Production - Backstage/Sneak Peek

Production - Filming Evaluation

After filming we found some time to film a brief clip with Holly and myself giving a evaluation of our filming.

Production - Filming Complete

My cast and myself, after the third session, have finally completed all of our filming and are now ready to edit and produce our opening scene.Overall our filming worked well, although we did have a few complications due to poor/dangerous weather conditions , we worked efficiently and coroprotivly, ensuring Holly and myself had equally distributed the tasks/roles, making sure we had the same level of involvement in every filming session.

We will first start with some initial ideas and feedback and will begin to create a rough cut ready to be presented to audience for additional feedback.Alongside this we will be carrying out a range of interviews on others thoughts and suggestions for all the production elements/stages; sound, typography, footage and ident.

Production - Mise En Scene - Elimination

We decided not to use the mise en scene products/props that we previously purchased as we felt it didn't feel it appeared realistic or created a professional appeal in the camera, we therefore changed our end scene to a shot previously used in the opening, a swell as using transitions to emphases and add tension.

Production - Soundtrack - Feedback Interview

Holly and I interviewed several people in our target audience to give us some feedback on our sound clips.

Production - Soundtrack - Questionnaire

This is a questionnaire we produced and handed to two people in our target audience.Giving us an idea on our chosen music clips and where or not they met their expectations.We asked Indya Clayton and Chloe Bailey to fill out our questionnaire on sound, both in our target audience.

Production - Soundtrack - Chosen Soundtrack

We chose three different soundtracks for our final opening scene. All three were tested and we then got feedback by handing round questionnaires and interviewing our target audience.

1. Ident introduction and base track

This track was found and downloaded on www.freeplaymusic.com , here is a copy of this track on YouTube.This worked well as it has a light base tune, which we used throughout the scene, aswell as for an introduction, starting at the ident.This helped add tension, being conventional to Horror and the genre chosen, making it easier  and more identifiable for the target audience.

2. Heartbeat

This soundtrack was very useful and helped also add to the tension of the scene.We did place an echo over the top of this to emphasize the sound.This was used in the middle of the scene and was cross cut to flow with the 1st soundtrack more effectively and efficiently. 

This was also found on a non-copyright website, downloaded and uploaded onto YouTube.However this particular clip was uploaded by a different YouTube user beside our's.

3. Ambient Sound

This was our main soundtrack, as it was used over the top to help create further tension and attraction to the overall atmosphere.We already had this sound on a CD therefore it was very convenient for us, with it following the conventions of our genre, fitting and flowing well with our footage.

Production - Soundtrack - Idea 3

This soundtrack is ambient and eerie linking to our genre of Horror.The track is called Anxiety and varies in tone.From high pitch to low, adding tension throughout the scene.

This soundtrack, in my opinion, is the least effective, as it doesn't follow the conventions of Horror and in many ways is unidentifiable for the target audience.I think that the other two have both the codes and the conventions of Horror through the pitch and tone of the pieces.

Production - Soundtrack - Idea 2

Our second soundtrack idea 2 is a nursery rhyme, linking to the advert 'Thirteen', following the main conventions of Horror, with the idea of a child being venerable and weak.Therefore this works perfectly to place over the top of the track/shots, to add further effect.We may also fade this music in and out to emphases the beginning and end of the scene, alongside the fade out for the shots in the scene.This is the most effective soundtrack in my opinion as it has both the conventions of Horror, it also helps adds tension and build drama. The nursery rhyme connotes evil and a supernatural being , linking to our genre of Supernatural Horror.

Although the music does get a it repetitive, with the tune playing constantly throughout the 6 minutes of the download, therefore we may need to think about a way to adapt this piece to make it original and to work with our shots in our opening scene.The piece is also very long therefore we are going to cut the music to make it fit our overall scene/footage.

Production - Soundtrack - Idea 1

We used a range of different websites to find our music for our opening scene.We ensured that all websites were copyright free and available to download onto the desktop to work from. The main website used was www.incompetech.com and www.freeplaymusic.com.
The first piece of music we found matched the conventions of Horror, with eerie, dark and mysterious music. We thought it would be a piece to put over the top of our shot.

Production - Soundtrack - Ideas

We wanted our music to meet the conventions of Horror, with ambient and non-diegetic sound over the top of the footage.Therefore we had to mute our shots to avoid overlapping and lose of quality.This was done by the left icon at the bottom of the screen, we then cut the track to fit the footage and placed another track over the top of this.

Of course we are aiming for our music to appeal and meet the main conventions of Supernatural Horror, to help create tension and to build the right feel for our opening.




The soundtracks need to be low pitch, however we like the idea of a nursery rhyme in the background to create the feel of a Supernatural creature or being surrounding the location, or following/stalking the protagonist throughout.The pitch needs to be loud and increase at the end to build the tension required to create appeal.

Production - Typography - Feedback Interview - 3

Our third interview on typography is with Chloe Bailey, 17, who gave us postive and responded well to our ideas.

Production - Typography - Feedback Interview - 2

Here is another interview we did , to get some feedback on our chosen title and any improvements we might need to make.
We interviewed Sam Fensom, 17 years old (in our target audience criteria).
We noticed that he gave us alot of constructive criticism and was fairly negative about our title ideas, whcih is why we felt the need to interview a third candidate to see if his views were one-sided or not.

Production - Typography - Feedback Interview - 1

After producing a range of different titles, Holly and I decided to interview two people in our target audience to get their thoughts and critic on them.
From this we could see how our title clearly link to the genre of Horror and they are appropriate to use in our opening scene.We also recognized from this interview that we need to add transitions to create appeal and interest.

Production - Typography - Questionnaire

After producing our final titles we though it would be a good idea to get some feedback on them and to see what we could possibly improve on, therefore we created a questionnaire to give our target audience a chance to do this.
Below shows a questionnaire by two member of our target market, Shane Cunnane and Jamie Ahern.

Production - Typography - Chosen Title

After accessing our target audience feedback, as shown in the following posts.The font style and colours meets the conventions of our genre of Supernatural Horror.From the feedback we could clearly identify how this title appeals and attracts are target audience.
It's bold, but it also doesn't over power the narrative and shots, making the shots the up most importance, however the title stand out enough to become recognizable.

We wanted the title  in the middle to make it the main focus of the shot, adding importance and showing it's relevance.The transitions used, fade in and out, help it to appeal more to the audience and to attract attention, it also makes it more realist.


We were inspired by these titles in several famous opening scenes-

The Hobbit

Batman Returns

Production - Title Typography - Idea 3

This title has both the stereotypical and conventional codes we are trying to portray as well as following the main resentation of the Horror genre. The simplistic, yet bold and attractive font, draws in both the attention from the audience and the consumers, adding further interest to our overall opening scene.
Our ideas came from www.dafont.com, which gave us numerous suggestions on the conventional horror genre, and the way in which the audience expect the font/typography to look like.The colour is white and the style of font is basic and under complicated, adding the overall appeal of them.

Production - Title Typography - Idea 2

The second experiment of our titles was using the different effects and transition that we thought worked and appealed to our target audience.We also experimented with the fonts and colours, using red and white and using different backgrounds, the most appealing was transparent, with the shots/scene in as the background visual.We used a template design on Livetile, experimenting with both the timing and visual effects, such as shadows and glow.The orientation of the font was also adapted to meet the conventions of our movie, Horror, as it follows the codes, being formal and simple.The colour red also follows the main conventions of Horror, as it is a convention of blood, evil and suffering, linking to our tittle 'Inner Demon' and our overall genre.

The timing is 4 seconds in total, we feel that this is an appropriate time, as it attracts the audience, however isn't too long that it encourages consumers/target audience to lose interest.We dragged the font itself to play for a longer time period in comparison to the visual effects to help the main lettering the title stand out and add further importance.The effects are simple, yet effective, drawing in the audience.We didn't want to add too many effects as this would effect the quality and ease to read for the title. Therefore we kept it simple and didn't over complicate it.This title is effective and does follow the main conventions of our genre, Supernatural Horror, however we thought the design was too stereotypical and didn't look very original , therefore ideally we want to create something simplistic. 

Production - Title Typography - Idea 1

We wanted to experiment with a range of different styles of fonts, to help us determine our overall style for our opening title sequence.So we began to experiment with different types of font, establishing that San-Serif font was the most effective.
The first font idea we created appealed to our genre and our audience, we made it simplistic, yet bold and attractive to the eye.We like the idea of using white as the title sequence colour, as the majority of our shots are black and dark, therefore the contrast and white and black will help the words stand out and appeal more.

Production - Title Typography - Font Ideas

Before producing our own title sequence for our opening scene, Holly and myself experimented with a range of different fonts, to give us an idea on the ones that worked well.

The top one is the font that worked the best, contrasting with the white and black, with formality  and style, linking to the genre of supernatural Horror.

We did this using LiveType, which allowed us to create different fonts i a range of ways, from size, colour, orientation , to transitions, effects and textures.

Although we didn't use any effects and textures on these fonts at this stage, because we just wanted to get an idea on the font style and colour.We will, however, look into this later into the editing stage. 

Doing this experimental stage helped Holly and myself become aware of the type of fonts which look appropriate in the opening sequence, appealing to the audience more efficiently and effectively.

We decided to use white font, as it stands out above the black, dark shots, making the names and ident more recognisable.

The second font we concluded was perhaps a little inapporaite for our gnere of film.it looks more suitable for a comdy genre film or fitinal genre, not for the genre of Horror.This is because the letters are too child like, and unprofessional.From this we understood that we needed to use a font that carried similar characteristics to the Horror genre, using sharp thin lettering to connote this.

Production - Ident - Feedback Interview

We interviewed Charlotte Gray and Chloe Bailey to give their opinions of our ident and the thoughts they both shared.After the interview we were clear and confident that this was the most effective icon to use for our ident.They also thought that our ident idea met the conventions of our genre and appealed to our target audience and the was appropriate for our chosen BBFC rating.

Production - Ident - Questionnaire

Before creating and producing our ident we decided to create a questionnaire to hand round to our target audience, with questions asking for their opinions and thoughts on our ideas.With both genders, giving us an idea of whether it is good or not to use in our opening scene.
We chose to interview Wilhelmina Denness and James Barlow, both fit our target audience BBFC rating.

Production - Making Of Our Ident - Chosen Ident

Our chosen ident was the icon thought from our initial ideas.A black cat, linking to our genre of supernatural Horror, with a black cat being associated with Horror and danger.
The image used was unique and appealing, drawing in attention, with the eyes standing out and appealing to the target audience.We are also going to use a zoom in transition over the top of the image to attract attention and to add interest and appeal.

Production - Making of our Ident - Font

Due to Holly and myself  having intentions to create our Ident at a high quality, we wanted to look at different font style/types, to get an idea of the fonts that worked and ones that looked professional, aswell as linking to our genre, Horror.

These are some example fonts we found, which we believe look effective and appealing;

(these were all found using http://www.dafont.com/, mentioned in my previous post)

Production - Making of our Ident - Inspiration

Holly and I knew our Ident for our opening scene would be crucial in order to make it appear professional to our target audience.We used several websites, such as http://portfolio.reigate.ac.uk and http://www.dafont.com/ , to help us produce our Ident at a high quality and to give us inspiration. 

We also used this YouTube video to help us and to give us more ideas;

Production - Making Of Our Ident- Initial Ideas

Before filming our Ident we wanted to experiment we different establishing shot to understand and establish what was the best shot and footage to use for our film opening.So we experimented with different objects, we chose to use our cat as our icon for our Ident, as a black cat is usually associated with Horror.

Production - Lighting Testing

Before filming our opening scene we decided to do several test shots to establish what time of day we should film and to recognize the lighting in the location.So we took different shots, experimenting and working out together what would work.We noted down what shots we were going to use when filming the scene, aswell as areas we need to develop on beforehand to ensure we film at a professional standard.

Production - Software

Before we started the editing stage of our Media production , Holly and myself thought it would be a good idea to ensure that we were aware of the software used to create our opening scene.

Soundtrack programme

Soundtrack Pro 
Why chosen- We decided to use this software because  software allows you to import various ambient sounds and experiment when creating one from scratch, we also had previous experience using this software. 

Recording programme

GarageBand

Why chosen- We decided to use this software because it allows us to add or change any incidental or ambient soundtracks we are collected.We can also mute other diegetic sounds made whilst filming.

Editing programme

Final Cut Pro

Why chosen- Holly and I decided to use this software to edit our footage, although we had little experience using it, we were ensured it was the best programme to use.We are able to cut,render and produce all of our scene on this.We can also use transitions and add titles and credits onto our footage using this programme.

Title sequence and credit programme

LiveType

Why chosen- We chose this programme because it's the exact software we need to produce our credits and opening title sequence in our film.It allows us  to experiment with different font styles,colours and the overall orientation and visual effect of the text.Overall resulting in a larger appeal to our target audience.

Production - Call Sheet - Third Filming Session

This is our call sheet for our third day of filming - 

Date: Monday 27th of March

Location: Location 2 and location 3, location 4- Brook Street Footpath, bridge, house

Cast: Jade Suddaby and Holly Suddaby

Props: Water bottle, ipod with earphones

Equipment: Camera Canon 5D, 500D, Steady-Cam, Tripod

Costumes: Jade Suddaby- Black Leggings, Sports Bra, White Crop Top, Van shoes
              - Holly Suddaby- Black morphsuit, White Scarf, Black Boots

Set-up: 4pm-6pm

Make-up: Jade Suddaby- Mascara, blusher, concealer, foundation
                - Holly Suddaby- None required (hair over face)

Filming Schedule:
-Arrive at location 4:00
-Film varies shots- 1hr
-Walk back to the house-15mins
-Shoot final Shot-1hr
-Finish filming at 6:15

Production - Review Of Second Day Of Filming

Here is a quick summary of our second filming session and how it went. We both felt  it was easier to explain through filming -

Production - Update On Second Filming Session

Unfortunately we were unable to film this week due to our cast member, Jack Suddaby, being absent, therefore we didn't have access to the equipment needed to film.We hope to film the last few scenes the following week (Monday and Tuesday) following the same schedule as before- 4-6pm. Therefore we will use 'Second Filming Session' call sheet to help us to remain organised. 
In the mean time Holly and myself will be working on the editing of our first session film footage.More critically we are placing together our footage for our draft edit.
During this time Holly and I also came to the realization that using the props, teeth wax and contacts, looked unprofessional and didn't portray the right visual we wanted for our opening.
Therefore decided to eliminate this and not use it in our scene, which is later explained in post to follow.

Production - Call Sheet - Second Filming Session

Below is our call sheet, this was used to help Holly and myself remain organised before the filming of our opening, providing us with the outline/brief we need to start production.


Date

Monday 3rd of March

Location

Location 3,4 and 5- Brook path, woodlands and Bridal path

Cast
 Jade, Holly and Jack Suddaby

Props

Ipod, water bottle, black contacts and teeth wax

Equipment

 Camera Canon 5D, 500D, Steady-Cam, Tripod

Costumes

Protagonist - Black leggings, grey jumper, trainers 
Antagonist - Black morthsuit, beige scarf and black boots

Set-up

 4pm-6pm

Make-up

Protagonist - Mascara, blusher, concealer, foundation
Antagonist - Nautral - No makeup - Teeth wax and Black contacts

• 
  
• 
  

Production - Review Of Filming - First Session

After filming we discussed together what went well and possible improvements, areas we needed to develop on before our second session.

We produced a shot video sharing these thoughts - 

Production - Update On First Filming Session

The first filming session went well, we work cooperatively and efficiently, getting most of the shots we needed. However as it was getting dark we decided to stop filming and push it back for another day, as the shots weren't appearing as good quality due to the lack of natural light.

Production - Call Sheet - First Filming Session

Below is our call sheet, this was used to help Holly and myself remain organised before the filming of our opening, providing us with the outline/brief we need to start production.

Date

Monday 14th of February 

Location

 Location 1,2 & 3- Woodlands, Brook Street Footpath and Bridge.

Cast

 Jade, Holly and Jack Suddaby

Props

Ipod and water bottle

Equipment

 Camera Canon 5D, 500D, Steady-Cam, Tripod

Costumes

Protagonist - Black leggings, grey jumper, trainers 

Antagonist - Black morthsuit, beige scarf and black boots

Set-up

 4pm-6pm

Make-up

Protagonist - Mascara, blusher, concealer, foundation

Antagonist - Nautral - No makeup - Teeth wax and Black contacts

Production - Props

Holly and I bought several props for our final shot in our scene.

Both props will be used by the protagonist in the scene and follow the key convention of a stock character in the Horror genre.We purchased both items in Sweet Celebrations - Banbury.

Black contacts lenses

These we be highly effective, as it will make our character appeal more to our audience, through the Mise En Scene, linking to the conventions of Supernatural Horror.

We bought a recognizable brand name, so we knew they were save to use.We wanted to ensure that we took precautions to make it as safe as possible for our cast to act, therefore paying extra generally ensures we are getting better quality.



We found this video on www.youtube.co.uk and thought it portrayed the look we want for our character in our opening scene.

Teeth wax

We choose to buy teeth wax , although this is a cheaper brand, we believe that it will help give the allusion of rawness and abandonment.It also links to the overall genre of Horror, making the audience more appealed , due to the unusual appearance and abnormal behavior.We also thought the wax respects dirt or mud, representing the character as a masculine and supernatural being, linking to the generic stock character of the horror genre.
As the brand is unknown, we need to careful that we take precautions to prevent any risks or hazards  to our actor, perhaps adding this too our health and safety document.