Evaluation Activity 7: Editing and camera work

I feel that I have learnt a lot since the preliminary task and it shows in the final production.

The preliminary task allowed us to explore different camera shots and techniques I had never used before. We were taught how to create a perfect match on action edit to show the movement of a person, for example, we used a match on action of someone walking through a door. 

We used a lot of this kind of edit in our thriller opening to emphasise the fast pace and to get across the amount of panic the holly was feeling when she realised there was an intruder. I think this was very effective because made our film very fast moving and created tension for viewers.

We also learnt about the 180 degree rule whilst doing the preliminary task; we practised this rule by filming a conversation between two people, the camera always staying within the 180 degrees. The camera was always kept on the right hand side of the actors, within the 180 degrees. This is important because if the rule is broken it can be very disorientating for the viewer and won’t make sense in their heads.

My Preliminary task group realised that we had lots out takes and very few clips to put our production together with. When it came to editing my thriller opening I learnt from this mistake by filming shots lots of times each to make sure that we had at least one that was good enough.

As we filmed over a couple of days, we were wearing different clothes. This caused continuity errors and meant that we had to redo all the filming we had done on the first day and finish it all on the second day. To prevent this when we were filming ‘Ready or Not’, we filmed everything we needed to in one day. This meant that everyone was wearing the same clothes and there were no continuity errors in our final production.

Since the preliminary task, we have also learnt the situations in which certain shots are used. Unlike in the preliminary task when we were just using random camera angles, we can explain why we used different types of shots in our production. For example, we used a shot from inside the shed to show there was a presence and made sure it was shaky so it looked like it was actually a point of view shot from another person. I think our understanding of camera angles and shots has grown a lot since we started learning about filming and editing.

Evaluation Activity 6- Prezi

Evaluation Activity 4 & 5: Audience Feedback

Ready or Not evaluation tasks from hcbrgsmedia

In order to gain feedback from our audience we put together a questionnaire which we gave to a few people who watched out opening. Here are the questions asked:

1.      Gender:

2.      Age:

3.      What genres of film do you prefer?

4.      What genre do you think our film opening was?

5.      What gave you this impression?

6.      Could you give a brief overview of the storyline of what you’ve seen?

7.      If this was made into a full length film, would you watch it?

8.      What was best about it?

9.      What needed improving?

We gave our questionnaire to around 15 males and females between the ages of 14 and 18. One of the most popular film genres was horror, and other answers included thriller, comedy and sci-fi.

Everyone identified the opening as being either a horror or a thriller. There were a number of answers given as to why people thought this, including:

•  The background music and sound effects  
• The font of the titles
• The events occurring in the film such as things disappearing and the dark figure appearing (the people who said similar to this thought the film was horror rather than thriller)

When asked for a brief overview, everyone who filled out the questionnaire seemed to generally understand what was going on throughout the opening. There seemed to be a little confusion over the idea of the knives disappearing, and two people didn’t realise that it was the intruder’s phone ringing near the end and not Holly’s. Most people also presumed Holly was killed after she was dragged from under the bed, however we planned that later in the film it would turn out that she was just kidnapped. 

The majority of people said that if this was a full length film they would go and watch it, however there is a chance that there answers may have been slightly bias due to the fact that they we were there when they filled in the questionnaire and they wouldn’t want to offend us. We got 2 people who said they wouldn’t watch it, one of them was because they hated thriller/horror films. All of the people we asked were curious about what happens to Holly after she is dragged from under the bed. 

Some of the best parts of our film according to the people who watched it:

•        The suspense coming from all the creepy happenings 
•     The cliff hanger ending
•         There were lots of shots which made it look more professional and well thought out

And some areas they thought could have been improved:

•         The video quality
•         The background music
•      The lighting in some parts
•      Some parts of the story could have been made more obvious

Evaluation Activity 3: What kind of media institution might distribute our media product?

A Production company is a company legally responsible for the physical production on new media, performing arts, film, radio or a television programme. The company is also directly responsible for raising funds for the production. The production company can either be a small company or a larger one, selling its products to a film studio or presenting it at a theatrical venue, or, in my case of film and television, it may be the studio itself.

Some examples are:

20^th Century Fox

Heyday Films

The film distributor is the company or individual solely responsible for the marketing of a film. Because of the enormous amount of cost in money and time involved in distributing a movie, a distributor must feel confident that they can make a sufficient return on their investment. Having the backing of a major studio or well-known director or star can greatly improve the chances of securing a good distribution deal. Independent filmmakers often use film festivals as an opportunity to get the attention of distributors.

Our film would be a low budget film and therefore we would not easily find a distributor. A likely solution for low budget films would be to screen their film at a film festival, for example, ‘Sundance’ from which you may receive distribution offers.

Another option would be the ‘British Film Institute’ who is keen to support UK distributors to help ensure that the best British and specialised films connect with a wide range of audiences across a range of platforms throughout the UK. They develop the export opportunities for British films by providing funding to promote them at major international festivals.

Two examples of Low Budget Films which have become majorly successful are, ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’. They are both self-financed, have an unknown cast and no distribution deal prior to production, just like ours. The Blair Witch Project grossed over $300,000,000 worldwide and Paranormal Activity broke that record when the original budget was $15,000 and only $35,000 for The Blair Witch Project. This proves that, with a good story, it is possible for any film to become successful.

The Blair Witch Project

Paranormal Activity

For our production we chose to use ‘Touchstone Pictures’ logo for the real production company as during our thriller research we found that they were involved with a lot of the films we analysed such as, ‘Face Off’ and ‘Bringing Out The Dead’, then whilst researching Touchstone Pictures we found that it typically releases films that feature more mature themes and darker tones, therefore, we felt it fitted well with our film.

When creating our own production company logo we came up with the name, ‘Nebula Productions’ as we felt that we could manipulate this name in order to achieve a space theme with the font of the writing and add some space-like effects to create motion within the logo as we had found out whilst researching production companies that most of them had some motion within the logo. We also felt that the black colour involved with space would be great as a background to set the mood of the thriller by using white writing to show the binary oppositions found within the move, e.g. Good vs Evil.

Evaluation Activity 2: How are characters represented particular social groups

Protagonists

Holly in our movie and Bella Swan in ‘Twilight’ are similar in the way that they go against Propp's character theory of the protagonist being 'girly' damsel in distress figure relying on a (male) hero to save her and instead they show a resourceful and independent character. They know what they want in life and won’t rest until they achieve it, in Bella’s case however that is to become a vampire whereas Holly’s would simply have been to finish college and go to university and get a job, until she is kidnapped.

Bella shows her independence at the beginning of the movie as she made the courageous decision to move to her father’s home, Holly shows her independence straight away by being home alone. Having strong, powerful women characters add a sense of diversity to the film instead of the usual weak female and this is becoming more and more popular for example, Bella in ‘Twilight’, Katniss in ‘The Hunger Games’ and Tris in ‘Divergent’.

Each of these women connotes their power through what they wear, they do not wear pretty dresses and skirts, and they tend to wear jeans or in some cases combat clothes which are more functional and action oriented. This is why we decided to dress Holly in a hooded jacket and army printed jeans.

We also decided to show Holly’s boyish character through the semiotics of her bedroom, which in actual fact is our friends brother's room, we decided to use this room for Holly because of the football themed layout and the blue wall, the colour blue is usually associated with boys whereas the colour pink is connected to girls and also only boys tend to be football fans and the fact that she is a fan of football further connotes her 'tomboyish' personality; it also suggests that she has a close relationship with her father as they would go and watch the matches together.

Villains

The Villain in our movie and the Villain in ‘Ils’ (Them) are quite similar in the way that they are both manipulative intruders who invade a house but remain unknown to the victims and the audience. We feel that this creates more suspense to the audience but also leaves them unsure throughout the movie which adds tension and is a common theme in thrillers.

In movies where you know the villain you may become to feel sympathetic towards them and understand why they are doing what they are doing whereas if you don’t know much about the villain they may seem more frightening, mysterious and powerful to the audience.

Director's Commentary

Choices Made

Title- ‘Ready or Not’

Choosing the title of our film was very difficult, we only decided on a name after we had finished editing the film as we spent a lot of time trying to think of a perfect title to reflect what our film is about. Some of the other film names we came up with were, ‘Footsteps’, ‘Trapped’ and ‘Possession’. The group felt that these names were not very original and they didn’t fit with the storyline of our production well enough. We decided that ‘Ready or Not’ fitted best as the opening scene is almost like a game of hide and seek between the protagonist and the villain.

Production Company- ‘Nebula Productions’

Our original thoughts for the production company name was ‘Majestic Giraffe’, as were thinking of random word pairs and they sounded catchy together. Although we had come up with a good logo idea for this, with a walking giraffe, we felt it was too comical for a thriller production so we decided to change the name. After much discussion and brainstorming, we came up with a more sophisticated name- ‘Nebula Productions’.

We felt we could manipulate this name in order to achieve a space theme with the font of the writing and some space-like effects and animation. The darker colours in this logo set the mood of a thriller movie much better than our previous idea.

Music

We got our music from http://www.purple-planet.com. It is a website that offers loyalty free music that suits a range of genres; it made it easy for us to find thriller music and put it in our film.

‘The Orphanage’

We chose the song ‘The Orphanage’ in the ‘tense’ section of the website as we felt it sounded good as a sinister backing track without being overbearing for the viewer, allowing them to focus on what is happening in the film, yet still helping to set an ominous atmosphere.

We then added a sound called 'conspiracy and danger' to certain parts of our film to create tension when something out of the ordinary happens. We decided to use this for the deep bass notes which create an ominous tone. It also reaches a loud crescendo at the end which was perfect to fit in with the scream from Holly, leaving the audience on a cliff hanger.

                                                                                  

Evaluation of our shoot

We began our filming just after school on a Friday afternoon; we felt this was the best time because it was convenient because we were all already together and had all afternoon to film. Also, it meant that it would soon get darker which was perfect for creating the atmosphere for a thriller. We filmed in Hannah’s house because it is close by our sixth form and we needed a house to film in.

Our first establishing shot was perhaps the trickiest to shoot because of the constant passing cars which obstructed the camera’s view of the actor. We also felt the cars made the scene seem busy instead of the deserted surroundings we wanted. Whilst filming this shot we recorded the diegetic sound of the phone call to later edit onto the sound track which would create a better sound than if we were to film from far away.

We then moved inside the house to film the rest of our footage. Filming inside the house went quite smoothly other than the first shot of in the hallway. The camera had not fully adjusted to the inside lighting yet which meant the shot was tinted red and you couldn’t read the important writing on the key hooks very well which read ‘Remember tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life’. This was needed to foreshadow that she dies that day. However, we only noticed this when we were ready to start editing on the computer.

Overall, we think the shoot went well; we got all of our filming done in one day which prevented any continuity errors and we managed to film all of the footage we needed. We think that filming went quite smoothly as we worked well as a team with our actors which meant that they weren’t afraid to give us feedback or constructive criticism.

Although we were very pleased with the footage, we feel like the ending could have been even more effective if we had created more tension in the previous shots. Also, our idea was to have the intruder’s phone go off in the same room as the girl and when we notice it’s not her phone ringing, we realise there must be someone else in the room. However, this did not work as well as we thought it would as it didn’t come across clearly enough to viewers.

Ready Or Not Story Board

Cast and Costume

Holly – Played by Holly Watson

Holly is a schoolgirl, which will initially make her appear vulnerable, however we also wanted her to have a tomboyish manner to try and indicate that she isn’t going to be a feminine ‘princess’ character. She will wear:

-        A red jumper - to connote that she could be in danger

-        Dark jeans with a camouflage pattern – to connote her tomboyish nature

-        Black shoes

-        Shoulder bag – to denote that she is a school girl

The Intruder – Played by Hannah Cocklin

The intruder remains anonymous through the whole of the opening to create mystery. They will wear:

-        Black pants – to connote their dark, evil nature

-        Black coat/hoodie – to again connote their dark nature and also cover their head and face to make them more unknown and mysterious

Props

-        Keys – Holly’s way in and out of the house, when these go missing and she is locked in we know she is trapped and in danger

-        Knives – used to cut the cake so initially just a normal, everyday item. But Holly chooses to use it as a weapon when she is worried, to find her choice of protection has gone, and so have all the other knives

-        Cake

-        Mobile phone – used to indicate the presence of the intruder in the bedroom, when we discover it is in fact not this phone which is ringing, but somebody else’s (and Holly is supposed to be home alone)

Location

We chose Hannah’s house to film at because it was convenient and we could walk there straight after sixth form. 

We filmed in:

-        
           The kitchen – this is where the intruder initially tries to get in

-        The Living room- where the first unnatural event occurs

-        The Hallway- where we see the first sighting of the intruder in the house

-        The bedroom- For the final shot, being dragged from under the bed

-        Outside – For the establishing shot