic Trailer Music" which is kind of what we want but it might give connotations of trailer music whereas we would want music more associated with film openings.



Even though the majority would be non-diegeti music, I did like the idea of including some diegetic noises, especially the heartbeat sound effect below. I timed it so it began just as the villain grabs the victim and she turns around and begins to struggle.

For a first draft, I felt that it wasn't too bad and it was kind of what I had imagined in terms of editing, pace, music and atmosphere. After consulting with my group, we realised that the music at the beginning should be more intense, similar to the opening credits of Se7en, so my next task will be to possible find that type of music that we could use or to possibly play around and create my own using music software.

Chase Scene Final Storyboard:

I was in charge of the second re-filming of the chase scene but I used the ideas from Raman's previous storyboard and just altered the location. I had an idea of shooting it around the bridge near school and ended up coming up with this storyboard.

Firstly I wanted our victim to be running along roads with the villain in the background, using a variety of camera angles.
I then wanted her running onto the bridge and along it still with the villain behind, using camera angles where she is running towards and away from the camera as it would be good to edit them so the shots alternate.

Still with the victim running on the bridge, I really liked the idea of her looking over the bridge down to the motorway, almost as if she is contemplating suicide but decides not to. I wanted to do this in a POV shot as I think it would look effective and would give the audience an insight into her feelings at this moment. 

She then runs towards the other side of the bridge and goes down the stairs, I included a POV shot which would could alternate with the shots of her running down. 

The villain then comes down behind her and as the victim lies down on the stone bit under the bridge, he finally catches up with her.

The chase scene then ends with the original shot that Raman planned with the camera going into the victims mouth after she's been struggling for a few seconds. I liked this idea and planned to keep it in as a good way to transition from the chase scene to the death scene/flashbacks. 

We ended up using this storyboard in our final filming session and we used most of the shots explained here, so hopefully we should be able to edit them so the footage can be cut down to around 30-35 seconds.

Non-Diegetic Chase Scene Music Creation:

I had originally planned for the chase scene to have the music I mentioned in the previous post but after a discussion with my group we agreed it didn't really work with the atmosphere we were trying to portray. I then decided to look into, with the help of my friend, making our own with Logic Pro and keeping it similar to the one I had chosen while making it more intense and more fast paced.

However I encountered problems when trying to get the simple piano setting up on Logic so I decided to switch to GarageBand which in my opinion is more user friendly.

We started by trying to create a similar sound to the original music with the idea of adding layers to it to make it more intense, but by building up to the moment at the end through the use of volume, pace and pitch.

We recorded a simple regular pattern that would serve as the base for our music and we would create all the other layers around it by changing the pitch and making it an octave lower or higher.

We then added to it, repeating the same pattern but with a higher and lower pitch so it was the same sound but at three different pitches, making it more interesting rather than just the one sound level.

We also added a drone sound effect by having a low note playing for a few seconds at regular intervals.

We then realised we didn't like the way it began and moved everything to a few seconds later so we could include a beginning pattern that would then lead into the big build up of sound.

We then continued to add more and more different sounds and patterns that we thought sounded effective and would increase the tension in the scene and highlight her desperation as she's trying to get away.

We used the fading out technique to see if it would be better to cut it off completely and then have the heartbeat sound or to fade it out slightly and build in either the heartbeat or other music that would be used for the death scene. After trying it out we decided it didn't work and left it at staying at the normal volume as the amount we had recorded would be too long for the chase scene so it would have to be trimmed down on Final Cut Pro.

After consulting with my group and our teacher, we realised it wasn't as effective as we had hoped and it didn't really work with the footage, as to cut down the time of our opening, a lot of the clips had been sped up and this made the scene look slightly comical and like a 'silent movie'. In order to use this piece of music we would have to slow down either the footage or the music and that could make it lose the urgency factor which is key for our opening.

Evaluation of Filming - 2/2/14

When we first filmed the chase scene, there were a lot of aspects that we weren't happy with as mentioned in Annie's post.

When planning our second attempt at filming we took into consideration all of the aspects we wanted to change such as the location, time of filming and costumes.

 ~ We decided to film in Bexleyheath as it was a local urban area and would fit in with the storyline.

 ~ We aimed to film in the evening, when it was completely dark as the street lighting would be sufficient enough for our characters to show up clearly on screen. 

 ~ With our victim, we changed her outfit from the dress to the black skirt and red top but kept the bruise and her extreme makeup. We also decided against her wearing a fake stomach as it would be more obvious in the next scene that she was pregnant. 

 ~ We also didn't like the fact that we could see the villain's face and the outfit he was wearing so he would wear just casual dark clothing with a hood and a white mask.

How it turned out:

We had planned to meet in Bexleyheath, travel to my grandparents house to film the death scene and then back to Bexleyheath for the chase scene. 

The main problem was that one of actors had a family emergency, on the day of filming and so was unable to join us for the chase scene and the scenes in the garage. As we wanted to get a majority of the filming done on that day, I had to play the villain for the shots we had planned out. 

'Back-up villain'

Candles

Annie taking the candles shot 

Doing Emily's makeup

Annie's 'killer' hands

Raman setting up the camera 

Preparing to film

Fake tears

Raman filming

Annie filming

When looking at the footage from the day, I really wasn't happy with myself playing the villain as it didn't look right and would be much better if it were our preferred actor. Although I liked the location that we chose (the alleyway) it was extremely difficult to film in as the lighting was too dark for the camera to stay focused for a long amount of time.

This also meant that our villain didn't show up on the screen as well as we would have hoped. It was quite dark and blurry and I didn't think this would look good enough for our final coursework. Also with the location that we had chosen, we didn't realise how many people would be walking past on a Sunday evening which interrupted the shot a lot.

Here is a selection of screenshots from our footage, showing why I wasn't satisfied with the result.

While we were filming the chase scene, the camera ran out of battery due to the amount of times we had to film the different shots and this meant only part of the chase scene was filmed. Therefore as we would have to set another day for filming anyway and after looking at the footage, it would make sense to re-film the whole thing.