Our Film Opening

Here is our the first 2 minutes of our opening!! Hope you enjoy it!!!

Evaluation Question 7

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

For our preliminary task, our brief was to film someone walking through a door, sitting down opposite someone else and exchanging a few lines of conversation. Before filming our preliminary task we had to create a story board for the different shots we were going to use in our filming. We found this helped a lot because we included more shots following the story board than we would have done just from memoryWhen looking back at my preliminary task, these were the main points I needed to take into consideration:

One factor being, it’s essential to draw up your storyboard correctly in the beginning to save time on deciding what to do later. Also it would be ideal to have script for each character as a lot of time was wasted and re filmed due to actors forgetting their lines.

Another factor when filming ensures actors are not speaking over each other because when editing on final cut it becomes hard to portray the shot reverse shot.

Another thing I learnt about was filming precisely within the framework of the camera. This is a very important part when filming as the camera doesn’t need unnecessary items in the background. Therefore the position of the characters must be precise in order to show them in the frame without having unwanted headroom. Whilst this is being done the eye line match for the pair having a conversation needs to be in proportion to the camera as this helps to accurately film.

Before filming the opening 2 minutes of my film, I looked back at the bullet points above to check what I needed to improve on from my preliminary task. This therefore made me aware of what I needed to improve on for my opening 2 minutes.

I think that we learnt a number of things in the progression from out Preliminary task to our full 2 minute Film Opening including:

• Headroom - we learnt about not leaving unnecessary headroom in order to frame our shots more appropriately.
• When we had finished filming, we used basic editing skills such as cuts.
• Editing techniques - we learnt how to edit sound for our 2 minute Film Opening which we did not know how to do for our preliminary task and manipulate images, for example when our character is having flashbacks we edited the images to make the look slightly distorted and so it make you feel like you are in her position, looking down at the baby.
• Continuity - from editing our Preliminary Task we learnt how important planning was to preserve continuity in our film. Therefore we filmed everything on the one day, this is because we needed to make sure that our actors were wearing the exact same outfits and had their hair and make-up done in the exact same way each time. This is why we decided to shoot in one evening as we would not then have any problems with different coloured shoes for example.
• The three camera rules (match on action, shot-reverse-shot and the 180 degree rule) - even though we did learn these rules for our Preliminary Task, we learnt how to apply them more effectively in our 2 minute Film Opening.

The top picture is of my preliminary task and as you can see, the shot is framed badly due to there being a lot of headroom above both the character. However, as seen in the picture below, our character fills the frame much better as there is not much headroom above her.

 

 

Evaluation Question 6

What have learnt about technologies from the proccess of constructing this film opening?

This plan of how we came about this question. We brainstormed the different points we were going to make and expanded on them.

To show off our creativity and technology skills we decided to use green screen to film us talking of what we have learnt about technoloiges whilst creating our film.

Evaluation Question 5

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

 

 

Here we were shortly interviewed about the ways in which we attracted our audience. When planning audience we clealry stated they were an essential part of our planning. Here is more on what we had to say after making our film.

 

Evaluation Question 4

 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

This is a typical member of our audience. Because our audience is quite broad, we made sure we showed our film to both men and women, young and old. However, our protagonist is a teenager for the majority of the film (our film opening shows her in the present, then we move into her past) so younger teenage girls would be able to relate to her. These are grids we gave to some members of the audience to fill out to give us feedback on our film.

 

 

 

 

These are questionnaires we gave to some members of the audience to fill out to give us feedback on our film.

 

 

 

 After asking four different people who watched our trailer we decided to ask the audience to fill in a questionnaire on their opinions. In this the questions were as followed:

- Effectiveness of the overall film

- Effectiveness of the music

- Effectiveness of the actors and setting

- Likely to watch

After receiving this feedback we gathered all the data and placed it in the form of a bar chart.

 

From the bar chart we can conclude, overall the areas mentioned in the questionnaire were positive just as we hoped! This clearly suggests that our film opening was successful as we have met the audience requirements and provided them with a thrilling opening.

It’s evident that the most effective was the actors and setting. These are both are essential when producing a thriller/horror!

Evaluation Question 3

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

Here is a voiceover with picture we made on movie maker to talk about who we believe would best distibute our film. As young upcoming directors we researched many film distributors but came to conclude that Film4 would be the best for us.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

When choosing the protagonist for our film we decided to choose a woman in her late 30's as this was a similar convention in other films. We wanted to take a character who appeared to be very conventional and respectable and then gradually expose her seedy past.

 

This character is similar to those in many other thrillers and TV dramas, for example Last Tango in Halifax (2012) and the character played by Sarah Lancashire. They share many similarities such as they are both head teachers and appear to do everything by the book. However they both have secrets they don't want their families and work colleagues to discover.

 

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

 

 

Whilst watching a few opening Thriller films, we noticed that the titles were often one word. We therefore decided to follow this convention by giving our film a one worded title to create the effect of tension and mystery. We chose the colour red to make it stand out and because the colour red has connotations of danger and risk.

 

 

 

This is a shot of the main setting and location of our film opening. We chose this location because in the drive, there was a big enough space for us to move and pan the camera while filming and film several shots from different angles. This location was also ideal because it had the scope of the long gravel path around the house which created a superb crunching footsteps and creaky gate sound effect which are conventional sounds of the Thriller genre.

 

 

As our film is about a teenage son who is seeking revenge on his mum, we chose to stereotype his clothing. Therefore his costume was tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a hoodie.

 

 

This shot shows our main character dressed smartly in typical work dress. This stereotypes her to fit in with a career woman who works in an office. The colour black also foreshadows the dark nature of the film. We restyled the actor's hair and makeup to reflect our ideas of a conventional mid 30s suburban woman who has been quite successful in life. The mise en scene of the large, spacious kitchen and stylish accessories adds to the effect of the affluent lifestyle.

 

 

We decided to do several cut away shots to help increase the pace of our film opening. We wanted to create a sense of calm everyday life and so we focused on ordinary household objects. To create tension we juxtaposed these slow moving shots filmed on a tripod to keep the camera steady with the handheld chaotic shots of the boy running.

 

 

 

We chose to shoot our film opening around twilight to create a sense of fear and to build tension. We chose to do this because we noticed when watching other Thrillers most were filmed in the dark to make them more eerie.

 

We chose this special effect for the flashbacks because it gives the impression that the audience is in the mothers point of view and gives a slightly blurry picture as if she has tears in her eyes. It is conventional to show the transition between the verisimilitude of the clear shots showing the present time to the less clear images that show the woman's memory.