The Collection Day - Opening Sequence

I worked in a group of three, the other students that i worked with were:
Abi Nash (2187)
Renya Szczodrak (2245)

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt so much more about the technologies involved in making a film. For example, my knowledge of adobe premiere was very limited for the preliminary task as it had never used it before, I still didn't have a completely full understanding at the beginning of this project but after hours and hours of editing I now know how to use this editing software to a good standard. For example, I now know how to split shots in to two, add transitions and effects and change the colours within a shot. We were very experimental with our editing but found that some edits didn't have the effect we were hoping for such as altering the darkness. We could only film as a group at times of the day where it was still light, to meet the conventions of a horror we thought that we would need to make it dark so we experimented with altering the darkness but found that it looked strange because there was still blue sky.
One main issue that we found in our preliminary was our lack of knowledge about ideal shots, we also didn't film enough footage which made it look almost unfinished and didn't really make much sense. However, the preliminary taught me essentials in film producing such as the 180 degree rule, and it worked quite effectively in our preliminary, we made sure that it worked as effectively in our project in order not to confuse the audience because if the camera crosses the invisible axis then the subjects would look like they have swapped positions, confusing and disorientating the audience, it's a vital rule in filming.
In the preliminary the weakness of our group was keeping to the plan. When we were filming we The 180-degree rule is a guideline where the camera can only remain on the one side of an invisible axis when two people or objects are in a shot, the camera can be placed anywhere within the 180 degree angle so that the subjects remain on the same side of each other. If it crosses the line the subjects will appear to have swapped positions and the viewers get disorientated. The only exception for crossing the line is when the viewers can see the camera moving over the line. refer to the story board and we ended up with a lot of shots that didn't work in the way that we wanted to. So for the practical I made sure that we always referred to the story board so that we didn't lose track. However, during filming we found that some of the shots didn't work out the way we wanted them to and we had to change some of what we had put on the story board.
Due to the location the productivity of our group was sometimes low, as the preliminary was located in doors filming was fluent, but for the practical is wasn’t. As we filmed at the park and the lighter nights meant that younger children were at the park at times of filming scenes involving the mask, we were not able to do film with the disturbing baby mask with young children around.
We tried to incorporate a wider range of shots in our practical because our preliminaries had very limited shots mainly due to the small area that we filmed in. The location of where we filmed the practical allowed us to film at different angles, and so our film involves a wider range of shot types than our preliminary such as ariel shots, as well as panning and hand held shots.
As my preliminary was filmed in doors continuity didn’t seem a problem, however as our horror opening was filmed all outdoors this proved a massive issue. As we had to film on multiple days we found that the lighting in our shots varied form warmer tones to colder tones. During the middle of our filming process it began to snow quite badly meaning that snow was on the ground for several days. We thought we had no choice but to just film with snow on the ground even though it wasn’t there in shots prior to the snow. We decided that we had to film all of the scenes again where the snow was really prominent which made filming a lengthy process.

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

Throughout the process of creating my media product I gained the ability to use many different technologies. The main editing software we used to edit our film opening was Adobe Premiere. It enabled us cut certain bits from our film that we didn't want, some shots were 20 seconds long and therefore needed cutting down to get the section of the clip that we wanted. We also added effects such as fading out and creating quick flashes to help deliver a desired effect to the audience. We could also take the audio from certain clips, this was good for when we recorded the voice over of the child collector as we recorded it on the camera so we didn't want the actual image of the recording, only the sound. We could also add titles to the film with specified sizes, colours and fonts depending on what kind of mood we  wanted to create. I've learnt that Premiere is a good editing software to use when trying to enhance amateur films and make them look professional, even though it took a bit of getting used to. Using the Apple Mac sometimes proved difficult as its different from normal computers so it took a bit of getting used to. This probably slowed us down at the beginning of the editing process.
We used mini HD cameras to film our horror opening. We sometimes had issues with the battery in the camera, we found that half way through filming the camera would go off because we were unable to charge it before filming as we always filmed straight after school as this was the only time me and my group had available. Being the camerawoman for some of the shots, I found the control for the zoom zoomed in really fast with only the slightest touch, making it difficult to do zoom in shots. To keep the camera steady we used a tripod, this enabled us to make fluent pans of our subjects and kept the camera still whilst filming at various angles so that our film was more professional. This experience has also helped me learn what types of shots are appropriate depending on what is happening in the film such as using different angles to try a portray a certain feeling. For example, a low angle shot would show power etc. We also learnt that that not using the tripod and doing hand held shots can also be effective in a horror to signify the panic of the victim.
We experimented using a green screen but found that it didn't really work for us, we got a shot of the mask against the green screen and made the background black, we were going to put this onto the title of the film. Instead we looked on YouTube for dripping blood on green screens. When we found one that we liked we used 'Keepvid' to save and use images from YouTube.
We used 'Incompetech' to get music for our film, this website was helpful for thinking about backing tracks. It helped us search for the perfect, un-copyrighted track for our horror film and taught us that it is important for the sound to be right to create the right mood for your film, for example we wanted slow, disturbing music to reflect the nature of the antagonist and to create suspense. It also helped us with its defined searches, it enabled to find specific tracks that linked in with the theme of the opening sequence.
To get other sound effects such as the screams and the electricity noise on our logo we used a website called soundSFX.com where we downloaded our desired effect and cut it down to fit our shot. We thought that the screams on this site didn't sound realistic and our actors didn't want to scream as they weren't comfortable with it.
To make our avatars we used a website called 'www.pickaface.net', we used this to present how our characters would look, this was a website that was easy and simple to use and gave use a relatively wide range of features to portray our characters as accurately as possible on this kind of site.
We used the blog site www.blogger.co.uk where we put all of our research and ideas on to. We used it as a base for the project where we could keep track of what we have done and what we needed to do. There were a few issues with this site as its difficult to put images such as screenshots on to your work.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract the audience to watch our film we decided to use typical horror conventions because our target audience would be those who enjoy watching horror films. The idea of death/murder is a typical theme in horror films which we incorporated into our film to attract the target audience. The concept of victim vs. murderer also adds to the traditional concept of horror and we also included a sense of mystery as the killer wears a baby mask covering all of his emotions, this creates a sense of the unknown which something which many are scared of. The mask kept the antagonists face hidden from view of the audience; this makes the viewer want to watch further to see if they ever find out the true identity.
During an establishing shot of the park at the beginning of our opening we included quick flash showing our antagonist for only a few seconds to keep the audience watching as they would have been pulled in and scared by the few snippets of the killer. Other aspects of the film opening include a cliff hanger, after Josh has had a flashback from his horrifying past experience at the park, the voice over leaves us with "It’s time for round two Josh" keeping the audience keen to know what will happen to the already victimised teenager.
Music was an essential part of our opening sequence and we used it to set the atmosphere and mood of certain scenes throughout, for example at the time of murder there is fast pace music which coincides with the panic of the victim as we hear her screams. This gives the audience the thrill of having being scared because she was killed by a disturbing villain.
Our target audience specifically was those aged 15-25 of both genders. We would have attracted this audience by including characters in the same age range, this enables the audience to relate to them as they often go through similar issues, and for example many people have to look after their younger siblings who often disobey their authority.
The titles of our film follow the colour scheme of black red and white which are the stereotypical colours for any horror. Black signifies darkness and the negativity within a horror and red connotes death, blood, gore and murder, something that we have in our film opening. The title of the film has red blood dripping down the background to signify that a murder will take place in the film which is what horror enthusiasts would want to see. The music during the first part of the opening is quite disturbing in itself which will keep the audience hooked from the beginning.
In terms of marketing the film to attract the target audience we could advertise on social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter by setting up official pages which would enable information about the film to be continuously shared to others, allowing as much of our target audience to view our product as possible. The majority of our target audience of 15-25 year olds will most likely already have at least a profile on one of these social networking sites so it seems best to promote our film to them on this. We could also do pop up campaigns on these sites and other sites.  In terms of advertising at the cinema our film would have to be advertised at the beginning of films of the same genre that attracts a similar, if not the same target audience.

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

Our target audience for our horror film would be aged between 15 to 25 years old. We decided to rate our film 15 as I think that our horror film could be quite disturbing for younger audiences because of the mask element. This age group are also more likely to watch horror films because they love the excitement and thrills they get from watching them. They also generally have more spare time to watch films because they are not caught up with family life unlike those over the age of around 30 and younger viewers around aged 15 do not have their work life to interrupt with their free time. They also have more disposable income to buy films and go to the cinema because again they do not necessarily have the worries of the older audiences. Teenagers and young adults are a more likely to want an adrenaline rush from being fearful of something in a film and the younger characters may likewise attract a younger audience as they can relate them more easily. This age group are also more likely to watch horror films socially with a group of friends.
I would like to think that our film would attract both males and females, but it’s clear that men are more likely to watch horror films because they are stereotypically expected to enjoy the blood and gore element compared to women who are usually put off by this convention and tend to enjoy genres such as comedy and romance more.
However, the female character in the film opening this may attract more females, this may encourage them to watch the film may be as part of a couple who are usually the secondary audience for such horror films which will boost the number of people viewing the film at cinemas.
In terms of social class I think that middle and working class citizens are more likely to watch our horror film compared to upper classes this is because they generally work longer hours and do not have the free social time to watch films. 

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

The best way of getting our film to make the highest possible profit would be to go to for a major distributor such as Warner Bros who produced The Exorcist and A Nightmare on Elm Street. People are more likely to buy from a well-known film production company as they're seen to be more reliable as they have produced very successful films, so the audience will know that they are only getting the best.  It will also enable out film to get more publicity because of the reputation that this kind of company have. As our film follows all of the codes and conventions of a horror and is not a niche film it could be beneficial to go for a big company like Warner Brothers because it will appeal to a lot of people and for Warner Bros it would be worthwhile distributing a film that appeals to a lot of people rather than a risky niche film that only targets few people. This will ensure that the large amount of promotion involved in distributing a film is money well spent as a film that follows all of the typical codes and conventions is almost certain to do well.
However, smaller companies such as ‘Hammer Productions’ specialise in horror films, they produced films such as 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein'. This suggest that the have a better knowledge of how to market the film effectively to the target audience and we would have the confidence in them as they have distributed many successful films. I think it would probably be best for us to go for 'Hammer Productions because of these reasons, I would want to ensure that our horror film was distributed by a knowledgeable company in the area to ensure the best possible promotion of the film to the specific audience.
Our film is aimed at young adults and if it were to be low budget it would be ideal to use Facebook and twitter and count on word of mouth recommendations because people of this age group are most likely to have a profile on at least one of these sites and therefore it would be easier to make the film well known through the use of these sites. We could also advertise the film trailer on TV channels popular with teenagers and young adults such as MTV and E4. This is similar to Paranormal Activity who also decided to put trailers on these channels. In terms of advertising at the cinema it would be beneficial for us to advertise before a film of the same genre and that has the same target audience so that we can advertise specifically to them.