Final Post

We have now come to the end of a long but very enjoyable process, (I can't believe it's actually over!). Overall, the sequence looks almost exactly how I pictured it when we first began, although the issues with dialogue have let us down, and I've learnt so much during the process. Even though the project has been hard work I've really enjoyed it.
I've loved working in a group with Alice and Aarti - thank you both for being so great to work with. Also thank you to all the media staff and other media students.

This blog is now closed.

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

Preliminary Brief:
‘A continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule’

Responses:
- Had a clear picture of what was expected from us
- Had to ensure that specific criteria were in the sequence
- We knew that it didn’t have to be perfect and weren’t too worried about the result, we were more concerned with including the criteria
- Didn’t have to worry about plot
- Spent a lot less time planning

Final brief:
‘A two minute opening sequence for a fiction film, including titles and a soundtrack’

Responses:
- Had to decide on a plot
- Weren’t told exactly what to include, so had to decide that ourselves
- Aiming for perfection
- Needed to spend a lot of production

Pre-Production:

Preliminary Exercise:
- No chance for research
- Quick location recce – the location had to be within the school grounds so we didn’t have much of a choice.
- We wrote a quick script
- We came up with a quick, rough storyboard
- A quick shooting script
We learnt how useful preproduction is, including the paperwork as it comes in very useful during shooting.

Final Sequence:
- Carried out research
- Spent a lot longer on planning
- Well thought out scripts
- Well thought out shooting scripts
- Well thought out storyboards - we changed these over and over again until we got it right

Production:

Preliminary Task:
- No test shoot – although we had a quick walk through and no reshoot
- Time limit of one hour to film – this meant we had to ensure we focused on a small number of shots
- Both these factors meant we had to ensure that we got every shot right, which inevitably did not happen, and we couldn’t experiment with shots.

From the preliminary task we learnt:
- The test shoot and opportunity for reshoot are very important - in case there are any mistakes with the shots that are hard to notice while filming
- You need to ensure that you take many more angles of shots than you think you need - they will more than likely come in useful
- You need to make sure that the shot goes on for longer than you want it to so you have plenty of overlap
- We also learnt that there is a specific process to follow when shooting (Camera ready?... Sound ready? ...)
- We learnt about the roles that people should play (director/camera operator, P.A, sound)
- We learnt that teamwork is essential when putting together a sequence although occasionally someone needs to take charge so that decisions get made

Final Sequence:
- The chance to test shoot and reshoot
- Had to think about sound, especially if filming dialogue or outside
- Had a lot more choice of location and had to find the perfect location for the sequence
- Had to think about the atmosphere and the lighting of the shots

Post Production:

Preliminary task:
- Had to ensure we edited together a real time, continuous sequence that made sense
- Had to ensure that we included a match on action, a shot reverse shot and made sure we followed the 180 and 30 degree rules
- We only had one hour to edit the sequence together - so had to ensure we kept it simple.
- Acted as a reminder of how to use the timeline and diagonal editing as well as the razor tool
Final sequence:
- Had a lot more time to edit
- Were able to learn how to do more things on Premiere Pro
- Were able to use many more techniques, e.g. capturing, unlinking etc.
- Could add effects onto the sequence e.g. changing the speed/duration
- Could also add non diegetic sound
- Could experiment with the order of our shots etc. as we had more time

Feedback:

Preliminary Task:
- Only from media students – meant we were evaluating it as a learning experience rather than an actual sequence
- Focused on whether it was well made from a media studies perspective
- Looking back at the preliminary task meant that we learnt what we had to bear in mind when completing our real sequence

Final sequence:
- Had more than one opportunity to get feedback from media teachers and students – this ensured that the sequence was as good as it could be
- Had the opportunity to get feedback from our target audience
- Meant that we got feedback from a media studies perspective and from the perspective of a viewer

Overall I've learnt:
- The importance of planning
- A lot more about the shooting process
- A lot about editing and using hardware

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

During the course of the project I have learnt to use a lot of new technology as well as having a chance to get more experience with technologies that I had used in the past.

Shooting:

- I’ve been reminded of how to set up and use a Sony Mini DV camera and tripod. Using the tripod to keep the camera straight and secure, and to help with a track if a dolly can’t be used.
- I’ve also learnt how to connect a tripod to a dolly and how use a dolly although I didn’t have the opportunity to do so as the dolly was to wide to fit in the hallway of the house we were shooting in.
- I’ve learnt how to use a Pag light and how to use a Pag light and other available light sources, including lamps, to create three way lighting.
- I now know about recording sound during filming using an external mic. I’ve learnt how to concentrate on sound using headphones to make sure there is no unwanted background sound, which was a problem with many of our outdoor shots.
- I have improved on camera movement, for example pans.
- I now know the specific process of shooting (Camera ready…Sound ready…etc)

Editing:
- We used PC based editing
- I improved my knowledge of how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to do non-linear editing. This included:
Capturing shots – in small manageable sections
Using the razor tool to cut clips
Using key frames – for both visuals and sound
Unlinking sound and video
Visual effects, such as cross dissolves – which we used at the beginning of the sequence
Adding non-diegetic sound – our background music ‘Abandoned’
Titles
Changing the speed/duration of clips – ‘Slow motion’ on the final shot to emphasise her picking up the knife
I also learnt how to synch the sound to the visuals as we had to rerecord all of the sound due to it being ruined by the rain outside.
- We used Windows Media Player to listen to sound, including sound effects and our soundtrack before importing them into our project.

I have also learnt how to use Blogger to create a blog, link other websites, upload images etc

How did you attract/address your audience?

Sticking to most of the conventions of the genre, but adding some twists:
- All the aspects of the films that they enjoy would be in the film
- They will enjoy the twists

Having a female as the main character rather than a male:
- This attracts both male and female audiences to the film and encourages more females to watch the film

Actors that they can relate to:
- Same age
- May remind the audience of people they know, either with their characteristics or the way they look.

Themes:

- Love
- Revenge
- Passion
- Feeling trapped
- Murder

Location:
- A ‘normal’ house
- Typical location for a thriller/horror

Fears:
- Being trapped
- Being hurt by someone you love
- Being killed
- Danger in a familiar place

Enigma:
- Throughout the opening sequence you don’t know what’s going to happen next
- Don’t see the female characters face until the end.
- Highlighted by the music as it changes pace and volume - this keeps the viewer on edge
- The title - enigmatic as the audience won’t know exactly what it means

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Primary:
- Young adults aged 15-30 both genders
- Thriller/horror is typically watched by male audiences however the female main character would attract more female viewers.
- In fact, from our audience feedback we found that female viewers prefer our film:
This could be because of:
- The romantic theme of the film
or
-The strong female protagonist as she is someone for the audience to admire. This is because we are showing an independent woman who is strong willed and who fights for herself, which would attract female audiences.

This could also target the male audience because:
- They may admire and respect the female character because of her character traits.
- However, it is also possible that they would not want to see a film where the male character is the victim and would like the female character to be the ‘damsel in distress’

Secondary:
Fans of thriller/horror of any age - as our opening follows many of the conventions of the hybrid
We would also target people of different ethnicities, particularly Mediterranean people as the film represents their culture

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

What sort of distributor?
- An independent distributor, for example ‘Dogwoof’. The company ‘want[s] to offer [their] experience and services to new and emerging filmmakers’.
- Another distributor who would possibly be interested in our film would be ‘Verve Pictures’, (they work with international films as well as British).


'Verve' has been involved in films such as ‘When Will I Be Loved’ (James Tobak, 2004), a film similar to ours. The female protagonist takes out her revenge on two men who have taken her for granted and who assume that they are superior to her. Too late, they discover that they are in over their heads. This film is similar to ours, in that the female protagonist is a strong woman who is acting out revenge.Our female character and 'Vera' (Neve Campbell) from ‘When Will I Be Loved’

What would the distributor do?
- Help market our film and help the film gain popularity before it even comes into a cinema
- This could be done on social networking sites, for example ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’. This would mean that if our film gets picked up by a cinema then there will be people who want to go and see it.
- They would also help get our film into a cinema.

Where would the film be shown?
- It would be shown in an independent cinema for example, The Barbican, London.
- This is because the film is low budget and doesn’t look particularly ‘Hollywood’.
- It would not get a longer run than one night as it is unlikely to get a lot of people wanting to go and see it.
- Also, there would be some independent cinemas that it would not be shown in, as some only show niche films or films with cult status.

It could also be shown at a student film festival, for example Exposures, a festival for students under nineteen to show their short films and moving image projects, in Manchester.

As our sequence represents different perspectives on people’s lives in Britain it is possible it would only be shown in Britain. However, if it was made with a bigger budget it could be shown globally, especially in America as in America there is a love of all things British, and as shown at the moment a love of British actors (Kate Winslet winning two Golden Globes)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We have represented:

- Females
- Males
- Different cultures/lives in Britain

How?:

Females:
We have used a strong woman to represent women and femininity. We have shown her in her ritual of getting ready, representing her as a ‘princess’ although it turns out she is the ‘false princess’. This is also used in ‘Legally Blonde’ (Robert Luketic, 2001), although used in a very different way. In ‘Legally Blonde’ the sequence is a lot more upbeat and faced paced, whereas in ours the music and slow pace causes the sequence to be a lot more eerie.
Her getting ready is used to show that while a woman can be feminine and elegant she can also be strong willed. The way she dresses connotes that she is feminine as she is wearing a dress and quite heavy eye make up and red lipstick. We have used the female character as the villain to challenge stereotypes and to show that women can be dominant, and are not always the victim. We chose to represent women in this way, and with this character, as she represents the everyday modern woman.

Males:
The male character in our film is the victim. The tone of his voice when he is talking to the female character makes him seem innocent as he speaks softly whereas she speaks harshly to him. In the shot where he is standing at the front door waiting for her to answer he also looks like the victim. This is because he is very close to the audience and it causes the audience to feel that he is trapped with them.


Different cultures:
We have also represented different cultures in the film, to represent the multicultural society in Britain today. We have represented Mediterranean culture in this film with a Mediterranean actress playing the female character. We have gone against the stereotypes of Mediterranean men and women in our sequence as the men are usually strong willed and are seen as brave, and never the victim, while the women are expected to be very feminine and in many cases to stay at home. However, most Mediterranean women are also seen as passionate which we show with our character. We will have more reflections of the culture throughout the film, possibly with her culture having caused her to turn into a villain.


Our production company ‘Perspective’ represents the perspectives of people in different cultures and with different lives in Britain.

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

Follows many of the conventions of the thriller/horror hybrid genre:

- You do not see the female character’s face until the end - gives an element of the unknown.
- There is eerie music, ‘Abandoned’ (Robert Davidson), throughout - which creates a feeling of unease for the audience although they don’t know exactly what they feel uneasy about
- Enigma – all through the sequence the viewer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next
- The dual narrative helps build suspense - especially because of the binary opposites of dark inside and light outside
- This gives the audience a hint that the female character is the villain and that the male character will be trapped if he goes into the house - a key narrative pattern in thriller/horror
- The sequence is very slow paced which also helps create suspense and make the viewer feel anxious
- Our location, which is a terraced house and street in Enfield, North London, is also conventional - the viewer is even more frightened with what happens in the film as it makes them feel it could happen to them, as we are playing on the fear that everyday situations can turn dangerous.
- For example, this is seen in ‘One Missed Call’ (Eric Valette, 2008) when the ordinary situation of a mobile phone ringing is turned into something to be feared.

Iconography:
- The colour red and candles being present in many areas of the house - give a hint of danger and of passion.

Themes in our sequence also follow the conventions of thriller/horror:

- Love/Passion – both shown with the candlelight, and red used throughout the house, and the fact that they’re a couple. However the candlelight also makes the inside of the house look eerie and the red signifies danger.
- Revenge - shown as they are a couple and when the audience find out that she is going to hurt the male character, they assume that it is for revenge. In the rest of the film they find out that this is the case.
- Feeling trapped – shown when he is waiting at the front door for her, and with the binary opposites
- Murder

There is pathetic fallacy as the closer the male character gets to the house the more it starts to rain. This again suggests that the house is unsafe.

The female character telling the male character that he’s ‘two minutes late’, suggests that she is mentally disturbed in some way. It also shows that she is controlling and gives a hint of what’s to come.

Challenging the conventions:

- Female character as the villain - women and girls are usually the ‘damsel in distress’ character while the male characters are the villains, for example, in ‘Halloween’ (John Carpenter, 1978).
- She is the dominant one in the relationship, as seen in their phone call, whereas the male character is a lot more laid back, and seems a lot more innocent than the female character.
- Our female character is similar to Glenn Close’s character in ‘Fatal Attraction’ (Adrian Lyne, 1987), a big influence on our character; although she is nice one moment she can very easily turn nasty
- Although we have challenged the conventions by having a female as the villain, this is becoming more common in realistic horror movies such as Angela Bettis in ‘May’ (Lucky McKee, 2002) and Mila Kunis in American Psycho II (Morgan J. Freeman, 2002), which suggests that the genre is developing in this way.

We have followed the conventions of an opening sequence:

- Have introduced the characters
- Have used titles to provide information about the cast and crew of the film, as well as the title of the film.
- The titles are slow paced - adds to the suspense of the film
- The font is curly enough to be romantic and sturdy enough to give a hint of danger. - The titles are small but easy to read which means they are not intrusive and do not distract from the film.

Love You To Death

Film Title: Love You To Death

Production Company: Prespective Productions
Created By: Mel Kannur, Alice King & Aarti Diwan

Summary of the whole film:
The female character kills the male character but he is only one of many victims throughout the fillm. She then begins to date the head detective in the case and slowly starts to fall for him. The climax of the film is when he eventually realises that she is the killer he's been looking for. Although she has been planning all along that when he finds out she will kill him, when the moment actually comes will she be able to do it?
The film will be interspersed with flashbacks to her childhood which will explain why she is killing all these men. Her older brother drowned in the sea while in holiday with his friend when she was very young and she has never gotten over it. She kills men who look like her brother's friend, as she blames him for her brothers death.

Summary of the opening sequence:
It begins with the female character leaving the shower and walking into her bedroom. We then cut to the male character walking through the park. The cross cutting continues throughout the opening, while the female character gets ready, the male character is walking down the street. The female character calls the male character and there is a short bit of dialogue between them. This reveals that they are in a relationship and the male character is on his way to the female character's house for dinner. The female goes downstairs, into the kitchen and lights the candle on the table. The male character arrives at the house. The doorbell rings and the female character picks up a butchers knife...

Cast and Crew:

Female Character: Laura Christophis
Male Character: Barney Carter Phillips


Camera, Sound, Director, PA and Editing:
Mel Kannur, Aarti Diwan and Alice King

Filmed on Location:
- Bush Hill Park, Enfield, North London
- Terraced North London House, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, North London

Edited:
- The Latymer School, Edmonton, North London

Audience Feedback

Today we had our audience screening, and a lot more people than we expected turned up which was really useful. This was most likely due to the group on facebook advertising our screening, and the notice given to year eleven media students about the screening. Using our questionnaires we were able to find out what worked and what didn't work in our sequence.

We found that:
15 Year Olds
- Didn't like the dialogue
- Liked the set

16 Year Olds
- Didn't like the dialogue
- Liked the music

17 Year Olds
- Didn't like the dialogue
- Liked the music and characters

Males:
- Said they would watch the rest of the film
- Most wanted dialogue to be improved
- Gave it 7-8/10

Females:
- Most said they would watch it again, except two saying they didn't watch the genre, and one saying she felt it would be too predictable
- Gave it 9/10 (with a few 8's)

Overall:
We can see that the music was the most enjoyed aspect of our sequence, whereas the dialogue was the least liked. This suggests that if we were to go back and change the opening sequence this would be something to change. We had always planned for the film to target both genders and although both genders did enjoy it, we can see from our questionnaires that it was preferred by the female viewers.

Planning For Our Screening

I've now typed up the questionnaire in preperation for our audience screening and the questions are on the group blog. Alice has been telling people from our target audience about our screening and so we should have a good number of people coming to see our opening, which will be really useful to see if we have targeted the T.A. successfully as we'll get lots of feedback. Hopefully, as well as doing a questionnaire, some people will be willing to talk to us in more depth about the sequence.

End of Editing

Yesterday, we finished editing our sequence and I'm really happy with the results, however we did have to change Laura's dialogue and our production name.
The production name has changed from 'Kadam' to 'Perspective', as 'Kadam' was boring and was not reflective of what our company is about.
Our company, 'Perspective' would make films to reflect different lives and cultures, for example, different ethnicities, people with mental illness, homeless people etc, and the name 'Perspective' reflects this. The company also reflects us as a group, as as a group we are all different ethnicities and have different interests, which would all be reflected in the films our company would make.

Audience Feedback
We've had a lot of feedback during the project from other media students and teachers, but we need to get feedback from our target audience., mainly people who are not media students. This will be extremely useful in knowing whether we have actually attracted our target audience. We plan to do this by doing a film screening which will take place on Wednesday 21st. We will ask the T.A to fill out questionnaires and will also ask a few to stay behind so that we can have a more in depth discussion with them about the sequence. We drafted the questions at lunch and I will type them up and post them on group blog. We hope to create a group on facebook to advertise the screening, and Alice will also tell people about the screening in the common room. We will each also hold a screening at home with close friends/family. Doing this will ensure that we get the best possible feedback from our T.A. (young adults interested in thrillers). On the day, I will be in charge of the technical side of things, which is basically ensuring everything is ready and pressing 'play', Alice will brief everyone before we play the sequence and Aarti will welcome everyone and ensure they know where they're going.

Editing This Week

This week was our first week back from the holidays and we've got so much done.
As shown on our group blog we've had lots of feedback and have used it to ensure our sequence is the best it can be. I was lucky to have loads of free periods on Thursday, which meant I had around 6 hours to work on the sequence, including the 2+ hours that Aarti and Alice were also editing with me. We got as much feedback we could from both the teachers and other students. We worked on the feedback we received and tried to make our sequence look as good as possible, including trying to sort out lighting issues we had.
On Friday we worked on tighting up the sequence and also got more feedback. This meant we were working on the feedback we received until our screening, when we received even more feedback. This was really useful as seeing our sequence on a big screen made us notice things we hadn't in the editing suite. It also meant that we got lots of feedback from people who hadn't seen the sequence before. As we've seen the sequence so many times, its hard to notice small issues that we've gotten used to so it's been really helpful to get lots of feedback from teachers and other students.