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

Throughout the production of our opening scene, I have learnt many new skills and developed any skills I already had. From the preliminary task to finishing, I think all of us have definitely improved our camera and editing skills. We managed to use far more complex camera techniques and pulled off some rather complicated editing sequences. I feel I have radically improved my skills in media from the preliminary task through to finishing. One very important thing I learnt during the process was that nothing is ever as simple as it may first seem. Editing is a very long and difficult process, also when putting in special sound effects you must be careful to keep it all in time with eachother otherwise things can very easily fall apart.

Our preliminary task involved filming a short scene which involved a conversation, 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. We were told to film someone walking through a door, we used match on action to show Michael walking through the door and we then showed the shot reverse shot technique by demonstrating a conversation between Michael and I. We had to story board this and edit it, which gave us an opportunity to use the equipment in order to try and get used to it.

Our main task required us to shoot the first 2-3 minutes of a film opening. We had to come up with our own plot for an entire film and then create an opening scene for the film. We had to conduct research into film genres and audiences; storyboard the opening scene and edit and enter sound effects on the opening scene. I feel that we came up with the plot for our story very quickly, we drew out the storyline from a voiceover that Michael wrote, which we used in our opening scene. However, when we began filming we encountered some problems; when 2 of us were free to film the other wasn't or a group member was ill. It was difficult to find the perfect time for filming, we had to change the storyboard quite a lot as our ideas changed throughout the film-making process, also because we had problems with the original plan of filming the scene at night because we could not make the film show properly. We overcame this problem however by changing the setting to daytime and adding a dark fog effect onto the film. 

I feel incredibly proud of the progress I have made from the start of this project to completion, and I am also very proud of my group members, we worked together to create a fantastic film opening and overcome any problems we encountered!

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

Creating this opening scene, has most definitely helped me to gain new skills in technology that I certainly did not have beforehand. Using the Apple mac computers, is something that I would never have though would be difficult, but in actual fact, it was quite difficult to get used to using this kind of computer. The software was very different to normal computers. The software I used, Imovie HD definitely helped me o gain some new skills such as creating and editing films. I also managed to add in effects and edit and cut scenes to perfection.

 We also used websites like Google, YouTube and IMDB. These websites definitely gave our group the information we needed to sucessfully create our opening scene.

This photograph shows Mercedes and I sitting at the mac with our camera and tripod, and important shot from our opening scene is shown on the screen in this photograph. Our group most definitely did an amazing job of creating a good opening scene to our film, we worked well together all inputting different skills which in the end created an impressive scene. We worked well together and when problems did arise, we managed to overcome them together and as calmly as possible, we helped eachother get through the process and our skills and talent with the filming and the editing, definitely complemented eachother.

How did we adress/attract our audience?

Our film included key themes of death, transformation, victimisation, and villainous characters (the vampires). These aspects are all key themes and typical conventions of our genre, horror. They indicate immediately to the audience exactly what genre we have chosen and what the film is going to be about. The villains in our film are the vampires, they are creating an 'army' of vampires to wipe out the human race, this becomes apparent when Mercedes' character gets bitten in the first shot of the opening scene. I believe we produced the opening scene of our film very well and it would have enticed the viewer to watch the rest of the film. We had to ensure we maintained all the typical conventions of a horror film throughout filming, in order to keep the genre obviously present in the film. This film would never fit into another genre, it is far to specific to the horror genre to even try to place it within a different genre.

 

 

This photograph to the left is taken of Mercedes' character in our film after she has been bitten and become a vampire. This shot is taken from a vital part of our opening scene, showing Mercedes' character change from a regular 18 year old girl into a vampire. This is a medium shot of Mercedes, showing her red eyes, a typical aspect of vampires, and blood dripping from her mouth.

This photograph to the right shows Bella Swan, the main character from the film Twilight, in this photograph she also has the blood dripping from her mouth that we showed on Mercedes' character, and also the red eyes. These photographs effectively show that we tried to include the same typical aspects of vampire appearance that is shown in Twighlight.

The pictures show many similarities between Mercedes' and Bella's appearances, they both have the dark, messy styled hair and dark clothing. It is important to create the correct image in order to achieve the desired effect on the audience.

 

This photograph shows Andre's character standing over Mercedes' character once they have captured her and taken her back to their 'laboratory'. This is the final shot of our opening scene in which Andre's character says, "We were right, she's got the virus", this line creates suspense, encouraging the audience to watch the rest of the film to find out what the virus is, and what caused it etc. This is a medium-long shot showing andre's head to the top of his legs, also showing Mercedes laying on the table. The photograph to the right shows a scene from Twilight, in which Dr Cullen in a hospital setting examining a patient, this shows similar camera angles, shot types and settings.

 

The photograph to the left shows Mercedes' eye after she has been bitten and transformed from human, to vampire. It symbolises the danger the previously young, innocent girl now embodies. this close up will demonstrate clearly to the audience that this character is now a danger to any human being. This is an extreme close up. This shot is shown as the title of the film appears across the bottom of the screen. The photograph ont he right shows again, Bella Swan from Twilight, this photograph like the one of Mercedes from our film, shows that Bella is no normal girl anymore by exentuating her red eyes. this is more evidence of our film sticking to the conventions of this genre.

Evaluating our opening scene- 4.

Our target audience would be of the age range 18-25, this would be sixth form/college students to university students because this is the general target market for the horror/thriller genre. This is the age group that are most likely to want to go and watch this genre of film, and are old enough to watch this genre of film.

The kind of audience we aim to attract are the kind of people who want to watch things that scare them, people who enjoy the adrenaline rush they get from being frightened. Our target audience are older students and young adults, therefore they will be into things like computers, gaming, the internet and are quite likely to be familiar with all the latest technology. They also would have an interest in the horror genre and want to test their fear threshold.

 

When watching a horror/thriller, the adrenaline in your body begins to pump. It affects your emotions as well as your body, making you more nervous and tense. This is the effect on the audience that we want our film to achieve.

As you can see by this pie chart the horror/thriller genre is the most popular genre in most recent years, closely followed by comedy. This is because there are many people who have a desire to test their fear threshold by watching things that scare them, that get their adrenaline pumping. This supports the fact that "Judgement Of The People" would fit into the film industry perfectly and would prove to be very profitable.

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

'Judgement of the people' is a low budget British film, which is more likely to be shown at first at a film festival such as 'Raindance' which actually promotes independent films in the UK, if we had more money for resources and the technology for development, and the film then got bigger and more popular, it may go on to be shown in cinemas and on tv film channels such as the Odeon or Film 4.










"Raindance" was founded in 1992 by filmmakers, for filmmakers.In 1993 the "Raindance" Film Festival began. "Raindance" is dedicated to fostering and promoting independent film in the UK and around the world. Based in the heart of London Raindance combines "Raindance" Film Festival, Training Courses, the prestigious British Independent Film Awards.and "Raindance" TV. This film festival would be perfect for our film to first be shown at, because it would introduce the film to the general public and give it a chance to be seen. The type of films shown at this festival are all similar to our opening scene.

We based the opening scene of our film on the film '28 days later' and 'The Twilight Saga' which has made three films and are currently working on the fourth, these films have been adpated from a book series. Both of theses movies inspired us, we took the idea of using the same genre as "28 Days Later" which is horror and shows an infection being spread by the infected biting the uninfected and our story line is along the same line but we also used the theme of vampires as "The Twilight Saga" have done and has proven to be a very popular series, this inspired us to incorporate the two main elements of the films to create a very strong, effective opening scene.Our film would appeal to a range of different ages and personalities.

After researching what films are currently showing in cinemas or are due to be released, it became apparent that there were many films of the same genre, such as 'Paranormal Activity 2' showing in cinemas at the time we produced our film. Odeon cinemas was founded in 1928 by Oscar Deutsch. It has been claimed that the name of the cinemas was taken from a motto he had "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation." Because of the recent increase in people going to watch horror films, and the evidence in the cinemas showing more horror films, our film would definitely be appropriate to be released into cinemas, such as the odeon. 

There is another festival that we discovered during research called the "Sundance Film Festival" it takes place annually in the state of Utah in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City and Ogden, as well as the Sundance Resort, the festival is the premier showcase for new work for independent filmmakers. This would also be a good oppurtunity to show our film for the first time.

DNA is a British film company that produced "28 Days Later", one of the films which we decided to base our opening scene on, and therefore if our film was to become popular and more well known, would be an appropriate company to produce our film.

How does our media product represent particular social groups?

Mercedes' character and Drew Barrymore's character are very similar in their apearances and roles in our opening scene and the film 'Scream'. In this still shot, mercedes is alone in the house using her phone, and in the still shot of Drew, she is also alone in her house using the phone. They both play vunerable young women who are the victim of the 'bad' people in the film. Both characters are used in the same way. They are both the first character to be introduced into the film, yet neither of them are to be in the film for very long. They are used to introduce what the film is about and what happens to the victims. Their costume is slightly different but they are both wearing everyday clothes (jumper).

Evaluation of our opening scene - 1.

THE TITLE OF THE FILM
The title of the film is 'Judgement of the People' this title is strong, short and attention grabbing. This title represents immediately that the genre of the film is horror/ thriller. It also does not give too much about the storyline away and therefore will encourage people to watch the film rather than look at the title and immediately write it off or decide that it is something they definitely don't want to see.


THE SETTING OF THE FILM
The setting of this film is mostly in and around the main characters house, the first 4 still shots are set in the characters house, stills 5-8 are set on the driveway of the main character's house, and the 9th still is set in a laboratory. The locations we used for these scenes were:

• The inside of the character's house (stills 1-4) - Mercedes' house, some scenes were shot from outside the window, and some from inside the house.
• The driveway of the character's house (stills 5-8) - My house, the driveway of my house is long which gave us a lot of space to work with and use in order to help with our editing later in the process. It also is quite secluded, which demonstrates one of the typical conventions of a horror film, next to fields and so we thought this would be a good location to shoot the opening scene of our horror film.
• The laboratory (still 9)  - A classroom in the school. The white board in the background and plain white breeze block walls made this location a good place to shoot our laboratory scene, with the uncompliacated surroundings, it makes the room feel clinical which is exactly what we aimed for.

COSTUMES AND PROPS
In the opening scene of this film, we needed to achieve an everyday feel and appearance to the film. Therefore, we wanted our characters to be wearing everyday clothes. Mercedes (the main character) wore jeans, a hooded jumper and ugg boots, which is a very reguler everyday outfit for a girl of the main character's age. Michael, Leo and Andre (the surviving people) wore clothes such as jeans or jogging bottoms; trainers or loafers; and hooded jumpers or coats. They all wore their hoods up in the first scene in which they are introduced because we wanted to hide their faces from the viewer to retain an air of mystery about the characters and who they were. There were not many props used in our opening scene, we used some fake blood in the second still to show Mercede's character had been attacked, we then used some red contact lenses to put in Mercede's eyes, in order to show she had changed, the red eyes are conventional of vampire/zombie based horror films and exentuate the evil/danger within the character. Andre's car was also used in still 8 in which they bundled Mercede's character into the car. This was to show she was being taken against her will. We also  used a whiteboard in the background of still 9 to write things like 'disease' and 'infectious' to show that these people who had taken her were investigating a disease they had discovered.


CAMERAWORK AND EDITING
In our opening scene, we used various camera angles and shots. Still 1 is a medium shot showing Mercedes looking at her phone, we filmed this from outside her window; still 2 is also a medium shot, but her hand slides down throughout the shot, this was also filmed from outside her window; still 3 was mainly long shots, showing Mercedes lying on the floor, we then used jump cuts to make it appear as if Mercedes was moving very quickly and suddenly towards the camera; still 4 is an extreme close up of Mercedes eye; still 5 is the establishing shot, we moved the camera slwoly from left to right to show the extent of isolation in the setting, another convention of the horror genre; still 6 is the first scene in which Michael, Andre and leo's characters are seen, we used a long shot but we then put in some jump cuts to increase the dramatic effect; still 7 begins as a medium shot of Mercedes which then becomes a long shot as she runs away from Andre, we also cut in and out between the long shot, and a shot filmed from Mercedes' eye view. At the end of still 7, the camera (from Mercedes eye view) falls to the floor and blacks out, this was to show Mercedes had fallen, when the 'eyes' open again, Andre's feet begin to walk toward the camera, the camera then sees Mercedes being dragged away; still 8 is a medium shot of characters around the car and Mercedes being bundled into it, the car then drives away, becoming a long shot; still 9, the final scene is a medium shot of Andre standing over Mercedes.


TITLE FONT AND STYLE
The font we used for the title was a thin, threatening style that inplied very well that this was a horror/thriller style film. We decided that the font would be red because it is symbolic of danger, fear, blood and anger. The red also associated with the extreme close up of Mercedes' eye, and the blood on the window.


STORY AND HOW THE OPENING SETS IT UP
The story of the film we shot the opening scene for, is that there is an infectious disease that has spread throughout the UK and a group of 3 people who are still alive and uninfected, are trying to contain the virus and prevent anymore spreading. The opening of the story shows clearly that Andre is the main character and that he is the leader of the group of people trying to fight the disease.


HOW THE CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED
Mercedes character is introduced by a view fo her through the window, you see her bitten by an infected person. Andre, Leo and Michael's characters are introduced as they walk down the drive after Mercedes, which immediately indicates there is something wrong and after seeing Mercedes' introduction, we know that the problem is with her therefore showing that Andre, Leo and Michael's characters are good chracters.


SPECIAL EFFECTS
We started the scene by lowering the colour brightness and increasing the contrast, this gave the scene a more creepy feel and helped to achieve the 'horror' look. We also sped up the movement of Mercedes coming toward the camera to make her appear unnatural. In the scenes outside with on the drive, we added a fog effect and made it darker to make the time of day appear later than it was when we filmed it. It also created an eerie feeling which is in keeping with our genre. We also used slow motion for certain parts of the scene to increase dramatic effect.

Evaluating Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task, we were asked to shoot a short sequence of a series of various camera shots and angles. This was to demonstrate how we can use different shot types such as, match on action, shot reverse shot and also mantaining the 180 degree rule. We decided who would take which role, Mercedes filmed the shots wth the camera, Michael and I acted ni the film. Michael displayng the 'opening of a door'.

The first part of the task, we filmed Michael from a long shot and he walked towards the camera (and door), we then cut to a close up of his hand pushing the door open. We then came back to a long shot of Michael as he walked through the door. This displayed the match on action shot. We then filmed a medium shot of Michael sitting down, whch then cut to a medium shot of me and agan back to Michael. This demonstartes shot reverse shot. Throughout the film, we maintained the 180 degree rule.
My role was to have a short conversation with Michael in which he asked, 'are you okay' and I replied 'not bad thanks, you?', finishing with Michael saying 'not bad thanks'.

I was happy with the final result, although there is room for improvement. The surroundings we filmed in were slightly too loud and overpowered our voices slightly. Overall though, the results were satisfactory.
The camera work could be more fluid, the transtion between shots are slightly jumpy/mismatched. The match on action matched quite well and so I was impressed with this. I think that we worked well as a group and will produce more good work together.

I haven't had much experience with using the camera but I am confident with it and I am very confident with using Imovie.

The Film Industry

The Dark Knight
was funded by Warner bros...


This page gives a brief synopsis of the film underneath the box showing the trailer for the film.
Also down the side of the trailer box, it provides the genre, the year it was made and the names of the actors in the film.


The trailer provides the main plot and draws the attention of the viewer. It shows a selection of clips from the film that the creators think will attract the viewer and help them decide whether the film is for them or not.


Beneath this box, is a brief synopsis of the film, telling the reader a summary of the plot. So if the trailer did not provide enough for the viewer to decide if the film was for them, the synopsis below should.


Down the side of the trailer box, there is information regarding the actors in the film, the genre and year of production. It also shows films produced the same year, and of the same genre.


And made at Warner Bros. studios...

• The studios were first built on a plot of farmland in 1926 by First National Pictures, which Warner Bros acquired in 1928.
• By the late 1930s, Warner Bros. Studios had constructed 9 new sound stages. All these sound stages still being used today.
• At this time, the company was also developng it's own brand of animations. Such as the now well known Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety who became part of the now classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.
• Two of the main structures on the lot, Stage 16 and the Mill Building, and one exterior set, Midwest Street, were also built during this decade. Stage 16, the largest sound stage at Warner Bros. and one of the tallest in the world, was completed in 1935.
• In 1972, Warner Communications and Columbia Pictures collaborated to create a single production facility called The Burbank Studios. The studio resembled a small city with its own fire department, mail services, bank, restaurant and bicycle shop. Also at this time, The Burbank Studios acquired what is now the Warner Bros. Ranch. Adjacent to the Main Lot, the 32-acre facility houses five sound stages and exterior sets, including Park Boulevard and Blondie Street, a circle of residential houses which have hosted such television classics as Bewitched, The Partridge Family, Dennis the Menace and I Dream of Jeannie .


Warner Bros. also own...


• Warner Bros. International Television Distribution.
• Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment