Evaluation Question 7

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

Reflecting back on the preliminary task the differences between my opening now are very different. For the preliminary task our aim was to create a short film showing a person opening the door, walking in to a room and sitting down exchanging dialogue as well. The required elements we also had to incorporate was 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. Our opening film did not need to include these specific aspects but did need generic conventions, for example our horror film would need to include blood or a harmful weapon as this is associated with the horror genre.

For our planning and research we started out by creating a mood board and mind map of our genre. I also asked people what things they think of when I say the word ‘horror’ this helped me to see what the audience would expect from our film. We also did, target audiences, exploring certification, storyboard, analyse of horror openings, locations, props, costume, filming schedule and shot list.

Our use of shots have Improved since the preliminary task, the panning of the camera across the wall was very precise and unsteady. We wanted this shot to look like the serial killers perspective and mimic his mind which was very deranged and muddled. We also have a range of mid shots, high angle, close ups.

Overall I think that since the preliminary task and from now I have become much more confident with using the camera and all the equipment and having the right knowledge to create the shots I want.

Evaluation Question 6

What I have learnt from the technologies in the process of making our film is that they are very significant to our production and at times can be very difficult to work. Originally we were going to film the panning of the wall scene with a dolly and also take a second shot with a hand held camera to see what one would look much more professional and fit in with the atmosphere of the rest of the film. On the day of filming when getting the dolly set up we realised that some of the bolts were missing and when set up would topple over due to this, resulting in the dolly not being stable. We tried to fix this problem by sticking blue tack to one of the legs which was not attacked to the wheeled base but was not successful. So we had to think of a different plan to achieve the shot that we wanted which was hand held motion across the pictures on the wall.

wall sequence.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our audience profile was for both genders from the age of 15 upwards, what we did to attract audiences to our film was use generic conventions which would already be connected with a horror film. During our research of horror films we observed that blood, harmful weapons and darkness were a few of the aspects that were repeatedly used. For years this tradition has evolved and audiences immediately relate those aspects to horror films so our aim was to also do this to attract the audiences and address what film we were going to be creating.

The first obvious sign within our film that it is of the horror genre is the deep dark music which gradually becomes higher pitched, also the beginning text which is “What you are about to see is inspired by true events” is a very dark shade of red which resembles blood and also connotes death. The news report also informs the audience of the murder’s which gives them disturbing information which they now can be more involved in the film.

Evaluation Question 3

Before deciding on what our horror film would involve we had to first of all think about if it would be for a mass audience or niche. After contemplating the advantages and disadvantages I came to the conclusion that a typical slasher horror film would benefit much more in a mass audience environment as it reaches out to a range of people from 15 upwards. Our film would be a mainstream film, I have researched a range of the categories including, Art house, TV movie, Hollywood and Indie. After much research I realised that our film was a mainstream and follows the same conventions as hit blockbusters like The Amityville Horror (1979), Scream (1996) and The Strangers (2008). The production companies in mainstream which would distribute our horror film could be ‘Dimension Films’ as they have produced for such films as the Scream quadrilogy and Halloween films which were both very successful and are very much along the lines of our film storyline. Another production company I researched into was ‘Rogue Pictures’, I discovered that they had produced for such horror films like ‘The Strangers’ and ‘Cherry Falls’ which were both horror films based along a similar storyline to ours and was very much successful. After looking at both of these production companies I have come to the conclusion that ‘Dimension Films’ would be a perfect fit for our film as they have supported a lot of horror films and would be perfect as promoting and getting our film recognised. Before we properly decided on choosing horror as our genre we analysed two horror films of our choice, we looked at ‘Scream’ and The ‘Shining’ from these two films I developed some ideas for our own film. In scream I really liked the idea of one person stalking innocent people and the mask giving a hint of suspense. From the shining I also really liked the effect in the hallway scene where the scene jump cuts from the two little girls alive then completely massacred; I took these ideas and manipulated them to suit our film.

The shining Jump cut scene:

I thought this scene was very chilling and created a bold scary statement and really did leave a huge impact into audience’s minds after watching it. The dramatic sound also was an inspiration for our film as instead of screeching we had static TV noises and had a dead victim in the bath.

Evaluation Question 2

Comparison of ideas to that of other films from my genre.

From the very first stages of planning our opening i had an idea that our film would have some very similiar aspects to other films. Like the whole picture on the wall aspect was a lot like the haunting film 'One hour photo (2002)' about an employee of a photo lab becoming obsessed with a young suburban family.

                                                         

The aspect of our horror film was definitely a one man stalking innocent victims which is a lot like some of the teen slasher films out there. The one that i think is most like the idea's in our's is 'Scream (1996)', about a masked killer on the loose stalking the innocent people of Woodsboro. This is a lot like our opening as it uses the idea of the man stalking his victims through having his identitiy concealed.

'Scream clip'

Editing - first stages

After we had finished all of our filming, I took my storyboard and started to block out how the film would run. I started by editng the start of the news report about Kristen Blakely, I watched all of the clips and found that there was only 2 continous peices of film which were good to be put on the final film. I had a mid shot and a long shot of the TV and the mask next to it. I started by putting a 2 minute black screen which would be where the logo would play and then the news report would continue from there, so I cut the slight pause before the news report started and then played til the end of the 1 minute and 45 seconds of film. After I had done that I then began to decide how I would cut from the long shot to the mid shot half way through the news report as on our storyboard we had the mid shot then the bloody hand switching off the TV then panning along the picture fillled wall. After the editing lesson I had sorted the timing of the black background for the logo and the transitioning from that to thestart of the news report, I had also cut the first minute of that report so I could in the next lesson transition the two shots.