Welcome to our Blog

Dear Examiner,

Welcome to Enigma's Film Blog, created by Nicole Moulder, Samantha Burton, Charlotte Evelyn and Gareth Austin.

To navigate yourself around the blog, please use the tabs of each page. These have been divided up into Research and Planning, Construction, Evaluation and Final Film. These pages contain all the posts that are relevant to the tabs. There are also labels on the bottom right hand corner of the pages, to show the blogs that have been created individually and also in groups. To view these just click on one of our names and all our blog posts should appear.

From the Research and Planning tab, you will find all blog posts that we have created on the research that we have found out about horror films, the camera rules and everything that we have planned and organised for our film opening 'The Hunted'.

In the Construction tab, you will find our drafts and our first cuts for our film opening and everything we have done on our credits.

In the evaluation tab, you will find our seven evaluation questions all answered in a creative and different ways. We have used pictures, links and even a website called 'Prezi' to make our evaluation question more interactive.

Finally, in the Final Film tab, you will find our final cut for film opening and also our final storyboard for it as well.

We would also like to Thank You Examiner :)

From

Enigma

(p.s - don't forget to feed the fish)

Final Copy

Here is the final cut of our film opening:

Evaluation Questions

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

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

We feel that our media film opening product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. We have done this in a variety of different ways. I have explained below how we have done this.

In order for us to create a horror film, we had to include the most common horror film conventions. We successfully did this by using a weapon. The first way our film uses a convention from a real media product, is a weapon. A weapon is commonly used in films for the villain to kill his/her victim. We used a knife in our opening, this can first be seen in the very first scene, when the villain is choosing which knife to take from the draw. We used this form of convention, because the villain in our opening, is shown to have an obsession with women, as he is seen stalking his victim and killing her, so the weapon used is a common household item that everyone can easily get hold of.  We also used this convention because we wanted the audience to feel threatened, as they can see what a common household item can do, when placed in the wrong hands. Weapons can be seen in many horror films, such as The Shining, which used an axe and Friday the 13th which used a sword. 

Another very stereotypical form and convention, we used in our film opening was an alley.  We used an alleyway because it was an isolated area which creates a build up of tension for the audience, as the they do not know what will happen at any time. Even though the alleyway can be seen coming from a main road a  well populated area, we can only see the main two characters throughout the opening.We did this to make the alley more tense and bring a the audience a sense of fear, as there is only two people being shown, so no one is around to help if anything happens. The alley is also shown to be very long and curvy with large trees and bushes running along both sides, this helps to make the location feel eerie and a sense of tension, as it also shows how alone they are down the alleyway. 

  

Another way we have successfully used forms and conventions of real media products, is through non-diegetic sound (music). We used a piece of uncopyrighted music called "The House on the Hill", from a website Purple-Planet, which provides uncopyrighted music. We used this music from the start to the end, using sound effects during the opening to enhance some scenes. This music creates added tension and suspense to the film opening throughout, as the music speeds up and suddenly stops when they are walking up the alleyway. This is also creating a sense of fear for the audience as they know that something is going to happen. It is also important to create suspense and using eerie music, as it captures the audience's attention within the first few minutes of the film. One of the most famous pieces of music used in a horror film, to create tension and suspense is Jaws.

Another way we successfully used forms and conventions of real media products, is through using narrative theory, especially Vladimir Propp. According to Propp, each character has a narrative function that provides a structure for the text.   Propp also states that each film has a Villain, the teenage Boy in our opening and a Victim the teenage girl.
Propp also stated that there were 31 narrative functions that are commonly used in films, in our film opening we used some of them, however we haven't included some of them as they have been missed out.  

1.  Absentation - A member of a family leaves the security of the home environment. (The teenage girl leaves home to go out).
2. Violation of interdiction - The interdiction is violated (villain enters the tale). This generally proves to be a bad move and the villain enters the story, although not necessarily confronting the hero. Perhaps they are just a lurking presence or perhaps they attack the family whilst the hero is away. (The villain can be seen getting ready to go out and kill someone as we can see a knife and him pulling up his hood).
3. Reconnaissance - The villain (often in disguise) makes an active attempt at seeking information trying to actively capture someone. (Villain is on his phone outside her house).
4. Villainy or Lack - Villain causes harm/injury to family member. The villain causes some kind of harm, for example carrying away a victim. (Villain kills the teenage girl).

A way that we can see that we have used Vladimir Propp in our opening is by looking at previous horror trailers. So I looked at 'Cabin in the Woods'. Here we can see the seven different characters

One way we have challenged forms and conventions of real media products, is that our film opening is based during the day, instead of at night. Most horror film killings take place at night, this is because it brings it brings a more sense of fear to the audience and that it is also easier to create a more tense atmosphere. One reason why we filmed during the day, was because we didn't think that young teenage girl would walk down a dark alleyway at night on her own, as she would properly walk the long the way and miss out the alleyway or she would get a lift. This made our film opening more realistic to the audience and also more relate able to our target audience. Another reason why we filmed during the day, was because we knew that the quality of our film would be greater during the day as the lighting would be more suited to our camera, and the footage would not show up. 

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For our film opening, the social group that is represented are teenagers/young adults that may have had difficulties in their lives or troubled upbringings.  This could include troubled families, criminals and people that are mentally unstable.  We chose this social group as the character of the serial killer is very mysterious, and it may therefore suggest that he had a troubled upbringing, or is a criminal that is being searched for.

Although our actor is older than the female, he is around twenty years old, you can see from the two pictures, we represented the boy in a way that is similar to how criminals or older youths would normally dress.  For example, the clothes and the colours of the clothes that are worn, and also their presence and how they act in the environment that they are in.  Normally for this sort of social group, they would be cautious to not give away their identity and cautious of what is happening around them.
As well as this, we thought that another social group could be people that are lonely and need comfort, in which they result to violence to satisfy their needs.  However when thinking about it, we thought the most appropriate social group would be young offenders or those from a troubled background.
The dark clothing and bowed head implies the character has a dark and mysterious nature. The colour black also has negative connotations, as said before. It could foreshadow the death by murder and even could serve to show that he is effectively a shadow.

As for the actress, she can be represented by a lot of social groups in the role that she plays in our opening sequence.  For example, she is a sweet and innocent girl, that likes to socialise with her friends as we can see when she is leaving her house in the opening sequence to meet a friend.  Therefore, she represents sixth form students or school students as well as working/middle class young adults in their everyday lives.

 

The role of women in movies is mostly lesser roles, she is most often seen as a sex object or a victim. This coincides with her clothing as she is portrayed as a pretty girl that comes to a horrible death from a boy who is slightly older than her. The colour white (or extremely light colours) symbolises purity, innocence and the "good". Our actress portrays the girl in lighter clothing for specifically this reason.
We looked into films that we thought were similar to the social groups of our film opening, and thought that "Bully" was fairly similar.  Despite it having a different storyline, there was a lot of violence included for the type of horror/drama genre that it was.  This could coincide with the social group of criminals and/or mentally unstable teenagers/young adults.  The film includes similarities with our film opening, which are:

• Teenage actors (characters)
• Plot to murder
• Targeted at similar audience

Bully is an independent drama film distributed in 2001 in which it is based on a true story.  The film concerns the plot to murder a friend of several young adults in revenge for his continual abuse and psychological taunts and torture of others.  Here from the taunt and torture, we can immediately relate it back to the social group represented in our film opening, as it may represent harmful teenagers that have the possibility of being a criminal.

Evaluation Question 3

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

Inward investment in the film industry is where a group of companies (in the film/media industry) help to invest their money and maybe services to a film that is going to be made.

For example, The Lovely Bones is a fine example of the type of film we wanted to create, despite one major difference. It is directed by Peter Jackson and stars Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Susan Sarandon, obviously we wouldn't have enough money to pay such well-known actors, which could be seen as a good thing as the unknown actors we used, had no typecast. The Lovely Bones is a film about a girl who is raped and killed, but returns as a ghost in order to make sure the man that killed her gets his comeuppance. When watching the film, you soon seem to forget the star actors and immerse yourself in the sensations of the movie, be them good or bad. As we wanted to create this effect with our movie, which we feel we have done, we believe Film4 would help distribute and maybe help produce our film.


The media product that we produced was an opening sequence to a horror film targeted at young adults and teenagers.  After finishing our project, we then thought about how and who we could distribute our film to.  As it is has unknown actors and location, and it was a low budget film, we would be unable to ask huge film companies such as Warner Bros or 20th Century Fox.  Therefore, we were interested to ask companies such as Film4 as they would immediately be linked to producing on TV's which would expand the viewing of our film.

 

Film4:

Film4 is a television channel available in the UK, Republic of Ireland and Switzerland that is owned and operate by Channel Four Television Corporation that screens films.  As well as Film4, the company has two 'spin-off' channels of Film4 +1 and Film4 HD which would also help with the distribution.  We decided that we wanted Film4 to distribute our film as a number of horror films that have been distributed by this company have had low budget films and fairly unknown actors, yet have become the most successful films of all time.

 

For example, The Shining has similar conventions to our film, unknown actors and a small budget and was distributed by Film4 to encourage it becoming one of the greatest horror movies of all time. It is intimate and you almost forget the star actors are in the film, which is sort of the effect we wanted to create. A film where the story and characters seem more important than the actors, themselves. We therefore felt it was appropriate that this distributor would do justice to our film. 

 

More recently, Paranormal Activity 4 has been distributed by Film4 which shows that a similar film has been successful through the film company whilst having unknown actors, setting and a small budget to work with.  This encouraged us to choose Film4 as a distributor for our film.

 

 

 

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our film opening, we felt that the most appropriate audience would be teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15-25.  We have therefore decided to give our film a 15 certificate as it contains strong language, strong violence and scenes that some viewers may find distressing. We felt like it was too explicit to be a 12 or 12A, and also we would be limiting our intended audience if we made it an 18. As well as this, we think it would appeal to both genders, as there is a possibility to sympathise with the victims but also to find out the story behind the serial killer that is revealed in the opening sequence.

 

 

With this audience that we have chosen, they usually use watching films as a sense of escapism from their lives of being a student, university graduate or in full time employment.  From the opening sequence that we created, we feel that this audience would be encouraged to watch the entire film, and enjoy it.

 

With the characters, we chose the actors for several reasons whilst baring in mind the audience that we have chosen to aim our media product at. From the research that we did, we saw that a lot of the victims in horror films were females and that the attackers were males.  Below I have included some examples of females that have played the role of the victim in a horror film.

 

 

Therefore we decided to stick with the trend and produce the same actors so that we could ensure the same audience.  By sticking with the pattern, it would be hopeful that the same audience would be targeted and attracted due to the likely characters and also the situation that they are in.  Below I have talked about the characters we have used and why we have used them for our opening sequence in relation to our target audience.

 

Actress:

 

For the victim, we chose a female actress to play this role as females are very vulnerable in this situation.  As you can see, throughout the duration of our opening sequence, all the victims were females which shows a pattern of the serial killer.  We felt this would also be of interest to the target audience that we have chosen.  One of the feelings that we wanted to portray throughout the film was sympathy for the victims that have been killed, as well as trying to work out why the serial killer is the way he is.  

Actor:

 

We chose the serial killer to be a teenage boy, as it is unusual to have a female in this situation.  Also, a male would be much more cunning in the way they handle this situation, and we felt that a male would be much more efficient at this role than a female.  Due to this, we felt like the age group of our audience would be interested in the storyline of a male turning into a serial killer, as they would be interested to see how the story plans out and possibly the individual story behind the male as to why he may be like this.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by doing target research on what they liked to see in a horror film and then we thought how we could incorporate that into our film opening.  The feedback that we got from our target audience was very useful and it helped us a lot to decide what to put in our film opening.  We also had an idea from the research to see what films they liked and disliked so that we could use features from these films in our sequence to make it effective.  Furthermore, we also noted the films that were unsuccessful and what to avoid in order to make our film sequence believable.  Below are some examples of films that were mentioned in our research by the audience.

 

Production:
When starting production, we knew what we had to do to make our opening sequence effective and to entice the audience.  At first, our production was not going well and we knew we had to make changes otherwise our sequence would be unsuccessful.  In our first sessions of filming, we had a storyline that consisted of a couple in which the girlfriend ended the relationship.  Then, the boyfriend would become a villain and attack/kill the girl.  When filming, time was wasted of recording the girl putting on make-up to go out, and we got nowhere with filming terms.  We then realised it was not good enough, and that it would not attract our audience with this type of storyline or filming.  We realised that no conventions of horror were in our sequence, and that too much time and focus had been wasted on the girl.
We therefore came together as a group and changed the story and base of our film so it was more interesting and well-equipped to being the beginning of a horror movie.  We changed actors of which we felt would be better suited for the film and also reliable to be there whenever we needed to film.  At the end of filming, we feel that we included conventions of horror that were necessary in a film to attract the audience.

 

As well as the characters, we tried to incorporate different scenes into the opening sequence of which would normally be seen in a horror movie.  This would therefore attract the audience because they would be getting the same feeling as they would from another horror film.  In the scenes, we would include elements that would normally be in a horror movie and also how they are produced into the storyline.

 

 

 

In this example, I have shown what weapons are used from our opening sequence compared to films such as Friday the 13th, The Shining and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  By having this contrast, we can see the types of weapons used and if it is a successful film, it could be used as an element to attract the audience.

 

• Friday the 13th - Knife
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - Chainsaw
• The Shining - Knife (victim) and Axe (attacker)

Looking at different films, we thought that using and involving a knife in our opening sequence would be the most appropriate and therefore attract the audience.  Commonly, the knife is used as a weapon as they are easy to get hold of at any age, and therefore we applied this to our opening sequence.

 

I researched Final Destination as a comparison to our film opening as it is similar in the sense of the characters and the brutality of the attacks involved in both films.  Despite the storylines being very different, they are both horror movies in which the main characters are teenagers/young adults, which is therefore appropriate to attract our audience into watching our film.  As well as comparing the two film openings/trailors, this was a film that we received in our target audience research in films that they enjoyed watching or liked conventions out of.  Therefore we felt that we should take this research and include elements that both ourselves and the target audience enjoyed.

 

An example of a convention that we include was the use of blood, which was used in our opening sequence upon the victim, and which would also be used throughout the film with the other victims.

In the end, the elements that we included and effect we made worked well with our target audience as they enjoyed our film opening.  By doing the research of other films and incorporating elements and conventions into our film opening, we were able to attract our target audience we were aiming for, and therefore our product was enjoyed by our aimed audience.



Evaluation Question 6

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

 

http://prezi.com/ovnpcdfvh7xl/untitled-prezi/

 

Evaluation Question 7

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

We were given the task of creating a preliminary piece to show basic understanding of film. Within this sequence we were asked to include a few things; a continuity series, the 180 degree rule and a sequence of shot reverse shot. 

Looking back at our preliminary we could see the key areas of weakness that we knew we would get marked down for. 
One of the biggest weaknesses was continuity. When filming for our preliminary we had to re-film parts of it on different days, this caused problems with the continuity of the film as objects that were present in the background disappeared or re-appeared and things like the actors hairstyle would have changed or slight differences with clothing. To prevent this from happening when filming for our opening we would over film all clips extending the beginning and end so there is extra footage to work with when editing and to film the same clips but at more than one different angle. 



The preparation for the preliminary was very different and allot more simple than the preparation we had to go through for out film opening.
When it came to the opening task there were so many more things in which we had to consider. We had to plan the actors costume, make up, consider the target audience, the usage of props around the room and special effects.
We learnt to plan this all in our story board to make it clear exactly what had to be present in the shot, however as we filmed we were continuously making changes and minor improvements to the story line, adjusting small details that we would improve or had forgotten to include.

We learnt the importance of lighting when filming. When we filmed our preliminary all of it was filmed during the day and inside a building with lighting so no thought had to go into it. The majority of our opening was filmed outside and because our genre was horror we did not want it to be bright sunlight, we didn't consider the darkness of the light outside and ended up re-filming as it was ether too dark or clips couldn't be used together as the light present was different. We filmed on a windy day and had to make sure when editing cuts that the plants were not blowing so they could be linked. The main story line stayed the same but the details were changed drastically. 

iMovie was a great role in creating our opening. We had already used this program to create our preliminary. This allowed us to be familiar with the program and use it to its full advantages and effects to create exactly what we wanted and had planned to do so with the collected footage.

One of the major improvements since the preliminary was our continuity through out the film. Looking back at our prelim there were some huge continuity errors. For example ...

 

These two images were cut linking one shot to another. The continuity in them is very bad and obvious. The first cut finishes with the door being reached for but NOT actually opened...
In the next cut it has jumped forward and the door has  is already wide open for the girl to walk out.

When editing the final piece we knew just how accurate we had to be with the continuity and how the timing of the cut is so important! We looked extremely closely at this when editing our sequence as we knew that is was one of our major flaws beforehand.
Comparing these two door clips you can see the obvious improvement that we undertook.

Final Storyboard

Our Best Shots

This post is all about the screenshots of our best pieces of editing and filming. Starting at the start going through to the end.

 

 

 

 

 

The only time we see a weapon in the opening sequence, you don't see the figure which creates a sense of mystery.

 

In this close-up, we see the figure pulling up his hood, this is coupled with the credits that blur and then focus on the character which allows us to focus on the credit and then the figure pulling up his hood. It also gives a sense as if he is looking in a mirror when he does this.

 

 

In this long shot, we see the house of the girl as she's walking out. The hooded figure leans against a lamp-post, but she fails to notice him. The audience now can guess what he is about to do.

 

As the girl begins to walk down the path, the hooded figure begins to follow her. It is a long shot which extends to the end of the road, it is used for the purposes of beginning the chase.

 

This medium shot, along with the pulling up of the hood, is one of our ultimate best shots. The girl in our piece walks accross the screen as the titles begin to show when she reaches the end and when the hooded figure begins to walk accross the screen, they disappear.

 

The close-ups of the girls are used to set-up the rest of the movie, they are there to make the hooded look like a serial-killer, which he is. 

 

This dragging part is particularly good as she seems lifeless. The audience know she is dead, eventhough we didn't show her being killed. They know this beacuse they heard a scream and then saw him dragging her with a blood stain near to her chest and she drops to the floor and he runs away.

 

After he has run away, the camera zooms-in to her corpse.

 

He then pins up her picture and the camera zooms-in to it, showing that she has been "hunted, leaving the audience wondering "what will happen next?" which is obviously our desired intention.

 

Evaluation of New Credits in Film Opening

Due to some of the feedback from the viewing of our opening, we noticed that our credits got most of the negative points from our film, because of this we have now changed and put more credits in to make it look like a more professional film opening. Below I have added the new credits that I have inserted into our credits, I have also analysed them to show why we chose them and what we have changed from the original credits. 

Originally we had Enigma and Flash Productions Presents all on three different shots. The text was in a white bold writing in Helvectia Neue in size 24. It was also in the middle of our film opening, after the names of the people starring in our opening and just before the title. From the research I could see that these production companies and distribution companies are the first credits shown at the beginning of a film. I also changed the credits by merging them into one credit instead of having three different ones.

In our original credits we didn't have a production name, this is a commonly used credit in film openings. So because of this we included it in our film opening. We choose the name Toby Lerone, because we wanted a name that was very original and people would remember. The credit appears suddenly into the shot and then disappear again once the frame is over. We used a pull focus, this brings the attention of the audience to the credit, however we can still the boy pull over his hood in the background. 

This is another new credit that we didn't have in the original credits. I also found in the research that most films have the name of the person who the film is by to tell the audience and to keep them interacted. This is because they also have someone to read as well as watching the opening. I choose to put this credit in this shot, because there was space, as the girl was mainly focused on the right hand side of the screen. 

We kept the girls name in our credits, however we moved it to being the fourth credit shown in the opening instead of the first. This is because most films have their starring actors names after who the film is by and the production companies. I thought that this was a good place to put this credit, as this shot showed the girl coming out of the house, because of this there was space on the bottom right hand corner for the name, so it wasn't covering up any important details in the opening. 

We also kept the boys name in the credits, however we changed it so it wasn't over his face. I thought that this was a good place to put to the credit, because we moved it to when photos of his future and past victims appeared. This is the fifth credit that appears in the opening, after the girls name. It also appears in the gap between the photos, so it's covering up the gap and not hiding any important details.




For our opening to look like a professional film opening, we added more actors names into the film. We also did this because, in this shot it was quite lengthy and not very much happening in it, so I decided to put two actors names in it, to make it more interesting for the audience to watch. I put the credits on the bottom right hand corner, as this was  the place on the shot that had the less amount of information shown. 

This was the most difficult credit to do, as it was the main title of our film opening. We put it over the shot of the girl walking past the wall, as we felt this was the best place to put it as it was just a long shot. We used a pull focus for the main title, so this brings the attention of the audience to the title, however you can still see the girl walking past behind the title. It also fades in wen she just comes in shot and fades out when she is about to walk out of the shot.

From watching example film openings, I could see that they 
included other actors and actresses names that were also in 
the film. However as ours is only an opening not a full film, 
I made up names to include in our credits. This was to make 
the opening looking more professional and also to fill up
space in the shots. In the first credit shown on the right,
we added the name Scarlet Jones, this is shown as a single                                     credit, however the second credit on the right is shown with two names. This is because many films show more than one actors 
name in the same shot. 

We also added the credit Director of Photography into our credits, as we didn't have this credit in the original one. We choose director of photography because it is commonly used in film openings and also because it is an important credit to have. We choose to have it over this shot as there is space on the left hand corner of the shot, as it's not covering up anyones face or important details in the shot.

In our film opening, we also added Music by. This is because it is commonly used in film openings and we have music in our opening, so we thought that it would appropriate for us to use Music By. We choose to put it in this shot, as it was a long shot with not much happening in it. It was also best place to put it, as there was a lot of space to put as the shot is a medium to long shot. 

                                                        

When watching example film openings, we noticed as a group, that the credit Casting By, appeared in almost all of them, because of this we decided to put it in our film opening, to make it look more professional. We choose to put it in this shot, as there was enough room in the bottom right hand corner of the shot to do so. 

                                                         

In our original credits, we had all our names under the credit directed and edited by with our names each on a different shot afterwards. However as we changed our credits, we just put one of our names, under Edited by. This was because we put the other three names in different credits, and also to make it look more professional and more like a film opening. We also moved the directors credit to the end. 

                                                            

The last credit we added into our film opening, that we didn't have in our original one is, Written By. We added this as we thought this was an important credit to have in our opening, as its one of the main credits in a film opening. As we had already used our own names in the film opening, we created a name which we could include. Its's in this shot because it's the last shot, in our film opening before the end, where we were able to fit in a credit. We also choose this because it's not covering up anything, that needs to be seen. 

This is the very last credit in our film opening, it is also the last shot as well. From looking at examples of film openings, we found that the directors name goes at the end. We wanted people to notice the directors name, so we put the credit on a black screen, that would make the credit stand out. We faded out the credit, one it was finished to make it look like it was going onto the next scene. We also choose to put his credit last, as the director has big influence on the type of audience that watch the films, so we wanted to draw people in, with this credit. 


We have used the same font throughout our film opening, Helvectia Neue. This was because we wanted to make the film opening more professional and presentable. We also have the names of the production/distribution companies and names of the actors or crew in red, to make it stand out from the background. The job description is in white but in a smaller size than the names, because we wanted to make it stand out also, but differently to the names. Overall we have used 15 credits in our film opening.