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.