Animatic

  This is the animatic that I made and then my team mates added the soundtrack. This is to give a general idea as to how our film opening will look, with the proper footage. The music is also just a working soundtrack and it isn't perfected yet but will be when we put our film in. This is just to give an idea of when the credits will appear and what kind of shots will be used.

Results of ident questionnaire

This graph shows that my ident and jacks ident were the preferred idents of our target audience (15-21 year olds) we received comments about the idents and overall people liked aspects from both mine and jacks. In the end we chose jacks ident but made some improvements to it. 

An ident is an important thing to include in a film opening as it promotes the production and distribution company of the film, and gives the audience an idea of whether it is the right type of film for them. My group and I feel that it is something that we need to include in our film so that we have all the aspects of film openings. 

Video for ident questionnaire

This is the video of all the idents that me and my group created. We will show this to members of our target audience and ask them to choose their favourite one to go into our film opening.

Questionnaire of Fonts

We asked 15 people of our target audience which font they would prefer to see in a horror film opening. The two most popular fonts (options 1 and 2) are going to be one in our film opening and the other in our ident. The ident questionnaire will decide which font will be used for which purpose.

Storyboard

 

This is our storyboard showing the basic shots that we are going to have in our film opening. It tells us which order the shots are going in and the technical side of things, such as the type of shot e.g. medium close-up, what sound is going in the shots and what happens in the shot. It also has some basic ideas of which edits are going between shots. This will be our guide when we make the film opening.

Floor plan

 This is a rough design that we came up with of what the opening scene will look like. It also shows the path in which the characters take through the room in the opening.

Improved ident

This is my improved ident with a different effect on the picture and sound. This is one of the choices of ident that my group and I are considering.

My first ident

This is the first ident i made for my film opening for the production company. No sound yet.

Film Openings Powerpoint

This was a powerpoint I made showing examples of conventions in different film openings.

Film Pitch

This is the film pitch that my group and I presented. It shows our general film concept and who our target audience is. It then shows a couple of different typographies that we are thinking of using for our film as well as a couple of soundtracks for our film opening. 

Horror Film Opening Analysis 2

The Strangers - Horror film opening

 Shot 1 - This shot is of the production company's logo, this is a convention of a film opening as it gives the audience some information about who has made the film and is an advertisement for that company that will be seen by everyone who is about to watch the film.

 Shot 2 - This shot is an intertitle with a voice over reciting what it says on the screen. The voice is a low males voice to give what he is saying a creepy feel for the audience to know that the true events that the film is inspired by are bad ones. The colour of the text against the black background gives the line an eerie glow to it creating fear of what could happen next.

 Shot 3 - This shot is of a house in semi-darkness surrounded by trees. The semi-darkness shows that night time is coming and the dark is when the worst things happen in horror films. The house implies that whatever bad event that is going to happen is going to happen in the main characters home, this is supposed to scare the audience as the home is usually a place where people feel safest.

 Shot 4 - This shot is similar to shot 3 but now it is in total darkness apart from a couple of eerie street lights. This creates an enigma of not knowing what is hiding in the shadows, this is a convention of the genre horror.

 Shot 5 - This shot is of a car with a smashed front windscreen, in the background there are two boys on bikes looking at the car. There is also non-diegetic sound of voices talking on the phone of a woman talking to emergency services. The smashed car shows that the bad event has already happened and that it was someone being violent towards the main characters. The woman's voice sounds scared and she is talking about someone being in the house, this phone call is playing over the top of the present scene to show that what she is talking about is in the past.

 Shot 6 - This shot is of the two boys walking towards an open door of the house. This door has been forced open due to the hole in the top of it. The non-diegetic phone call is carrying on in the background to give an explanation to the audience as to what might have happened in this house.

 Shot 7 - This shot has a spinning record but its not playing anything showing that its just kept going until it run out of music. This implies that the person playing the record was interrupted suddenly and never got to switch the player off. It also creates that eerie feel for the audience as it could also mean that someone is still in the house and they don't know whats coming next.

 Shot 8 - This shot is of an engagement ring box that is closed implying that someone was planning to propose but never got round to it. This gives the audience some information about the main characters, a man and a woman who are together and were going to get engaged before someone interrupted their night. The trail of rose petals looks similar to a trail of blood giving connotations of violence as well as romance.

 Shot 9 - This shot shows a kitchen knife with blood on it and a rose petal. This shot also has connotations of violence and romance and that this couples relationship was doomed. The blood is a main convention of the genre horror and confirms to the audience that there will be violence in the film.

Horror Film Opening Analysis

Dawn of the Dead - Horror film opening


 Shot 1 - This first shot shows the genre of the film immediately from the colour of the text and the sound that goes along with it. The colour red has connotations of danger and blood showing that this film is a horror and that it will contain violence. The sound effect of the title coming onto the screen is of something splattering across it and of someone screaming, these both bring tension to the film instantly.
 Shot 2 - This shot shows someone with blood all over his face while someone is trying to hold him back. This is a very quick shot with a loud scream at the same time, this is supposed to scare the audience and show them that the film has something to do with people going mad.
 Shot 3 - This intertitle keeps in with the theme of blood and horror because the words are in red and they then splatter across the screen like blood and the same sound effect as shot one is used. An intertitle is also a convention of a film opening.
 Shot 4 - This shot shows a spokesman talking to the press about what is happening in the film so far. In the background it say 'disease prevention', showing that the spokesman is for a company that looks for ways to prevent diseases from happening implying that it is a disease that is affecting the bloody people. This shot gives some insight to the audience as to what is going to happen in the film.
 Shot 5 - This shot is of a type of cell showing that there is going to be something that changes to humans during this film. This shot is shown in between shots of people screaming and bleeding showing that the change is not going to be good. 
 Shot 6 - This shot is of a broken window of a shop and the shop is on fire. This implies that there is going to be a lot of chaos in the streets and that people are in danger. It also implies that there is nowhere to hide from these zombies and this feeling of nowhere to hide is used to scare the audience into feeling vulnerable themselves.
 Shot 7 - This shot shows a crowd of half dead and bloody people screaming and looking at the camera. This is another very quick shot so the suddenness of the zombies looking straight at the audience would make them feel that the zombies are coming for them, reinforcing the horror genre.
 Shot 8 -  This shot is of a lot of police cars driving down a street, this shows that there must be something big happening that needs police attention. It is also at night which adds to the fact that it is something very bad and most horror films have a night scene in them so it is conventional.
 Shot 9 - This shot shows a location that is well known, Washington DC the white house. This shows the president of the United States being protected by marines which implies that there is something attacking them. This is just one of the locations showing that the attack is happening world wide and there is no stopping  it.
 Overall this film opening shows the genre of horror very effectively. 

Preliminary Task Evaluation

For our preliminary task my group and I had to film someone opening a door, walking into a room and exchange a couple of lines of dialogue with another person.
 As a group I feel that we worked well and all took part in making the film. We all thought of ideas and brought them together in a storyboard that we were happy with. On this particular task none of us had any conflict of ideas so the storyline came together quickly and we had enough time to prepare a mock up video of just still images and sound.
 In the filming process we came across some problems:

• We had to film all the footage in a random order because some areas of the school were busy when we wanted to film a certain part. We ended up filming each clip in any order we could over 2 days to avoid extra people in the shot.
• We couldn't film using tracking shots easily so we ended up with stationary shots throughout our film.
• Extreme high angle shots were difficult because the tripods weren't tall enough. To overcome this problem we had to make the high angle shots quick and just held the tripods with the camera on above us as steady as we could.
• Filming a dark scene was impossible because none of the rooms available were dark enough, and if we had filmed in the dark the film quality would have been low. We overcame this problem by using a blackout to show entering a dark room then switched the light on as part of the film.

After we sorted out those problems the rest of the filming went smoothly. When we had collected all the clips we swapped out the still images in the mock up for the film footage and moved around the sound effects to fit in with what was happening in the shot. Overall the filming task went well.

Preliminary Task Video

Starting the preliminary task

 The preliminary task is to use continuity editing to film someone opening a door, walking into the room, sitting down infront of someone else and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue.
 So far my group and I have constructed a storyboard of what we think will be a good short film including sound, lighting and transitions between shots.
 We then went around the school to test locations for our shots as well as how we were going to go about filming it, and took still images so that we could get a better feel as to what our storyboard would turn into when we film it.
 After taking the still images we put them into final cut and edited them together in order. We also added the sound effects so that we are ready to edit them in with the footage we will take.
 Problems we have encountered so far:

• Being able to film using tracking shots. With the equipment provided at school smooth tracking shots are difficult to do and therefor we have to stick to stationary camera clips unless we can find a solution to the problem.
• Filming a dark scene. Without proper lighting equipment filming people in a room that is supposed to be dark will make the quality of the film low.
• Filming extreme high angle shots. Some shots that need an extreme high angle of a person are hard to keep steady without a high enough tripod to put the camera on.

My first experience using final cut

School Promotion Video

I created this video with a group of two other people as a learning curve on how to use final cut so that I am prepared for my coursework task.
 What I learnt:

• That a group of three people is enough to take the footage but you have to be prepared to involve other people to be in the film. These extra people also have to be commited to taking part in your film so they don't drop out half way through.
• Always take more footage than you need! If you just take the amount you think you are going to put into your film, you may find that the clip isn't as good as you thought and you then have to go and shoot the clip again. In some clips in may just be a case of re-filming but if the original clip was taken in certain conditions, such as weather, you may not get the same clip again.
• Planning is very important when making a film. Because this video was just a taster I didn't have time to plan out where everything was going to be filmed and which shots worked in the video. This stage is needed to make a professional film and I will be planning every stage of my coursework piece. A schedule would be a good way of planning when,where and who is going to be in each clip, and a back-up plan would be helpful incase weather or other factors get in the way of shooting a certain clip.
• Equipment available to you must be considered at the beginning of the planning stage. Some shots may not work with the equipment provided, such as pan shots with an unsteady tripod. Do tests before filming to check which shots are possible to do.
• Leave clip handles either end of the clip of about 5 seconds so that there is enough footage for transitions to overlap.
• Lighting and sound must be considered when filming a shot. Test that there is enough light in the shot so that the camera can see the important people and objects in that shot, if the lighting is too low then it wont be very good quality. Sound should also be tested. Make sure the room is silent of all background noise if someone is talking in the clip, if the shot is outside take into account the amount of wind, traffic noise etc.

Overall the experience was good because I now know the basics of how final cut works as well as how I should go about filming. I will be thinking about all these points when making my final piece of film.