Zoe's Evaluation
Question one
Question two
Question three
Question six
Jodie's Evaluation
Question one
Question two
Question three
Question six
Marco's Evaluation
Question one
Question two
Question three
Question six
Group Evaluation
Question 4&5
Question 7
Our productions
Anamatic
Wilderness woods reccie
Preliminary task
Final opening sequence
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Evaluation q2-MD
Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The social groups that are apparent in our media product are teenage girls that palpably appeal to the teenage social group. However, our aim because of the psychological horror genre was that it would appeal to up to 25 years old making who most regularly out of the population watch horror films.
We decided to choose psychological in contrast to other types of horror such as Slasher because we could manipulate the age restrictions for a wider range of viewers similarly to the Ring. The clear advantage of this is that a wider target audience can be marketed at and consequently the possibility of creating profits increases. Nevertheless, this also heavily relies upon good narrative and manipulation of angles to make the film scary and attract a wide range of audiences.
The opening sequence conforms to the traditional gender roles and shows the girl protagonist as it points to her being weak and vulnerable. This allows the audience to empathize with and allows the social group to correspond with the characters.
This was shown in our opening sequence firstly by the way showing how she was affected by the curse. This was achieved through a time compression combined simultaneously with a POV shot that allowed the audience to feel the suffering of the protagonist.
The next shot gives a strong impact as the silence is gradually cut by the sound of the twinkle of the music that again reinforces the traditional gender role of the innocent and vulnerable girl. All these parts of the Mise-en-scene including having the socks on the floor Inadvertedly suggest the vulnerability and protection that the protagonist needs. Consequently, this clearly conforms to the psychological horror ideologies that show the need of protection.
Nevertheless, some iconic psychological horrors try and confront these macro and ideological discourses by completely switching them. This can be seen in grudge 2 where the wife kills the man with the pan after being criticized. The silence and is then followed by the tweet of tranquil birds that are used by the director to ironically to provoke darker thoughts and challenge preconception that women are weaker then men.
The social groups that are apparent in our media product are teenage girls that palpably appeal to the teenage social group. However, our aim because of the psychological horror genre was that it would appeal to up to 25 years old making who most regularly out of the population watch horror films.
We decided to choose psychological in contrast to other types of horror such as Slasher because we could manipulate the age restrictions for a wider range of viewers similarly to the Ring. The clear advantage of this is that a wider target audience can be marketed at and consequently the possibility of creating profits increases. Nevertheless, this also heavily relies upon good narrative and manipulation of angles to make the film scary and attract a wide range of audiences.
The opening sequence conforms to the traditional gender roles and shows the girl protagonist as it points to her being weak and vulnerable. This allows the audience to empathize with and allows the social group to correspond with the characters.
This was shown in our opening sequence firstly by the way showing how she was affected by the curse. This was achieved through a time compression combined simultaneously with a POV shot that allowed the audience to feel the suffering of the protagonist.
The next shot gives a strong impact as the silence is gradually cut by the sound of the twinkle of the music that again reinforces the traditional gender role of the innocent and vulnerable girl. All these parts of the Mise-en-scene including having the socks on the floor Inadvertedly suggest the vulnerability and protection that the protagonist needs. Consequently, this clearly conforms to the psychological horror ideologies that show the need of protection.Nevertheless, some iconic psychological horrors try and confront these macro and ideological discourses by completely switching them. This can be seen in grudge 2 where the wife kills the man with the pan after being criticized. The silence and is then followed by the tweet of tranquil birds that are used by the director to ironically to provoke darker thoughts and challenge preconception that women are weaker then men.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Sunday, 8 May 2011
JR - Evaluation Question 3
Once a production is completed by writer and director the next stage of the process is to find a distributor for marketing and selling their product to the different parts of the release process. This is a key part of the process and is vitally important to a successful film.Our media product would be distributed by a independent distribution company for exhibition in art house cinema's as it is a low budget film with a small/specialised target audience. This is because our film is to suit a niche market as it is based around the same convention of Japanese films. Our film would possible be distributed by a company such as Caravan Film a Independent British Film Production Company.
The likelihood of an industrial company such as 20th Century Fox distributing our product is very small because it is a small budgeted film, they promote film to which bring a large income to them and distribute to multiplexes such as Cineworld.
Group 4 - Evaluation Question 7
Our interview of how we learnt from our preliminary task, through the progression from the start to the finish of our full product.
Marco - The director
Zoe - T4 Presenter
Jodie - Camera/Editing
Marco - The director
Zoe - T4 Presenter
Jodie - Camera/Editing
JR - Evaluation Question 2
We chose to use the Psychological Horror out of the sub-horror genre as it has less gore and special effects needed to make the fear fact needed in this genre possible. Also the age restriction of our audience research lead to us appealing to this target audience as we promoted our idea to 16-18 year olds. Our opening conformed to the convention of stereotypical roles in this genre of films, showing a girl as the protagonist being weak and innocent to society. We used a few key shots to place the audience with the lead role, POV shots were used to show her emotions and how the fun atmosphere changes to fear and suspense. The audience becomes involved in the leads emotions and thus feel sympathy for her and conform to her side.
In the following shots, we see the everyday activity of a teenage girl so which represents the stereotypical teenage ideologies, messy rooms, morning activities. The music we used didn't represent the age group as it was a twinkle chimes which you would feel not to be heard by teenagers, we did these as the convention of a horror film was the scary slow music.
JR - Evaluation Question 1
The opening sequences that our group made was based upon the forms and conventions of the stereotypical Japanese psychological horror. Our opening sequence has no ideologically destabilizing forms or conventions. Our product has a female protagonist to which is a convention of our chosen genre. One of the openings which had a female protagonist was the original Grudge film made in Japan. In this opening the introduction to the protagonist was very similar to ours.
Our plot is based upon these convention, we based in upon the idea of using Ouija Boards and how the protagonist is possessed by a spirit. In the 1950 the craze of using Ouija Board was at its highest, mainly in teenagers as it was a 'trendy' and rebellious thing to do at parties. From our research we pieced together several key trends in what happened when using one, and recreated these for our plot, and showing what the consequence of playing with the spirit world could lead to.
We used the main convention of having a young female lead to have the most screen time, this was due to females are generally seen to be weaker than men and vulnerable character, therefore me made the killer unknown until the very end, to which it was a male. This is a convention of our chosen genre several examples where this is true to real films; Paranormal Activity ( Peli,2007) and The Ring ( Verbinski,2002)
You're introduced to the characters of our opening from the first opening shot of a group of girls mucking around having a laugh, this enforces the ideology representing girls as being innocent. The main protagonist is not known throughout this opening section as all the girls seemed to be effected by the Ouija Board. This wouldn't have been as effected if we'd used male characters.
Our villain was a male character to which we other showed part of his face to show his identity as the whole plot is to find out who this person was. This is conventional in the horror genre as men are always seen to be the evil character as they are stronger and more likely to scare the audience due to being more convincing for the villain role.We only used a few props through our opening scene as we had a small budget, so our main props which we used in the first primary shots was the Ouija board which was hand made and the glass. This gave a naturalistic atmosphere to our opening as they were just everyday materials. Another key prop was the coat which hid the camera in the ending shot, this was effect and one of our best shots.
With our Mise-en-scene we used a house as our set, this is a true to a real film in which we studied as most of them were set in household environment. In the bedroom we placed a few socks and props around the room to show a stereotypical teenage bedroom being messy. The choice in Mise-en-scene we had was either a house or woods, we chose a house as lighting and sound was of a better quality and the shots we could use were a lot better than those of the ones we shot outside.
Our titles in our opening scene do not come into action until the story has set in mainly, they stated the role and names of our group members and a made-up production company. Our title follow the convention of the horror genre as they are black and white and do not stand out to take the important of the action away, they were clearly seen and were not to distracting. We used a technique of sliding screen to show our titles, we had one title different as we saw an opportunity to use a flashing technique which we used to turn the light on and the title flashed on with the light.The name of a film did not appear until the end as we wanted to create suspense and on edge, the font we used was similar to that of the Ouija board and we called it Gateway as a Ouija board is what's known as the door to the spirit world. We left it until the end as we wanted it to cover over the new reporter voice.
Friday, 6 May 2011
MD-Q6 Evaluation
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?
Another way that I developed my understanding throughout the project was in camera work. This was an imperative part of the learning curve of learning to use technology. The rule of thirds was an important way that I developed my understanding and huge improvements were made paying close attention to detail. This was evident in a smooth shallow to deep focus shot in the opening sequence.
Nevertheless, one clear limitation was the height of the tripod, as we wanted to film the killer’s feet as he or she was walking up the stairs. Consequently we reverted to holding the tripod of the floor that allowed this shot to be taken but the difficulty was trying to keep the shot as still as possible. We tried to minimize the impact of this by putting a lot of weight onto the character who was holding the tripod.
The most common problem was not being able to see the shot and the framing and other parts of the Mise-en-scene in such detail we overcame this problem by taking lots of shot and consequently minimizing the risk of not having the correct shot.
Another problem was to do with continuing and making the shots interesting whilst still maintaining the continuity of the opening sequence. One shot that I personally feel allowed us to clear this problem was using shallow focus to deep focus which also allowed us to introduce a part of the Mise-en-scene that conveyed to the audience that this was a typical teenager.
First of all it was key for us to get the chronology of the piece correct and then choose accordingly the shots that were most effective at evoking emotion, as well as, telling the story. After we had all the correct shot we created a news report script that would show that the sequence of events was very closely related. This continued the enigma of the opening sequence. We recorded the audio on a microphone and simply added the MP3 file onto the end of the sequence. A sound bridge was used to link the end of the footage with the disturbing cut off the TV.
Furthermore, we used sepia and damage effect to convey that killer part was a vision that the girl had about this murder. After changing the setting a couple of times we decided that a low damaged was appropriate to convey that it was a different time frame but not to suggest that it was very past time. Adding to this, we also decided that we were going to have the vision cutting in and out of present time in order to convey the fragmented and obscurity of her vision that allows her not to realize that the events are closely relate. This allowed us to reveal a secret to the audience evoking a foreboding sensation that something is going to happen between the protagonist and this murder allowing any possible scenes to play on this sequence of events like many other films for instance; The Grudge 2.
Throughout the project I have gained a lot of experience in a series of areas including: editing, camera work and blogging.
One paramount part of the project I utilized technology was by using the blog. This allowed me to express my ideas not only to my peers and teacher but also allowed our group to work collaboratively making suggestions and ideas that we think would be suitable for the opening sequence. This allowed us to mould our ideas and create a better more professional looking opening sequence. The first thing we did was to put up our ideas for the movie. This was a stark contrast to other methods of presenting and it was a challenge designing and presenting the work in a suitable way. It was clear that chunks of texts would make the piece unattractive and therefore colors, pictures and separation of texts was key.
Another way that I developed my understanding throughout the project was in camera work. This was an imperative part of the learning curve of learning to use technology. The rule of thirds was an important way that I developed my understanding and huge improvements were made paying close attention to detail. This was evident in a smooth shallow to deep focus shot in the opening sequence.
We filmed our work inside which gave us greater flexibility about lighting and reduced the environmental noise that could have limited the verisimilitude of the sequence. One example of how this helped us when we used dramatic shadow patterning when the killer enters the door by adjusting the amount of light that was getting through the window as to be able to see the shadow on the wall which our group though added to the tension.
Nevertheless, one clear limitation was the height of the tripod, as we wanted to film the killer’s feet as he or she was walking up the stairs. Consequently we reverted to holding the tripod of the floor that allowed this shot to be taken but the difficulty was trying to keep the shot as still as possible. We tried to minimize the impact of this by putting a lot of weight onto the character who was holding the tripod.
Another possible limitation was regarding framing as the screen that we played it back on was very small allowing for only a very rough overview of how well a certain frame or lighting effect resulted in. Our group tried to diverge away from using huge special effects as with Adobe 8 they were difficult to achieve without severely damaging the verisimilitude and credibility and tension that this type of genre so heavily relies upon.
The most common problem was not being able to see the shot and the framing and other parts of the Mise-en-scene in such detail we overcame this problem by taking lots of shot and consequently minimizing the risk of not having the correct shot.
Another problem was to do with continuing and making the shots interesting whilst still maintaining the continuity of the opening sequence. One shot that I personally feel allowed us to clear this problem was using shallow focus to deep focus which also allowed us to introduce a part of the Mise-en-scene that conveyed to the audience that this was a typical teenager.
First of all it was key for us to get the chronology of the piece correct and then choose accordingly the shots that were most effective at evoking emotion, as well as, telling the story. After we had all the correct shot we created a news report script that would show that the sequence of events was very closely related. This continued the enigma of the opening sequence. We recorded the audio on a microphone and simply added the MP3 file onto the end of the sequence. A sound bridge was used to link the end of the footage with the disturbing cut off the TV.Furthermore, we used sepia and damage effect to convey that killer part was a vision that the girl had about this murder. After changing the setting a couple of times we decided that a low damaged was appropriate to convey that it was a different time frame but not to suggest that it was very past time. Adding to this, we also decided that we were going to have the vision cutting in and out of present time in order to convey the fragmented and obscurity of her vision that allows her not to realize that the events are closely relate. This allowed us to reveal a secret to the audience evoking a foreboding sensation that something is going to happen between the protagonist and this murder allowing any possible scenes to play on this sequence of events like many other films for instance; The Grudge 2.
Q3 Evaluation-MD
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After the media product has been created the director and writer have the key job of getting a distributor to market and sell the media product to the various stages of the release cycle depending on the type of contract that the two companies have agreed upon. This part of the process is of paramount importance as otherwise the previous work in the creation of the media process in economically worthless.
Big industrial cinema companies like 20th Century Fox, as they are a conglomerate, have the advantage of being able to produce, market and distribute and do all the stages of the film under the same roof, vertically integrating these procedures creates a better efficiency. Nevertheless, our film would be more likely to be distributed by an independent film company because of the micro budget of our film. This would try and appeal to a niche market and select age group because of the limited funding that an independent distribution company would be able to offer. It would be very conservative in the marketing it would be able to offer and the cinema screening would try and maximise each opportunity. Wide release would not be an option as not enough people would be attracted when juxtaposed against big Tentpole films.
Nevertheless, in this new era of technological advancement and the influence of web 2.0 even the smallest of independent films can be taken by massive distribution companies and distributed nationwide to make huge financial success. A famous example is that of the 9/11 documentary Loose Change (05, Avery). This Internet sensation reached over 125 million views and went on to become the first Internet Blockbuster. Being such a major international disaster it was clear that such a film would have attracted a lot of controversy and intrigue.
This film appeared in many popular outlets such as the History and Discovery Channels as well as, media outlets such as Fox News, CNN and the BBC.
However, other films have exploited the advent of web 2.0 and social networking sites that over 2/3 of the world use on a daily basis. A key example in our genre is Paranormal Activity (07,Peli) that worked on a micro budget of £15,000. It then managed to get a distribution deal with 
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
ZS EVALUATION Question six
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Advantages of the blog
-record all progress updates
-audience research
-evidence of our filming
-general production of our opening sequence
Our group worked collaboratively by using individual posts, commenting on each others work and findings and using group posts. It was a effiecient way of collecting ideas and having all research in the same place so we could easily compare and share ideas with each of the group members. We also posted our preliminary task onto our blog so we can see what needs to be improved and what worked well. There are several examples of pictures and shots from reccies to show each other what shots and lighting works well.
Filming
Whilst shooting our preliminary task we were able to experiment with different shots, angles and lighting which we could later adapt in order to use in our opening sequence. This task also gave us an opportunity to use the tripod and see how the DV cameras worked. A requirment of the preliminary task was to include a conversation, this meant that we had plenty of practice at using the 180 degree rule and after several attempts we could frame the shot correctly so that both characters shared teh centre of the shot.
For our opening sequence we used much more of our technical skills to create a better media piece. We had already had previous experience with using the DV cameras from our preliminary task and reccie to Wilderness Woods so we were aware that there was a button on the camera which we could use to create a shallow to deep focus shot. This was a very difficult to acheive because the timing of the focus change had to be subtle but eventually we were able to master it. We also tried out several different forms of lighting when filming in the corridor in order to create the illusion that it was the morning.
Overcoming problems with shooting
Our main problem with filming was one of our chosen locations. We originally wanted to shoot part of the opening sequence inside of a tent, however when we went on a reccie to test out filming inside of the tent we found that the lighting was not right and no matter how much we changed it, even bringing the tent inside to have more control over lighting did not fix this problem. The DV cameras were not sensitive enough to pick up figures in the darkness of the tent. Fortunately because we had discovered this problem before we were due to start filming we were able to alter our storyline so that we could have this scene indoors. This way we could adjust lighting accordingly.
Editing
Editing was a long and difficult process because there are so many possibilities when it comes to editing and in order to achieve a seamless production, continuity editing is vital. It takes a long time and is difficult to spot mistakes in your own work but after editing it is worth the time and effort. For the very beginning of our piece there are girls using a ouija board, we needed to have lots of different shots and angles but wanted a fast cutting rate to show the idea of lots of time passing by. This was particularly challenging because we had so much footage from the ouija board and we had to cut up and choose the best pieces to use in our piece, this was an example of montage editing, to show lots of different actions and reactions from the different characters. In this piece we also used time compression on premier to speed up the actions and make it all seem more frantic.
An example of our continuity editing is when our protagonist is walking down the stairs and into the bathroom where she turns on the bathroom light. Here there are several different shots but they are pieced together so that it looks like one continuous movement.
We also needed to differentiate between where our protagonist, the girl was and where the murder was occuring. To do this we lept the girl in full colour and used a filter effect on premier in order to create a black and white effect on the scene of the murder. We also added a flickering effect to make it seem unclear, which showed that it was the vision of the girl.
Our ending consisted of a voice over without any footage being played. In this part we used a grey filter to show a crackling, fuzzy effect and one by one the letter of our title appeared. The letters repeated this formation but each time appearing quicker and quicker and finally flashing up at the end. This took a lot of time to edit because we had to import each letter individually and keep each on the screen for the same amount of time and make sure that it significantly sped up each time.
When editing we also had to import music and choose when we wanted it to come in and when it should end. Fortunately the music was soft and had no drums so we could fade it out and it did not sound like a sudden stop. We also recorded Marco doing a voice over for the end so imported that into premier and moved it around until we found the right place for it to start and end, according to the grey screen and when the music ended. To finish our piece we used white noise which we made in audacity and imported in. We adapted the volumes of this so we could progressively make it louder in order to drown out marco's voice reading out the helpline number.
Exporting
To export our piece onto our blog we first had to save it all into my documents, create a youtube account (which can also be used for further audience research on web2.0) and upload it onto there first. After posting this onto our groups youtube account we were then able to create a new post on our blog by copy and pasting the embedding code onto the 'edit HTML' section when making a blog post. This is also how we exported our preliminary task.
Advantages of the blog
-record all progress updates
-audience research
-evidence of our filming
-general production of our opening sequence
Our group worked collaboratively by using individual posts, commenting on each others work and findings and using group posts. It was a effiecient way of collecting ideas and having all research in the same place so we could easily compare and share ideas with each of the group members. We also posted our preliminary task onto our blog so we can see what needs to be improved and what worked well. There are several examples of pictures and shots from reccies to show each other what shots and lighting works well. Filming
Whilst shooting our preliminary task we were able to experiment with different shots, angles and lighting which we could later adapt in order to use in our opening sequence. This task also gave us an opportunity to use the tripod and see how the DV cameras worked. A requirment of the preliminary task was to include a conversation, this meant that we had plenty of practice at using the 180 degree rule and after several attempts we could frame the shot correctly so that both characters shared teh centre of the shot.
For our opening sequence we used much more of our technical skills to create a better media piece. We had already had previous experience with using the DV cameras from our preliminary task and reccie to Wilderness Woods so we were aware that there was a button on the camera which we could use to create a shallow to deep focus shot. This was a very difficult to acheive because the timing of the focus change had to be subtle but eventually we were able to master it. We also tried out several different forms of lighting when filming in the corridor in order to create the illusion that it was the morning. Overcoming problems with shooting
Our main problem with filming was one of our chosen locations. We originally wanted to shoot part of the opening sequence inside of a tent, however when we went on a reccie to test out filming inside of the tent we found that the lighting was not right and no matter how much we changed it, even bringing the tent inside to have more control over lighting did not fix this problem. The DV cameras were not sensitive enough to pick up figures in the darkness of the tent. Fortunately because we had discovered this problem before we were due to start filming we were able to alter our storyline so that we could have this scene indoors. This way we could adjust lighting accordingly.
Editing
Editing was a long and difficult process because there are so many possibilities when it comes to editing and in order to achieve a seamless production, continuity editing is vital. It takes a long time and is difficult to spot mistakes in your own work but after editing it is worth the time and effort. For the very beginning of our piece there are girls using a ouija board, we needed to have lots of different shots and angles but wanted a fast cutting rate to show the idea of lots of time passing by. This was particularly challenging because we had so much footage from the ouija board and we had to cut up and choose the best pieces to use in our piece, this was an example of montage editing, to show lots of different actions and reactions from the different characters. In this piece we also used time compression on premier to speed up the actions and make it all seem more frantic. 
An example of our continuity editing is when our protagonist is walking down the stairs and into the bathroom where she turns on the bathroom light. Here there are several different shots but they are pieced together so that it looks like one continuous movement. We also needed to differentiate between where our protagonist, the girl was and where the murder was occuring. To do this we lept the girl in full colour and used a filter effect on premier in order to create a black and white effect on the scene of the murder. We also added a flickering effect to make it seem unclear, which showed that it was the vision of the girl.
Our ending consisted of a voice over without any footage being played. In this part we used a grey filter to show a crackling, fuzzy effect and one by one the letter of our title appeared. The letters repeated this formation but each time appearing quicker and quicker and finally flashing up at the end. This took a lot of time to edit because we had to import each letter individually and keep each on the screen for the same amount of time and make sure that it significantly sped up each time.
When editing we also had to import music and choose when we wanted it to come in and when it should end. Fortunately the music was soft and had no drums so we could fade it out and it did not sound like a sudden stop. We also recorded Marco doing a voice over for the end so imported that into premier and moved it around until we found the right place for it to start and end, according to the grey screen and when the music ended. To finish our piece we used white noise which we made in audacity and imported in. We adapted the volumes of this so we could progressively make it louder in order to drown out marco's voice reading out the helpline number.
Exporting
To export our piece onto our blog we first had to save it all into my documents, create a youtube account (which can also be used for further audience research on web2.0) and upload it onto there first. After posting this onto our groups youtube account we were then able to create a new post on our blog by copy and pasting the embedding code onto the 'edit HTML' section when making a blog post. This is also how we exported our preliminary task.
ZS EVALUATION Question three
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?Our media production would be more likely to be distributed by a independent distribution company for exhibition in arthouse cinema's such as The Curzon in London. This is because our film is low budget and is more likely to suit a niche market because it takes a lot of inspiration from low budget Japanese films. Audience members for these films prefer the atmosphere which goes with a horror film more than the special effects used in hollywood productions.
It is unlikely that an industrial company such as Warner Bro's because they show most of their films at multiplex cinemas such as Odeon. We are more likely to be distributed by an independent company such as Optimum Releasing.
These cinemas mean that the four quadrants (all the family) can have a day out together and watch a film. Our media production has a traget audience of males and females aged 16-24 so would not be suitable for the whole family to go and watch. These conglomerate companies distribute tent pole films and other films which have ultra high budgets. These companies also generally have wide release films for a mass target audience. Our opening piece lacks the funding for special effects such as CGI and for famous actors which obviously would have cost us a lot more in production fees, therefore these industrial companies would not distribute our media production.
ZS EVALUATION Question two
How does your media production represent particular social groups?
Our media production focuses on the social group of white, british, teenage girls and conforms to stereotypes which suggest that they are mischievous but still naïve and weak.
Our protagonist who is possessed is a young woman which suggests that women are not in control and that they are weaker than men in general. This is conforming to other horror film such as The Ring (Verbinski, 2002) which use a female protagonist because horror audiences expect this of a horror film. In fact, The Ring which was originally taken from the Japanese film Ringu (Nakata, 1998) was changed to have a female protagonist instead of a male to make it more typical of a psychological horror. Films such as When a Stranger Calls (West, 2006) also use a female protagonist to show their vulnerability. In terms of camera work and angles we have used a high angle shot of our protagonist in bed to show her vulnerability and lack of power. We also used a worms eye view, low angle shot to show our villain. Low angle shots show the character in the shot to be powerful and strong. These contrast of shots shows the idea of good versus evil.
By having our villain as a male we are also conforming to the stereotype that men are stronger and more powerful than women. Most horror films have men as the villains because they seem scarier and more dominating than a woman would be.
Overall our opening sequence reinforces traditional traits of women being weak and vulnerable and also reinforces British and Western ideoligies.
Overall our opening sequence reinforces traditional traits of women being weak and vulnerable and also reinforces British and Western ideoligies.
ZS EVALUATION Question one
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Titles
In our opening we used a title sequence, naming each of the team members which made our production possible. Our titles were conventional of horror films as they were in black and white, however for the title naming the editor we used a play on light. Our titles were clearly visible on screen, but did not distract the audience too much from the actual footage. We also made sure that they stayed on long enough to be read but not too long as to distract from the opening itself. Through careful editing we were able to have the titles and black background slide into the shot to reveal the names.
This is the opening titles from another psychological horror, One Missed Call (2008, Valette). It also uses a white font against a black background for a dramatic effect. The original Japanese version of The Ring, called Ringu (1998, Nakata) also uses a similar style title, including a black background and white font. We took inspiration from these title sequences, however we made ours individual by having the titles appear whilst the actual footage was being played, this way we could have more time to include more footage instead of screen time being lost due to a title sequence. 
We chose to have the title of our film at the very end of our opening for a dramatic effect. We spent a lot of time editing it so that each letter of our title came on the screen to spell our title and it repeats it several times and each time getting fast and faster. We chose to do this because it represents a Ouija board and this was also the reason why we chose this font. It is effective because it links in with the rest of the film. Having the title at the end of the film is challenging of horror openings however I think it was effective in this case because if it had been at the beginning then the audience would not have understood the reason for the unique way in which it entered the screen. Although this is different to many psychological horrors, it is not ideologically destabilising of horror films and still fit in with the general mood of the film. Characters
Our lead character, which takes up most of the screen time, is a young female. This is conventional of horrors, because females are often seen as the weaker and more vulnerable of characters. This is true of films such as The Ring (2002, Verbinski), One Missed Call (2008, Valette) The Exorcist (1973, Friedkin) and Paranormal Activity (2007, Peli). In the first shot of our opening sequence the audience are introduced to a group of young teenage girls. They are all laughing and messing around which reinforces the idea that girls are naïve and innocent. They are seen as the victims whilst doing the Ouija board and are more convincingly scared and affected by the board than male characters would have been.
For our villain we have used a male character, which is also conventional of most films, especially horror because stereotypically they are seen as stronger, more powerful and more likely to scare an audience as they are a more convincing villain.
Mise-en-scene
When making our film opening we thought carefully about the use of mise-en-scene. It is important in order to set the scene and make the audience aware of circumstances such as location, the type of characters present and the time of day due to lighting. To show that our protagonist is just an average teenage girl to begin with, we chose to have some socks lying on her bedroom floor which she walks past. This is a representation of her messiness, just like any other teenage girls’ bedroom would be.
Props
Our main prop used was the glass and Ouija board letters which were cut out and placed in a circle formation on a round table. This made the whole opening more realistic and believable and without these props the opening would not make sense. We also use a piece of costume as a prop. The coat that the girl wears to school is used to reveal the shot, by taking it off of the camera which is acting as a coat stand. This is an interesting and individual opening to a shot which we found very effective.
Plot
Our plot consists of a conventional story line, the idea of possession is not an individual one in psychological horror. Many films such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Derrickson, 2005) are based around this idea. The sacrilegious themes running throughout are enough to scare the audience without the need for gore or expensive special effects. It also makes the whole thing seem more realistic because there aren’t any ridiculous stunts, this means the audience can relate to the plot making it more personal and traumatic for each individual.
Our plot is also based around the idea of using a Ouija board, again this is a conventional plot idea. From 1890 to 1950 Ouija boards were very popular with teenagers, they were considered to be a fun and rebellious thing to do at parties and sleepovers with other friends. Many were scared when using it that they may release an evil spirit, our film exposes this fear and shows the audience one of the worst possible consequences. Sound
We chose to use a twinkly piece of childrens’ music for our film opening. We thought that piece was appropriate for our piece as is represents the innocence and naivety of the possessed young girl. The twinkling innocent piano keys are a contrast to the serious matter of possession so has a creepy and eerie effect. We took inspiration from the theme music from Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) and When a Stranger Calls but instead of having it build up we thought it would be better to stay fairly simple with just the piano, during the audience into a false sense of security. Whilst researching other psychological horrors we found that several, such as The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973) use epic sounding music which builds up and creates tension by using instruments such as drums. So in that respect with our choice of simple music we are challenging the form of music used in other psychological horror media productions.
Diegetic sounds include heavy breathing when the girl is about to pass out when using the Ouija board. This is effective as it creates an enigma, what is wrong with the girl? Has something gone wrong? These questions are vital to our opening as we need the audience to be fully engaged to understand the beginning so that the visions later on will make sense.
The very start of our piece is a black screen with the sound of girls’ laughter, and then the girls are revealed to be sitting round a table. This laughter denotes the idea that they are - innocent
- naive
- vulnerable
There is not much dialogue between characters in our piece because when researching other horror films we found that less conversation between characters was better. It creates the feel of isolation for the protagonist and also shows that the situation is out of the ordinary. Films which also use this technique include The Exorcism of Emily Rose. However, the little dialogue we do have is choppy creates a sense of confusion. The way we have edited it, with lots of different sections of dialogue put together so that it does not make much sense also creates the illusion that a lot of time has passed by.
The most dialogue we have is at the very end with a voice over from a newsreader discussing the death of a young girl. We chose to have this dialogue without the newsreader on the 
screen so that we could use it to have out title come on. The title takes a long time to appear fully so this sound will still keep the attention of the audience without them getting bored of the repetitive screen. We also used white noise at the end of the newscast because the noise fits in with the grey fuzz which is on the screen. Camera work
Camera work and specific shots were very important to our opening as we used them to show the domination of power and control in a given situation. For example in the beginning there is a worms eye view from the angle of the glass on the Ouija boards looking up towards the finger being placed on it. This shot gives the idea that the girls are in control and are more powerful. However later on when our protagonist wakes up there is a high angle shot (Birds eye view) looking down on her. This gives the idea that she is weaker and that there is some stronger force looming over her.
We also use a shallow to deep focus shot when the girl is walking away from the camera towards her bedroom door. This shot is important in that it represents the idea of morning and her waking up from her hazy state and being able to focus on this problem which she is so far oblivious to.
Editing
Editing was particularly important for our piece, as we needed in several places to be able to manipulate the idea of time. Our first challenge was the use of the Ouija board. We wanted the audience to believe that they had used it for a long time and that several incidents had happened so that the girls were actually frightened of the results. However to do this we would have to show several minutes of film just focusing on the Ouija board and this would take up too much of the opening when we needed it to explain more of the plot. Therefore we used several different clips of the Ouija board scene and used very fast cutting rates and lots of different angles and shots to make it seem that they had been there longer.
In a bird’s eye view shot of the girls using the Ouija board which needed to be included to show that the Ouija board actually worked, we used time compression to speed up the movement of the glass to make it seem like a longer duration of time had been spent and also that the spirit which was possessing the board was quick to give reactions. It makes the whole experience seem more dangerous.
We also used editing to cut from the girl in the bathroom and the murder scene. These short and sharp cuts meant that we were able to get more footage in to a short amount of time. It also meant that you could see the girls distress in between the snippets of the murder and it gives the idea that she was getting the vision in small parts.
Continuity editing is also important in every film. An example of this continuity editing is our shot of the girl reaching up towards the bathroom light and then the next shot of just her hand pulling the chord. This was cut and put together at just the right time for the audience to believe that this was one smooth action instead of two separate shots. Colour
In horror colour is a very important factor. For example we thought carefully about the idea of blood and how to make it stand out from other features in the shot. We found that the best way was to have the red blood on the girls finger against a white bathroom sink.
As discussed earlier, we used black and white colour theme for the murder scenes. This made it seem more mysterious and gave the idea that it was somewhere else and at another time. It was very important to distinguish between the two places so that it is obvious that she is having a vision.
In comparison, the girl in the bathroom is in full colour which is a direct contrast to the murder scene. However, although she was in full colour, this was still fairly dark, because if it was too light it would not have created the same sense of mystery and would have seemed too happy and this is not a convention of horror films.
Visual techniques
When filming we experimented a lot with lighting, we wanted to make sure it was light enough for the camera to pick up everything including all colours, but did not want it to be too light because this would take away the gloomy and mysterious feel to it.
It was also important to make sure that the lighting used was appropriate to the time of day. For example the lighting was quite dark when she wakes up in the morning because we wanted it to seem very early in the morning so that it seemed a little more unnatural than getting up when it is bright and sunny.
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