Planning : From Initial Ideas To A 60 Second Pitch

Our task was to come up with some different ploy ideas for a horror movie aimed at a teenage audience. We did this by creating a mind map of general conventions found in a teenage horror movie so that we had some we had some ideas of different things that we could put into our horror film. We then came up with different plots for our horror movie that we though would appeal to our target audience and were a diet different any horror movies that we had watched; however staying in keeping with the conventions generally used in teen horror movies.

After coming up with four potential ideas, we chose the idea that we thought we could replicate and that would be relatable to our target audience.  Below is the video footage of our 60 second pitch for 'The Lumberjack'.

                                                                                                                                                                           

  

Once we had came up with our idea, we chose our company name by mind mapping lots of different ideas ad then choosing the one we liked best. In the end we chose Black Widow Productions.  We then also came up with a working title for our film by ind mapping ideas too. We chose 'The Lumberjack' as we felt this is short, punchy and links straight to the main character of our film. 

Research : Target Audience Feedback

Our group sent out a feedback questionnaire to find out peoples opinion on our sixty second pitch. We created a survey on survey monkey and sent out links to thirty random people that were in our target audience age range. We collected the results and we got some interesting feedback to look over. These are the results to each question we asked:

Research : The Importance Of Opening Titles

When looking into the importance of opening titles I looked on a website called Art Of The Title which has many film titles on it as well a video going though all the centuries of film titles. It clearly shows how the typography and how the titles were set out changed though-out the centuries. We then looked at a film called 'Se7en' and wrote a timeline on when all the titles appeared.

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We found out in total there is 26 times a piece of text appears on screen. I was very suprising as the clip ws only 2 minutes long. This meant a title popped up on average of 4.6 seconds after each other. This was no where near the figure i thought it would be and will come in handy when i come to make my own titles. We then looked at the typography of the text and how it was postioned on the screen.

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The was a constant theme running through the text that was very noticeable. All the text that were names of people had the correct format which is capital letters for the first letter and lower case letters for the rest. However aany other bit of text e.g. Directed By, Produced By. was all in capitals. This made it stand out more than the names of the people next to it. Finally, all of the text was wrote in scruffy hand writing and was not on the same line. Some letters were elevated and some were lowered. This gave a sinster look the the letters and helped portray it as a horror film.

Research : The Importance Of Sound In Horror Films

Sound is a key party of a film. It helps build tension in films and portraying emotions. It also creates an atmosphere within the scene. Horror movies typically contain strings and short, sharp notes for action moments. Where as when no events are happening the music maybe slower and calmer. . For example, in the film 'Psycho', there is a stabbing scene and non diegetic sound is played over the top as the killer plunges the knife down. This adds to the fear that is portrayed to the audience. The sound in the film 'The Shining' the sound is more suttle but still adds lots of fear into the scene.

This clip shows how the music in the background adds to the 'Here's Johnny' scene. Unlike the music in 'Psycho', the music is not as prominent but it still adds the emotions being portrayed. This clip shows what a key point in a film will feel like with and with out non diegetic sound. There is a dramatic difference and it clearly stands out.
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The jaws music is very famous and is known by most people whether they have seen the movie or not. The low frequency beats means I is memorable as there isn't many other tracks that follow this trend. Connotations for low frequency beats are fear and death. This helps the scene portray the correct emotions.

Research : Analyse the codes and conventions of horror films as shown in the openings of 'Dead Wood', 'Dead Mary' and 'Wrong Turn'.

Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided into two categories – technical and symbolic. Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the story in a film. One example could be the use of a high angled shot to show the dominance of one character over another. Another example of this would be a POV shot when running through bushes. This gives the viewer the experience of being on the set and feeling like you are running from the danger. A symbolic code is something that you a persuaded to think. If a character is shaking, we think of them as nervous or cold but if a character is making a fist with his hand, you know he is mad or angry. Conventions are something that happens in most films of the same genre. In a horror film, one general convention would be someone seeing a safety point e.g. their car, but not being able to reach it. Another convention would be someone tripping over when trying to escape the villain. I looked at three openings for horror films and looked at the similarities and differences. My three film openings gave me a good insight into what codes and conventions are used in horror films.

Dead Mary-2007

Kim and her boyfriend Matt have just broken up, but they travel together to a cottage nearby a lake to spend the weekend with their friends Eve, Dash and his wife Amber and Baker and his new girlfriend Lily. The atmosphere becomes heavy with the situation between Kim and Matt, and one of them suggests them to play "Dead Mary". Matt, Eve and Dash summon the evil witch repeating her name three times in front of a mirror with a candle. Along the night, Matt hears weird noises, is killed and returns to life, while part of the group is possessed by the fiend. Without knowing who is possessed, the rest of the group fights to survive.

Dead Wood-2007

Four friends escape the grime of the city and head out into the woods for a peaceful, relaxing weekend. Events take a sinister turn when a mysterious girl appears in their camp looking for her boyfriend. Soon the nightmare begins as they find themselves lost in an endless wilderness stalked by a deadly force. As those left fight for survival they will discover the true nature of fear.

Wrong Turn-2003

Chris Flynn is driving his car for a job interview in another city. However, an accident with a trunk transporting chemical products blocks the highway and Chris looks for an alternative route through the mountains of West Virginia to accomplish his schedule. Due to a lack of attention, he crashes another car parked in the middle of the road with flat tires. Chris meets a group of five friends, who intended to camp in the forest, and they decide to leave the couple Francine and Evan on the place, while Chris, Jessie, Carly and her fiancé Scott tries to find some help. They find a weird cabin in the middle of nowhere, where three violent cannibalistic mountain men with the appearance of monsters live. The two couples try to escape from the mountain men while chased by them.

Some of these films were made in different years and were directed by different people but nearly all of them follow the same codes and conventions as each other. Dead Wood and Wrong Turn are very similar whereas Dead Mary doesn’t follow as many of these codes and conventions. Dead Wood opens with a peaceful scene and some non-diegetic sound which sound spiritual and all of a sudden someone running disturbs the peace. The non-diegetic helps the audience feel the atmosphere and tension in the air. The sound will normally speed up when action is about to happen which builds the tension. This is very similar to Wrong Turn as it opens with panning shot of a forest and it also has some peaceful non-diegetic sound being played. When the main characters in the opening part of the film are running, the camera turns to a point of view shot allowing all sticks and branches to hit the camera of the lens showing how beaten someone would be. This happens in both Dead Wood and Wrong Turn where as there is no action in the start of Dead Mary. Dead Mary uses the start of the film to show certain items that may come in handy later like the flare gun. However, Dead Mary’s opening does use some general conventions like the phone having no signal. This isn’t used in the other openings but the lack of communication is. The character in Wrong Turn doesn’t alert is rock climbing partner about the danger and neither does the man in the opening of Dead Wood, he would easily be able to shout to the female in the tent but instead he is silent meaning that the other partner in blissful unaware of the danger lurking in the bushes. When the male character attempts to jump the ditch, slow-motion is used to mark the moment and makes the audience remember what happened because it will be relevant later on in the film. In all three of these openings there are similarities, one being the characters are all in their early twenties. This means that they match the age of the target audience allowing them to relate to them. This encourages people to come and watch the film. Every opening contains one male and one female and the women are always wearing very little and are perceived the weaker sex of the pair. This is backed up by the codes that the camera makes. To show that the male is the stronger sex in Wrong Turn, the camera uses a high angled shot to look down on the female climber. The female climber in wrong turn is wearing very little which shows more skin and backs up the point that the females are shown are the weak sex. In Dead Wood, as the woman climbs out of the tent, you she her bare leg first which shows of skin like in every other female in my chosen films. The camera also shows when the pace is picking up because the camera with have an extreme close up on the point of action and the non-diegetic sound becomes of a quicker tempo and often becomes strings or a piano.

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Research: Analysing Codes And Conventions In Existing Teen Horror Films

Our task was to come up with some different ploy ideas for a horror movie aimed at a teenage audience. We did this by creating a mind map of general conventions found in a teenage horror movie so that we had some we had some ideas of different things that we could put into our horror film. We then came up with different plots for our horror movie that we though would appeal to our target audience and were a diet different any horror movies that we had watched; however staying in keeping with the conventions generally used in teen horror movies.

After coming up with four potential ideas, we chose the idea that we thought we could replicate and that would be relatable to our target audience.  Below is the video footage of our 60 second pitch for 'The Lumberjack'.


  

Once we had came up with our idea, we chose our company name by mind mapping lots of different ideas ad then choosing the one we liked best. In the end we chose Black Widow Productions.  We then also came up with a working title for our film by ind mapping ideas too. We chose 'The Lumberjack' as we felt this is short, punchy and links straight to the main character of our film. 

Research : Codes and Conventions Of Horror Films

What are codes?

A system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.

In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:

• technical codes is how the camera is positioned to impact on your viewing experiences - camera angles, framing, typography etc

• symbolic codes is what we believe because of what happens in the scene - if someone smiles you would think they are happy

What are conventions?

Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interviewee quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.

How codes and conventions apply in media studies:

Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre – it is not   enough to discuss a technical code used such as camera work, without saying how it is conventionally used in a genre.For example, the technical code of lighting is used in some way in all film genres. It is a convention of the horror genre that side and back lighting is used to create mystery and suspense – an integral part of any horror movie.

Research : History of Horror

Introduction To Main Task

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The set brief that we were given for the preliminary task was to film a scene of two people, one of which opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite the other character, she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task had to demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

As soon as we were told our brief for our preliminary task, we searched the meaning of the media key terms used. These included shot/reverse shot, the 180-degree rule and match on action. We searched in the OCR guides to explain these to us so that we understood what was needed in our preliminary task. We then learnt about the different types of shots that we could use in our task. We then made our own examples of these different types of shots and posted them on our blog to show that we had understood the differences and so they were stored somewhere if we need to refer to them again.
We then set about filming our scenes. We all meet up at the discussed times and began filming. We gave extra attention to the continuity to make sure everything ran smoothly and we could filming all in one day. An example of this is we made sure Liam held his notepad in the same hand thought-out filming and that when Jack slid the page across the table, he had to hold the paper in the same place and keep the pen in the same place when moving the paper.

We then decided on what would happen in our short bit of filming. We all decided that Liam walks up to the table and sits down on the opposite chair to Jack(16) who is already sat down doing computer work. Liam then asks about some homework.' 
We then went around out chosen location and found a suitable room for our filming. We then used the 12 shot challenge in oder to create an in-depth story boar so everyone knew the plan and times of our filming. This included the time and place it would be shot, any angles that we would use and movements. We also had a box where we drew a sketch of what the shot could contain. Our group then created a powerpoint that has all of the pictures on and we all embedded it into our blog. 

Our filming when smoothly. I feel this was because of the planning that we had done previously to the filming. Because we had story boarded, looked at the locations, picked the actors and wrote up the schedule of filming, Everyone know what we needed to do and how long we had to do it. I feel that planning and looking into who was going to play our roles meant that we had chosen the correct person to play each role and the filming was easier. Looking at where we would film meant that we already knew where we were filming was suitable and didn't have to go around searching for the correct place to film.

I feel that our film meets the expectations of the set brief that we were given. This is because we had two characters, one walked into a room and they exchanged two lines of dialogue each.
The positives of our film were:

•  We had everything planned which meant our filming was done to the time scale we had set it out to be.
• The filming was not too shaky so it did not look too unprofessional.
• Our filmed clips were to the point and done easily and quickly as the actors were briefed before the filming.
• We worked well together as a team so got everything we need to do done in the allotted time.

The negatives of our film were:

• Some of our filming was done in portrait and one other in landscape so we could not use that clip as the fluidity of the film would not have been there.
• There was a lot of background noise at some points of our filming and some points were really quiet which made the film quite inconsistent. 
• The speaking of the actors was not very loud which may be because of the filing equipment that we used. 

One area of development for our main task is to make sure all our filming is done either portrait or landscape but not a mixture of both.  Another area of development would be to make a better choice in filming equipment and make the actors speak louder so that we can hear what they are saying better. Finally, I would also use a different location or use that location at a different time as there was a lot of background noise that we did not want in our filming. 

Preliminary Task

Planning : Our Filming Schedule

Date: 9th October 2015	Cast	Location	Props	Equipment	Health and Safety
11:50	Aaron James	Hallway between C2 and N2	Paper/Homework	iPad	Don’t trap fingers in the locker
11:55	Aaron James	Hallway between C2 and N2	Paper/Homework	iPad	Don’t Run
12:10	Aaron James	Doorway into N207	Door	iPad	Don’t trap fingers
12:15	Alex	Classroom	Laptop and Paper	iPad	N/A
12:20	Alex Aaron	Classroom	Laptop and Paper	iPad	N/A

Planning : Mise-En-Scene : Location Planning

Shot 1 in our storyboard is an establishing shot. This shot will show the exterior of a school building that the other scenes will be set in. When looking for a location for this shot we felt that the outside of our own school building would be suitable. This location is easily accessible and will clearly show where the scene is set to the audience.

Shot 4 in our storyboard is a midshot of the school lockers. This shot will show the character getting an item from his locker. When looking for a location we decided that using the lockers in school would be suitable as they are easily accessible and also within the school grounds where the scene is set.

Shot 5 in our storyboard is a mid tracking shot showing a school hall way which leads to the classroom the other character is in.When looking for a location we decided that using the corridor in school would be suitable as it is easily accessible and also within the school grounds where the scene is set.

Shot 7 - 12 is a shot reverse shot inside a classroom where the 2 characters are exchanging a few lines of dialogue. When looking for a location we decided that using a classroom in school would be suitable as it is easily accessible and also within the school grounds where the scene is set.

Planning: Mise-En-Scene: Casting

Jack, aged 16, is a student who is taking his A Levels and enjoys gaming and using social media to talk to friends. 

Alex will play Jack in our preliminary task as he can play different characters easily and doesn't mind being infront of the camera.

Liam, aged 16, is a student who is taking his A Levels and like to listen to music in his spare time. 

Aaron will play Liam in our preliminary task as he took GCSE drama and is able to perform different roles well. 

Planning : Creating A Storyboard From Initial Ideas

In the lesson today we made a storyboard template by folding an A3 piece in to 12 squares.

We then planned out our preliminary task onto some A3 planning templates that we found online.

We then applied the 12 shot challenge in order to challenge ourselves.

                           

The Basics Of Using A Camera

OCR Guide To Basic Camera Movements

OCR Guide To Basic Camera Angles

OCR Guide To Basic Camera Shots

OCR Guide To The 180 Degree Rule