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 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 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.

FIRST CUT - Alone

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

 

New Storyboard for second location

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. 

Health and Safety

After visiting our first location, we have realised that we need to take into consideration the safety aspects when we are filming. 

We have decided that we need to take certain precautions whilst filming to ensure the safety of the group and the actors. 

We are going to take a full first aid kit with us which will include; 

• ibuprofen
• tweezers
• alcohol wipes
• antiseptic hand cleanser
• medical adhesive tape
• sterile gauze 
• elastic bandages
• several sizes of adhesive bandages
• bandage scissors
• triangular bandages
• instant cold packs

We will also need to make sure that we are all wrapped up warm as the set is outdoors and the weather is very cold. We will take spare blankets and warm drinks to keep the actors and the filming group warm through out the day. 

Another thing we have now added to our filming sheet is the nearest hospital and the number to call incase there is an emergency. Also we have decided while walking round the building we shall wear hardhats incase of any falling degree that we could come across. 

We will also make sure we have two fully charged and working phones incase we need to call in emergancy for any reason. 

These are all safety precautions and shouldn't have to be used but they are there incase. 

Photos of Make up and Costume

Hair, Make-up and Costume Video

Here is a video showing how the make up and hair will be done. I took a few pictures of Lily in the costume with the hair and makeup done which will be shown at the end of the video.

Pictures of Child Actress Lily- Experimenting with Hair, Make-up and Costumes

I experimented on Lily some make up ideas and also hair. I wanted to make the possessed look and did this in 30 minutes. This is just a start as i want to incorporate blood and more dirt on the face. 

To achieve this look:
I applied, 

• Foundation
• Powder
• Bronzer
• Brown,purple,blue and black eyeshadow to create the bruises. 
• I then applied black eyeliner to highlight the eyes with some mascara. 

For the hair, 

• Firstly i split the hair into sections and then plaited the front. When researching i found that plaits were very common to wear in you're hair in the victorian times. I added white powder to create a ghostly look. 
• Next i added waves into the hair and then back combed it do create a wild look. 
• Next i added the ribbons into the plaits to incorporate the red to match the dress that she is wearing. 

Costume

For the costume we want to re create a victorian type of outfit that a young girl would wear. For this i found a red dress and put a navy coat over the top that would be worn in the victorian times. Because we didn't have black boots i improvised with black socks and black ballet shoes. I like the effect of the red sticking out from the bottom of the jacket so when she runs you will be able to see it underneath the coat. I think its subtle yet it works really well as we want to make the colour red a prominent colour in the opening. 

Here i'm just experimenting with the make up with the lights out and just a light shining underneath the face. I really like the contrasts of black and white. 

Logo

Photo Inspiration

Here are some pictures that i recently took for my art project and i think that they link into what we are looking at for our coursework. The traits i think that these represent are:

• The young girl 
• innocence
• alone
• afraid 
• the dark make up 
• the victorian type clothing 
• reflection 

The innocence of this photo and her eyes are showing emotion. I like the way her hair is styled with the ribbon and the costume she is wearing. I think that this outfit looks victorian like and i think that the make-up looks scary and makes the audience want to know whats happened to her. 

This is just a shot which shows the outfit off and how it resembles an outfit they would wear in the victorian times. I like the detail of the dress and the ribbon tied around the middle. 

 I like the way that she is holding the teddy in both these photos and shows her innocence. Instead of using a teddy we could use a old doll that looks a bit distressed to add the olden time feel to the video.

This photo is using reflection which i think we should include in our coursework.

Women in Black opening Scene analysis

·      Women in Black Opening Scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

China set very Victorian

Pretend playing with dolls.

Young girls

No speaking

Wearing Victorian style dresses

Erie music

SmilingThey see the woman in black in the corner and she takes over their minds and makes them possessed.

They stand up crushing everything they have been playing with

e.g dolls and china teacups

They all work at exactly the same time up to the window and then jump out.

The only words you hear are a piercing scream and then “my babies’

They then do a close up of the scary doll face and then an establishing shot panning out until you see the back of the woman in black standing in the corner.

Inspiration

This has key themes in it that we would like to incorporate into our movie opening. Things such as:

Victorian Dresses

Dolls

China

Erie room

Scary music

Young girls

This has really helped us with different aspects of our opening because of the type of dresses the girls are wearing and the dolls they are playing with. I think the use of no words until the end is really effective and allows for dramatic effect.