Evaluation

Media evaluation

View more presentations from emmaowen14.

Editing

To start off the opening of my production I have put in the production titles. Before my production titles appear there is a blank screen for 01:19 seconds then the production appears, after that the distribution appears, in the middle of the distribution title there is a flash of the victim walking into the woods. My production titles and distribution titles have the same background and the same text so that I didn't need to include an effect to make it flow better. i chose to use the production title 'Past Productions' this is because once you have died you will always be in the past and not the future. The font effect on the writing all give the sense of ear and fast movement, this also gives the audience a feeling of horror ready for the film.

After the opening production and distribution titles the start of my production begins. There is around two seconds of hand held footage this is to create tension within the opening, it then cross dissolves into my victim walking into the woods on her own. In my opening every time there is a cut jump with some slow motion and a non-diegetic 'boom' in the background this is to create tension for the viewers as they think of what is going to happen. the back ground music is called 'scaryscape' that i found on freesounds.org which is a non copyright website. the reason i chose this piece of music is because it's eeire and will create tension.

In my production you do not see the killer. This is because I wanted to create tension for the viewers. By me not showing the killer right at the very start, the audience will be feel tense throughout the rest of the film.
I decided to add an increase of red balance in to my horror opening, this is because I thought that it created a sense of death and blood. When my victim is walking through the woods I decided to have a non diagetic piece of music playing called 'suonho'. I chosen this piece of music because it creates tension and works well with my victim walking through the woods. In my production I have used misc-en-scene to represent that my victim is young and innocent, I have done this by getting my victim to wear casual clothing and a yellow top so that she stands out in the clips.

I edited my opening with clips of movement in the woods and constantly cut back to my victim, I did this because I didn't want my audience to forget about my victim but at the same time I didn't just want my victim constantly walking throughout the opening. When my victim hears the weird noise and a scream i cut to handheld, this makes the audience feel like they are part of the opeing running away. Also, I also added non diagetic sounds repeatedly to put the audience on edge.

At the begining of my production I have added the title of my actresses name, whilst my victim is walking into the woods, i have also timed the titles to appear when there is a jump cut and a 'boom'. People in charge of screenplay and casting like to make it appear more of an opening for the film rather than a part of a film. The font i chose to use is just a plain font, this is because I thought that if i used afont that created distortions it would take it away from the jump cut.

At the end of my opening i have added more text in three seperate clips, I did this because it creates anxiety for the audience and makes them feel uneasy. I used a large font in a bold red colour on a black background. The red represents death and blood and the black represents nothingness.

In conclusion, I believe the way in which i have edited the opening resembles what I was trying to achieve which was to create a sense of anxiety in the woods without actually seeing a killer. I bleieve that by me doing this that it's a good way to set the audience up for what the film is about.

My production started to drag, so to change this I added in more titles that run in and out of the whole production. I think that this was good as it breaks up the story line. I have chosen to make titles that use a red font that lie on a black background. This works well because the red gives a sense of blood.

Lack of information on my blog

Due to my school blocking the blogger website and me having no internet at home, I have been unable to update my blog on a regular basis however, I have been taking notes throughout my editing and filming.

Plot.

For my plot I have decided to go with my idea of 'Don't look back' this is because I think when I film it I will be able to effortlessly create tension.

It will start of with the victim who I have named Jess Jones walking into the woods, however I do not intend to just have her walking in normally, I intend to edit it so that she skips a few footsteps when she walks to make her enter the woods faster. I will then film Jess getting nervous in the woods and having her constantly looking around the woods with a sense of paranoia. This will begin to create tension for the audience. I then intend to have film handheld and using a neck tripod. This will put Jess' experience into the audience’s perspective. Jess will continue the paranoia and carry on looking around (still handheld) she will then hear a noise become scared get the feeling of discomfort, when this happens I intend to add in a non-diagetic of heavy and nervous breathing. Finally, Jess will stop running and a blank screen will appear with a non diagetic high pitched scream.

I think this is a good idea because it's not too detailed.

Casting.

As I have changed my idea, I now need to re-cast for my production.

The victim is going to be a girl in the age range of around 16-18 so for this I have decided to used a friend to act this. I have decided to do this because a friend is going to be more reliable than just a random person and they will be able to provide me with their time so I can carry out my filming. Also by me using a friend I will not feel guilty badgering them to help me film.

Pen Portrait of Victim
Name: Jess Jones
Age: 16-18
Personality: Jess is an outgoing teenager that loves to hang out with her friends.
Actor: I have chosen to use my friend Christie McAlwane, this is because the personality that i have looked for to suit my victim is the same as my friends.

New Opening

As me and Sian are no longer working together I have had to come up with a new opening.

I have a few ideas but the idea I am going to do is called 'Don't Look Back' its a bout a victim walking into the woods on her own with someone watching them.

For this there will be several different angle shots. I am thinking of doing standard tripod shots and then adding in hand held footage to get the victims perspective.

I think this is a good idea as it's in a suitable location for a horror movie.

Changes in filming.

Me and Sian are no longer working together and I am now planning a new plot, this is because I do not think our initial plot is worthwhile. I am still keeping the concept 'Your Invited' and using the same characters but I'm going to change the way these characters are used.

Filming.

During filming Sian and I hit a problem. The camera didn't film very well in the dark so as a result we have had to film in the daylight. This means that we have to change the time and date of the party that will be included in the opening. if we did not change the time and date then it wouldn't match up. For example we have changed the time to 7pm start, if we still kept the date as October 31st, at 7pm it would be dark. We have chnaged the date to Friday 13th May.

We have been searching for different sounds we could use for the opening of 'You're Invited' on www.freesound.org. One of the elements of our opening is to have the killer, in the film, watching Emily Booth's house from the distance. You will see this shot from his perspective and will hear him breathing heavily. This sound can not be made from within the scene as there may be too much surrounding noise, therefore, we have made the decision to enter this as non-digetic sound.

We have also been on apples website looking at tutorials for 'Final Cut Express', which is the software we will be using to edit my teen horror film opening. As Sian has a short period of time to complete the filming and editing we thought it would be beneficial for Sian to watch these tutorials so that Sian can have a better understanding of using the program when editing.

To practice what we have learnt we plan to use the media room next week and make edits to my premlinary task, this is the best practical way for us to advance our skills on the Macs and will help towards making the opening of our film to a better quality.

On Friday Sian and I reserved a camera and tripod for us to use over the easter holidays, this then gives a sufficient amount of time to plan specifically how we are going to film.

Changes

Me and Sian are going to film the opening for 'You're invited' together, but then seperate when it comes to editing the film. This is because Sian is being entered for the June examination, whereas, I will entered in January.

Planning towards filming

In my last post i said that Sian and I were looking for halloween props so we could begin our filming for 'You're Invited'. This has proven to be a difficult task as we can not get hold of any halloween decorations, therefore, we have made the decision to change Emily Booth's Halloween party to an ordinary party.
Now, we have made this decision and going to collect normal party decoration and begin filming for our teen horror opening as soon a possible.

Planning towards filming

Both Sian and I are beginning to plan towards starting the filming for our Horror Film Opening. We are going to collect the props we need to decorate Emily Booth's house so we know we will have it in time for filming. Also, the camera angles and what we are going to actually film we wrote down on paper so we have something to work from during the filming process, this is to ensure that we don't miss anything vital out and make it easier for ourselves so we can concentrate more on getting the footage correct.

Preliminary Task

Once Sian and I had filmed the footage we needed for our Preliminary Task we then used the software 'Final Cut Express' to piece all the footage together. Above is the video of our final product. The reason for us to produce a Prelimary Task was to get familiar with the how the camera works and to see if there is anything we could pick up on our finished piece that would help us with making our Horror Film opening better.

Something that we noticed was that the conversation in the Prelimary Task doesn't run entirly smoothly, therefore, if we decide to put any conversations in our film opening then we will have to ensure that this does not occur. A way in which to stop this from happening would to be to leave a longer pause between each person's line so that when editing the film together we can cut the clip easier.

In the Preliminary Task you can hear the background noise, this will happen when we film our Horror Film opeing. To eliminate this will have to remove this sound and add our own nondiegetic sound into the opening.

Another mistake within our Preliminary Task is that Sian looked at the camera for a split second, this can be done unconciously. When filming we need to tell our actors/actresses not to look directly into the camera.

Location.

Location 1
When filming the front of this house will be a close up, we are hoping that this will cause tension as we need this for our plan to work. This location is good because the house looks dark and gloomy and it would fit in well with our film.

This location would work because it's a long street and we can film people walking down it however as you can see alot of cars are about this could cause problems with filming because everything could become a bit crowded.

Location 2

If we use this location then obviously the car won't be on the drive as this could make things crowded when filming. When this will be filmed this will be a close up of the house.

With this long shot, this is where we plan to have the murderer standing facing this angle taking deep breathes to create tension. I think this is a good view of the house because it's on a hill and we can get a good view of the whole street, also the road doesn't get too full of cars.

Preliminary task

Me and Sian are planning to film our preliminary task, once we have done this we will import it onto an iMac. When we have imported our footage we will edit it to make it run smoothly, this will be done on Final Cut Express.

Casting

In order to find the right actors/actresses for the parts in the film Sian and I are going to produce a pen portrait for each character. This gives us an inital overview of what each character is going to be like.

Pen Portrait
Name: Emily Booth
Age: 18
Personality: The popular girl at school. She knows what she wants and always gets it, she'll even go out her way to make sure she does. Emily could be described as the leader of the pack and has the believes she has the authority to tell people what to do.

Recruiting
Sian and I have came to the decision that we are going to choose are final actors/actresses through friends. The reason for this is because we know our friends very well, what their personality will be like and whether or not they will be good on screen. Therefore, will be able to make the decisions we need on who will be chosen.
The rest of the cast will be groups of people that will be seen walking towards Emily Booth's house for her halloween party. As no specific skills are needed for these parts we are going to recruit a group of people by asking if they would like to play these background roles.