Preliminary Task and Evaluation

During our filming process of our Preliminary task we learnt how to use 'Adobe Premiere Pro' which is the film editor we will use for our actual film therefore doing this gives us the skills to edit our film. we also learnt how to add transitions such as dip to black, also sound effects so we searched for bell sounds as if a lesson had finished which fits school setting. We saved and added these into our Adobe timeline, this helped us develop key knowledge which we will need in order to edit our film. While filming, we had to make sure that we filmed the right way round as in our preliminary task we used portrait rather than landscape which is what a professional camera would be as that's the same as professional film makers would use. Furthermore, we also cut the clips and edited the sound length to suit the narrative so the audience are engaged - therefore making them short and snappy without losing the audience's concentration. also we tried to add a bit of humour by using Ed as the teacher.We also learnt how to add the titles onto moving image We added in titles (Owl Productions and the name of the film) . We used different camera shots which we also used in our film as we found they worked well and would fit our theme of horror (shot-reverse shot, match on action shot, tracking shot and quick cuts) this was helpful as it made our preliminary task more technical and professional and gave us insight into how our film and what angles shots we could include to get the best effects. 

However during filming our preliminary task we encountered problems such as dialogue, as we didn't check it was loud enough against the background sounds as it was filmed in lesson due to our lack of time outside of lesson because of commitments in and outside of school. therefore for our actual film opening we need to ensure that any dialogue we choose to include, is loud enough to minimise background noise.

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How are we going to use the technical elements

How are we  going to use the technical elements to create tension and enigma codes

Characters: We are going to use an old man (myself) as the stalker and then one of our friends who is a drama student (cath) as the girl in the school uniform. The reason we chose a school girl was because it emphasises the point that she is younger than the man and as we used the setting of an alley we get the general feel of tension. The use of the old man shows that he has experienced and it gets the audience wondering if he has done other things to other people. The reason we only kept it to 2 characters was because if we added any other people it would be hard to get everyone together to take shots and do filming at the same time. It has already been reasonably hard to get everyone of our group together for the filming.


Mise en scene: We are going to use a close up shot the graffiti in the alley. This implies to the viewer that some sort of danger is lurking as graffiti is illegal in public places. Also builds tension because the audience know that someone has been there before and questions are asked to the audience if someone is still actually there. A tracking shot of the alley way, this is important as it will help the audience to fully engage with the surrounding settings. Also the use of a longshot will also show the surrounding setting. This will create tension for the audience as they know the alley only has two ways out making it a very vulnerable for the protagonist.

Props: The girl wears school uniform, the reason for this is because it is stereotypical for a teenage girl to be in uniform. It also implies that she is still young and is almost vulnerable to the outside world. Especially on her own. The man who is the attacker where's an oldish coat. The old coat emphasises the fact that he is old and almost experienced.

Lighting: We are going to film in the evening around 4pm when it starts getting a bit dark to ensure we have a dark lighting. By having dark lighting we create tension as it’s typical of a horror genre. Usually dark lighting would make the audience feel uneasy as they will feel that the protagonist is vulnerable in the dark and this would engage them in the opening.

Script

Media studies script

(Girl walking home from school after staying behind doing work, she walks through the alley and the park, this will be filmed using tracking shots varying from medium to long tracking shot)
(The girl calls her mum, this will be shown through a close up and medium shot)

Cath: Hi mum, how are you? I’ve just finished revising and I’m on my way home.

Mum: Good darling, your father and I will be near the school soon would you like picking up?

Cath: No it’s fine, I may pop into Georgia’s on the way home to drop her textbook and oyster round.

Mum: Are you sure? It’s getting dark, I will drop you at Georgia’s and pick you up later.

Cath: Mum, seriously, I am 17.

Mum: I know you are 17 but it is dark and there are weirdos at this time of night.

Cath: Oh my God, you always get so paranoid and worried about me. Just let me get the bloody train, it’s not a big deal.

Mum: It’s not you that I don’t trust it’s the people around you.

Cath: Okay mum. (Angrily she hangs up the phone, this is shown in a close up shot)

(She goes down a dark alley way. This is shown through a medium and long shot)
(She’s walking through the alley listening to music contemplating life, she notices a dark like figure standing in the distance, and the figure slowly walks over to a bench and sits on it. The camera will track her during her walk)
(Cath keeps on walking thinking nothing of it)
(Cath pauses her music shown through match and action editing techniques and as anyone would do when they are slightly anxious she called her friend. This is shown from and a close up and an extreme close up showing her emotion)
(She  her best friend Ciara but she did not pick up, frustrated, she calls her other best friend Emma)

(Emma picks up)

Emma: Hiya, what's up?

Cath: Nothing really, just walking too the station and walking through the alley. I actually hate the dark not going to lie.

Emma: Aw, same.

(general conversation about school and exams)

Cath: (talking to Emma) I think I should've just got my mum to pick me up, its actually so cold and too dark for my liking.

Emma: Oh Cath, you'll be fine. Its just the dark - it's the exactly the same place as normal just you can't see as much. That's what I think of when I walk in the dark.

(Anxiously, Cath looks behind to just see if anyone is around)
(Due to there being no light she couldn't see from at least 6 metres away. She picks up the pace of her walking because she has a general feeling that someone is lurking behind her)

Cath: Oh my God, someone just whistled at me!

(No reaction from Emma, Cath gets very scared and anxious, even more than before)

Cath: Emma? are you there?

(The signal cuts out but the time it reconnects Cath is in serious trouble)

Emma: Cath? Cath?

(Cath's heavy breathing and crying in the back ground)

Man: I've got her now, its your turn to do the finding.

(The man throws the phone)   it will be filmed using tracking shots varying from medium to long tracking shot).

Script Evaluation

We found during filming that our script was too long and too time consuming of our 2 minutes of film for our opening, also due to other commitments the actor playing Emma was unavailable most days of filming therefore we decided to alter our script and get rid of the character Emma and focus on the conversation with Cath and her mother as we feel this would connect more with the audience as a teenage girl's mother showing her care and concern for the young girl as she is walking home alone. therefore the script in red is our original and our second script is our re-evaluated script. 

(She  her best friend Ciara but she did not pick up, frustrated, she calls her other best friend Em

Script 2; Altered Due To Timing Issues

(The girl calls her mum, this will be shown through a close up and medium shot)  Cath: Hi mum, how are you? I’ve just finished revising and I’m on my way home

Mum: Good darling, your father and I will be near the school soon would you like picking up?

Cath: No it’s fine, I may pop into Georgia’s on the way home to drop her textbook and oyster round.

Mum: Are you sure? It’s getting dark, I will drop you at Georgia’s and pick you up later.

Cath: Mum, seriously, I am 17.

Mum: I know you are 17 but it is dark and there are weirdos at this time of night.

Cath: Oh my God, you always get so paranoid and worried about me. Just let me get the bloody train, it’s not a big deal.

Mum: It’s not you that I don’t trust it’s the people around you.

Cath: Okay mum. (Angrily she hangs up the phone, this is shown in a close up shot)

(She goes down a dark alley way that is dark at the other end. This is shwon through a medium and long shot)

(She’s walking through the alley listening to music contemplating life, she notices a dark like figure standing in the distance, and the figure slowly walks over to a bench and sits on it. The camera will track her during her walk)

(Cath keeps on walking thinking nothing of it)

(Cath pauses her music shown through match and action editing techniques and as anyone would do when they are slightly anxious she called her friend. This is shown from and a close up and an extreme close up showing her emotion)

(Caths heavy breathing and crying in the back ground)

Man: Ive got her now, its your turn to do the finding.

(The man throws the phone)

Shot lists

Close up shot of the girl before she walks into the alley before the park - this shows the facial expression of her. At this point she is normal as she does not realise she is being stalked

A long shot of the girl going further into the walkway. This shows how far she is going implying that she is going further away from safety.

A close up of a man’s legs facing towards the girl - she is oblivious to him being there.

A tracking shot of the man following her in the walk way.

Camera Shots

Depth of Field- the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects giving a focused image

Shallow Focus- a photographic and cinematographic technique incorporating a small depth of field. In shallow focus one plane of the image is in focus while the rest is out of focus. Shallow focus is typically used to emphasize one part of the image over another

Deep Focus-a photographic and cinematographic technique using a large depth of field. Depth of field is the front-to-back range of focus in an image — that is, how much of it appears sharp and clear. In deep focus the foreground, middleground and background are all in focus

Shot Lengths

Extreme Long Shot- In film, a view of a scene that is shot from a considerable distance, so that people appear as indistinct shapes. An extreme long shot is a view from an even greater distance, in which people appear as small dots in the landscape if at all (eg. a shot of New York's skyline).

Long & Wide Shots- In filmmaking and video production, a long shot (sometimes referred to as a full shot or, and to remove ambiguity it will be called a, wide shot) typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings.

Mid or Medium Shot-a camera angle shot from a medium distance.

Close-up Shot- A close-up or close up in filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium is a type of shot, which tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots

Extreme Close-up Shot-An extreme close up is a shot used in filmmaking, television production and photography in which the camera focuses on a particular detail of the subject. Extreme close ups are extremely intimate.

Camera Angles

The 'Bird's-Eye' view- is an elevated view of an object from above with a perspective as though the observer were birds, this is often used in the making of maps and aerial views.

High Angle-A high-angle shot is a cinematic technique where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle and the point of focus often gets "swallowed up." High-angle shots can make the subject seem vulnerable

Eye- Level-A Viewpoint is the apparent distance and angle from which the camera views and records the subject. They also include the eye-level camera angle and the point of view shot. A high-angle shot (HA) is a shot in which the camera is physically higher than the subject and is looking down upon the subject.

Low Angle-In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera angle positioned lo on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. Sometimes, it is even directly below the subject's feet. Psychologically, the effect of the low-angle shot is that it makes the subject look strong and powerful.

Camera Movement

Zooming- The camera is mounted on a cart which travels along tracks for a very smooth movement. Also known as a tracking shot or trucking shot. Dolly Zoom.

Panning- In cinematography, panning refers to rotating or pivoting a motion picture or video camera horizontally from a fixed position

Tilting-Moving the camera's lens up or down while keeping its horizontal axis constant.

Crane Shots-a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a moving crane.

Tracking-tracking shot is any shot where the camera moves alongside the object(s) it is recording.

Handheld/ Steadicam-Hand-held camera or hand-held shooting is a filmmaking and video production technique in which a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base.

Film ideas

Film ideas

As a group we came up with two ideas for our horror genre, we also decide to do a horror because we all liked the element of fear a film can create and we found there was many different ways we could go with the horror for example poltergeist,or stalking, thrillers.therefore we decided to go with our first idea ( stalking ) as we found it was a more realistic project to commit to as we knew our time limit and props and actors were also limited.

Idea one:

Everyday a girl aged 16 walks through an alley, through the park over the road and to the train station.

On the first day the girl is completely oblivious to the fact that a man is following her and waiting around for her.

On the second day she notices that the same man is walking at the same time she saw him the day before, she doesn't think much of it.

On the third day she sees him trying to hide from her, this makes her very curious because she wonders if he is hiding from her or just being very strange.

On the fourth day the man is not there, but the use of the close up mid body shot and the man holding a weapon and her in the distance tells the audience that something bad is going too happen.

Following on from this there is a shot that shows the girl at the train station but as the train comes she disappears. The idea is that she has been taken by the man at the station.

The following shot is her with blood on her face and looking like she is in a bad situation.

Idea two:

A group of friends go to a certain place in the woods most weekends.

They go there too smoke, drink and get up to no good.

One Saturday evening they go there and this time it wasn't so much of a good time.

A black figure kept appearing, only one of the boys noticed at first. This made much of the tension because he realised something was not right but everyone didn’t even realise - this built frustration because no one listened to him and everyone thought he was stupid when something was clearly not right.

The friend group did not believe the boy, they should have done because this ghost like figure was out to kill.

The group are on a constant run, they went deep into the woods to run away but they get lost and the group split.

They die in an order of bad deaths - the boy who noticed the figure eventually gets out the woods after 3 days.

Due to the group not believing him they die badly as the black figure wanted them all to be scared.

music and sound research

Music and Sound research

Through researching on YouTube and video websites, we found together as a group a couple of songs that would be good for our Two minute opening. We decided to choose an overall theme song, this song will be the main song. On top of this song we can add effects such as wind or footsteps.

This is our first choice: scary/haunted music.

This piece of music would be very ideal for our opening. The effect of the slow tempo would build tension. As the piece goes on more instruments are added, this suits our introduction because the old man is getting closer and closer to the girl. The louder instruments randomly occur making it very on edge.

Walking sound effect

This sound effect is very useful to our filming because when we did our practise filming it was hard to hear the sound of footsteps so and as a group we think footsteps almost built tension. The viewer will want to know who they belong to. It almost every horror film footsteps are always used.

Wind sound effect

The use of the wind sound effect is stereotypical of the horror genre. This is good because It almost forces our opening two mins to be in the horror genre. We wanted the stalking of the school girl to be very gloomy. The wind emphasises the atmosphere.

Train horns sound effect

Our setting is located near a train station so the sound effect of train horns is vital. 

Heavy breathing sound effect

The sound of heavy breathing suggests that the girl is vulnerable as she is out of breath. It creates a lot of tension because the audience know that she is struggling. Also if she decides to hide the loud breathing noise won't be very helpful - this is also building tension.

Wind sound effect
The use of the wind sound effect is stereotypical of the horror genre. This is good because it almost forces our opening two mins to be in the horror genre. We wanted the stalking of the schoolgirl to be very gloomy. The wind emphasises the and atmosphere.

Background music
We also decided to use background music when Cath puts her headphones in, we wanted a song that she is listening to, to come on to show that she is in their own world and clueless to what is about to happen. This moment is also very stereotypical of many teenagers as it is typical that they listen to music. 

Heavy breathing sound effect
The sound of heavy breathing suggests that the girl is vulnerable as she is out of breath. It creates a lot of tension because the audience know that she is struggling. Also if she decides to hide the loud breathing noise won't be very helpful - this is also building tension.

Another effect that we might include in our film opening is a girl begging and screaming, this would show that our female character is the victim and emphasise tension. It also portray's her as very vulnerable as she is begging him to let her go.

Train horns sound effect

The alley way that we use in our film opening is located next to the train station, therefore we want to emphasise the train horns sound effect, we think that this is a good way to create tension.

                                      

Our film certificate

Our film certificate

Our film will be rated 15. This is because it will appeal to a wide audience who can easily relate to our characters because they are of a similar age 15-25. as we felt like other young teens/adults will relate to our film as its about a teen tragedy as the girl is taken. If our film was an 18 certificate a large proportion of teenagers would not be able to watch the film. Also as our characters are teenagers it is important that they can watch the film as they will relate to the characters. Also., Laura Mulvey’s Male/Female Gaze theory can be applied to our film if it is 15 certificate as the teenagers/young adults may follow and be intrigued by the characters in the narrative. In our target audience research we found out that the largest proportion of people watching horror films is teenagres and young adults therefore we need to make sure that our film certificate is appropriate for our target audience.

Opening title analysis

Opening title analysis

Different ways they can be presented

1.    Titles accompanied by still images

2.    Titles accompanied with a series of moving images and can be alongside or over the top of the action (fade in/fadeout, dissolving)

1.    Titles built around animation or motion graphics

2.    The simplest titles are the ones that are superimposed on a blank screen. These kinds of titles utilize different typefaces, usually in white, over a black background. Since early films had no colour, and black and white titles were the only option.

3.    Titles can be inserted as standalone title shots in a title sequence this is conventional in the Bond franchise – or can be inserted over action shots.

The credits to Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can sum up pretty much everything that makes the movie so appealing; it is stylistic, elegant and fun.

The sequence is an animated representation of the loose premise of the movie, as the animated version of Tom Hanks gives chase to Leonardo DiCaprio.

The chase leads the two through various locations as the animated DiCaprio goes to ridiculous lengths to avoid his inevitable capture; it is an excellent way to set the audience up for what’s to come. The art design plays a big part in making-thus sequence so effective-a clear throwback to the 60’s, the era in which the films is set, everything flows into one.

This is aided by the credit style as letters from each credit is extended into the next and the colours change with each new costume. Along with excellently composed-and suitably 60’s Jazz inspired music by John Williams- it all works and is the perfect opening for this film.

David Fincher’s Se7en is often credited with reigniting interest in the Hollywood credit sequence, the film itself is an engaging insight into the psychotic mind and the limits to which people can be pushed too, before they break.

In these opening credits we are given a clear look at the movies killer, John Doe and the beginning of his process. With the appropriately creepy use of a remixed versions of Nine Inch Nails “Closer” it is clear what tone the rest of this film will follow.

The sequence itself starts with John Doe shaving off the prints on his fingers. We then see the rest of John Dos’s preparation, as he writes in his notebooks and looks through various disturbing photos. As all this is happening and the killer continues with his plans, the credits themselves flash up on screen, appearing almost as if they have been scribbled by John Doe into his notebook, as the music carries on in the background.

All the actors’ names are in the weird handwriting which shows that they’re linked to the film whereas the producers are in block capitals this shows that they could be trying to maybe distance themselves or maybe they may not be linked to it.

The opening credits to Se7en are disturbing and haunting, but more than anything they are memorable due to the credits being handwritten this portrays realism of the psychotic minds to the audience. In the opening titles you mirror the tone and style of the film; you create remarkably memorable credits without subtracting from the rest of the film.