Evaluation 7

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


Looking back at the preliminary task, i can see an improvement in how we have all worked together and taken more time to produce an effective media product. I feel that i have also improved my knowledge of using a camcorder and the editing process when putting our film together. 
In the preliminary task, we had to include match on action, 180 degree rule and shot/reverse shot. At first i was unaware as to what these termed meant, therefore i learnt about them which improved my knowledge. Also we were restricted as we had to use these shots, we also had to include a conversation of some type between two people, to demonstrate these shots, therefore when doing the main task we were able to experiment with more angles and shots, which we feel improved our main task. 
One of the main differences between is that during our preliminary task, we used Microsoft PowerPoint to keep track of our work and to present our work. This is obviously very different to keeping track of our work on a blog, the blog is more technical and allows us to do more activities like post clips. 

The blog is also a lot more organised and detailed compared to the PowerPoint of the Preliminary task.

During the Preliminary task, we were very new to using the software Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 and the camcorder, therefore we needed to familiarize ourselves with the software. This was  a chance for us to make mistakes, learn from them and ensure that they would not happen when doing our main project. 

During the preliminary task, we did not spend a vast amount of time on the editing, which is evident when watching our film for this task. Each frame does not flow into the next smoothly and it is very jumpy. Therefore we knew this was something we had to work on during our main task.

 This frame was one of the first within our preliminary task, this would of led to a match on action shot. As you can see we have also included the title in this first shot. 
We have used white and red for the title, but we did not think as to why we have chosen these colour's. For our main task, we looked into the meaning behind colour's for example, red is associated with blood, anger and danger, therefore it works well when associating it with the genre horror. Here we did not think as to why we were using these colour's. 

We also did not think about editing the lighting, we pretty much kept it the same and did very little editing to it. where as in the preliminary task, we made it so that the setting was much darker to ensure that it looked how you would expect it to when watching a film of this genre. 

This frame demonstrates the adjustment of the lighting, it also shows the variety of shots that we used, in this shot, we used a long shot, which we were unable to use in our preliminary task. These various shots i feel contribute to making this film clip a successful Horror opening scene. 

I feel that my editing skills have improved a lot, because we spent a lot more time and effort on editing during our main task than the preliminary task. Also we had to re-edit our whole film due to technical difficulties. Therefore i feel i have learnt a lot about the editing process and this may help me with future projects. 

Evaluation 6

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

During this process, we have used various technologies to assist us in creating our media product:

- Sanyo Xacti Camcorder - to actually film our opening scene


- Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 - to edit our opening scene
- Blogger - to keep track of all the work we have been doing through out this project
- YouTube - to do deconstructions of existing footage and we uploaded our video to youtube. 
- Microsoft Excel - to create the data graphs for our audience research tasks
- Microsoft Word - for creating questionnaires
- Paint - print screens of the editing process, the graphs and storyboard
- VLC player 






Most of these technologies i was very familiar with, but during this process i have learnt a lot more about Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 and Blogger which i was not as familiar with than the others

Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by uploading our clip to YouTube, therefore our audience could easily access our video. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSaZ7jjjD8o




Here is the link to our annotated video, we have used the annotation tool on YouTube to explain how we have attracted and addressed our audience. We've refered to how our film is simillar to the normal genre conventions of Horror, use of music and othe factors.        

Evaluation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The Demographics of our product are those aged between 15 - 20, and we have chosen this age range as we are within this age range. Therefore we have a very good idea as to what our interests are, therefore when creating our media product, we are in the same mind frame as our target audience, allowing us to create a more successful and suitable product. 

Evaluation 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A Production company is a company that is responsible for the physical production of new media, performing arts, film, radio and television program. The company can either be small or large, they sell its products to a film studio or presenting it at a theatrical venue.

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing (e.g. DVDs, television)



An example of a production company is Paramount pictures which have distributed films like 

• Shutter Island
• Paranormal Activity
• The Lovely Bones

In this context, the production company could be considered to be our group, our teacher and the ICT office as we have all been involved in the making and editing of our media product. 

                            

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The key character i have chosen from our media product is the little girl that has been traumatized by the death of her parents, and abuse by a stranger, she later ends up murdering the man that abused her. This character can be compared to various characters like the grudge, orphan, and the ring. Comparisons can be made with the character Samara from the 2002 film The Ring.

The Ring is about a cursed video tape that when you watch it, you die seven days later. The creator of this tape was a girl called Samara. Samara was pushed down a well by her adoptive mother Anna Morgan and died seven days later, creating a cursed videotape to show the world the misery she suffered from in her life. Although this is quite a different story line to our film 'Distorted' they do share some similarities.

Both these characters share similarities and differences in there character and how they are portrayed:

Similarities:

• They are both young girls and in terms of costumes they both wear white dresses which makes them look quite innocent which is ironic and contrasts to their actions.
• In both films, they turn into the villian, under similar circumstances which is to do with their parents.
• In terms of appearance, they both have dark hair that often covers their faces.

Differences:

• They have different reasons as to why they have been traumatized therefore why they have committed their actions. In our film, the girl has lost her parents, where as in the ring, the girl was pushed down a well by her mother. 
• Differences in how they hurt/affect other people 

Evaluation 1

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

We decided to add the title of our film "Distorted" is placed nearing the end of the opening scene, so that it does not distract the audience of what is happening within the scene. The font used for the title is 'Papyrus' and is in the color red. We decided to use this color as many people associate it with anger or blood, therefore linking to the genre of our film. When researching into opening scenes of the Horror genre, we found that red was a popular color. As we can see from our previous deconstruction of the Horror film 'The Grudge', red is the color used through out the opening scene. This color font is used to display the opening credits of the film, and is the main background color on the shot that is introducing the film title. 


The setting that we used is most evident in the 3rd and 4th shot. As we can see in the 3rd shot, it is the character walking down the church steps creating a very enclosed space to film within, therefore we did not use a tripod. Although the steepness and small space of this shot creates an eerie atmosphere for the audience. 
The 4th shot illustrates the setting of the woods, it shows the victim of the little girl within the film, lying on the floor after being stabbed. We would associate lonely and isolated areas and places with the genre of horror as it does evoke a creepy atmosphere. 


The 7th shot best illustrates the costume and props that were included when making this product. It shows clearly the use of the fake blood that we used to make a wound on the victim.  It also displays the costume of one our our characters which was the rain jacket, which we had to make look very rough and torn to illustrate the struggle between the girl and her victim.

Through the editing process we were able to adjust the image so that it created a more frightening atomosphere and eerie feeling for the audience. Before we began adjusting the brightness of the image, it was much brighter than it is now, we have now made it much more gloomy and dark which people associate with this genre.

We feel this opening sets the story up very well as it causes confusion for the audience as they are unsure as to what is going on in this specific point in time of the film. The opening scene is a fast forward of what has happened as a result of the events within the story. The rest of the film illustrates what has happened to cause these events and therefore the audience can watch the story unfold. If you had just seen this opening sequence, you would not understand why the girl it in a church, what she has got to do with man who is lying down, wounded in the woods.

The opening scene suggest the genre of Horror in a number of ways
- Blood & Gore
- Colour scheme
- Setting

From our audience research, we can see that Blood and Gore is the most favoured element in a Horror film, therefore we can safely assume that this is what the audience think makes a horror film. In our opening scene, we've included blood and gore as you can see one of the main characters in the opening scene is wounded, and a bloody wound can be clearly seen.

The coulour scheme within the opening scene mainly cosists of dark coulours like black or greys. This is continues through out the opening scene until it reaches the title where a bloody red colour is used. Both black and red are associated with Death or blood, therefore these colours work very well within our opening scene.

The setting is key to our genre, firstly the woods is a very isolated area, it is often hard to see through all the trees and leaves and therefore there is a sense of the unknown, which is often what a Horror film is required. Secondly, the church is a very dark and claustraphobic place. Both these settings help add to the factors that make this opening scene fit in with the Horror genre.

The two main characters are both introduced in this opening scene, but in a way that would lead the audience to question their current positions, For example Why is that man in the woods wounded? Why has the girl got blood on her? etc.

Audience Feedback Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that we used in order to find out what potential audience members of our film thought of our opening scene. 


1.       What age range are you?
15-20             21-25     26-30     31-35     36-40     40+

2.       What Genre is this film clip?
Thriller              Horror               Comedy                Action                

3.       What age rating do you think the clip is?
12                                   15                           18                           18R

4.       Is the film title clearly shown?
Yes                                 No

5.       Do you think that this works well as an opening scene?
Yes                                 No                                          Needs some improvement

6.       What do you as the audience feel from this film clip?
Suspense                    Uncomfortable                 Scared                  Humour               

7.       Is the make-up, hair and costume effective in this clip?
Yes, the make-up           Yes, the hair           Yes, the costume           Yes. All three           None

8.       Do you feel that the setting create suspense and an eerie feeling?
Yes                                                                 No

9.       Is the editing aesthetically pleasing? 
Yes                                                                 No

10.       Does the music fit well in this opening scene?
Yes                                                                 No

11.       Would you want to continue watching this film? Give your reason why.
Yes__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Audience Feedback Questionnaire - Analysis


Question 1

  From the first question in our questionnaire, we can clearly see that the majority of people that answered our questionnaire fell into the age range of 15-20, therefore were the age that we have directed our opening scene out, as our target audience are 15 to 18+ year olds. Therefore we can say that this data is quite accurate and will be able to give us a good idea of what our target audience thinks of our product.

Question 2

We felt that it would be a good idea to ask this question as we can have an idea of whether we have been successful in creating a opening scene that is of the 'Horror' genre. From these results we can gather that everyone thinks that this clip is a Horror or a Thriller, which suggests that we have made a successful opening scene as these two genres are very closely linked. Overall Horror did get the highest votes. 

Question 3

Again, this question was asked to see if we had made a successful opening scene, this time for the appropriate age range that we were aiming this clip at. From previous research, we discovered that the age rating of many horror films were 15 or 18, therefore we feel that we have created a successful clip that fits in with this age rating. 

Question 4

We wanted to ensure that the audience could clearly see the film title, understand what it says, and read it clearly. From our results we can see that 100% of people that filled in this questionnaire, can clearly see the film title, and it can be seen by everyone. 

Question 5

This is just a basic and simple question just to gain some idea of what people think of our opening scene, whether it is successful and works well. The majority have selected Yes to this question, which is pleasing. The second highest result was 'Needs some improvement' which is very helpful to know as in future projects, we know that we have some areas to work on so that the clip meets all the requirements. 

Question 6

The genre of Horror is all about suspense, and scaring people, therefore we felt we must ask for the feelings of the audience to know whether we had done this and created this kind of atmosphere. The highest result was 'scared', second was 'uncomfortable' and thirdly was 'suspense', these qualities can all be associated with the genre horror, therefore we felt that we had done well to make the audience feel this well.

Question 7

We asked this question to see whether we had been successfull in making our characters look realistic due to our use of make up and costume. The majority of people said yes to all three which suggests that we were successfull in making our characters look believeable. The second highest votes went to the Make up, therefore the audience must have thought that our use of fake blood, face powder and hair products worked well.

Question 8

The setting was one of the main factors that we felt contrubited to making our opening scene, typically Horror like. We used a Church and a Woods which are both very isolated and dark areas. Most of our audience felt that the setting did creat suspense which is good as this is what we were going for when choosing our setting.

Question 9



One of the miain problems that we had with out project was the editing, we lost a lot of time due to editing and the difficulties that we had, therefore the editing was probably not as effective as we'd have hoped, but judging by the results of this question, we can see that over half of out audience feel that the editing looks good and is aesthetically please.

Question 10

We personally as a group, felt that music was our strong point in the opening scene, as we felt we adapted it well to what was happening in the scene. From our results we can see that 80% of our target audience feel that the music does fit in well with the opening scene. 

Question 11

This question was open ended, but the three most popular answers were curious to know what happens next during the film, it looks like it would be a good plot line and they question a lot of things about the opening scene and about the characters within it, therefore they want answers.

Final Product Opening Scene

 

This is the final product of our opening scene. We uploaded it to YouTube so that others have easy access when viewing it and fill out our audience review questionnaires. 

Editing 2

Unfortunately, we had to start our editing process all over again as we could not add the titles to our film whilst doing it on Sarah's account, we were also unable to render our project,resulting in us not being able to put it onto our blogs or disc. We therefore switched to a different account to try and resolve this problem.
We used the same software, and luckily the time plan that we had previously made for the soundtrack helped us whilst re-doing our Editing.
It took us less time to Edit the second time round as we had the order in which the clips were in and all the effects and lighting changes that we had used had been documented.


Once we had managed to put it all together and add the titles, we then had to record the line "If you go down to the woods today be sure of a big surprise" and for this we used the'Add Narration' tool on this software. 

We then had to render our project so that it because a video format, we then put it onto a disc. This did cost us some time, but we have managed to complete it. 

Difficulties - Editing

One of the major difficulties that we had was when we were trying to apply the text to the film. whenever we tried to add film titles, imformation or anything to the film a dialogue box appeared telling us that we had to terminate the program. once we clicked ok the whole program would shut down.

We then went to the ict office, and spent a while trying to resolve this problem, but unfortunately nothing could be done.

We then tried to adding titles on one of our other accounts to see whether the issue was just on that one computer/account. We then discovered that it did work, therefore we had to start the editing all over again.

  



Difficulties - Soundtrack

Soundtrack

Our soundtrack is being made by Mat, and since he is unable to actually see our actually opening scene to understand where certain noises and sounds need to go, we had to make a detailed time plan to show when and where we want certain noises. This way he could adapt the soundtrack to fit our finished product. 

This was the plan that we sent to mat, and we tried to make it as easy as possible to understand, therefore overcoming this difficulty. 

Editing

When editing our film, we used a software call Adobe Premier Element 7.0 which was the only software we had access to and also knew how to work. We had previously used this software during our preliminary task, therefore when it came to the editing of our opening scene, we had some idea of how to use this effectively. 
Below is a screen shot of the software that we are using.  

We started by uploading the clips off the camcorder into a folder. We had filmed more clips than we actually needed (15 clips) therefore as a group we filtered through the clips, picking out the ones that we thought looked right and were most appropriate for what we needed.

This was when we came across our first difficulty, when we uploaded our clips they were very very dark which was surprising as we were able to see them on the camcorder and they were just how we wanted it. We had to explore premier element to find how we could make the shots lighter so that they could be seen clearly. 


We had to go onto image control to adjust the brightness, contrast and saturation of the image.


This is how the clip looked before we adjusted the image, as you can see it was extremely dark, and almost nothing can be seen. 

Here is a screen shot, of how we adjusted the lighting to make it a suitable and clear image. 


Once we had made all the shots a suitable brightness, we started to put them together and in the right order. We used 'Split clip' to separate some of the clips. We didn't want them running continually, because we wanted flashes of other clips in between them. We had to use split clip so that when it did return back to a certain part, it would be in the same place that i left off. for example, we have the little girl walking barefoot through the woods, then have a few other clips in between like the man in the woods, a fuzzy screen, the little girl walking down the stairs etc, but when it returns to the little girl walking barefoot, we wanted it to start where we had previously stopped. Therefore 'Split Clip' came in very useful. 
The symbol of the scissors is the way 
that we seperated the clips. 

One of the clips that we wanted within our opening scene was a fuzzy screen, which we thought would add to the fear of the audience. It has the idea of the unknown, and leave them wondering what is going to come onto the screen next. 
By doing this, we imported a blank screen and added the effect 'Noise' to make the clip fuzzy, we then adjusted the lighting. 

Once we had arranged our clips in the correct order, we wanted to use an effect which would make the clips run much more smoothly when they went from one to the other, after trying a variety of effects we decided that Cross Dissolve effect gave us the best outcome. 

Once we had managed to put our film together we then found that we could not add titles to our film therefore we had to go to the ICT office to see if we could resolve this problem. Unfortunately we were unable to. 

 
 

Difficulties - Filming

We had various difficulties when filming which included the setting that we used, and the lighting. 

Setting

It was difficult to film within the church stairs as they are very narrow, steep and dark. As we got further and further up the space became more enclosed and narrower and not very much room to move. Luckily we did manage to use this to our advantage. The main character is meant to be frightening and weird due to the plot. So we used the steep and narrow surroundings to convey the character walking very awkwardly, therefore getting the clips that we needed. 

Lighting

When we first entered the steps, it was very very dark, and we were unable to see anything through the camera, therefore we had to go further up the stairs, which effected how much space we had. There was more light when we got closer to the top, but still not enough for the character to be seen clearly, so we used some battery candles to add more light to the scene. This helped as there was not too much light, still creating a creepy and dark setting, but just enough so everything could be seen clearly.  

Plot Synopsis

Plot of whole film

     The film centers around a young girl who has recently lost her parents in a car crash and is currently staying with her aunt. The film shows the car crash, and shows that the little girl managed to escape, then shows the police coming to the scene, and then the funeral of her parents. The young girl then goes to visit her parents graves one days and lays flowers down, when a man who is walking his dog passes by and saw her crying. He comforts her and the audience would get the impression that he is just trying to help her. He then goes slightly odd and drags her into the church with his hand over her face so no one can hear her screams. 

     He tries to violently drag her up the stairs in the church which are very narrow and dark, her head hits on one of the concrete steps, and he abuses her. 

The man assumes that she is dead and leaves her there. 

We then see the film center around the Mans everyday life, and he starts to see her everywhere that he goes, just catching short glimpses of her before she just disappears. 

     After an intense and frightening build up, one day the man takes his dog for a walk in the woods, again he catches glimpses of her but thinks it is just in his imagination. 

She follows him and stabs him to get her own back for what he did to her, he begs her to help him but does not. The audience, and the young girl in the film assume he is dead, she walks past him and he grabs her foot violently and she hits the ground. There is a struggle between the two and she grabs her knife and stabs him again, this time actually killing him.She stands up and backs away a little to make sure is dead. The shot ends when the knife covered in blood slowly falls the the ground and bounces on the floor a little. 

Opening Scene

The opening scene is a flashback of various parts of the film, like when the girl is in the church covered in blood after he abused her, the man that we assume to be dead in the woods and various other areas of the film. 

We felt it would be good to have a flashback as horror films are all about suspense, frightening them and confusion, we felt it would leave the audience questioning what is going on and wanting to know more about what has happened. 


Not only is this plot very frightening, it is also an emotional subject. The audience will not only be experiencing fear and fright but also sadness and sympathy. 
When doing our questionnaire, we discovered that the majority of films that our age group watch that are of this genre are rated 18, therefore we felt that we could include some graphic and emotive scenes. 

Filming - 11th January

Before we began to film, we considered the following things:

- what equipment we would need

- props

- clothing for costumes

- make up

- the weather

We made sure that all these factors had been looked at, and that all of them were sorted and would not effect the filming process, also making this process more efficient.  

We started filming on Tuesday 11th January and firstly went to one of our houses to prepare equipment, props and costumes. 

Equipment: 

- Digital Camcorder - we took two digital camcorders that we made sure were fully charged ready for filming, also we took two to ensure that if one camera ran out of battery, we would have another spare so that the filming process would not be interrupted. We also though it best to have a spare encase we felt we needed to film parts from a different angle, and we could have two of us filming at once and capturing different angles. 

Props

- Fake Blood - our opening scene revolved around a little girl who has just killed someone, therefore to make this idea clear, blood was required to make it look realistic. We got some fake blood and used some to make a hand-print on the 'little girls' plain white dress, we also watered down some of it so that we could put it around the body, and then we also put some on the dead person to make a wound. 

Costumes and Make-Up:

A Plain white dress was used as we wanted to make the little girl look very innocent, we associate the colour white with innocence and safety, which we thought would end up being a good contrast as she is actually a murderer. We then found that obviously a bright red blood hand-print would be very outstanding and noticeable on her white dress. 

We ripped up the dress to make it look worn out and rough, giving it a distressed look, and also then when this character was killing, there may have been a struggle between her and her victim. 

We needed an oversized jacket for the role of the dead man, we then made a rip in the jacket to make it look as if a knife had gone through it and skin could be seen. We then covered it in blood, along with the wound. 

We used pale face powder to make the little girl look very pale and almost ghostly, which we feel would frighten the audience. also we were shooting this film in a very darkly lit place, and white skin would also show up a lot better on camera and therefore taking this into account we thought this would be a good effect.

We used dark eye shadow around the eyes and a lot of the focus will be on her face. 

We wanted the little girls hair to be coming over her face, to make the audience unable to see her full face, which we find in horror films can often unnerve people as the thought of the unknown is quite scary. We used hair gel to flatten the hair over her face, also ensuring it stayed there. 

Weather

part of the filming was took place in a forest, and we wanted the surroundings to be very dull, as opposed to light. So our only issue with the weather was if it was to be sunny. Luckily that day was very windy, dull and cloudy which created a perfect setting for our filming. We wanted a gloomy surrounding to add to the suspense and horror of our film.

During this whole process we all made sure that we each had a turn at filming. We all have different filming techniques and what angle etc we think looks good, therefore we would have a range of different clips to apply to our opening scene.

Planning - Film Title

We decided to do a brain storm to come up with possible titles for our film. We looked at the plot and tried to come up with a title that linked in well with our plot. 
We did some research into what some of the titles' meant, for example the name Thana means death. 

Planning - Scripting

    There is very little speech in our opening scene as it is mainly just shots of the little girl who has murdered someone, and the victim as the opening scene is just a flash back. It shows what has happened as a result of events within the film as our film unfolds and shows why this has happened as explains to the audience why this has happened and shows everything leading up to it.  The only thing she says is "If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise" This links in with the plot of our film as the victim is murdered by her in the woods.


the girl is walking through the woods and only her feet can be seen, the shot then switches from her to the victim lying in the woods, then to the little girl walking down the church steps. This is repeated with each shot getting closer, for example the camera becomes closer to the victim, the little girls feet can be seen walking towards the camera and the little girl is also walking towards the camera in the church


as there is a close up to the girls face she says
' if you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise ' 




    Although we dont have any speech, we do have background music to add tension to the scene. Once we've filmed we are going to have the sound edited to fit in with all the areas of our opening film. This sound clip was made my Mat so that we would have an idea of what we can work with and would have something to adapt to when making our film.


We realise that line 'If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise' may be subject to copyright.
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that is granted to the author/creator of an original piece of work. This includes the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. This is the symbol for copyright: © 


We did some research to see whether we needed permission to use this in our film, but we found that this song is public domain, meaning that anyone can use it. It is not copyright protected and therefore we did not require any permission to use it within our film.  

Planning - Characters

    These pictures show the process by which we made our actors into characters using make up. Sarah and Becca were the actors within our film. Becca was the little girl, and Sarah was the victim.
   We started by making the little girls dress. We covered our hands in fake blood and pressed them on the dress to leave a hand print. This makes it look like their was a struggle between her and her victim. We also cut up the dress to make this effective.

In this photo, we started to apply make up, we used a very pale face powder to make the character look very unnatural and almost Ghost like.

To make this character of the little girl look realistic we also applied the same pale powder to her arms to match her face. 

This picture shows when we put hair gel on becca's hair to flatten it across her head and over her face. Giving it a wet and greasy look. We also thought that when her face is not fully visible because of the hair, it creates tension and fear within the audience as it is this idea of the unknown.

This picture shows the eye make up that we did,

we applied very dark black eye shadow to achieve this effect. We thought we would do this as at one point in the opening scene, there is a close up of the little girls eyes, therefore we wanted to make them as frightening as possible.

This is what it is going to look like overall, the hair will be over her face but her eyes can still be seen to give a more creepy effect.