Never Forgotten (completed)

This is the final edit of our opening sequence. I think that it reaches out target audience because the characters are easily related to and they are modern teenagers which is shown by their costume. I think that cutaways helped to create the wanted mood of apprehension/fear as they showed how isolated the location was as well as showing that nobody really lived there as there are spiderwebs everywhere. Examples of the cutaways which show the isolation and uncleanliness of the location are at 0:55, 0:59 and 1:56 as they show cobwebs and rusting nails. As an opening sequence i think that it is effective as it creates the questions of whats happened, where are they, why do they want to go to a party and it creates questions about the lead up to the girls death.

screencast/directors commentary

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

Within my preliminary task it was a conversation between me and Demi. For this we did an eye-line match, shot reverse shot and we kept to the 180 degree rule. For my opening compared to my preliminary I think that the editing is a lot smoother, the camera work is more fluent as there is less of a shake in it and the shots are also better framed.   
As you can see between short clips of both you can tell that in the opening sequence it is better lighting, and also the right side is chosen because in the preliminary both characters are somewhat silhouetted against the background; this is because of the natural lighting coming from the window. To fix this in the opening sequence we made sure that the natural lighting was coming in from the side. The framing within the opening sequence is also better as there is not too much headroom and the shots are better edited together as they are more fluent when being watched and pace is maintained within the opening sequence. Sound is also improved on the opening sequence as in the preliminary sound got cut off on one of the shots, and it is a random ending for the piece whereas in the opening sequence it is more thought about and no parts of the sound seem irregular. Our opening sequence showed a young female character lying on the floor of a cellar and then a different female character walking towards an abandoned house. Comparing our preliminary task to our opening sequence, we didn't have to focus on the 180 degree rule as there were no conversations or confrontations within the sequence.
  Within the opening sequence we used a cross cut which shows improvement in editing as cross cutting is harder, especially when you try and make it to make sense. This is compared to just making it continuous  editing.

Within the preliminary task it was more of a team effort as we helped to set up camera work and edited the footage together. However for the opening sequence it was much more of Amie taking charge informing of the shots that needed to be acquired but when it came to creating the idea and then editing it was more of a group effort.

How did you attract/address the audience Part 1

what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Media Devices Used:

Blogger has been used to present all media devices and to show the research, planning and evaluation parts of my coursework. This is the most used media device.

Bubbl is used to present professional looking spider diagrams. I have used this to show different aspects of thought and to show the different genres of film.

This is a tripod. Tripods have been used to help successfully stabilise shots within practical media work which makes them look more professional and makes it easier to frame shots. My use of the tripod has improved as the shots have become more stable and the varieties of heights are more visible due to different rates of extension on the tripod legs.

 This is a moving image camera (dslr) and it was used to record all of the practical media work. It recorded things such as the Preliminary task and the opening sequence. I have improved with the dslr as the shots include more headroom and the camera is less shakey. The dslr needs planning before its use otherwise shots can become unappropriated to task or shots that are really needed will be left out. This technology had to be used again as some shots were left out and we needed some more 'filler' shots. I have also shown improvement with this technology as i have used a wider variety of shots e.g. a long shot.

 dafont is a website which is used to help acquire fonts for the opening sequence . This technology had to be revisited as the fonts we selected were flagged as being inappropriate and amateur for our piece of work so we had to go back several times to find the right type of font.

 Imovie was used to edit all of the videos that are held on my blog, this was a useful tool as otherwise we would of had to do in camera edits which really hard to do. I have improved on using this technology as the edits area lot smoother than they were to begin with and a a lot more suited to the media product.

 Final cut was used to put both the titles and edited movie together to help create an improved piece of work which looked like the conventional opening sequence that we looked at during the research stage.

 go animate was used to make animations to explain certain parts of the media product and parts of the research in a fun and entertaining way.

 Free sound was used to get sounds for the practical media work, this was mainly included within the vox pop and the opening sequence.

 Photoshop was used to create a background for my research on conventional themes such as sound and titles. This helped to make sure that there was an interesting background over text.

 Prezi is used instead of a standard powerpoint as it is more interactive and creates more interesting affects than powerpoint, you can also change the background theme so that it is more appropriate to our theme.

 Livetype was used to create the titles within the opening sequence, making the final product look more professional as it helped to time the ins and outs of the titles and helped to put the titles in the appropriate places.

Macs were used to access programs such as livetype, imovie, final cut pro and photoshop. Without them there would be no practical videos that are edited as they contained the specific software used for editing.

 Slide rocket is another program which replaced powerpoint as it creates a simple transition to the next slide and plays videos as soon as the next page is clicked on.

 Tubechop was used to cut down and embed youtube videos that were too long to put onto blogger, this was due to only certain parts of a film being needed for the presentation and to make it appropriate to what i was talking about.





Youtube annotations were used to analyse the Donnie Darko remade scene in detail describing exactly what we had to do and what made bits weak and other parts a lot stronger (mise-en-scene wise and from a cinematographic point of view).

Here is a video showing me explaining how to use most of the different medias and then explaining how i felt about them.

For research we used Imovie to create our voxpops, this was so that each question came with all the answers afterwards making it easier to interpret. We also used Microsoft word to help create a questionnaire, this helped to not only create questions on what was expected in an opening sequence but it also helped us to understand our target audience more.

For me i think all the technologies are quite easy to use but some i got used to a lot quicker than others. The ones that i got used to very quickly where Imovie which consists of cutting and pasting the footage to create things such as voxpops and our opening sequence; i also got used to the tripod and camera very quickly as together they created a stable shot which improved the quality of the footage we got and since the tripod had an adjustable height we were able to get a variety of angles with the footage.

Never Forgotten - Final Draft

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

For our audience research we used voxpops of teenagers as this is what our target audience was and the target audience was more specifically students. From our voxpops we gained the knowledge of what type of features teenagers expected to see in the horrors such as the type of soundtrack that is used, what type of location and also how the villain is represented. Our main demographic was males 15 and above with a sub focus on those of the female gender because of the intertwined love story. The target audience would be those of the student middle class. The psycho graphic of our target audience is that they enjoy horror horror films, they enjoy the suspense and gore within horror films, they live with family and enjoy going out with their friends. Our film links to similar films with the same target audience and they include: The final as both focus on the idea of victims of bullying getting revenge and saw as this also focuses on revenge and involves violence. The other factors that our target audience would have is that they would use social media sites such as twitter and facebook regularly. We decided that out film would have the unique selling point of a strong morale which was 'People wont forget what you do to them and if you treat them badly they may look for revenge'.


 

The above are our target audience, these are the kind of people that we would like to see our film. The pictures specifically show the portions of hanging out with friends and going out to events with them.

This is a shot f one of our character. As we can clearly see she is a young teenager who is dressed in modern fashions. Our audience would be able to relate to her as she is a teenager but the female gender would relate to her more as she is the same gender. The use of cinematography also helps to create this relation because the shot is placed at shoulder height creating a statement about both audience and character being level with each other.

Feedback

Draft Two Of Opening Sequence (Never Forgotten)

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

 The genre of our film is a horror aimed at teenagers aged fifteen and above but most commonly for boys due to the graphical horror involved within it but it can also be related to girls due to the love story which is intertwined within the film. The name that we gave to our film was 'never forgotten' due to the fact that our synopsis is about the killer being someone who was out casted by the social group because of a physical deformity. As a group, we chose Lionsgate as the distributor of our film. Lionsgate is a North American entertainment company and was formed in Vancouver,British Columbia, on July 3, 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. It is the most commercially successful independent film and distribution company in North America.
We chose Lionsgate because they have distributed horror films such as the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'the descent' and 'saw' these horror films are generally targeted at over 18's but since our film is more 'user friendly' due to their being less gore it was decided that it would have a lower certificate and would be suitably allocated to people of fifteen years and above. We also chose Lionsgate as our company due to the fact that they are a well know distributor and they have distributed some very successful films over the past few years such as 'Saw' and 'The hunger games'.
Our production company is called 'simplistic pictures' as our plot is very straightforward and we only have the one killer so the very theme of our film is easy to work out. Also we thought that it would be appropriate because the message behind our film shortens too 'Dont treat others badly as it may come around and haunt you'.






The saw opening, quite dark and shown with low key lighting to create quite a dark atmosphere within the piece. The introducing logos also help to create a creepy feel towards the film as it uses barbed wire (which acts likes snakes) to crush the production logo. Lionsgate would also distribute out film as the elements of our film are dark and we have used low key lighting to create shadows within our opening.

Leather face from Texas chainsaw massacre, he has a similar background story to our character Frank Deavell. He was bullied at a young age because of a defect on his face, Lionsgate would distribute our film as both characters have similar background stories and both films create a certain  psychological realism from someone who has become homicidal.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main gender that we have represented within our opening sequence is that of the female as one is shown to walk to the house and her friend is shown to walk to the abandoned house. Within the opening the most represented ethnicity was that of the Caucasian. The age that has been represented within the piece is that of late teenagers as the girls are in their teens and their friendship group is shown on the phone, all of whom are teenagers. The class that we chose to represent was that of the middle class.
The people that we chose to represent was that of teenagers as we thought that it would follow along the lines of a party because some teenagers will have no where to go to drink until they are of age and they are also stereotypically represented as taking a lot of illegal things such as drugs (cocaine) so to enforce this stereotype we used teenagers and also set our location as somewhere which is out of the way so that it seemed a lot more suspicious.

These are Gifs which show teenagers at a party and they show how certain elements can get out of hand. This shows that the location used within our piece would appeal to our target audience because it is out of the way, nobody lives there and they can do what they like as there is nobody there to stop them from doing what they enjoy.

When framing the girl when she was dead we chose to only show small parts of the body so that the audience had a lack of knowledge to what had happened. We gave away the fact that it was a dead body because of a high angle shot upon a body which wasn't moving, this tells the audience that something is wrong. Using the stereotype we showed little by little to make it look as if she was sleeping but then as more and more became visible it was clearer to see that something was wrong. We also used the soundtrack to hint to the audience that something was slightly peculiar about the situation but we didn't want to show what it was until near the end of the opening sequence as shown by the high angle shot of the bleeding arm. We also used a close up of the girls eye to show that she was dying as her iris flickers but she doesn't move.

This is the shot of the picture on the phone. as we can clearly see they are all teenagers. Since all of the characters are teenagers it would be more relatable to their age group and it would attract them as an audience s they would like to see how a situation would be resolved after several teenagers have been killed.

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

The conventions of an opening sequence are a sound track, equlibrium or disequilibrium, titles, production logos, distributor logos, establishment of the theme of the film, provokes questions and they give clues to the audience as to what is going on.

                                            ^this is the main title from Inception^

                                         ^this is our distributor Lionsgate^
A soundtrack is used to help create/build tension. Here is an example of a soundtrack from Django Unchained
 
The equilibrium is used in the opening sequence to show the norm of the setting, the production logo is used to show what film company made the film, the distributor logo is used to show what company distributed the film. The theme needs to be established so that the viewer gains a feel for what the film is going to be like, the titles are used to show who acted in the film and who helped to put it together. An example of a distributor logo would be that of paramount pictures as it is well know and it helps to get films out to cinemas. Within our opening sequence we used the distributor logo of Lionsgate as they are known for distributing horror films.

The convention of the genre i have chosen are that of low key lighting as this is used to elongate the shadows and to create an eerie atmosphere aswell as being used to hide information from the viewer such as a person or object.

                                               ^This is an example of Low Key Lighting^

 Blood is also a conventional tool within a horror as it is used to show murder and it is able to create quite an eerie effect when used with low key lighting as it can reflect light making the blood stand out even more.

 Close ups are used heavily within a horror as they can reveal less about the identity of the killer and it also can reveal only a small amount of what has happened. hiding key information is also important within a horror as if too much is given away early on then people lose interest early on and they will immediately know what is going on within the film. Suspense is featured quite heavily in horrors as it keeps the audience anticipating what is going to come next and it also helps to keep them on the edge of their seats as they are lost within the film. String music is often featured within a horror as string notes can be very sharp without any echo on, creating a very tense atmosphere and also the pace of the strings can help to create a climax within the film.

For our opening sequence we used natural and low key lighting, the low key lighting was used within the basement so that shadows were elongated and the body of the dead girl (Rae) was shown so that her body was facing into the darkness, hinting that her life was fading away. Natural lighting was used to show the difference between the basement when the character is dead to when she is alive as it is a lot lighter and shows that she is a normal person who  alive a while earlier. We used quick flashbacks to give hints to the audience about what was happening and to answer questions like 'how did she get there' but also to create one significant question which was 'what happened to her' as it goes from her walking to the location to her suddenly being dead.

Opening Sequence draft

Shooting Schedule

Titles

The titles that we are going to be using are blood red and are going to be very scratchy (like the ones in se7en) as we thought this would be best for our opening and in our surveys it was voted most popular. The text we have chosen also follows along the conventions of any regular horror as the text is very creepy and the red symbolises the gore within the film. The Title above is an example of a text that we could use within our opening sequence.

Order of titles is as followed:

Al Kiernan

Rae Tiernan

Chris Mayor

Martin Sheen

Natasha Claremont

Sophie Nelson

Robert Wyatt

Casting by Amie Brady

Set Designer Paula Smith

Music by Carmen Tenief

Edited by Harry Sullivan

Production Designer Jay Menemony

Lighting by Judy Alter

Director of photography Paula Smith

Executive producer Ted Wannabe

Produced by Pete Lemont and Jim Scott

Written by Caroline Moose

Directed by Sophie Wyatt

Never Forgotten (name of film)

Casting

For the dead girl we casted Rae as the basis of the idea started off with her in mind. The opening shot was going to be a close up of her eye with a blood pool starting to form as if she has just been murdered. Rae also suits along her characters profile so it would of been best to use her for our opening sequence therefore it was easiest and more appropriate to cast her as she is basically her character profile.

 For the creepy murderer Harry was casted because stereotypically he is a 'grunger' and can be really creepy most of the time so it was an easy to use him as the creepy, disfigured murderer as he would be the most likely to get away with it. Even though he does not suite his character profile (he doesnt go around trying to kill people, in real life at least) because he is not a murderer and he can intergrate into society easily. He is able to take on character roles easily so therefore he was the appropriate choice.
                                                     

Character Profiles

Name : Frank Deavell Age: 17 Gender : Male Personality: isolates himself from others, doesn't have any friends, creepy, aggressive and psychotic Relationship: single Occupation: unenployed Frank enjoys murder and the idea of hunting people. His strongest belief is revenge.

 Name: Susan Mckay Age: 17 Gender: female Personality: flirty, likes to party, sociable and kind Relationship: Boyfriend named Toby Occupation: waitress at local cafe Susan has blonde hair and is always up for a good time. She enjoys spending time with her best friends and boyfriend.
                                 
                                 

Animated Storyboard

 
This is our storyboard as an animatic. It shows each of the shots we are going to use and also shows where we are going to put titles in. Below is the storyboard of our opening sequence.

Our surveys

here is the survey that we gave to people to fill out, most questions involved closed questions as this was quicker and more time efficient for the person to fill in and it involved some open questions in which the person filling out the sheet in which they could expand upon their answer.