AS media final cut - Alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x2qoCOKQvg

Dear Examiner

Dear Examiner,
We hope very much  that you enjoy reading our blog as much as we enjoyed making it.
There are categories on the top left you can use to navigate or by date in the panel directly to the left.
We have tried to make it as interesting as possible by using interactive media, visual representations of our ideas, and even sometimes some humour!
We have completed our coursework and are very proud of it and all of the skills we have learnt throughout the project
all that's left to say is thank you for reading this,
and enjoy!

Evaluation

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
 
Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
 
Question 3 - What kind of media intitution might distribute your product and why?
 
Question 4 and 5 - Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product?

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

Evaluation question 7

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



Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product? 

When constructing our two minute opening we used many different programmes.

One of these programmes was Garageband. 

This is a piece of software which allows you to play music into the computer. The Mac has over 100 realistic software instruments at your fingertips. You can find pianos, strings, drums, guitars, and horns — everything from bass to woodwinds. Just create a new track, choose the instrument, and play. We used this programme to create a spooky feel with the music.

We did this by including a childs nursery rhyme which we liked the idea of because our opening involves a young child. (music in horor reserach click here)

We chose the nursery rhyme ‘Ring around the Rosie’ because of the meaning of the rhyme. (for score devlopment click here)

To create the spooky voice, I recorded my mum, Angela singing the tune into the garageband recording. This then was distorted and tuned up to make it sound creepy. I then added a layer of piano playing the notes of the rhyme.

Piano recording 'Ring around the Rosie'

This then was layed with the loops ‘Evolving Atmosphere 02’,’Deep pad’, and ‘Contemplative Synth’. All of these are pre-recorded loops that I put together to create the music.

I decided to not have the singing and the score of the rhyme playing at the same time because it made the music seem disjointed and makes the audience feel on edge.

Final score for Alone (insert here)  

The idea to use the nursery rhyme came from when we watched ‘Woman in Black’ opening titles (click here for full post). This involves a nursery rhyme called ‘If you go down to the woods today’.

The Hardware

The Camera we used was an iPhone 5. When arriving at our venue we found that the camera we had wasn’t as good quality as the iPhone, so we chose to film in that. We used a basic recording video function on the iphone and when transferring the footage into iMovie we changed the shots to black and white. 

The inspiration for using the phone is from The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American psychological horror film written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company. This movie was filmed using a phone held camera.

By using the iphone we were able to use the friendly user interface. This is where you can click where on the shot you want to focus on. 

This is used in this shot of the gate. In the background you can see it blurred out Harriett walking. 

Another way we used technology to benifit us, was to put it our video online on Youtube. 

We posted our opening first cut online on youtube and asked people to leave comments on what they liked and what we could improve.

All of these comments are helpful in someway. With the comments about the font we changed that due to the fact that the font looked like a slasher film.

The comments about the music are helpful because it allowed us to understand that we are achieving the creepy tone to the music for the piece.

Evaluation Question 4

Questions answered: 

Who would be the audience for your media product

The audience for our media product is the 15-25 year old age gap we believed that the use of a classic horror film setting of an abandoned building, the use of a young female protagonist, a child actor and the feature of black and white. 

• The target audience would be attracted to the young female actor as they can feel sympathy for her as she's alone and about to embark on entering the house alone.
• The white and black feature shows the audience it's not set in modern day and is an alternative modern horror movie, contrasting the others.
• The use of a child actor would attract the the target audience as well because it contrasts the view of child innocence.
• The classic horror movie setting of an abandoned building attracts the audience because it conveys loneliness, abandonment and isolation, leading the audience to feel more sympathy for the young female actor.

A video evaluating the target audience and how we attracted them. 

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/ address your audience.

With the use of social networking e.g facebook and twitter.

The use of social networking for our target audience the 15-25 year old was a huge advantage to our film opening. The use of twitter by linking our teaser trailers, posting poles, posters, questions and pictures allow people to Retweet our tweets gaining us promotion for our film opening and creating a buzz about about it. Our target audience are more open to going to see our film in a group or after its been recommended by there friends by status, tweets or comments. 

With Facebook we made a page to promote our film opening by having teaser trailers and polls on the page to attract the audiences. Also with the use of cookies we could see what they liked and talked about and so then an advert for our film comes on the side of there page leading to the trailer to promote our film further.  as people were talking about it and also allowing our target audience to hear reviews and responses to our film opening.

With YouTube we could also promote our film opening by using a wide range or tags so that when they search horror, black and white etc. Our film opening comes up and they can watch it and then like it and link to there friends, our it on Facebook or twitter. The use of social network allows us to promote our media product and also allows us to access our target audience on 15-25 year olds. 

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media intitution might distribute your product and why?


        

Evaluation question 2

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our target audience is 15-25 year olds (click here for target audience research) therefore we decided to make our main character fit into this age group this is so the character becomes more realatable. We made our main protagonist a female because the viewer subconsciously thinks that a woman is more innocent and corruptible than if it was a man. Women are considered more vulnerable. If a man was being threatened, particularly a muscular male, the audience just wonder why he doesn't defeat the said murderer.

Example of another film where a vulnerable

woman is used

The fact that our protagonist is female in the opening also leads to open more doors in her storyline such as a love interest. Our target audience being 15-25 year olds this would appeal to them.

Our main character could be both the hero and the victim in the end

Also the fact our Villain is a child makes our female protagonist more vulnerable because women are seen as the most nurturing and do not wish to harm children. So as soon as you see the child you know the protagonist will face a mental dilemma along with the audience. The other reason we chose a little girl as our villain is that adults are so used to being in control of situations, it's unnerving to think that a child is capable of doing things such as murdering people. It makes audiences feel uncomfortable which adds to the horror.

Child from the horror film 'mama'

The protagonist is white middle class. We chose this because from our interviews and research it went with the most popular social group. This also fitted the positioning of our opening and location of our character who lives in the country and enjoys things such as jogging.

Interview with social group

Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions used
A typical convention of Horror films for all audiences is turning normally secure and safe places or people into a threat, such as in the film the Woman in Black (click here for full post) for full and  The Children (click here for full post)

We used this convention in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable and shocked, which is why we had the main villian (according to Propps characters) as a seemly innocent female child, as this stark contrast between the normal perception of children and the shock of her makeup and threatening actiosn withing teh opening help to vastly build the audiences tension and fear.

Another very stereotypical convention we use was the 'haunted house' as seen not only in films such as the Woman in Black (click here), but also gothic novels such as Frankenstein (click here), which also helped portray our Gothic theme

(click here for full post on final location)

We wanted to use this convention in order to obviously signify the genre to the audience and also because there are no other houses around it it gives the audience the impressions she is isolated and alone, linking to our title. The fact that is derelict and abandoned, as well as signifying danger also gives the impression that she has been abandoned to the audience and the broken gates and glass create a feeling of foreboding, as it foreshadows violence.

Another convention we used was that horror usually contains pathetic fallacy, which normally means storms and violent weather. such as Wind Chill.

Although we could not control the weather, as it was windy during production we added strong wind sound effects to convey the tension and danger in the opening, and also the loud noise makes the audience feel uncomfortable so they are tense for when the girl appears.

Another convention which we used is the female protagonist, as in films such as I Spit on your Grave the 'hero' (according to Propp's character theory) is always a young female, as they are considered as vulnerable and allow the audience to sympathise more and therefore become more involved with the story.

We thought this would help the audience to distinguish our genre and also help them become more gripped by the story and encourage them to keep watching.

A particularly specific convention of the gothic sub-genre which we wanted to include was candlelight, and more specifically, antique (or old fashioned looking, Victorian) candelabras. We noticed this used in Gothic films such as Sweeney Todd in which most scenes are lit by candles or lamps. (click here for props research)

We used only candlelight apart from a spotlight on the main actress's face to create a feeling fo the unknown and also used a candlebra on the mantelpiece of the fireplace to emphasise the victorian influence and the gothic sub-genre

One convention which we challenged is that most modern films aimed at young audience are in colour. We were inspired by some of the first horror films such as Nosferatu (click here for full post on gothic films) which although at the time they were filmed had no choice between colur and black and white created a convention in their own right which has been lost over the years as younger audiences become more impatient and more keen on visual spectacle than on the storyline

 

We chose to challenge the modern convention of full colour always being used for films aimed at young audiences, as we wanted ot have a unique selling point and also felt it would help create a gothic atmosphere and enable us to intertextual reference within the rest of the film (had we made it) to the original horror's to create a sense of a time gone by, with connotations of things that are gone or dead, adding to the spiritual aspects of the little girl.

For the titles we decided to use a convention of gothic, and as it is often linked with Victorian times, the Gothic genre is often represented using serif fonts, as they look more traditional and old fashioned, which we also noticed in our research into other Gothic media

We chose to use a simple serif font to highlight the gothic theme and also to make a link with Victorian times (click here for post on the Victorian era) which is when the little girl is from.

Overall, we conformed to most of the conventions of Horror as we wanted to make the genre immediately clear to the audience, and we felt challenging too many conventions would confuse the audience, and make the opening less dramatic.

Pitch to Alan Sugar

This is a pitch to Lord Sugar made by Team Resolution to gain investment for there Horror Film, Alone. 

Questionnaire Response

15 people, male and female between the ages of 16 and 19 took part in our survey at our screening.
Below is an example of the responses we recieved, then after that are the full results for each question, and how this affected our final changes.

Did you enjoy our film opening?

14/15 people answered yes

What genre do you think this film opening is? (open question)
horror- 12
psychological horror - 2
psychological thriller - 1

This proves that our piece clearly communicated its genre which confirms that we accurately used all of the codes and conventions of horror that we researched.

 

Do you think the font for our credits fits with the genre of the opening?

 

Yes - 13

Didn't like the colour/the red was too bright - 2

Although 2 people said they thought the red was too bright in comparison to the black and white footage, we decided that because this was such a minority we would keep our stylistic choice as it is shocking to the audience and provides a strong contrast and makes the audience feel slighly uncomfortable.

What would you change to improve it? (open question)
Although this was an open question we did recieve many similar answers

Many of the suggestions for improvements were differences of opinion such as the red font and the black and white and because these are so key to the style of our piece we decided to keep them how they are.
Quite a few of the responses were in relation to the actual footage, meaning to change them we would have to re-film, which would be impossible within our timescale. However we have decided to make some final adjustments to the part with the mirror as although we can't change the footage we will try to add some sort of sound effect when she sees her to add more shock to that moment.
We are also going to adjust the sound at the end as although we initially wanted silence we have now decided to have sudden loud noise to shock teh audience and make them feel uncomfortable.

What was your favourite part? (open question)
This also recieved many similar answers.

The most popular part of our opening was the end, which we have decided to slightly adjust to make the most of the climatic moment in order to maximise the impact on the audience, making them want to watch the film.

The mirror part and the music were also popular so we have kept the music exactly how it was and added more sound effect to the mirror part to make the most of the shock to the audience

 

What was your least favourite part? (open question)

We have again grouped similar answers to provide quantitative data which we can the represent and analyse

 We are going to re-adjust the end section which includes the title. We are going to reorder the footage and the title so that it has a more shocking impact on the audience.

We are nto going to change the black and white as we have researched this stylistic choice, and although it does not appeal to all of our target audience, it provides a unique selling point for our film and the rest of the film would not all be in black and white.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire for target audience

Did you enjoy our film opening?

If no why?

What genre do you think this film opening is?

Do you think the font for our credits fits with the genre of the opening?

What would you change to improve it?

What was your favourite part?

What was your least favourite part?

Narrative Theory

Aristotle
Aristotle proposed that all narratives should have a 'unity' of time and place, suggesting that they should be told in chronoligcal order and in real time

However, from our own experience we know that consuming narratives has changed vastly since then, so we will not be applying aristotles theory to our work as we have decided it will be more interesting if we tell the story in a non-chronological order.



Freitag
Proposed there were 5 parts:

• Exposition
• rising action
• Climax
• Falling action
• Resolution/Catastrophe

Although we are making a film opening, so will include exposition by showing the young woman first who is clearly the protaganist, and the setting which is an abandoned school, we will also include the rising action, as we feel by beginning around the middle of the narrative it would create mystery for the audience and heighten the tension so we will use shots of broken glass and blood to foreshadow conflisct, and of the little girl advancing towards the young woman to create the rising action, building up to the climax, which is where our opening will end.

Levi-Strauss
He proposed that in every narrative there should be binary opposition, e.g good vs evil or light vs dark.
We will create this opposition in our opening by using dark and bruised makeup and low key lighting to demonstrate to the audience that the little girl is the evil force, and the opposite for the main character, keeping her fairly well lit, but with some shadows to make sure there is an undertone of fear in the opening.

Vladimir Propp
Came up with the theory that every character is part of one 'sphere of action' which included heros, villains, helpers, dispachers (who send the hero on their quest)

In our opening we will include only two spheres, as there are only two characters, neither of which are speaking roles, the main character will be a victim hero (the centre of the villians attanetions) while the little girl will be the villian.

We think this will be particularly effective as young children have connotations of innocence, and to make the villian a young girl will shock the audience.

Harriett's Costume

Harriett’s costume

We took a long time deciding what Harriett was going to wear but in the end we went for a casual look, but each item of clothing holds significance.

·         The dark trainer shoes show that her character is quite grungy and later in the film you would see that which is why her character isn’t afraid to enter a scary looking house because she enjoys dark things

·         The tight running trousers are to show the fact that she is on a jog and that’s why she’s running past

·         Her hoodie symbolises the coldness in the weather and the fact that it’s a cold/windy morning which helps 'chill' the audience without having to be there

·         Her superman top has the most significance firstly its shows her youth and secondly it signifies that her character will play a hero role later in the film

FIRST CUT - Alone

This is our first cut of our Media AS project 'Alone'.

 

New Storyboard for second location

New Location Pictures

When we went to visit our location I took pictures of the main aspects that we use in out film opening. I looked at lighting, angles, age of the rooms and the safety aspect. This are some pictures of the part of our location we can use for our film opening.

In this picture the background being more lit up captivating to the audience and makes the actor, Katie to become out of the dark and in to safety. It is a clear contrast in lighting and can be used to increase the tension of the piece.

This picture shows a main aspect we wish to use in our film opening which is a mirror, where we can use its reflection to show Lily at one point to terrify the audience, also we can use the reflection from the mirror of the light to contrast the darkness of the hallway.

This shot was effective as it shows the house being broken, wrecked and ruined. It gives the impression  of abandonment and this shows  the desired effect for our audience.

This is the front door from inside the building, this is a good place to film because the natural lighting is very strong and the ceiling, walls and floors are covered with dust, breaks and portrays a feeling of abandonment and loneliness which is what out film opening is based on.

This is really effective lighting and the position of the mirror and doll create an eerie, creepy atmosphere and scares the audience.

Location and Prop Video

When we visited our location we took props with us and included them in a few shots, we used different lighting, camera angels and shots to create an effective piece to scare and increase the tension of the audience. We used a doll, teddy bear, mirror and a rocking horse as props and then used different location within the building with the props to scare the audience.

We believed some of the shots were effective, the lighting with the mirror and doll is really creepy and the slow pan increases the tension slowly, leading the audience to be on edge and feeling tense. The shot with the rocking horse was good but we put the horse in between the window frame so the lighting was not as good as it could be and so was not as effective.

Music

We have decided that we want a child singing a nursery rhyme in the background of the opening titles. We feel that this will give it a twisted and uneasy feeling as we normally think of nursery rhymes as fun and happy things to sing. 

The inspiration behind us using a little girl singing is from 'The Women in Black' film opening because we like the use of the girls singing in the background. 

The song we have chosen is called 'Ring around a Rosy' 
These are the lyrics: 

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
''Ashes, Ashes''
We all fall down

We found this example of youtube of what we want it to sound like: 

As you can hear the tone of her voice is quite creepy and because its slower it makes it much more eery. 

We are going to record a few girls, including our Actor Lily singing this and then we will choose the best one to put onto the soundtrack. 

Score

In our early brainstorms, we discussed the idea of using a nursery rhyme as a component of our score for our opening, as it would fit well with themes of children and innocence, and if we could warp and distort the nursery rhyme, it would support the fact that the little girl is also warped and twisted.
One of the props suggested was also a small, old music box, so I have also tried to incorperate this into the score.
I experimented using garage band, and began by recording the melody of the nusery rhyme ring a ring o roses using the onscreen keyboard, with the instrument set to grand piano (Default)

 Ten I experimented by turning up the echo and reverb levels and the track below is with the reverb as high as it would go.

I also made the track more slick by correcting my timing mistakes by using the edit tool, which allows you to change the time, pitch and velocity of notes individually (see below)

 

I then tried adding another layer of a very low continious note, as a drone, as this is often used in the scores of horror films. I tried all of the piano types, and decided out of all them, retro bass was the best. So I added a long continious note on the bottom, however I discovered it is not possible to do a very long fade which is one of the things I wanted to try as I wanted to fade up so gradually the audience didn't notice when it began, as this would build the tension and sense of unease.

 

 

 

I then used the built in sampler tool, and recorded a note from a music box so I could play it using the keyboard and recorded the melody of ring a ring o roses using the music box instrument.

 

 

 I also then used the small arrows above the keyboard to transpose it downward, so it wasn't as high pitched.

 

After showing these to the rest of the group we decided to begin with just the low music box for one verse, then repeat with the drone, then repeat with a child singing over the top, as this will link with our young girl character and make the score more relevant to the storyline, and will also help to slowly build up the tension throughout the opening, as because of our non-linear stucture we begin the story just before the climax in the narrative so there needs to be high tension.

Film poster

Using a picture of our actress Lily we each made a film poster as a piece of homework. The task was to design a poster to promote our film opening and indicate to our audience the genre of film.

*Note: Tim Burton is not our co-director unfortunately

New Location Moodboard

We have found a new location for our film opening, it is a Manor House at a Farm near Maidstone.  This is also abandoned but contain a more safe and secure structure and also has good natural lighting and the building is also dated to where we wish to use.

This is pictures from outside the building and from one within the corridor. When we visit the location we shall venture inside and capture different rooms, shots, angles, lighting and possible spots to film Lily and Katie within.

Location Problems

When visiting our location to film our media we suffered problems which lead to not being able to film at the location, it had been boarded over so within the building there was no natural lighting, entrance or a sufficiently safe place to film with Lily.

We however were able to film from outside of the location with our young actress, Lily. We got some good shots, angles and effective clips of her and the location.

This was on the driveway leading up to the driveway and this were the shots we took showing the girl staring and following our main character, Katie.

This was outside of the door of the school and we thought this was effective as it shows the girl has moved and that she is there to scare and intrigue the other character. The shot of the location also show the broken elements of it, the doors, windows and building structure. This represents the girl also as being broken, lost and alone.

 This is a great shot and angle because it shows the location really well but it also shows Lily very clearly holding a doll, which is one of our props. Her white dress also contrasts against the building to make her stand out.