Note to Moderator

Dear Moderator



Thank you for taking the time to look around through these blogs, I hope you have enjoyed them! The link for the group blog can be found on the right hand side. There are also links to the blogs for the other students in my group and a link back to our teacher’s central blog, called Foundation Blog,  which has links to all the other student and group blogs.



You will find all my individual research and initial ideas and planning, mainly from the early stages of the project before I got together with my group on my individual blog, You will also find my work on the preliminary task, including the video clip, reflections on the development of the project as it progressed and my answers to the evaluation questions.



On my group blog, you will find evidence of my group’s planning and project development work, and any research we did together that influenced and inspired our project.



The finished film opening sequence is linked to both blogs.



I hope these blogs are easy to navigate. Everything is organised in date order from the start of the project in November 2009 until we finished in March 2010. I have used labels to identify all the research, planning and evaluation work I have completed on my individual blog. On the group blog, we have used the same system and I have also labelled the posts I was individually responsible for, with my name.



Thanks


Bianca Albano, 4010

Closing Post

For the last few months now, i have been using this blog to post all my coursework and this is now my final post

I have really enjoyed working on this project especially with my group.


I would like to say thanks to Jay Patricia and Catharrin for being such great team members :)

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

For our prelim we had to create a sequence of a character:


• Opening a door

• Entering a room

• Sitting down in a chair opposite another character

• Having a conversation with this other character



This was a continuity task in which we had to demonstrate:



• Match on action

• Shot reverse shot

• 180 degree rule

For our main task, it was to create a 2 minute opening sequence for a new film.



There were 4 processes we went through whilst completing both these tasks:



• Planning

• Shooting

• Editing

• Evaluating



Planning included lots of research such as finding a suitable location, storyboarding our idea and making sure we had reliable actors. From the prelim, I learnt the importance of having a storyboard. Things were made so much easier as we had a guide to follow.

When running the actual shoot, there were many things to consider and remember. These included time schedule, shot order and master shots. The prelim helped me to focus on managing all these things together in order to achieve what I wanted.


When editing the prelim, we had to make sure all our continuity was accurate. This task came into extreme use when we were editing our actual sequence as we had previously practised how to make the continuity perfect and I had learnt how to do so.


When evaluating, we had to get feedback from different people and from this I learnt how to organise it all so it helped when preparing feedback for our actual final piece.


I also learnt the importance of getting on with team members. During our prelim, we only had to work together for a short amount of time and I noticed, that even for a small task, everyone had to work together and agree. For our main task, I knew that getting along was the most important thing in order to achieve what we wanted.

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

We used a variety of different technology throughout the course of the project.

From using the above technology, I have learnt how each one is useful in the making of a film and also in other products. I have seen the capability of each and have learnt how to handle and use everything correctly.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our audience, we used a variety of techniques. These included:

• Choosing a genre popular with the audience

• Following conventions

The teenage and young adult audience are the widest audience and a genre very popular amongst them is horror which is why we chose to make an opening sequence of this genre.

Above is one of the questions we asked in our questionnaire during out film screening. The majority ticked the horror and thriller boxes showing that these are the most popular genres amongst this audience.

We aimed to focus on audience pleasures and fears.

In horror films, audiences like to experience emotions such as fear and confusion. We focused more on confusion in our opening and the idea of not knowing. By this, we hoped to gain audiences attention in order for them to want to know more and be able to understand.

Our main character was of our target audience so this enabled our audience to interact and engage with our character as they could relate to her, therefore appealing to our audience further.

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

When producing our film, our key audience we had in mind were teenagers and young adults, particularly those who are interested in the horror and thriller genres.

Here is a character profile of a typical audience member:

This was our core audience.

Our secondary market was general horror film fanatics of any age, those who purely enjoyed any film from the horror genre.

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

Our production company is Moonlight Studios, a London based company, which create mainly horror/thriller films for the teenage/young adult audience. They make low budget independent films.

Our distribution company is Black Rose which work together with Moonlight Studios in order to reach out to the target audience.

The different platforms that are available for films to be exhibited are:

• Large multiplex cinemas (such as Odeon and Cineworld)  

• Small independent cinemas (such as The Phoenix and Rio)

Seeing as our film is made by a production company who creates independent films, then The Phoenix in East Finchley would be an appropriate place for our film to be screened.

Also it would be a good idea for it to be screened at film festivals as this would gain a wider audience. For example, during Halloween week, there are film festivals dedicated to horror films.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence, we only introduce one character.

   She represents youth and other people of similar age. She has just come home from a night out, typical of people her age, who are mainly students and so would normally spend their evenings out. She is dressed for a party with styled hair and makeup. She comes home and looks in the mirror to fix her hair and makeup which is a clear representation of other girls her age who like to make sure they look good. After this, she goes to her fridge and goes to drink some wine. This could represent youth culture and their link with drinking alcohol.

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In most horror films, it is usually the female who is victimised so here she is represented as being the victim

Also, in our opening sequence, we can see a connection between her and her friend on the phone. Her friend has left her worrying messages which immediately begin to concern her and so she gets up to go help. This is very typical of girls to have a close friendship.

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We decide to make a film opening sequence based on the horror/thriller genre. We wanted to create something that followed the conventions of these genres and so looked at other opening sequences such as Flightplan and Strangers to see similar conventions both these films had in their openings. From this, we constructed an opening sequence with these similar conventions to make it recognisable to the audience.


Conventions of opening sequences:

• Production/Distribution companies
• Introduction of main character

• Introduction of the narrative

• Music

• Other titles

We made sure we incorporated the above into our opening sequence in order for it to follow conventions.



I looked at the Flightplan opening sequence to see whether it follwed typical conventions and so i had an idea of exactly what to include.
From the above opening sequenc. we can see that it does follows the general conventions and includes:

We also tried to make typical themes of the genre evident.

Our opening sequence contains some of these typical themes for example danger and fear which is shown through the characters emotion in the opening.

Our film opening does conform to narrative structure. Specifically to classic narrative pattern which during the course of a film, there is:

EQUILIBRIUM --> DISRUPTION --> RESOLUTION --> NEW EQUILIBRIUM

This happens throughout the course of the whole film so as we only filmed an opening sequence, it would be much unexpected to have all four of these.

At the very beginning, we have equilibrium as the girl is returning home from a night out and everything is normal, as there is no disruption. However as the opening progresses, we have a small disruption at the end which will then develop as the film continues.

Our character that we have introduced is the victim. At the end of the opening, we realise she is in danger. We have therefore introduced a villain who is not yet known and which will be revealed as the film progresses.

Finally, we made sure our opening sequence had the style of the horror/thriller genre

These include:

• Eerie music

• Darkness

• Odd lighting

As our opening had dialogue, we wanted to keep the music to a minimum so found a track that was scary but not too much so it wouldn’t drown out the sound.

The music we used was called ‘Eerie Angel’ and ‘Evil Eyes’.

This music was tense and fitted in with the thriller genre and the style that is usually expected.

Our film is brightly lit however we did film at night so it was clear it was dark at the time following the style of the genre. Also some parts, for example at the beginning, the lighting is very yellow which is typical of the genre.

3rd Shoot Reflections

Here are my initial thoughts on our third shoot:

• We worked well as a team
• We achieved everything we wanted to
• We did it all in good time

As this was our final shoot, there isn’t any other chance to improve anything.

Overall thoughts on all the shooting sessions:

Overall thoughts on all the shooting sessions:

• We all worked well together and managed things between us well
• They went well as we managed to get everything we planned done
• Overall, I think we really progressed throughout our shoots and got better and better each time

2nd Shoot Reflections

Here are my initial thoughts on our second shoot:

• Once again, I think we really worked well as a team
• We shot a lot of footage so this is going to be very useful for us
• I think we definitely managed our time better after the first shoot.
• The shot log was filled out completely so will be very useful to us when editing

Things I think we need to improve:

• I think we are going to have to use the back up shoot as there are a few shots we need to re-shoot
• We need to try and improve the quality of the voice messages as they are unclear

Rough Cut

Here is our rough cut after editing after our first shoot.

• I think the shots worked well
• The sequence flows so I think we made sure we didn’t break the rules of continuity
• The voice messages were only rough but we definitely need to re think how we are actually going to put them into the sequence

1st Shoot Reflections

Here are my initial thoughts on our first shoot:

• I think we all worked well as a team
• We managed to get everything done however I don’t think we managed time efficiently as we took much longer than expected
• After looking back on our footage, I think we filmed the shots well


Things I think we need to improve:

• Time efficiency. I think we could make a list of what we plan to get done every hour and try to stick to it
• We didn’t use the shot log so for our main shoot, we definitely need to
• We have had talks about changing the actress and I think this would be a good idea
• We need to now think about how we are going to do the voice messages

Ideas

First thoughts for opening sequence


- Horror Genre
- Female Victim
- Location in woods/scary house?

1) Young girl walking home after a night out and someone following her

2) Girl coming home to find someone in the house
3) Girl being chased through the woods by scary man