conclusion

from evaluating our preliminary task and full opening sequence it is clear that me and my production team have learnt a lot during the production of our opening sequence, we all enjoyed it very much and i am looking forward to being part of many productions to come. I have enjoyed planning, shooting, editing and displaying our opening sequence and thank the other members in my production team for all helping each other along the way.

Evaluation question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Preliminary Task:




Full opening sequence:




from the progression from preliminary task to fully edited opening sequence I and my team learnt many things, here are some of the things I myself learnt along the way.

Preparation is important. we had to think about how the props would look on camera, how our characters makeup would look on camera, how our location would look on camera etc... this meant that before we began filming for our opening sequence we had to look at our preliminary task and see where we went wrong. we did not think preparation for shooting was important in doing the preliminary task, this was due to much less of a scenario and mood needing to be created, however with our full opening sequence due to the extreme mise-en-scene used like makeup and props we needed to spend much more time creating them and designing them than we did in the preliminary task, thus we did all of the posted planning and inputting.

I learnt that utilising a sound track on the displayed video created an immersible effect compared to a clip without a soundtrack(preliminary task). By  including a soundtrack on our final opening sequence we created a larger effect of the specific genre, we created an atmosphere, which by looking at the preliminary task and seeing how bland and boring it looks compared to our opening sequence shows how important a good, appropriate and well throughout soundtrack is necessary for creating the perfect atmosphere on the video, providing its the right soundtrack of course.

Furthermore, I learnt that having Voice within a clip isn't 100% necessary, providing a good soundtrack is used which is explained in the above paragraph. in our preliminary task we had plenty of voice from our characters but no soundtrack, and in our opening sequence we had the complete opposite, which i feel works much better as a better and more appropriate atmosphere is present and is more effective within our genre of sequence than plain voice would be.

Within our preliminary task we had to use match on action to get some good experience with planning the clips out in an organised manner for professionalism and quality, however we only used simple shots that were easy to take to form the match on action sequences for continuity. On the other hand, within our edited full opening sequence we learnt that POV shots can be used for match on action continuity editing, not only can they be used, but they look remarkably realistic and give the sequence an authentic and realistic look. Our preliminary task showed us that match on action is IMPORTANT within a film sequence but it didn't show us which clips look appropriate and cool in regards to our given scenario and genre of horror, which took a bit of guess work but we feel was worth it in the final product.

Not every action shot needs emphasis placed upon it, which we experimented with in our preliminary task. An example of us putting emphasis on an action movement in our preliminary task is when the characters exchange memory sticks, in this close up shot here:

we did not feel the need to emphasis any action movements in our opening sequence as will still wanted to leave the audience with a small amount of ambiguity left within their brains, to keep them guessing and wanting to see more.

Transitions are important in creating the correct atmosphere and mood for the audience. Within our preliminary task the transitions were simple straight cuts from clip to clip, as no horror mood or atmosphere was needed and a more basic everyday life scenario was in place and so needed no emphasis on transitions, however when moving to our opening sequence we new that straight cuts weren't going to cut it in regards to creating the appropriate atmosphere and suspense that our genre required of it, so we used fade in and fade out transitions for some clips like the opening and end titles, and fade across transitions between the middle credits, actual moving clips and clips of props, to create suspense and the atmosphere of things drifting in and out of each other, which is symbolic of how the antagonist is acting/feeling in our clip, shes drifted out of sanity and our transitions needed to symbolize this. 

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

In our group, i had the role of editing and the majority of the technical roles as i have a lot of experience with using video editing software, cameras, effects software etc... however i did still learn certain things within our production of the opening sequence task, which have built upon my already present knowledge of technology.

Editing software: Sony Vegas

I have been personally using Sony vegas to edit my own personal videos for the last 2 years, of which i have learnt the basics and some of the advanced features of the software to a point of which i could say i would happily become the groups editor to do the job. Even though i was already confident in my knowledge of vegas, i still managed to learn a few more features, these would include:

 - using the "take snapshot" button within vegas to take remarkably still images of the moving image from a video, to therefore create the effect of motion standing still, or to pro long a shot so the audience has time to look at it properly. This new understanding and knowledge of the feature within vegas i already knew, however i didn't know which settings were best for using it until i played around with it enough to get its best results, which are chosen on the preview settings as - "best" & "full", a screen shot of the still snapshot tool in action pasted below, which was used to ensure a credit was to be full read by the audience before progression onto the next clip occurred:

Effects software: Adobe After effects

I have never used After effects before, and so it was a real challenge for me to create a professional looking company logo introduction for our opening sequence, however after some help from a friend of mine with a vast knowledge of after effects i was able to use its basic functions of over laying layers, grouping layers together, creating a glass smashing effect on not 1 but 2 layers to smash both glass and our company  name, i also learnt how to apply a spotlight effect to get the desired lighting on the glass to give a misted glass effect so the audience aren't able to see our 6 fingered hand logo until it appears to come forward and smash the glass, an effect created by simply enlarging the image of the hand in 2 stages. this is my finished company introduction rendered/exported from after effects:

Not only did i use a friend of mine for learning the after effects tricks, i also watched some YouTube tutorial videos like the one below to really learn how to apply the desired effects in the best way possible.

Camera: Sony HDR - CX250 HANDYCAM

even though i was the editor in our group, i also did some filming with the cameras that our college own, the cameras we used were the Sony HDR - CX250 HANDYCAM's, which i used the following features of:

- taking still images: example shot i took for the location recee

- image stabilization: example i shot for the CCTV scene of our antagonist

video mode: used all the way through the clip: example is our finished product where any moving motion is displayed outside of the company logo animation.




Video Web Hoster: YouTube

Although i already upload videos to YouTube frequently i did not know how to share videos by embedding them, this feature i had to learn quickly in order to publish our desired videos to my blog, these would include my preliminary task, sequence drafts, our final product and my 4th evaluation question. here is where the embed option is on the YouTube video page:

and here is what the embedded video looks like once pasted into the HTML format code within the blogs new post creator:

and heres how an embedded video looks once fully posted to my blog:

as you can see before the production of our opening sequence i already had a good level of knowledge of the software and hardware i was going to use, but throughout our production i have still learnt certain features and methods of inputting, processing and outputs from each of the software programmes and hardware peripherals.

Evaluation questions 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We accommodated for our target audience in many different ways, using different mise-en-scene, camera shots, sound and editing techniques to attract them and give them a glimpse of whats to come to interest them more in our product.

One thing we did to attract our target audience into watching our product was using appropriately aged characters in our opening sequence, for example our antagonist(Lauren) is 17 years of age, which falls within the age range of the target audience, meaning they may be more interested in watching the story of someone in a similar stage of life as them, this allows them to form a more personal link to the product and its antagonist, this is all established near the very start of the sequence with this medium close up shot of her:

Furthermore, another audience appropriate feature we included was the use of fast paced jump cuts in our editing, this style of editing is good for creating a fast paced, suspense building horror mood which is extremely appropriate for young people aged between 15 - 25 as fast paced action is more easily absorbed and understood by young people as they can process it faster, surveys and our audience research show that the older generations prefer clips that are more easily watched as concentration isn't as important.

here are the 2 stages of a jump cut in our opening sequence:

Another feature we used was a stereo typically conventional features of horror films that is extremely suitable to our age range of audience and that would be the shot of white pills dropping onto a desk, which symbolizes to our audience our antagonist has taken drugs. This is appropriate to our audience for attracting them as stereo typically throughout the media young people aged 15 - 25 are represented as being major drug abusers, so our sequence therefore follows these conventions making it attract our audience in full appropriateness for them, here below is a screen shot of the pills:

Furthermore, our audience research concluded that young people aged between 15 - 25 year old enjoyed horror films that are unique, films that have something different about them and so we aimed to have at least one part of our film/product that looked different to the rest, we did this by utilising a POV (point of view shot) within our sequence from the eyes of our antagonist. Not many horror movies feature a POV shot within their opening sequence, however the do feature them within the film later on, so our product is unique in that we have used a conventional features of horror films in a binary opposite timing position part of the film, as to be different and unique to the audience. Here is the screenshot of one of our POV shots:

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

This video outlines who our target audience is and what we have done to accommodate them.



As stated in the above video i created, our target audience would be people aged 15 - 25, this age range we produced from our audience research, which we conclusions that teenagers and people in their early 20's really enjoy horror films, we also found this information through some online surveys that have been done on a nationwide basis.

Because 15 - 25 year olds like horror films, they are our target audience because we have a horror based product, the video outlines who our target audience is and what we have done to accommodate them.

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

There are 3 stages of development in regards to media products being successful  these are production, distribution and exhibition.

Production: The production of a film is the stage where the funds to create the film are raised and the films physical shooting creation begins. The production team will begin to shoot and collect footage for the films editing stage.

Distribution: The final product will be sent to the distribution level so that a distributor can market the films to the various audiences and be sold to exhibitors to be displayed. The distributor will essentially market and sell the film for profits.

Exhibition: Once the film has been distributed to all areas of the media it will be shown to the public via the exhibitor i.e a cinema. This is the stage where the final product is released to its audience for consumption.

The production stage for our opening sequence was carried out by our group, company name - Chair Edge Studios. I feel it would be appropriate for MOMENTUM PICTURES to distribute our Horror movie. The reasoning behind this choice is that MOMENTUM PICTURES are a UK subsidiary for a much larger Canadian company - Alliance films, who are a major Distribution company in that part of the world. This means Distribution links can be made on a worldwide basis allowing the film to reach a much wider audience. I feel a UK distributor would be a more favorable option due to the fact we are a British production team making it a British film we would produce, and traditionally British films are Distributed by British distributors. Here are some of the British distributor - MOMENTUM PICTURES' releases:

 Dark Skies - Genre: Horror

 Welcome to the punch - Genre: Action

Safe Haven - Genre: Drama




















MOMENTUM PICTURES distribute many different genres of film which is a positive if they were to distribute our product, because the audience will know MOMENTUM PICTURES from various different genres, meaning more people will likely have heard of them.

Another distributor, for a more horizontal integration approach would have to be - SCREAM, the number one rated horror magazine distributor in the UK. They would be perfect for distributing our product through their magazines for promotional advertisements, contacts and variety of Establishment.

Furthermore, not only do SCREAM distribute magazines to the public, they also have a website that could be used to promote our product, here is a sample of their website:

Evaluation question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

Our opening sequence aimed to follow a few of the horror genre's typical conventions but also aimed to oppose some of them, to give our product that uniqueness that's important for standing out to an audience.

Our opening sequence has an unconventional opening for a horror film, typically horror movies go straight into a filmed sequence to build tension and suspense straight away. We decided to be unique and have our company logo at the start of the opening sequence, which then leads on to the filmed clips, we did this due to our unique logo consisting of a 5 fingered hand, which would confuse audience members ready for the clips.

Our titles are also unconventional of the horror genre, we used names/credits printed on sheets of paper coming out of a printer as opposed to using software to create and display them. This further gives our sequence that unique looks that's imaginative and different, which is what makes a horror movie good(based on our audience research results).We used viner hand for fonts on text based items throughout.

Rachael, is seen wearing an office like uniform whilst operating a photocopier, this use of mise-en-scene is further opposing the typical conventions of horror films as usually most people are dressed very poorly or in a non hygienic way for good effect. However other characters do follows this convention...

Here to the left of the image Lauren (our main character) can be seen wearing loose/old clothes which are conventional of horror films. They are loose and do not look well trimmed, this intensifies the horror look to make her more scary and more realistic of her role.

Location wise our opening sequence is very conventional of horror films, here in this shot you can see a shot that looks as though it has been filmed by a security camera, a shot often used in horror films such as the grudge here in this clip:

Lighting wise we have gone for the conventional style of having moderately dark lighting with colour correction in place, as you can see from the grudge clip above dark lighting is used with a blue colour correction in place, both of which we have used throughout our opening sequence.

Props wise we have used a range of objects/items that are fairly conventional of horror films, we used the records to the left to further illustrate that our main character is in a psychiatric asylum. The records are a conventional features of films with patients in them and they add a good varied effect of providing proof/evidence that the character is of an abnormal state of mind.

Furthermore, another prop we used was white pills(paracetamol tablets) which we held above a table and slowly released them. Pills are also another conventional feature of films of this type/story line and further illustrate the abnormality of the main character. The pills play a big role in depicting the main character as a drug addict, and as someone who needs emotional/mental help.

Another prop used was the printer and paper for displaying out Credits/Titles, which is a completely unique way of displaying them and something that is untypical of horror films.





All of the above forms our conventional and non conventional features of the horror film genre. They make our office worker look weak(which is conventional of horror films to make a weaker character) and the antagonist look stronger and more dangerous.

We made our antagonist look scary through the use of discolouration in the makeup stage, ragged and torn clothing that looks as though they haven't cleaned themselves or looked after themselves, and through the strange walking movements of the characters role plays. All of the above is the conventional way of creating a scary effect for a given character.

We used a female for our weaker character which plays the victim as stererotypically in horror films the weaker victims are women. She is well dressed and is clearly well presented, however as she is not the main character of our film she gets very little screen time, which is unconventional for a victim in this type of film as the main focus is on the antagonist.

Our soundtrack choice is conventional of horror films in the sense that it sound spooky, it is slow, quiet in places and loud in places which makes for excellent attention grabbing moments and eeriness.

Final Edit for Opening sequence - 100% complete.

here is our final version, edited to show the missing title from the drafted version...




this final version, includes a title missing from the draft, which was the title of the film, this title has been inserted on the very last clip of the opening sequence to follow conventions of the same genre's opening sequences.

Completed 1st draft of Opening Sequence!

after almost 5 hours of editing time, due to many issues with software and our shots i managed to get the final drafted version finished.

this is our first and last draft, the next video will be our completed opening sequence.

this draft is missing only one thing, the title of the film and so it was my job to add the title in somewhere without ruining the sync of the sequence as everything was timed in perfectly, so i will use a conventional title feature timing that many horror/thriller film intros use - i will add it on the very last clip!

feedback comments from class mates were -

"looks really good, very realistic and fits certain conventions but opposes others, well done"

"looks amazing, very professional and well put together, however it is missing the name of the film"

these comments we're what we based our final cut off of, to improve this draft for completion of our opening sequence.

update

We have now successfully filmed all necessary footage needed for our ropening sequence and I am roughly half way through the editing stage.

There has been many obstacles to over come through the editing of the clip, these consist of difficult tracking motions and clip pauses on our credits, as the software i am using for the edit(sony vegas pro) found it difficult to take a clear still image of the moving paper credit we printed, therefore i had to be very precise with the timing of the still image to make the text of the credits readable.

Alongside editing our opening sequence i am in the process of thinking/planning out the various ways for me to complete the evaluation questions, in various different/unique ways to be more creative and provide substantial effectiveness.

filming & editing stage

we have filmed 90% of our needed footage for editing, i am in the process of editing our currently collected footage and we are all trying to film the other 10% of the needed footage at the same time.

due to time constraints, roles in the clips and abilities the groups roles have merged a little through some of our tasks, for example i had to do some of the filming in our opening sequence because rachael was in the clip. Currently i am in the process of creating one of our props which is a record from a mental asylum of our main character, whilst other members are perparing for filming.

beginning of opening sequence edit

I have now had the chance to edit the start of our opening sequence, using sony vegas I produced the first 23 seconds of the opening sequence with various effects, transitions and techniques.

here is the opening clip:




The opening comprises of our company logo animation, the jump cut scenes and our main character - the mental asylum escapee. the clip lasts 23 seconds and took me roughly 30-45minutes to edit in sony vegas.

Inspiration

the main character of Orphan provided inspiration for what our main character should look like

Nightmare on Elm Street inspired the theme of 'stalking' of an innocent looking character, by the 'horror' character.

the setting of this film inspired us to use an instituion of some sort as our location- it means that the audience is left to question the mentality of the characters.

again, this was inspiration as to the way the characters will act.

Production schedule

Storyboard

This is our storyboard , Firstly we discussed the images and captions as a group and decided what each box would contain and the caption to go with it , then the drawings were done by me (Rachael), and the captions by Brogan and Bradley.

Actual production logo/sequence

I produced our company logo/name animation for the beginning of our opening sequence in conjunction with a friend of mine. we both advised eachother on improving our groups original design ideas and helped eachother out with operating the design software(adobe after effects), this is what me and my friend produced:


We used a simple design of text for our production company name(chairedge studios) which is in viner hand font and a maroon colour.

The text is an overlay ontop of what appears to be a layer of glass that has been misted over, with the vague image of a bloody hand coming through the misted glass, this effect was achieved by creating a light blue colour layer with a light placed appropriately behind it, to which another darker layer was placed behind with the bloody handprint on top.

the text(our production name) is placed on glass, which appears to be smashed by our production logo(the 6 fingered bloody hand) which is both original but yet intriguing as the hand has 6 fingers on it, something which only eagle eyed audience members will spot. This idea is an original one and is a conventional feature of most horror films of this type.

The smashing of the glass and therefore our production name, makes the transition into the next clip/sequence of the opening sequence very easy to create and perfect into a flowing motion because the smashing of glass will slow down, and create a nice ending to this part of the sequence, the transition will be achieved by either a fade out from the smashing to a black credit or an actual filmed clip, depending on which looks better in the edit stage(something to be discussed in one of our group meetings).

treatment

TREATMENT

Our idea:

• Opening shot shows a long dark corridor (XLS)
• Camera zooms forwards towards the end of the corridor twice
• Extreme close up of actor's face- very quick cut
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• Camera pans from right to left- shows a woman operating a photocopier in a small room with a large glass window to her left (through which a staircase can be seen) (medium long shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• female character walks down an alleyway, to the right is an opening in which we (the audience) see a glimpse of the horror character (medium shot) [possibly lots of rapid cuts]
• close up of a set of records being thrown down onto a table- a sheet of paper slides out to show a "mental health assessment" record of some sort. (possibly in slow motion)
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• extreme close up shot of the medical records showing the patient name and showing that they are in fact mental assessment records
• high angle shot (CCTV like) showing an empty staircase
• (slow motion?) close up shot of a bottle of pills dropping and spilling out.
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• pan down of the medical records to slowly reveal the writing on it (Extreme close up)
• repeat of CCTV shot except this time a person is stood on the corner of the staircase
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• medium long shot of the photocopier room (focusing on the window)
• POV shot of someone walking up the stairs- appears unsteady on their feet (more so than in the first shot) (medium shot)
• a piece of plain paper comes out of a printer- credits will be edited to look like they are on the paper (close up)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can slightly see the head of the horror character peering through the window. (start of a progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to start to reveal a picture of a face (progressive sequence)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can see more of the head of the horror character peering through the window. (progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to continue to reveal a picture of a face (progressive sequence)
• medium long shot of Photocopier room window- you can now see all of the head of the horror character peering through the window. (progressive sequence)
• extreme close up of medical records- panning down to fully reveal a picture of a face ( final shot of progressive sequence) this shot will confirm to the audience that the character outside the photocopier room is the same person who's medical records have been read.
• extreme close up of horror character's face (quick cut to increase effect)
• extreme quick cut of pills bottle spilling

production logo idea

My idea for our production logo is going to be something along the lines of a 6 fingered bloody hand appearing on the screen from far away to eventually come forward and hit some glass at the front of the display, which has our company name "chair edge studios" displayed accross it. This glass then cracks and smashes when hit by the bloody hand, to which the glass and company name fall off of the screen towards the bottom.

here is the bloody hand image I propose to use:

 

 

this image will come from behind our company name, smash the glass the name is on, which will look very cool and will confuse the audience with its 6 fingers as opposed to the normal 5 fingers conventionally placed on our hands. 

soundtrack

this is the soundtrack we are planning to use, I found this on a royalty free website and it fits our opening sequence plan perfectly.

the mood the soundtrack provides is perfect for our intentions, it is very well time to our shots and is a good all rounder for fulfilling our needs.

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=USUAN1200087&Search=Search

Costumes And Props planning

Costumes needed:

for Lauren - hospital gown of some sort, possibly dirty/ripped.

white socks, shoes optional?

make up should make the actor look pale and tired, with dark bags under their eyes

for Office Worker- office attire; e.g. pencil skirt, tights, flat shoes, white blouse and jacket. hair up in a tight bun. glasses possibly (although, watch for reflections in the lenses)

props will include:

a photocopier (can be found on location)

a set of medical records (can be made or copied)

a bottle of pills (found at home/bought) [no pills taken]

Group meeting 1 - production logo ideas

Today we met as a group to discuss ideas for the name of our production company, and also to start to create a logo.
For the name, we started by looking at some existing production companies that specialise in horror, such as Twisted Pictures and Hammer Horror Films. We decided that we wanted our company name to reflect the genre of our title sequence, and so we started brainstorming words we thought represented our idea, we also experimented with whether our name should include '___ Studios' or '___ Films'

we collated our ideas and created a shortlist of possible names:

• Alucard Studios
• Phantom Films
• Skull Spoke Productions
• Enigma Films
• Chairedge Films

we then each took it in turns to rate each idea out of three, and totalled the scores. It then concluded that the name of our production company would be Chairedge Films.

As for the logo, we've currently decided on the idea of a bloody handprint, which, on closer inspection, has one extra finger, we created a rough draft of this idea to see how effective it looked:

we also decided to be creative with the name of our film, and decided to mix two words together. eventually we decided that we should combine 'insane' and 'asylum' to create Insylum. although we haven't decided how this will look on screen yet.