Final Film

Filming

On Sunday 27th March our group finished up filming the final spots of the film for our deadline on the 31st March.

Foundation Portfolio Questions Part 2- Charlotte Question 9

9- For my contribution towards the process of the making of the film I have helped out in nearly all the aspects of the film making. I watched "The Shining" for the textual analysis and saw interesting camera angles that were effective along with music that added tension.

 Then I shared my findings with the rest of the group and we picked out ideas that would be good to incorporate into our movie.

After writing out the general plot of the film, and spliting the sequence into four parts, I drew out the final part of the film on my storyboard with useful and effective angles and lighting. Then when we put our storyboards together, we split up the script into two and with the help of Louise, I typed up the second half of the script.

 Once that was done and we had casted our main character Roisin, I took charge of taken photos of her for our test shot. I took both a before photo with no makeup or costume, then a photo with her wearing the hospital gown and the added eyeshadow to show the change and what I had used to create the effect. I based the look on the actress Jessica Alba in "The Eye" as her appearence was similar for what I wanted to go for. Finally when we had hired out the camera and decided what lighting and extra equipment we needed along with the permission to film, we went to the hospital and we all took it in turns to film our individual parts. I truely enjoyed being in charge of the camera, as I could picture out what I wanted to happen in the different shots.

However after filming we had to go back and re-shoot due to camera problems and with one of our members being ill we shared their sequence between us and tried to make it as similar to the original as possible. After finally shooting all the footage, we all had the chance to edit our parts of the films and give advice to the other members to try and cut down the film as close to the two minute time limit, which was very difficult as we had extra footage and the titles still to add in.



I had a small input to abit of the music soundscapes with another member. However our member that was ill wanted the oppotunity to make up for being away through filming and taking music tech as a subject he wanted to be incharge of the music so he used "GarageBand" to create songs and music whilst recording the loud bang and the voices whilst giving advice and ideas also.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Questions Part 2- Charlotte Question 5

5- Since we choose our target audience to be teenagers and both genders, it was easier for us to find out and include things that would appeal to them whilst making the film involve suspense and make them jump. We tried to make sure that the tension was forever being raised to intrigue our audience as not to bore them and hopefully make them jump in places.

Questionnaire-  We asked another media student to watch our film and write down there thoughts and things that could have been improved. She said that we used appropriate and effective conventions to constantly increase the tension throughout. She also said the setting where we filmed the sequence made it more realistic and made our main character appear more venerable due to the size of the ward as it's quite con packed. From the feedback we got from the questionnaire I feel that we were able to make our film suitable and effective for our target audience.



To make our film have similar conventions that a renowned horror film would contain, we choose a actress that was petite, our age and had blonde hair. We choose her as her appearances along with added makeup made her seem very innocent along with the blonde hair and petite added with the high angles made her seem very venerable to whatever was following her. By doing this we hoped to achieve the sympathy from the audience to be able to relate to her and want to carry on watching the film and find out the ending. We also added eyeshadow and with her being naturally quite pale it gave her again an innocent and weak appearance, yet a spot of mystery and a slight era to her to make her seem not quite all there.

 We based her whole appearance on the actress  from "The Ward" as she is a blonde girl and is set in the same environment and portrays a venerable woman.

For the music we added our own  soundscape in places like when she is walking from one bay to another and some breathing sounds with a sudden bang to heighten the tension. We also had other music produced by Elliot on "Garageband" to add in the background when she is walking around and when she runs to the operating theatre to keep the audience intrigued and in suspense.

For mise-en-scene we had based it in a hospital, so we already had important props such as hospital beds, machines and curtains along with other objects that would be found in that environment. Our audience said that they like the short, sharp shots in horror movies as they keep you watching and wanting to find out what's going on whilst also being an effective use in camera work, so we tried to include some when she is walking down the main corridor and when she is walking into the corner to see where she is walking to and the different emotions she is portraying.

Half way through the sequence, the tension "heart beat" music is introduced as the image of the dead girl is introduced. We thought was an effective use of music and commonly used to heighten the tension. We decided to try this out and add it into our film which proved to be very successful and kept the audience intrigued when our character is running to the operating theatre.

Title sequence

Storyboarding

Dividing the storyboarding is as follows:

Joely: Titles up until Jazmine leaves the room.
Elliot: Leaving room up until opens curtains.
Louise: Curtain up until operating theater.
Charlie: Operating theater until end.

Archive clips: We have decided to use the following archive clips from Youtube.

mental part 1 (9:06-9:12) (10:06-10:14) (9:30-9:34) (10:01-10:03)
hospitalclip (00:05-00:10 - this clip should be first in editing)

The hospital clip should be shown first because it is normal, then the mental clips should be added because they are creepy and may unnerve the audience before the films even started!

Evaluation Question 9- louise

In my group, we all distributed tasks fairly and tried to encourage everyone to do work as best we could. Therefore we all did a storyboard consisting of 6 shots and filmed that certain page of the storyline so that we all got our fair share at filming. I managed to film many different types of shots and was able to use all the equipment including lighting, a tripod and a dolly in order to create the effects and shots i wanted.

I also completed the second half of the script with Charlotte and we both worked together by contributing towards how we think each shot should take place and what we could do to improve a certain shot.

 I also contributed to the initail ideas of the film to which we all expanded upon on the shot list and the sound list and gave many ideas to which i thought may be effective and encouraged my groups ideas so that we could all agree and expand upon. 
   

 I also filled in the film outline and made sure the accurate timings fit in order to make sure the film flowed properly and enabled enough time for each initial shot.

 I completed a textual analysis and researched into 'The sixth sense' in order to gain ideas for our film. This meant i was able to feed back initail ideas for our film and how we could incorporate ideas from the 'Sixth Sense' into our movie.











However unfortunatly one of our team member was ill during a re-shoot so we all shot the page that they would have been shooting and distributed them to eachother and all managed to film different shots. I contributed to all of the planning and scanned in the sheets onto the blog. I have also edited the parts that I filmed which meant that we all had an effective session at editing in order to improve continuity and the flow of the film during my parts. I also helped my fellow team members if they needed help with editing. We all have done an equal amount with editing and together managed to cut down the film to the alotted time. However I had no involvement with the creation of the music but I gave my opinion into where I think each part that certain sound or music would sound good whilst it was being created.

Evaluation question part 2 - Louise

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

As I changed groups due to filming locations and difficulties with distance I had a different perliminary film to the rest of my group. However it is clear to see that there are many more angles and shot types used throughout our full film and the continuity flows much more smoothly.

Also the shots are longer in order to add pace and tension throughout the film. Music has also been added to our final film where as my perliminary task was silent, apart from surrounding noises, and therefore was not as exciting and suspensful as it should be.

However from the perliminary task i learnt that a tripod is very useful in order to get a stready and therefore accurate shot. An example of this was when we used a canted angle and found a tripod extremely useful when enabling the camera to move freely and smoothly creating the shot.

 I have further learnt that the use of shot reverse shot creates much needed depth and tension in order to keep the film interesting and effective to watch. I have also learnt that music is very important in order to build the tension and enable the film to appear more scary and exciting thus why we have added music to our film. Also a wider range in shots is used in our horror film in order to increase a smooth flow and effective continuity as we tended to us the same mid and long shots throughout the preliminary which made it seem uninteresting and not very scary. The only variety we used was over the shoulder and one close up, therefore  I learnt that a range or shots is vital in creating excitement and tension but also that headroom is a very important factor to consider when filming to make sure the subject is fully focused on when the film is watched in order to draw the audience in.

If i was was to do the production again i would possibly make sure that there is more still and less moving shots as it camera shake is easily done which can ruin the films tension whereas some stillness encourages the audeince to engage and watch what is about to happen. Although a shaky camera is brilliant for point of view, I think less point of view shots could be more effective as it can get quite repetative.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question Part 2- Joely

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

I have contributed to all areas of planning of the horror film, while we had to plan the different areas to create the final ideas for the film. First we had to look at other horror films and to I did a textual analysis, which gave us ideas when creating out own film. Later on in the planning I did the audience and certificate research where I was able to see which age group best suited our Psychological horror film. When we started filming we all took parts of the storyboard we had drawn and we filmed that area of the movie each. When one the members of our group was ill, on the re-shoot of the film after I camera fault on first shoot me and the other two members then filmed the other members part of the film. After shooting everything we needed for our film as a group we then decided to then edit the parts the movie we had filmed together and then after we had edited everything then edit it together to be able cut down the length of the film to around 2 minutes. I have had no involvement with creating the soundtracks on GarageBand but I have heard at the tracks that have been created and have responded and helped improve the soundtracks.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Question Part 2- Joely

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

While creating the and producing the film, we have used different technologies. The first technology was Blogger, we created an account as a group so we could upload our planning onto the blog and document everything we have done through the planning process. While using blogger it helped our group remain organized with the work we had done so far through the planning process. Also we have carried on using blogger after all of our planning was finished as we are now using it to show our progress while editing and producing our music track on GarageBand and to show our evaluation of our film.

We also used GrarageBand, is a programme that helped us as a group create the soundtrack for the film that would be synced in with the final edited film. We first started creating the backing tracks and using different instruments like reflective strings and the organs to create tension in the film.

Here we have used both  lunar and reflective strings at the opening scene of the film.

These are the instruments we used tho create the soundtrack for the film as we needed to create the tension for the film.

Also we created our own sounds by screaming, scratching and shouting and them being recorded  and then them being distorted by using different vocal effects. After we created the different sound we added them to the soundtrack of the film.










We also used Imovie and after we had filmed we uploaded our shots from the camera and started to edit the movie together. After using Imovie for our preliminary project earlier in the year we already knew how to work with it, and found editing very easy and quick to do.


Below are arrange of photographs of Imovie.

Here is a picture of the clip board which helped us organize our clips and then put them in order and also put the clips that we didn't want to use. Also it helped as we could bring the different clips in and out when we were editing the film.

 Imovie also helped us as it allowed us to play with our clips and also correct any mistakes we had in our film.

 

Here is where with Imovie we have synced the music together with the film and changed the volume of the different effects and music, so they fit perfectly with the story line of the film.

In this shot we have darkened it as it needed to fit in with the rest of the darker shot before and afterwards and also to give this scene a creepier effect.






These technologies we have used have helped use be more creative when planning as we have known what we would be able to do when editing on Imovie or when think of the music we needed to create on GarageBand. On Imovie it has many different effects we can add on to the film, also when we knew what we wanted to film we knew we would be able to edit it on Imovie to the way we want the clips to look like in the film. Also when wondering what kind of soundtrack we wanted to be able to produce we knew there was a wide range of instruments on GarageBand would allow us to create it.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Questions Part 2 - Elliot

9. What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post-production stages?
In the planning, I directed and storyboarded a section of our film. I also developed some initial ideas on how our film could be effective and creepy (such as the silhouette behind the curtain). I also filmed a part of the initial shoot (which was scrapped due to camera issues). However, due to illness, I couldn't film my part on the re-shoot. This made me feel like I had to make up for being absent. So I took on the job of providing the film's soundtrack and sound-effects. I made the music using Garageband, while also incorporating voices recorded by my fellow team-members. I used music which I feel was suited to the particular situation the film is showing. In the title sequence I originally used a short smooth jazz song, to give a contrapuntal feel to the film, however my teacher thought this was inappropriate. So I decided to replace this with a sinister organ track, as the title sequence shows archive footage from the 1930s/40s, so I fit the soundtrack to sound like a song from a 1930s horror film. The rest of the films' music is standard horror film soundtrack, with emphasis on strings. These are mainly used in the walking scene and also when Jasmine runs away from "herself".

Title Sequence: Organ Music Used

Walking sequence: slow strings used

Running Sequence: Fast strings and heartbeat used.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation Questions Part 2 - Elliot

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
-  Pathe Distribution is a major distribution company that not only distributes major films on both sides of the Atlantic, but also low budget indie films especially British horror/thrillers such as Creep, Severance and Outlaw.
- Dan Films is a production company that also deals in low-budget horror/thrillers, including Creep and Severance.
-Hammer is another production company dealing specifically in the horror genre. While the height of their success was in the 50's and 60's, they still make lower-budget horrors today.
- These companies would help us fund the film, and supervise the making of it, improving where needed. Distributors get the film into cinemas. They also promote the film and make sure people know about it.

Creep is one of the films that Film4 has funded.

28 Days Later is a UK Film Council funded British horror film

- Big British companies such as Film4 and the failing UK Film Council fund British films of all genres, including some horrors. They could fund and distribute our film. There are also several small film festivals around the country that we could show our film to.

Re-Shooting The Film

We are going to re-shoot different parts of the film to help the film continuity flow better.

The running up to window needs to be re shot as there is a blatant jump which looks unrealistic.
We also need to shoot our opening title sequence which we are aiming to shoot very soon so we can start incorporating  music into our horror film which will add atmosphere and suspense.

Apart from those parts of the film needing to be re-shot we have pretty much filmed all we need to so far and have gotten well underway with editing.

1) Media evaluation questions- Louise

Introduction: What we've made

We are going to make a psychological horror film that appeals to our target audience of teenagers. We have chosen to do this as we, as a group, found it very easy to relate to our audience therefore having ideas that would be best to incorporate into the film and make it enjoyable to watch. In order to research further into a convincing horror film, we decided to watch films which are in the psychological genre to gain ideas and enable ourselves to create a relation to those movies through our horror film making it effective and exciting.

The initial idea stemmed from a typical psychological horror which generally takes place within a hospital, so we therefore decided to film in this specific location however creating the effects of a mental institution.  From watching ‘The Strangers’ and ‘The Sixth Sense’ the idea of the event happening mentally sparked the story line to create a creepy and  an uncertainty within the atmosphere which is intriguing and suspenseful to watch. Therefore we are trying to create the illusion that our main character is seeing things that aren’t really there which relates to ‘The Strangers’ with the use of ‘mind games’.

The Sixth Sense Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpm50EBQaA

This part of the Sixth Sense Trailer gave us the idea of how to apply effective makeup to make our actor look tired, but also could give an open interpretation to whether she could be dead or not. This girl in the Sixth Sense is dead but she looks alive so therefore it enabled us to try and encourage the audience to question whether or not she is dead. However we decided to base our make up on Jessica Alba from "the eye" as Charlotte, who did the test shot, thought that is was the effective type of make up to use.


The Strangers Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lm2hZ50sN4

These are screen shots from the trailer of The Strangers which inspired our initial thought of 'mind games'. However we used a figure behind a curtain who is not really there when she pulls open the curtain. The figure looks quite artificial which was the effect we decided to portray as it leaves many questions as to 'who? or what?'

These two images inspired us when creating our gory end scene. We combined both ideas from The Sixth Sense and The Strangers by combining the lighting and scenery in the Sixth Sense and the bloody body from The Strangers in order to successfully create the blood to looks very realistic and effective. Also the moody lighting used in this image of the sixth sense creates an effective and tense atmosphere throughout the end sequence.

In our group there I am working with Joely, Charlotte and Elliot.  Although we had a few group contribution issues, which we solved by encouragement and responsibility share, we filmed a very productive amount within the first shoot which meant that we were able to get the majority of the editing done. However our camera was without a battery so therefore we had to use another camera which unfortunately, when uploaded for editing, was not compatible therefore we had to re-shoot, but it enabled us to get the idea of how a certain scene fits and how we could improve it with the proper camera.  This further meant that we had plenty of time to re-shoot and edit further and we only had to re-shoot small amounts in order to complete our film, making it effective and fluent.

AS Media Portfolio Evaluation Questions- Charlotte Question 4

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

How does the horror genre tradionally represent social groups and why?

Within horror films there are usually some form of stereotypes used to make it more obvious to the audience what is going on and help them understand. A ususal use of a stereotype in a horror film would be a young woman as they are seen as weak and vunerable and easy to fall into danger.

What did you do to accommodate these representations practically on your production?

We choose a young petite girl to be our main character in the movie, along with the white gown to add to the appropriate setting she looked small, weak, scared and vunerable which is what we wanted to achieve in our movie so the audience would sympathise with her and want to carry on watching the film to see what happened to her.

Comparisions                                                                                 

Looking at these two pictures you can see the kind of effect that we we're going for. We used the patient gown to show and represent the setting she was in (hospital), we gave her no hidden makeup to make her look natural and innocent. We also added dark rims around her eye using eye shadow to show tiredness, weakness along with a slight era to it to make her appear slightly mad and not quite there as the hospital messes with her eyes. In the film "The eye" the costume and makeup artsists have done a very similar thing to give of a innocent yet slightly mad appearence to thier main character to intregue the audience to carry on watching.