Evaluation

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

I had never properly worked in moving image before so this was a whole new experience for me when it came to the editing, i learn't a lot of different editing styles from watching so many other horror films, how to build up tension by using colour and music together. For this production i used Sony Vegas Pro 8.0, garage band and adobe photoshop. i used Sony Vegas for my main editing, for things like colour correction, which i tried out so many different effects to create the one i wanted, transitions, the fade outs. My favourite effect i used though was the white noise at the end of the intro, it took me around an hour to create this effect because there isn't a preset for this exam, so every flicker i had to program into the effect, each change in the effect is a different picture i had to create, there is around 50 different pictures to create a three second clip. the sound to go along with it was a pain to get hold of, i searched for so long trying to download it off of websites but it just wasn't the right sound, i finally found it on one of the schools hidden folders, i also had to convert it to allow me to use it in Sony Vegas. I used adobe photoshop to create my texts, but because i have a lot of experience with this program it didn't take me long at all to create the fonts.

It was fun learning how to create different effects with different shots with the handheld camera, i had never used a handheld camera for a project like this before so it was interesting seeing what type of shots i could create. i experimented with a lot of different shots but decided to stick with the POV because it was my favorite. It was hard to create a POV shot that didn't get boring after about 5 seconds of watching it, so i always tried to add movement into my shots, for example, looking down at my feet to see the tempo of my walk.

The program i had never used before was GarageBand, this is a music mixing program which allows the user to create songs, i had to use a lot of different presets to create the mood i wanted, i had happy cheerful music for the colour parts and a dark grimey style music for the grim colours.

Evaluation

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

My film is aimed at the smaller, more intelligent fans of the horror genre, i would use a company like Hammer Film Productions, reason being is that they are a legendary british horror film company, so if an audience found out that the film is in partnership with them, the audience would know it is going to be a good film.

Evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my final product the only type of people i represent are people with schizophrenia, i tried to represent these by using the two different colour corrections from the different POV shots. i used handheld camera shots to show their shakey personalities. Also at the very end of the film i used and effect to split the title in half, this was to represent the split personality of the character.

Evaluation

How did you attract/address your audience?

The more sophisticated end of the horror genre fans prefer the more psychological style films, this is because they like to think about how the film works rather than just, killer, pretty girl, girl dies, end of film. i tried to attract this type of audience by making the intro to my film really hard to understand, also by making the end of the film, the start. I achieved this by using two different POV shots for the intro, this adds an enigma code because the audience has no idea what is happening.

Still no luck...

tried uploading again last night but with no luck, i think its because my finished product is such a large file because of all the effects i added onto it. so maybe blogger.com has an upload size limit or something like that, if i cant get it to upload anytime soon it looks like i'll have to burn it to a disk.

Evaluation

'Who would be the audience for you media product?'

My main target audience for this film is people who love films were they have to piece bits of it together to understand it, the people who like to talk about the film after they come out of the cinema and are still trying to figure out what just happened. The gender is not important, as long as they are interested in the creepy eerie side of films, or people who want to see their first psychological horror movie would be interested in this.

People who want to go see this film would usually go with a group of friends or with their boyfriend/girlfriend this is because people dont tend to go watch horror movies on their on compared to things like superhero films.

Evaluation

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


My audience for this film would be people who are interested in the psychological/horror genre and also people who are curious as to what the genre holds. Some of my inspiration for this project are the films: Gothika, the butterfly effect and the intro of se7en. The reason for Gothika inspired me was because of the storyline, it has such an in depth creepy storyline which keeps the viewer watching until the end. The butterfly effect made me realise you can start a film off with the ending just like 'American Beauty' and 'Sunset Boulevard'. Using this technique changes the whole way the audience watches the film because as the films goes on they try and piece together how the ending is going to come about. Then onto the masterpiece that is the intro to 'se7en' it has some of the most creative editing techniques used to create such an eerie feel from the very start.

arghhhhh

Had my project finished since tuesday but because of the size of the file and my terrible internet it, it is almost impossible to get it to upload to my blog, i left it over night on wednesday to see if it would upload, but when i checked in the morning there was just a massive error warning on my screen, brilliant.

i'll talk to my teachers today to see what i can do about the problem.

last minute rush

i left all my editing to the last few days, highly regretting it now, spent the whole of yesterday working like a trooper to try and get this finished, the story of my intro changed as i edited it but i think its made it better than my original idea.

throughout this coursework i have had so many different ideas and kept changing wht i was doing, thats why it has taken me so long to get t the point am at.

yesterday i spent almost two hours trying to get a heartbeat sound(sounds easy right?) well with all the firewalls at school it was almost impossible to download anything or download a converter only to find out drama studies have loads of CDs with almost every sound effect you could want on them, typical. At the moment i'm just trying to finish it off by adding all the little extras into it.

Filming problems

i haven't been uploading much recently, this is because my film is set at night which makes it really hard to get the right type of light to film in. Another issue is because of the time of year, it keeps on raining and because the quality on the camera isn't very good, rain just looks awful when its filmed.

The big issue though is that i have had loads of different ideas for what i could do for this intro, so whenever i film something, i think of a better idea so i just scrap the last filming. After this post i will write about my current idea and some of my past ideas. Hopefully during this easter holiday i will get all my filming and editing done.

Filming

i've done some filming tonight around my local area, i will upload the clips after ive done abit of editing on them because that is what my whole intro is based on. For the time being ive got some screen shots of the same clip but with different effects on them, one is the default clip, one has colour boosters on and the third one has a custom colour overlay i made with a sharpen added on.

Possible location?

This is the bridge i spoke about in one of my earlier posts, although the lighting is not correct, its just to give a rough idea of what the place looks like, the quality isn't very good because it was only taken on my phone.

Learning Editing Techniques

Recently i've been watching a lot of different tutorials to learn some more cool effects to edit into my intro. All of these tutorials have been for sony vegas pro 9 and photoshop cs4, the reason i've learnt techniques is so that i can create original titles uses an original text with some creative effects.

i've been trying out some of these techniques wide other video clips i had on my comuter, the vast majority of them are colour correction test, trying to figure out how to create a dark eerie feel but still being able to see what's going on, i've created my own colour correction(i will just call it CC from now on to save time) although i have only tried it out on video game clips, it has a slight gold tint, which sounds kinda weird but i will post a screenshot of it to show the difference.

ADDS PICTURES

Se7en Title Intro

I recorded this intro with a capture card, i will upload it to youtube soon. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKGxpHDtGg ]Although this intro is a lot longer than i am expecting to do mine, it uses a variety of different editing techniques to create an eerie feel, it also has so many different enigma codes but unless you watch this section after the film has finished, you won't really have a clue what is going on.

It uses a variety of different flashes, usually when the text is on show, the text has been set so it has a slight shutter to give it a bit of movement, also the text sometimes suddenly changes places on the screen for a very short amount of time, this creates the effect of confusion.

This intro uses very dark colours but also a bright red, this use of red i believe is supposed to symbolise blood, these colours add to the eerie feel that the editor was trying to create. The editor also decided to use a shallow focus whenever the character is shown, this creates a mystery because it completely blurs him/her out.

In a short clip n the intro where the main character is writing in his book, it does an overlap of two clips, they are both of the hand writing, but one is a few seconds ahead of the other so it creates a very eerie, supernatural feel.

The Butterfly Effect

I watched the intro to this film today to give me ideas on how to start the film by showing the ending first. At first it shows a quote from chaos theory about how a butterfly can flap its wings and has the possibility to cause a typhoon half way around the world. The writing is in a white serif font on a black background, to make it look trustworthy. The quote fades out, then the opening scene fades in. music for the opening scene is composed using strings, The shot is in slow motion and the main character is shot through glass, the have blinds which distorts the man. As he bursts through the door it is synced with the music and it goes into realtime, the music kicks into a fast paced beat to go with it skipping back to real time.

While the main character is hiding under the desk and writing a note to himself, he sounds out of breath to show how he has been running from people. It zooms in on the page and as he is writing it out as quick as he can, he is mumbling the words to himself.

The colour correction for this intro is very dark to create the mood, lots of black grey and dark blues.

new line cinema

aol time warner company

Locations

I looked around my local area to find suitable spots that i could use to film, while on a walk i found a swamp like area with loads of dead trees that have all deformed all fallen over, this could be the perfect location to shoot a scene where someone is trying to run away from soneone else, although there is no chase in my current story i could change it around to include one because i think it could be a very good clip.
Another new location i found was some corn fieldsin my village, this location looks very creepy and with the right music and actors, it could be used to make a really good clip to include in my intro.
My favourite of the new locations i found is an abandoned house on and old dirt track, i'm not sure if it is safe to go inside or not but it could be used as a great shot if i have someone walking along the dirt track and seeing the house, this shot could work out very well if the right music is played in the background.
For an 'eerie' feel, i considered using a big amusement park in my area (wicksteed park) although i would need to get permission to use the park when its dark. The reason i want to film it in the dark and when its empty is because abandoned parks can give a very creepy film to the audience, especially if i have a single person walking through with a longshot.

My Proposal

For my course i will be doing the intro to a film, the genre i have chosen to do is horror/psycho. The reason i picked this genre is because i find it the most interesting and the intros are usually very creative and looked like fun to make.

Before i start with my coursework i will be watching a variety of different horror films to see what the conventions are for the intros, this will be things like camera angles, music, colour correction, mood and character building.

I need to plan what will actually be happening in the shots, i have a few ideas for some stories and how they could develop into a full film. i also need to find 2-3 people who want to be in the intro so i might have to ask around and see if anyone i'm good friends with is a good actor/actress. After i have chosen the cast, i need to find a location, i live by a railway surrounded by fields with a very old bridge crossing the track, this can look very creepy at night so this could be the perfect place for an intro. I also need to think about post production, i will most likely use sony vegas 8.0 to edit the clips and add some colour correction to the clips to get the right effect.

For a cast the only person i have in mind is my friend ellie, the reason for this is because in my film i want one of the girls in the white dresses because they always add some creepy film to any shot, and because she is really skinny as well she would be perfect for the role.

production schedule(will edit in later)

My contingency plan will be, in case of any bad weather i will not be able to shoot, the only weather tat is suitable for my shots is at night time when it is just getting dark and possibly a bit of rain to add effect, but if it is any different the shooting will have to be re-scheduled.

The locations i will most likely be the train track by my house with the bridge and possible other areas around where i live, i shall have a look around this weekend (29th january) for other possible locations for good shots.

For my technology i will be using the schools camcorders to film all of my shots, unless i can find a HD one to borrow off of a friend of family member. To edit the video after the shots have been taken i will be using sony vegas pro 8.0, the reason for this is because i have used this program a lot so i feel comfortable using it and all its features.