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

Since the preliminary task I have learnt a lot about the equipment and the process of making a film.

Planning and Research:

After completing the preliminary task I thought that the planning stage of the project would be easy and that my group and I would come up with an idea for a film opening relatively quickly, but even though we thought of choosing the horror genre immediately the story line took us a while to think of. I learnt that if I search existing products and how they were successful then it becomes easier to come up with an idea that works. Another thing I learnt about film making is that even if you think an idea works you have to pitch the idea to see if others think it will as well otherwise it may not be a good idea. Another thing I learnt in this stage was how much planning was needed for props and the setting for when we were going to film as there had to be enough room in the filming space and enough props to make it look like a natural environment.

Filming:

In the preliminary task we had used a quite a few different shots so i thought we had covered it all however we had filmed in a large space and with a simple plot. In the film opening the room we had chosen to shoot in was a lot smaller so re-positioning of props and placing the camera in strange places came as a learning curve to me. Another thing that I learnt when filming was that we couldn't stick completely to the storyboard because as we were filming new shots appeared to us and we changed some of the shot angles and some of the continuity between shots in the storyboard didn't make sense so they had to be altered to fit the plot we were trying to follow. Team work was also an important factor in this filming stage and something that we had to keep up even when we came across problems like trying to get the shot right and who would film that particular shot, we also had to decide between takes of that shot and there were sometimes difference of opinions but we made it work. some shots that we thought of while making the preliminary video we decided that we liked how effective they were and decided to use some of these in our film opening, shots like the extreme high angles. We also learnt about the things we couldn't do for our film opening like the restrictions on equipment effected which shots we could achieve. Tracking and pan shots were difficult to do smoothly as the tripod and camera we had didn't have the right settings to cope with these types of shots.

Editing:

this was the biggest learning curve for me out of the whole project as I had taken a step back in the post-production stage in the preliminary task. When we edited i learned about all of the programs I had to use to put all the footage into a finished film opening and even though it took me a while to learn it I managed to contribute to edit the final piece. Time management was a major factor to the editing stage as we had to work to a deadline and we were all still learning about the programs while trying to complete the task in time. We did overcome this issue through the sharing of knowledge about the programs and researching what we didn't know. Including conventions of a horror film was also something that we had to do in the editing stage as well as the planning stage because we had filmed in bright light but we needed dark scenes for the shots to fit in with the genre so that was another tool we had to work out. I also learnt that we had to accept our target audiences criticism in order to complete a film that would be watched by members of our target audience. 

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

Question 6

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5) How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 5

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4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

 Knowing what your target audience is a very important stage when making any media product. A target audience means a group of people that you aim your product at by what content you use e.g. Females 25+ years old. Establishing your target audience right at the beginning of your planning process means that you can plan what content will appeal to your target audience and also how you or the distribution company will promote your product to that target audience. Some marketing campaigns appeal to younger TA's by using viral marketing such as Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and online applications and competitions.


 We decided that since the genre of the film is horror the age of the primary target audience would be best at 15+ years old as the certificate of horrors tend to be 15 or 18. We settled on 15-24 years olds because the characters in the film would be within that age bracket so the target audience would relate to the characters and therefore may feel the emotions that the characters feel. As for the gender we decided that males would be appropriate to focus on as males are generally more likely to want to go and see a horror film, especially within that age range. The main character was also male so there would be a sense of relation there too. 


 Our secondary target audience would be in the same age range as our primary but instead of males they would be females. This is because some females also like to watch horror films or The men who go to see the film may want to take their girlfriends along to see it as well so we considered them as a secondary target audience so they might want to see it as well.


 This is a profile of a typical member of our primary target audience:

Name: Jason
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, playing guitar, watching films and studying.
Favourite films: Insidious, Saw, Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump and The Sixth Sense.
Favourite Genres: Horror and Comedy
About: Jason is a 18 year old student at college. He studies hard but likes to relax in the evenings and watch films. He said he is yet to find a horror film that really scares him.

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

Question 3

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2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Emel and Renai

We decided to choose Emel for the role of the victim as she could could act similarly to the way Renai acts in Insidious when she feels alone and trapped in her own house. She also has a similar look to Renai so we knew that this look would work for the opening that we were trying to come up with.

 We wanted to represent a typical woman who is at home doing what any other woman would do like watching TV or reading a book. We also wanted Emel to react to the incident in a way that other people especially women would be able to associate with so that meant that she would act vulnerable and weak against this other dominant figure.

Insidious Trailer:

 

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Shot 1 - The Thing, 2011

 I chose to look at this film opening because it uses close-ups a lot throughout the sequence. We used this idea of putting in a lot of close-ups so that the sequence feels quite claustrophobic in parts, this is a convention used in horror films particularly and is demonstrated by the opening of The Thing. In this shot there is also credits alongside the close-up of the object to the right. We took this idea and put the close-ups with the credits in the same way, however unlike this opening we had other types of shots without credits in between the credit shots. The dark lighting around the edge of the shot is also something about this opening that we tried to incorporate into some of our shots.

Shot 2,3 and 4 - Blade II, 2002

 This opening sequence is very different to most openings but some of the ways they have put the shots together we used in a similar way. In shot 2, instead of having almost still objects, they have put the credits over the top of the action shot that's in the background. There is a tracking shot of a man walking through a room with a voice over in the background but the focus is on the closest object and the credits. This type of credit shot has been used in other film openings too but we decided to steer away from this method and more towards the one used in shot 1. This opening also cuts to action shots without credits in shot 3, and this is something that we decided to put into our film opening in between the still credit shots. We also made the decision to make the action shots quite quick instead of longer like in Blade II. In shot 4 it shows that the title Blade II is put at the end of the opening sequence, this is quite unconventional for a film opening, but we liked the idea of having the title at the end instead of at the beginning or in the middle of the sequence so we also put our title at the end of the sequence. our title was also set against a dark background, this is very conventional of horror film openings as shown in Blade II.

Shot 5 - Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007

 This shot shows the type of font used in this opening sequence is a plain, serif font as this is very conventional of horror film credits. We also took a serif font as our final choice to apply to the credits in our film opening so that it would follow this convention of horror films.

Shots 6 and 7 - Insidious, 2010

 Shot 6 shows one of the ways that the credits are displayed in this film opening. Each line of text moves in a different direction from the one above and below it (left or right) to make them more interesting to watch, there are also some words that are bigger than others to make them stand out more. We took this idea from this sequence and applied it to the credits in our opening as we thought it was a good way of making them more interesting to watch than still text and we made some of the words bigger that we wanted to stand out. In shot 7 it shows a scene inside a house in black and white with the credits in red put in the darker areas of the shot. We developed this idea by having the credits in the almost still scenes, with the camera moving around the scene slightly, like in this opening but we kept those in colour and applied black and white to the action shots to create the sense of a flashback. So we took the conventions of a horror opening from Insidious and changed the effects around slightly to give an unique film opening.

Shots 8 and 9 - Dawn of the Dead, 2004

 Dawn of the Dead opening sequence consists of cutting quickly between action shots and still credit shots. The order this openings action shots have been placed in makes it seem more like a trailer so to avoid this we did the similar thing of swapping between action and credit shots but the action shots were in order so that they showed part of a story that was going to lead onto the rest of the film. We also developed the credit shots so that the image in the background was part of the story line too.

Final Film Opening

Target Audience Screening and Re-editing

After we had finished editing the rough cut we had a group of about 16 students of aged 16-18 years old, males and females (target audience) view our film opening. After they had watched it we asked our target audience members to write down what they thought was good and bad about it and how we could make it better. Most of the improvement comments we received were that the colour shots were too bright and that the credits were too small and the font wasn't conventional of a horror and that they needed to be placed differently in relation to the image in the shot. These were all valid comments.
 We went onto re-editing the film, we desaturated the colour shots but turned the opaqueness down so that some of the colour came through and the image looked dimmer. We also repositioned the credits so they were more visible, made them bigger and changed the font from a san-serif to a serif font. We then saved and exported this film as the final film opening.

Rough Cut Film Opening

Editing

The editing went well with no major problems. We edited the shots together one by one in the order that they are on the storyboard. We experimented with a few different transitions to link the shots and effects to put onto the shots to fit the genre of film we were trying to achieve. We desaturated the action shots to make them black and white, this clearly shows that they are happening in the past, we also used a white flash for transitions to make it obvious that it is a flashback. We left the credit shots with no effects because it shows that they are in the present and everything can be seen more clearly. 
 We didn't use any sound effects as all the diagetic sounds that were needed were in the shots from when we filmed it, we did make some of the sounds coming from the shots louder like the glass smashing so that it could be heard above the other sounds in the shot. For the music we overlapped two different soundtracks from a royalty free website. 
 Then we exported the video to livetype to put the credits on. This was where the problems started. When we put the video into livetype there was no sound which meant that we would of had to put the credits on then export the video back into final cut and then try and match up the sound to the video. After a while we thought to match the credits to the video in livetype then export just the credit shots into the final cut file. Then we had the problem that when the final cut video was put into livetype the quality of the picture went down a lot so we had to do the credits in livetype, then export it as a video but without rendering the background so it went over the top of the opening in final cut.

Filming

 We started the day with the setting up of the set. This was fairly easy as most of the props were to be moved around while filming, we decided that moving the props around while filming will create more space in the room as it was too small to fit all the props in their right place from the beginning. 
 The first shot took the most takes before we got what we needed from it, this was because the falling of the lamp was difficult to get right while having the Jack and Emel struggling at the same time. The positioning of the camera also took some thought because we decided to have Rachel catching the lamp so that the attention wasn't drawn to the sound of the lamp. After that first shot the filming began to go smoothly. A couple of issues that we had were mainly to do with positioning of the camera as it was quite a small space and was difficult to get good angles. 
 We just filmed the action shots at first as they were the hardest ones to do. Another issue was placing Jack and Emel in the right place and telling them where they should move to because the shots had to link together with the movements of the actors. 
 Some shots which we thought were going to be difficult turned out quite easy, shots like the table with the glasses on being pushed over. We expected this shot to take a while to get right because of the glasses falling off at the right time and making enough noise, but it only took one shot. Also we thought that there was going to be a problem with Jack stabbing Emel and her falling backwards but it turned out that she knew how to fall backwards without hurting herself. 
 After the action shots were done we moved onto the credit shots. These were actually very difficult to take as we didn't have the best equipment for doing smooth panning shots but we managed to hold them steady enough to get decent shots. 

Risk Assessment

Shot List

Call Sheet

Props and Costumes

Props:
 Most of the props weren't difficult to get hold of because the film is being shot in a normal house setting. The location was hard to find for a while and we didn't find a place to film until a couple of days before we planned to film. In the end we filmed it in a room in my house. This meant that the big props like a sofa, a bookcase and a lamp were already in the room. This is a list of all the props we needed: 

• Coffee table
• Wine glasses
• Sofa
• Bookcase
• Tall lamp
• Cushions
• Carpet
• Knife

The wine glasses were easy to get hold of from a shop in Banbury. The carpet took a while to find but in the end we used one that was already in the room and just washed it after as we spilt wine and fake blood on it. 


Costumes:
 The costumes were quite easy to find as they are mostly normal clothes. Jacks costume:

• Black hooded jumper
• Black coat
• Black gloves
• Dark jeans
• Grey boots

Emels Costume:

• Jeans 
• Light pink top
• White jumper
• No shoes

The clothes were normal but the items were put together to create an image for each character. Jacks costume gives connotations of dark, mysterious and dangerous. The gloves show that he is careful about giving away clues to who he is and the hood means that we can't see his face so that the audience doesn't know who he is either. Emels costume gives connotations of good and feminine. The pink top shows that she is a stereotypical female and therefore more helpless and vulnerable to being attacked, she also is wearing no shoes showing that she is at home on a normal day.

Casting

 Casting wasn't much of an issue for my group and I because there are only two characters in our film opening. We had to find a woman that could scream well and look scared, this was also quite easy as we had already chosen Emel Yildirim as she is our friend and we knew she could act quite well and that we would get along well with her while filming. 
 Casting for the male part was difficult at first as we had no idea who would make a good character. We also didn't know many men who were good actors but in the end we decided to cast Jack as the man because he had the right clothes and he doesn't say anything in the opening so acting wasn't a big part of what he had to do. 
 The look we were going for when we picked these actors/actresses was that the man would be taller than the female therefore more likely to overpower her and that he would be the dominant character out of the two. 

Final Ident

This is the final ident that we chose to use in our film opening. We took one of the old ones and made changes to it from the comments we received in our questionnaire. I think that this ident is a good one for our film opening as it reflects the genre of our film (horror). The font used was one of our two top choices for the film title but we decided that it would be more appropriate for the ident and we chose the other font for our film title.