Cherwell Media Alicia Perry Foundation Portfolio: May 2014

Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Editing Process

Because of previous criticisms of shakiness especially in the 'tree' scene, I edited it using after effects. The effect was called 'stabbing' and I used that to create a less shaky, movie-type scene.

Here is before:

And here is after:

Thursday, 1 May 2014

Evaluative Progress

EDITING THE LOGO ON AFTER EFFECTS

Bring up the 'shatter' effect and drag onto logo

It brings up a brick like layer over the logo

Change the effect to 'glass'

You'll have your glass effect

Preview your glass shattering effect

EDITING THE SHAKINESS ON AFTER EFFECTS

Bring up the 'warp stabilizer VFX' effect

Drag and drop onto footage

Wait for it to process and analyse, then work with it to fit into the composition, then your footage should be less shaky

FINAL EDIT AND PUT TOGETHER ON WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER:

The sequence for both photomatic and OCS:

PHOTOMATIC ^

OPENING CREDIT SEQUENCE ^

Evaluation of Opening Credit Sequence

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

Our media product uses forms and conventions similar to most horror movies. We had watched opening sequences such as ginger snaps, insidious and the ring and each one gave us similar ideas in the best way to present our Opening Sequence as a thriller. For example, we used the slow motion filming to create a creepy and disturbing atmosphere similar to that of insidious' opening credit sequence as well. Another thing we did similar to insidious' opening sequence was the slow and suspenseful music. We felt this best created the 'eerie' feel we wanted to present. Another similar form and convention we did was that we introduced clips of different objects just for a short period of time, to suggest they meant some meaning. This also happens in the opening credits of 'the ring'. For example we used the tree, the candles, and the dripping knife, to symbolise each one had a different meaning in the film and it would make the audience want to find out more.

What we developed and challenged in forms and conventions is that the 'death' scene at the end was quite different from death scenes in typical thriller movie openings for example in the first scene of 'the posession'. Even though it wasn't an opening credit sequence we liked the idea of how it opened up the movie and make the audience wonder. It had a death scene during the end which was loud and very disturbing. We also involved a death scene but to develop and challenge this we treated it as if it was dream-like and unrealistic. Instead of the loud music and sped-up footage, we did the complete opposite. We kept the music eerie and mysterical, and we continued to use slow-motion. Just to create this unrealistic but at the same time disturbing vibe.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For age, we believe that mostly teenagers and young adults would enjoy our film the best. The reason being is because during this age, you're most likely to want to feel a thrill or a buzz out of something and something to keep you on your feet. This is why our thriller would be suitable for the age range of 16-25 as it does just that.

For gender we believe it would most appeal to female audiences as females are portrayed in most thriller films as innocent and vulnerable, and this could relate to our opening sequence involving the possessed girl who is walking disturbingly around the house and she portrays innocence. Men would also enjoy this film as the girl is also portrayed as a sexual object for example the towel dropping round her ankles and the slow scene where shes massaging her hair in the shower men may find this enjoyable to watch. Not only that, but men also may enjoy the thrill of watching our film because the male gender is stereotyped to be more attracted to this genre of film.

For ethnicity, we believe that this is a typical film to attract a white middle class audience because it involves white middle class actors so therefore this could possibly give them something to connect with because it's similar to themselves. Other ethnicity's would probably like this just as much but the white ethnicity may be able to get more involved with the film.

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

We were very interested in the Paranormal Activity movies however these movies don't have any opening sequences so we were unable to analyse them. The media institution that distributed the Paranormal Activity films was 'Paramount'. We feel that Paramount would distribute our movie because it is very similar with Paranormal Activity like how it is filmed for example the hand-held cameras and tripods and it was only made for $15,000. Paramount would distribute our movie because it has the same feel as the paranormal activity successes and we feel they would be interested in distributing it because it is a good home-filmed thriller. Another media institution that might consider distributing our product is Lions Gate. Lions Gate has distributed a lot of films similar to our chosen thriller genre such as Saw, Night of a thousand screams, the descent, and serial killer. We feel Lions gate would distribute our film because it is a thriller and because it has a different identity to the other films distributed by this media institution. It has it's own uniqueness that lions gate may be interested in.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be both male and female audiences of the ages ranged from 16-25. Possibly also up to the age of 30 years. The reason why we target at this audience is because it is stereotypically known and researched that this age is most interested in thrillers as they are most up for the idea to feel scared and tense over a film and are less likely to get psychologically scarred from it afterward.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

We used facebook to attract and address our audience. When our Opening Sequence was complete, we posted it on facebook to see which of our facebook audiences were most likely to 'like' and 'comment' on our production. Within hours we recieved many likes and comments stating that it looked 'really good' and 'really professional' and that they 'wanted to watch more of it'. For further research, we went through each comment and like and came to the conclusion that it was mostly all teenagers and young adults who liked our opening sequence and wanted to see more. Some even said that they 'watched it more than once'.

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

Every piece of technological equiptment we have used in the process of constructing our final opening credit sequence we have learnt from. From the start when we begun to use the nokia camera we were given we learnt how to do the simple things like zoom in and out, we learnt how to get the best outcome when using a tripod and we learnt how it all works in order to actually get the footage. By the time we were editing the opening sequence we went through a lot of technological progams such as Adobe after effects, lightworks, windows movie maker, and muvee reveal 11. Only 3 became successful in using for our end product which were adobe after effects, windows movie maker and lightworks. The muvee reveal 11 was too complicated for us to be able to learn in such a short period of time. Windows movie maker was easy to control however lightworks was a bit more difficult and adobe after effects seemed almost impossible to navigate through. However after watching many youtube videos on how each program worked, we were able to pick up the techniques very quickly and were able to make the opening sequence outcome we have now.

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

My preliminary task was not in the same group as Sophiyahs so we might have different views on this question. But for me, our preliminary task had very little skill in editing, the shots were basic and shaky and there was a very little variety of them. The music wasn't taken very carefully into consideration so it didn't go well with the overall feel of the preliminary task. A lot about our preliminary task suggested that it was just basic and rushed and looked messy. All of these negatives about our preliminary task i feel we completed and took into consideration when creating our opening sequence. Now everything looks more mature and more movie-standard. I feel i have learnt a lot about how important the different shots are, the editing and cuts into different scenes. Also the music choice can make or break a film so this needs to be taken into serious consideration as well. However, the most i've learnt about is the skill of editing and all the different effects and techniques you could use in editing footage to make it look professional.

Final Opening Credit Sequence

This is mine and Sophiyah's Opening Credit Sequence

Our Opening Sequence is called 'The Hidden Ones', and is based on a story about the possession the hidden ones have on whoever chooses to enter the house. It starts off with a girl in the shower. The music was produced by Kevin Macleod and we found this on this site https://archive.org/details/EerieCreepyAndScaryMusicForYourScoresDvds . It stated on the website that they were 'free music files' and we had the permission to use it in our own movies. There were two different soundtracks by Kevin Macleod used in this sequence. When the girl is taking the shower, the slow sad-like sound contrasts with the girl in the shower to portray her own feelings. We never see the identity of the girl to create suspision. Everything is in slow motion to connect this with the depressing atmosphere. During the middle of this sequence, there is a flashback of the same girl pushing another into a cupboard, this is sped up to show panic. After this flashback everything goes back into slow-motion and the same girl in the towel walks out the house and into the middle of the road to them be run over by a car, she is clearly possessed because of the way she walks. The reason why we chose to kill this character wasn't because we wanted it to come across as if that was the end, but the complete opposite. We wanted to audience to become suspicious about why the girl was possessed, what and who was pushed into the cupboard, what do the characters look like, whats going to happen next? We decided it was a thriller/mystery genre, and our intentions were to get the audience questioning.

OCS Drafts

Before being split into a group of two (Me and Sophiyah) I was included in a group of 5 with Alys, Huma, Sophiyah and Anum. We came up with a few ideas for an OCS, however only managed to edit and complete one OCS draft. We named this sequence 'Run' and based it on a chase in the woods. Criticisms were that a lot of previous media students had done chases in the woods, so it might have come across as unoriginal. Also that the shots were limited, the footage was shaky, and it wasn't very exciting. This is why we chose not to go through with this OCS and focused on different ways we could come up with an Opening Sequence with the same genre but just a different storyline.

Here is our first OCS Draft:

We also came up with a few other different ideas for our OCS. We began filming but before producing our footage we were told that our group was too large, so we were then split into smaller groups. I am now in a group with myself and Sophiyah.

Photographs of Shoots

Casting Notes and Photos

Our group was split up quite late so we didn't have a lot of time to find actors for our OCS. However, we managed to find 3 people who were willing to spend their own time to help us film.

Our first choice was myself, which ended up being the final choice of an actor as I was available for most shootings. I ended up being the main actor. Here is a picture of the make-up I did on myself to create a creepy and disturbing look.

Another person who was included in our film because they lived close so they were also able to fit to our schedule was Emily Stansfield. This was how we made her look for our film. We used an old jumper of mine and tore it to make it grungy, her make up was similar to mine and we backcombed her hair to make it a bit more wild.

One person who we took into consideration but we didn't include was Esra Suileman. The reason why Esra wasn't involved in our OCS is because it was too late notice and we'd already done half the filming before Sophiyah suggested her. However, Esra has been used in our photomatic and this was the picture that was used.

My dad was also included in this film but not as an actor. We needed somebody to drive the car around the corner and he was willing to do that for us.

Devising a Film Product Company Name and Ident

We had loads of different ideas for our name and ident, these were our three top ideas for the name:

An Ash Production (Because A for (Alicia) and S for (Sophiyah) and then just the H).
A Web Production (Because it would symbolise the network of our audience like a 'web').
A Creep Production (To go with the overall 'thriller' theme)

WE CHOSE TO GO WITH WEB PRODUCTIONS AS WE HAD A GOOD IDENT IDEA FOR THIS AND ALSO LOVED THE FACT THAT IT WOULD SYMBOLISE THE NETWORK OF OUR AUDIENCE LIKE A WEB OF AUDIENCES.

From this we created our ident, which was made from scratch and hand-drawn online on an online website called 'pixlr' we then photoshopped the 'W' (which stands for WEB) on the cobweb. We also computer-drew the 'W' by ourselves. This is our final outcome after editing the look to make it more 'grungy':

UPDATE: At the beginning of our Opening Sequence and our Photomatic we wanted to include our logo first but not just plain and boring just sat there, we wanted to give it a proper image and a great effect. Our exact words were we wanted it to 'burst' into the audiences faces, and this is what we literally did. During my time editing the sequence, I used the software 'after effects' to create some great effects on our OCS. One of these effects included the 'burst' of our logo at the beginning. I created this by going into the 'effects' tab and selecting one effect that allowed the image to literally burst and throw pieces of the image downward. There were different ways I could do this for example with bricks, bubbles and other different shapes. In the end, I thought the 'glass' way was most effective. This was the outcome:

The glass sound effect that was heard in the OCS wasn't included in this edit because it didn't come with after effects effects tab. So therefore we saved this and then went to edit it on lightworks again. I wanted to use the glass sound effect because it would have made it a lot more realistic, so I went on google to search for 'free glass sound effects' and found a great one from youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJMs-Cz-Wp4

I downloaded this using 'youtube converter' then fitted it in to my edited logo to make it fit with the breaking glass. It stated in the description of this video that the sound effect was free to use from 'Free Sound Org', therefore we didn't have to go through any copyright to use this sound.

Location Scouting

We don't have any pictures of the other houses we planned to locate our filming at because they were originally going to be filmed at Alys's but since our group was split up, we didn't have enough time to go back and take quick pictures as our deadline was coming up very close. Me and Sophiyah both thought my house would be the best place to film our opening sequence as it had the downstairs shower (to film the shower scene) it had the under-the-stairs cupboard (to film the pushing of the girl in the cupboard scene) it had the quiet and undisturbed road (so it was safe enough for us to do the girl walking out into the road scene) and it had an interesting spooky looking tree in the back of the garden (for us to use in the opening scene to represent 'death' but also surrounded by the innocence of nature).

Here are the pictures of our final location (my house):

Logline

For our film idea we have chosen the genre 'THRILLER/MYSTERY' because both me and Sophiyah find this the most interesting and have a lot of different ideas in ways to present it in a thrilling way. We have planned to start out our film of a girl who is possessed, but with slow music, contrast it to seem as if she's completely innocent, but also put the footage in slow motion to give an eerie feel and make the audience question 'something is not right...'. Whether this be her sleeping, in a shower, walking along the street or around the house, we're unsure of yet. We will want to test which one we can get the best effect out of.

UPDATE: WE CHOSE TO SHOOT THIS SCENE IN THE SHOWER. CHARACTERS FACE UNIDENTIFIED.

During the opening sequence there are also hints to show something bad is going on/ has gone on in that house. For example, we would like to include a flashback of somebody being pushed in the cupboard while biting the girl pushing her, to show that now she has been bitten that she is cursed by the devil. Also to show blood dripping off a knife.

UPDATE: WE ALSO CHOSE TO INCLUDE THE TREE IN MY BACK GARDEN TO SYMBOLISE IT AS A 'HANGING' TREE, SOMEONE DIED ON THAT TREE AND IT WOULD BE A KEY SCENE THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE. PEOPLE WOULD QUESTION 'WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT TREE'.

At the end, we want the 'innocent' girl from the beginning to be thought to have been run over by a car to shock the audience. They knew something wasn't right with her from the beginning as she was unidentified and it was in slow motion and now she is being run over by a car still unidentified will hopefully make the audience intrigued and question what is happening and want to know more. We then planned for the rest of the opening credits to show another family moving into the same house to get a sort of 'oh no something bad is going to happen to them' response from the audience.

UPDATE: WE COULDN'T INCLUDE THE FAMILY MOVING INTO THE SAME HOUSE AS WE HAD ALREADY GONE OVER TWO AND A HALF MINUTES FOR OUR OPENING SEQUENCE ALREADY, AND WITH WHAT WE HAD PLANNED TO INCLUDE WITH THE FAMILY MOVING IN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WAY TOO LONG. SO WE DECIDED TO STOP IT THERE BUT THEY WERE OUR INTENTIONS FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE.

Focus Group Details

Me and Sophiyah organised a focus group to watch our opening sequence then give us feedback on what they thought about it. Before re-editing, some feedback suggested we should hold our camera more steady and some suggested to present the 'flashback' in black and white to give it a more flashing back feel. Unfortunately, this copy was accidentally deleted but we managed to re-edit it with the criticism. We again asked our focus group to watch it and give us their feedback again. This is the response we got:

Steve Perry - As an opening sequence it got me interested in what was to happen next. Hints of lots of things (knife, locking in a cupboard, walking outside) to make you question what caused that? What's happening there? So it makes you want to see more.

Lisa Perry - Straight away when the first shot of the tree came into scene it make me intrigued to what was to happen next, what was the symbolism of the tree. I considered whether it would connect with death further on in the movie and that they were just using it as a clue or a key scene for their overall Opening sequence. I really liked how they improved their steadiness because before I found it a bit difficult to adjust to it and take it seriously.

Lindsey Brandon - My only criticism to this movie was that the heartbeat sound when someone was being pushed into the cupboard wasn't loud enough, however this was understandably difficult for Alicia and Sophiyah to change as it was the loudest they could get. I'm not a thriller fan but this definitely interested me in wanting to watch more as it didn't give a lot away.

Jason Brandon - For 17 year olds, this opening sequence was really good and especially the shot of the tree at the beginning I found really movie-like. You really want to find out more like did the car really run her over? Why did she walk out? Why was the girl pushed into the cupboard? Who's blood was on the knife? It just really got my attention and made me want to watch more.

Audience Profiling

Because the genre we have chosen is a thriller, we would like to aim at a target audience of 18-30. With research, we found that it with this age group that were most interested in the thriller genre, and a lot of thriller genre's have a target audience of 18-30.

We expect both men and women to be interested in our thriller. There is no gender inequality, it's suitable for both sexes.

People of middle class should be most interested with our film as it's set in a middle class setting. All sexuality's should be interested in it, it has no discrimination or jokes towards any sexuality, and the same goes with ethnicity. However, some ethnicity's may not like the showing of skin (when she is wearing just a towel) so it may not be suitable for people who are against showing any skin as they may find it offensive.

Saul Bass Analysis

Saul Bass was a graphic designer and filmmaker who was most known for his title sequences and film poster designs.

He became well-known from his title sequence for:

'The Man With the Golden Arm'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS76whmt5Yc

He also did title sequences for:

Psycho -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4L9J-CUAl8

It's a mad mad mad mad world -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1A7bJD3atk

Oceans Eleven -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnG3OjIcN8M&list=PLA5AFEA5D8039E7E8

He also designed these logos:

The Original AT&T logo -