What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?
During the making of this film, I think I main a good contribution in all parts, the planning, production and post production. In the planning I did parts of the storyboard as it was split between the group, I also did several pages of the script which was also split between the group. Mainly all of the planning was equally split between four as there is four people in our group and I did my part which involved stuff like the recee sheet, also me and dale researched target audiences on IMDB.
This is the recee sheet and below are the pictures for the recee sheet, these are the pictures of scenes used at the location, I took the pictures.
This is part of the storyboard i had completed, i had also done the last few pages of the final storyboard.
The production or the making of the film was also equally divided, the main parts i took part in was the filming, directing and the final editing. Whilst on set I would talk through what we would film and what needed to be done, I also took camera role alot of the time. When we had finished all f our filming we imported it onto the macs at college here me and dale did the editing of the footage as sancha and sarah concentrated on the sound by using garage band, me and dale took turns whilst doing the editing, and when it wasn't the other persons turns we would be sat next to each other guiding and helping one another.
How are the films different? Looking back at my preliminary task and comparing it to our final film you can immediately see a difference between the two. In the preliminary task our main mistake was the lighting, it was a huge problem for us as the location was shadowed out by the building surrounding and we ended up filming during the evening which didn't end well as majority of our shots turned out too dark. For example this is a shot from when we filmed our outside scenes.
As you can see its way too dark, we changed our filming tactics when it came to our final product as we realised it was easier to darken a shot than it was to actually lighten one, hence we filmed during the day instead. Also the street light in the shot makes a good effect however the light coming from it can sometimes make a weird line going down the screen, for example.
On the far right of the picture you can see a vague blue line, this was caused by the street light, to prevent this we decided to film inside when it came to our final product.
Straight away you can see changed in the two films, especially with the writing, as we changed our techniques on how we used the lighting and we decided to film in the day instead. Not only did we change the lighting but the whole camerawork in general was different as in our final film we experimented more and was more adventurous in the shots we used for example in our final film we used shots like canted angle instead of the conventional over the shoulder/long shots.
Our second picture shows our preliminary over the shoulder shot, as the first picture shows our more intriguing canted angle shot. We used this to help us improve our final horror film by allowing us to experiment and try different things, after the task we now knew what worked and what didn't work, we used this to our advantage whilst filming the final piece
Overall i believe that as a group and individually we have all learned how to use lighting effectively and how to use different camera angles to give off a certain effect, i think if we was to do it again i believe we would be able to make it even better due to the knowledge and experience we have gained from doing both the preliminary and final task.
I took on the role of editing once we had complete filming and inputted my ideas to the group. We split storyboarding across all of us in the group and few of other planning pieces. I didn't provide much input into the planning but did a lot more later on in the project. I did some filming when it came to others being in the shot and in few other shots. I also found the actor to play the lead role in the film and was the communicator between actor and the group.
I did the majority of the editing as I quickly became familiar with the software and could edit it together efficiently. I edited it each time we shot and another members of my group also contributed to the editing. I believe my contribution to the editing helped largely into the final product of our horror film.
Throughout the entirety of this project, I feel I have taken an active and important role in the planning, production and post production stages. I feel that along with my other group members, I was largely involved in the planning of our film - it was a combined effort to come up with the initial idea for our film and I feel I contributed several very valid ideas in the process of developing and inevitably creating a final plot and storyline. The role of storyboarding our film was split equally between the four of us and I completed my contribution to the best of my ability.
I completed the character design sheet myself, along with the BBFC research sheet and I also contributed an equal part to the creation of the script, along with my group members.
With regards to production, I feel that I was very involved in the process of making our film. On several occasions I contibuted with the act of shooting the scenes.I shot several of the initial shots included in the film and tried to have as much input on this front as possible.
I also had a short acting role in this film - this did not restrict my involvement with the production of the project and it meant that we could achieve exactly what was required from the character with ease.
When it comes to props and character design, I contributed a lot of the props involved in the film whilst I also helped with make up and costume.
When editing was involved, I took a less active role whilst still keeping a creative input and opinion with regards to the film. I made sure that I voiced what I thought was good and what I disagreed with openly, along with the rest of the group, so that as a whole we could each have our own opinions and try to make our film as successful as possible. I did, however, contribute towards a large part of the sound production using Garage Band.
Throughout the production process, I made progress on the soundtrack to our film (along with another member of my group) and attempted to create a good, appropriate track worthy of a horror film. Towards the very end of the project, I made sure that the soundtrack was perfected and matched our final edited film well, making final tweaks to the sound. I feel this turned out very successfully.
Overall, I believe that I had a significant role in the entirety of this project and had an effect on how successful out film turned out.
With us choosing our target age we used a teenager as our victim to make the audience able to relate to it. We targeted them well by minimizing gore and making it fast paced as teenagers don't want to watch a film which takes a long time to get into. Our questionnaire showed we reached our target audience as the person who answered the questions agreed with our age which we chose before creation. Also with the person who did the questionnaire in our age group showed that we had met the target audience as they liked the story line and the soundtrack. From this I believe we succeeded in matching our film with the target audience.
We used a teenage actor to match the target audience which caused the film to appeal more to a teenage audience. We also used a creepy sound track which attracts our audience. The way we used mise en scene to target audience was to have the girl in a teenage girls room which matches with the actor and in turn can be related to the audience. In the clip in which the victim is going down the stairs, we shot down her from behind going down the stairs which makes her seem small and in turn follows generic conventions. The Exorcist also shows a young female victim which shows insecurity and fragility.
For films such as ours, I think that British production companies such as Film4 and the UK Film Council would be interested in taking a producing role.
By using a British production company to produce, there is a much larger probability of our film being produced than if we were to target our film at much larger companies such as Universal etc. With regards to audiences, British companies tend to target a much more specific and perhaps niche audience that will be interested in a specific type of film - in our case, this would be under the genre of Horror. The film would probably only be shown in specific places and to a certain extent it will recieve a more direct and select audience viewing, unlike global blockbusters which will be aimed at a mainstream audience. This will often lead to a lack in originality, and therefore by pitching our film to a smaller, British production company, the originality will remain, attracting a niche audience. It is likely it would only be exhibited in the UK and that it would be distributed to a lesser extent than if it were to be produced by a large corporation.
Film4 have often produced films that have only been released in Britain. An example of this is in the film "Hunger". This film was released in 2008 and premiered at Cannes film festival. It went on to be released only in the UK and Ireland in October 2008 as opposed to globally.
7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
This screen grab from GarageBand shows how we tried to allow the opening title sequence to grab the audiences attention. It's fast paced flashing images in the nightmare needed a lot of integrated noises to help enhance the intensity of the nightmare. Including church bells, recorded whispering from myself and Sarah, serena swirl, aura bells, orchestral strings, a jazz organ and a creepy little laugh. These clash together but work so well because when the video intensifies with the girl tossing and turning in bed, the sounds emerge more to become more stranger and surreal. With the orchestral strings and the jazz organ echoed slightly so that when she wakes up it's still very strange. The moment when she wakes up it was more intense to have it silent, as the contrast from all the noises in the dream is like a violent awake into reality, with only the genuine creaks of the floor boards she walks on.
Stigmata being our source of inspiration, in the trailer above it shows how they used various different eerie sounds with symbolic chanting, which captures the attention of the viewer with it's mysteriousness. Inspiring us to try and replicate the same depth with the same approach.
As the impact of the shots in the film are quite high, (like the image above a bloody dagger in a sink,) a vast amount of instruments are needed to create the same impact aurally.
The church bell links to the Biblical references that are made throughout the film, yet it creates an eerie feel with the desolate gongs. The technology of GarageBand allowed us to be more creative with the keypad facility as we could make it rhythmical in the scene. This is very realistic to how church bells would be rung in a church and thus more realistic in our film and intense.
The whispering of myself and Sarah is essential to bring us in as the threat at the beginning. Cleverly we are chanting the verse from the Bible at the time she wakes up at, which is Acts 10:38, combined with another Bible verse of Deuteronomy 32:17 as the chant needed to be longer and the words fit well with the religion and satanic imagery. We then used our whispering to add to the intensity.
Blogger allowed the group to keep upto date with one another during the planning process, improving our control over the film making process. Imovie helped us to be more creative, we could cut and edit the different shots as we pleased and add effects. The Imovie structured our film and each week it was clear to see what needed re-shooting and what bits of the film needed something more scary to happen.
9. Final Question- What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?
During the planning stages we all made an equal contribution to the sheets and how everything should be done, it was good because as a team we helped and supported one another. We had to change the idea of the film at the beginning and I was inspired by the film Stigmata and told the group about the little ideas that we could use from the movie to create our satanic film, including the crying blood statue and just the subtle satanic images throughout.
During the production I became the person who made sure the group was organised to come together to film. During the filming I used my knowledge as an actress to help give input into how our actress should act, directing her and giving inspiration to the way she reacts on camera. I especially liked working with the camera to capture a shot, whilst trying to capture the essence of the horrorific atmosphere that we had created. I also did the beginning sequence shots capturing the satanic clips, it allowed me to be creative with the chalk on the floor and the angel crying. Myself and Sarah, also did the make up on the actress' body as she has hieroglyphics on her arms, alongside doing our own make up and costume with the shots of us as witches.
Post production stages myself and Sarah had focused upon the soundtrack for the film, we converged our recorded whispering with various sounds, whilst making sure that it went with the film. However I did give great input into how the film should be edited and what works and doesn't. Overall I believe my significant amount of input into the project really made the film look of an appropriately high standard.
During the making of this film, I think I main a good contribution in all parts, the planning, production and post production. In the planning I did parts of the storyboard as it was split between the group, I also did several pages of the script which was also split between the group. Mainly all of the planning was equally split between four as there is four people in our group and I did my part which involved stuff like the recee sheet, also me and dale researched target audiences on IMDB.
