Evaluation : Question 7

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

To ensure we would be successful in our final project we had to do a preliminary task to ensure we would know all the basic rules of creating a media production. During the preliminary task we learnt many different camera shots and camera movements, learning what match on action was and how to apply it. Learning about continuity and shot reverse shot - the 180 degrees rule - and then applying it to our preliminary test, this was something we found quite easy and it worked quite successfully in our preliminary task.

We also learnt crucial knowledge on editing. For our preliminary task we edited on iMovie and in our final project we progressed to the more professional Premiere Pro. However the skill we learnt on iMove we could transfer across , like use of transitions, titles, sound and continuity.

Camera shots :
We learnt many different shots and angles were used in the film industry and the preliminary task helped show us how to use them efficiently, where to use them and which would work best for the horror genre. We were taught how to convey feelings and emotions with camera shots and angles - for example close-ups show tension and allow the audience to see what the character is feeling, low angles give power and status to the character, compared to a high angle that gives a sense of vulnerability and weakness to a character - stripping them of all previous 
power they had.

We found one of the most successful shots we filmed was the close up of the bloodied newspapers, we think this because it tells a previous story and foreshadows the future plot in just one shot, creating tension.

Also with the cameras we evolved from the cameras on iPads to a Canon Legria HD camera and tripod, progressing from shaky poor quality footage to semi-professional footage.


Planning :
 While doing the preliminary task we also learnt how to plan everything properly and how to show sufficient evidence of our planning, so story boarding, pen portraits, doing screen shots of our work and posting it as evidence - we used all of the planning ideas and evidence posting for our final project, so we would work efficiently and well.

Team Work :                             

Also from doing the preliminary task we learnt how to work efficiently in a team, sharing our ideas and helping others to evolve there ideas which is what we did to come up with the plot for our final project, I came up with the idea of a demon possession, Agne added the fact it should be a girl who gets possessed and John adding in about we could used subliminal messages to get across that she was possessed we used this and our final project came out good and effective as a teen horror movie. Sticking to our original plot almost flawlessly, we only excluded the eyes turning black, due to an after effects error.




We as a group believe what we learnt most from our preliminary task and what we most progressed from is our editing, we say this because compared, there is a clear difference between our preliminary task and final project. Our final project being up to a higher standard, with more effects in it, colour balancing, sound editing, transitions, ect. There is also more clear and precise footage that fits better together, but you can see how the preliminary task has progressed to be our final piece and how what we learnt while doing our preliminary task was applied to our final project.

Evaluation : Question 6

Evaluation : Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly, we addressed our audience; we produced a pen portrait by decoding our typical viewer of our film including as much detail as possible, like his/hers demographic information (age, gender, location, ethnic etc.), and psychographic information (interests, hobbies, values etc.). Once we had our typical viewer in our minds, we were able to use this information to work towards that type of identification.

 

We created a 60-second pitch as part of our production, which summarises the entire storyline of our movie. As well as convincing many production companies to fund our movie, we also, in attempt, attracted audiences by revealing some of the plot within our media production. The mentioning of twisted plots was aimed towards those who think abnormally to attract our audiences with an interesting storyline. We thought that by matching our audience’s minds with our plot would help our audiences relate more with the movie, and with this effect, they would become closer to the story and receive a greater experience.

 

Furthermore, we created a survey where publics get to participate in a survey, which lets the user select their favourite opening amongst the three options. We used SurveyMonkey, because it is a free online service where you get the ability to create your own questions and generate results in tables so you get straightforward outcomes. I think that because we struggled to choose our opening titles, it was a good idea to hand it over to our audiences because by producing a film according to our audiences’ feedback will promise more views from their selected opening in comparison with other ideas. As a result, our first option from the three collected most votes (85.71%), and knowing from the results that the people who actually participated in our survey were within our target audience age group, we were able to collect important information we could use in our project in order to make it successful and appeal to our aimed audiences. This method also allowed us to provide valuable insight into what our audience’s needs are and prevent mistakes when we listened to and assured the requirements from our audiences.

These are the op[ening ideas we put onto survey monkey for the target audience to choose.

 

These are the results to one of the questions in the survey, everyone who participated in in were in the target age group - therefore they were the target audience and this is proof of how we got them interested.

 

Evaluation : Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We have targeted our media product at teenagers aging above 15 (due to our age restriction forced on our movie’s graphical contents). During the stage of a teenager, there are many social groups dividing one from another, and we believe that our targeted audience isn’t exactly a socialist. Because of their likings towards exorcism, and things alike, these types of interests don’t appeal as much to those of other social groups, and because we have exorcism as voiceover within our movie, we believe that it will pull in audiences as they’re able to relate their interest being participated in our media product.

 

 

By being isolated from most social groups, we believe that our targeted teenagers enjoy privacy, which can make them relate to our main character. Evangeline is also in her teenage years, and is mostly secluded due to her differences when in comparison to other social groups showed within the movie. She also carries a twisted soul in line for the possession by the devil, which can relate to the audiences’ abnormal interests.

Additionally, teenagers with twisted minds are also suitable for our film because perhaps their way of thinking dark and sinister can reflect in our movie’s storyline. As for the psychotic thinking amongst some of our audiences, the opening will most likely grab their attention because they constantly seek for information, and our movie is just that; burdened with subliminal messages, slowly unravelling the secrets within the storyline.

We believe that our audiences shouldn’t be religious as there are many uses of religion-related content, which may actually upset our audiences since some areas of our movie abuses bad beliefs of the devil, and so on.

                                                                    

Evaluation : Question 3

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

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Originally, we had agreed on having our media product distributed by Lionsgate only to find out after our production was complete that Lionsgate, in fact, doesn’t distribute independent films, which became a problem for us, as our media product cannot cooperate with a company dissimilar to our standards.

 



Though on July 26 2007, the company bought a partial stake in independent film distribution company Roadside Attractions, we believe that Momentum would be more likely to distribute our film as they have already distributed numerous independent films. Additionally, The Woman in Black being one of Momentum’s most successful distributed film, can we relate our media product with their case. Our film covers similar genres to those focused in The Woman in Black – also both are teen horror films, and also being produced as an independent film we think that having Momentum also distribute our film is more likely than in comparison with other companies such as Lionsgate.

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

Evaluation : Question 1

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

One way that our final product uses the general conventions in a horror production is through the use of symbolism i.e. white. We have used white for the dress of Evangeline as she is a young girl.

However, she is possessed by a demon and this challenges the convention at the same time as using it. This is because there is a juxtaposition through the symbolism of white; youth, purity and innocence whilst the child is possessed. This is then supported by the blood that is shown on her dress, face and hands which shows danger and death. Furthermore the black around her eyes contrasts the white even further as it shows the darkness within Evangeline. Moreover, there is no specific angle to this shot which means that Evangeline is composed in the centre rather than being shown as vulnerable through the use of a high angle. This adds to her demonic behavior as she is portrayed as a powerful character.

We developed on the conventions by using this extreme close-up; we used this to show Evangeline’s emotions. This convention is used within horror films to show the characters emotions – usually fear. In this shot we can see that Evangeline expression is almost emotionless, showing her lack of remorse. Her eyes are vacant and there’s no expression on her face which is how we, as a group, have developed this convention.

As well as this, we challenge the conventions further as we have used a female killer rather than a male. The majority of horror films she women as vulnerable and feeble. The female character is then disposed of or saved by a ‘stronger’ and ‘smarter’ male character, to emphasise their vulnerability. The vulnerability is shown through the mise-en-scene, camera shots, editing, ect. However, we challenged this by putting of female character as the most powerful and most dangerous character in our product. In addition, as Evangeline is young, innocent and a killer it challenges on the symbolism of innocence.

Another way that our product uses and develops conventions is by the use of blood. We have used blood on almost every shot for our opening, in some ways we have also challenged this convention. So, for example when we see the blood covered hand next to the white teddy bear. 

The two contrast each other and the shot is quite striking due to this. This is seen in quite a few shots, including those with Evangeline. She is plastered with blood and this challenges the convention as she is a youth. The audience can also see this in our titles as we have produced a white text that contrasts with the blood splatters and black background that surrounds it. 

We then developed this idea by using a normal girl’s laughter, from FreeSound, and changing the pitch and making the sound reverberate. This made the laughter sound disorientated and sinister as it created an eerie echo and the pitch contributed to the youth being portrayed. Along with this, the music box added to this further as it challenged the visuals as it sounded sweet and child-like, but the shots are vivid and quite malevolent.

A third way that we used conventions was through the use of black and white.

This created a mysterious atmosphere to our final outcome as not all of the image could be seen properly, which was intended, to add to the possession of Evangeline. Although she appears to be innocent, she has a darker side which is what we needed to work with.

Through the use of sound, we have developed the convention as we have used samples from freesound.org which enabled us to create our opening.

We have already looked at this sound before, in our research, but it is relevant to our work as it also combines samples. You can hear, in our opening, a music box, laughter and an exorcism. We then distorted the clips by reverberating and changing the pitch so that it sounded sinister. We developed the convention by using a music box, which conveys a child's possession, quite literally. This added to our project effectively as it allowed us to challenge innocence of a youth further. To summarise, the laughter also added to this concept as it sounded child-like, but at the points where it can be heard the project appeared to be more of a horror.

Looking back at our research and planning, when we looked at the openings of Dead Wood, Dead Mary and Wrong Turn, I feel that we have challenged more conventions than developed or used them. This is because we based the whole project on the innocence of Evangeline rather than anything else. However, the main point is that she is a youth but also a killer, which is unexpected and this is the major impact of how we challenges the conventions.

Evaluation Questions

Here are the evaluation questions which follow our final project.
John will do questions 1 and 2.
Agne intends to do questions 3, 4 and 5.
And I will do the final two questions - questions 6 and 7.

CHRISTO : Completed Film Opening

Preliminary Task

Production : Sound - Part 4

We had to add more sound to our Project. However, this was diegetic sound we recorded, once we put the sound onto Premiere Pro we started to edit it as it was less clear quality to that of the sound we got of FreeSound. We found this to work well as the quality of the sound was good and there was no background sound to edit out.

We used a 'PitchShifter' effect on all of the exorcisms, this effect made it sound as though a child was saying the exorcism. We also lowered the volume so all the sound could be heard.

 These are the screen shots of us editing the sound.

Once we finished editing the sound and layering it, we rendered the work area and exported the movie to my area.

We chose maximum render quality and put the export format as quicktime, so we could easily transport it to YouTube. The output name was the name of our project, 'CHRISTO'.

Production : Sound - Part 3

John downloaded some sample tracks from free sound, which included: children laughing, music box music and various other noises. He used these to work with whilst editing and selecting what was going to be put into our final music track for our horror movie opening , editing it to fit our final edit.

This is an example of one of the sound tracks downloaded free form FreeSound. However, John didn’t use this one when composing our final sound as we as a group found a more suitable and efficient version of children laughing in a playground. The sound quality for the other track was far better and clearer than this one and with less background noise.

John put the sounds together in Premiere Pro as he couldn’t open or import them into GarageBand. Although we decided this worked better as Premiere Pro enabled John to use audio effects and transitions, which he wouldn’t have been able to use in GarageBand. For example:

These were the effects John used, ‘Pitch-shifter’, ‘Volume’ and ‘High-Pass’. All of these effects enabling him to make the girls laugh, towards the end of the sound clip, sound more sinister and fit better for the purpose. He made the pitch slightly higher and distorted the sound so that it is unclear, fitting the genre of horror.

These are the tracks that John used to create the piece and they are all free – and copyright free- from FreeSound. If John was to create another example, he decided that he would use FreeSound again, as it has a large variety of sound available to everyone.

Here is the example

Production : Sound - Part 2

Here is John’s interpretation of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. It was done using the piano and some synth pads, to create an eerie atmosphere to the music. He used multiple instruments to build up the layers of the music and also gives the impression of children singing. This is a well used effect in horrors  as children connote the idea of innocence and purity and by using the nursery rhyme to play on this idea. However, John thought this could be better by adding more instrument and insuring that the precision timing is there.

Production : Sound - Part 1

In the first testing for sound John layered multiple instruments including piano's and synth effects to create an eerie atmosphere and feel to the music. He started by recording 'Twinkle Twinkle' and then changing the pitch, adding in fade outs and also extending and shortening certain notes. With this in place, John then added 2 different synth effects including cosmic reflection and bondi breath. For the cosmic reflection he played the same notes that he had played for the original track of 'Twinkle Twinkle', added in the fade out and also made the notes longer to match the first track. John then included bondi breath but played the chords, bent the pitch so that it sounded discordant. 

Although John thought that it as a whole worked well together, we don't think we will use it in our final outcome as we were hoping for something more subtle as there will be a recording of an exorcism over the top. This will be whispered so it would be better if we also had something quieter.

Even though we didn't like the original for our final outcome, John worked on it still and added a sample of emotional piano 3 which makes it sound more discordant and works effectively. 

John decided in the future he will use more samples to compose a piece of music because it can be subtly linked to what we are doing and will work better when it comes to editing and placing everything together. He has another idea to produce a falling piano motif which could possibly work if it is pitched high enough and also sounds discordant. 

Production : Titles

As part of our project, we have to include the use of text within our opening titles to communicate with the audience about the companies and people involved in the making of the film. Agne decided to work with a couple of softwares in order to create the effects she has been wishing for the title ''Christo''. It involved the use of the combination of the two; Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects.

Agne began with a blank project in Premiere Pro. She thought that inserting the text first would be a good way to start the titles. She clicked on 'Title' in the menu bar above, then followed the drop-down menu to 'Default Still', this opened up a window where you can edit the text as much as you like until you're satisfied.





Although she loved the wide range of different fonts and the numerous abilities to edit the text, Agne realised that Premiere Pro didn't have the effect radius blur, which she would need to achieve one of the effects. This is when Agne decided to connect Premiere Pro with After Effects. To do so, she first dragged the text file from the project area where all footage is kept, and dragged it into her sequence. Agne had to extend the file to a relatively long file so that it could last at least 6 seconds. She then right-clicked on the file and selected 'Replace with After Effects Composition'. This automatically opened After Effects and required her to start a new project in order to edit the file from Premiere Pro.

 

Agne decided to alter the font to 'Big Caslon' because she thought this would fit the atmosphere best. Furthermore, she wasn't satisfied with how little the text was, so Agne decided to increase this by 150px. Even if the size is too big, she can always reduce the scale when working in Premiere Pro. Agne left the text simple so it's not overcrowded with tonnes of effects due to the fact that the text has to serve its purpose of notifying the audience with the title of the movie. She wanted other elements to take care of the role of making the opening titles look appealing and add to the mood of the film.

 

To apply the effect Agne was hoping to do, she looked at the tab where all Effects and Presets are stored. Agne wanted to blur the text, so she looked at the 'Blur & Sharpen' section, where she managed to locate Radial Blur. Agne was aiming to achieve the effect that the text gets thrown onto the screen amongst the splattering blood, so she thought adding an impression of motion-like blur to the text will achieve this effect. Agne ensured that the type for the radial blur is 'Zoom', so she could create the impression of the text being zoomed out onto the screen. Furthermore, she made the Anti-aliasing to Best Quality so she could later export the file to HD. Agne then had to play around with the amount and the key frames of the radial blur. To be able to use these, she had to click on the tiny stopwatch to activate the key frames as these are the main mechanisms for creating animation. Key frames come in small diamond shapes, which you add and adjust their positions along the sequence. The marked points allow you to add or make changes for the property at the current time whenever you change the property's value. For her first keyframe, she placed it at the very start of the sequence and set the amount of blurriness to 100%. She ensured that the centre of the blurr, where it focuses is in the middle of the title. Although the text itself isn't in the centre, it makes no difference when it gets to editing with the file in Premiere Pro because the text will not be distorted when changing its position. To then reduce the blurriness, she added a second key frame and dragged it further along the sequence to set the point where the blurriness has reached zero. For this keyframe, she reduced the blurriness to 0%. Now the space between the two key frames represents something like a transition from 100% blur to 0% blur. Agne reviewed the animation once then save the file into her area for later use.

When Agne returned to Premiere Pro, the file changes to the settings that have been adjusted in After Effects. Now, whenever she wished to make changes to the file in After Effects, the file in Premiere Pro will automatically react to the adjustments, so editing is made easier. But if she edited the file with Premiere Pro, nothing will change to the file in After Effects.

Agne then decided to work on the zoom effect. She had the radial blur set on the file from After Effects, so then she can focus on actually making the movement of the text. Firstly, she had to relocate the file because originally it was not centred when working on it with Adobe After Effects. To edit this, she double clicked on the preview window until the frame appeared. Agne then moved the file across the screen to my satisfactory point. Now, her aim is to make the title appear like it is being thrown onto the screen. She first zoomed out on my preview screen where she get to witness her final result. Because she'll be zooming in the text quite a lot, Agne zoomed out to 10% so that she can use the frame of the text to extend it to its furthest until she reached the limit. To get the frame to show up, she double clicked on the screen (for future reference: ensure that other layers are locked to make it easier for selecting the file as it will select whatever is the closest to the area you're clicking on). Once again, to create animation she used key frames to set the points in order to change the settings of the file's scale. Agne didn't want the text to stop moving as soon as it was thrown onto the screen - she wanted it to continue zooming out, but she didn't want this to be too noticeable so she added a third key frame and dragged this all the way to the end of the clip. Agne set the scale settings slightly different from the previous key frame so that the text appears to be slowly zooming out into the background.

 

Now, Agne decided to work on the real action in the background. She decided to add blood splatters that are also thrown onto the screen along with the text. She searched the Internet for any blood stock footage that she could use. Luckily, she found a splotch with no watermark, so she inserted this file into the project. She repeated same edits as for the text, except that she didn't include the radial blur, so it didn't involve me in using After Effects for this footage. To edit its entrance, she first set the scale of the splatter, zooming in as much as possible. Once again, using key frames she set the points to match the ones the text has to allow the motion to flow when reviewed together. She also followed similar settings of blur as the text so that she got the depth of the two right. Furthermore, she thought that the blood wasn't bright enough, so she added an adjustment effect that allowed her to increase the colour red in the splatter to give it more gore.

 

Agne discussed with the group, and we came to a decision of adding more blood splatters, so this time she searched for some image stock of blood splatters via google. She managed to find two similar ones that will be placed on each sides. She repeated the processes as for the one in the middle. She placed the second one on the lower corner on the left side, and the third one at the top right corner to give it some sort of composition.

She reviewed the result and had a thought before coming to a decision of giving the titles some depth. She decided that the mid ground will be the blood splatter in the middle with the text 'CHRISTO'. For the one on the left, she decided to put this one in the foreground, and the one on the left in the background. To achieve this effect, she played around with the settings for the blurriness, so for example if the mid ground is in focus, the foreground will be out of focus equally to the background. If the foreground is in focus, the mid ground will be out of focus, and the background will be twice as much out of focus. Same goes with the background; mid ground blurred, foreground double blurred. This too involved using key frames to set the times when one layer becomes blurred and the other is in sharp focus on the screen. Agne believed that zooming out and in a bit also helped create the effect of the lens focusing from one blood splatter to the next.

For the final touches, she decided to make the text flicker to get that sense of imperfection. To do so, she cut up the text file into 7 identical pieces. In some cases, it involved her duplicating few files to get 2 copies of the text on the screen at the same time with different aesthetics. She also relocated some text files so that they don't always stay fixed in the original position.

 

To finish the opening titles, she transitioned all the files so that they all fade into black in the end. She ensured that the transitions' lengths are all equal so that all files fade out at the same time.

 

Here is the final result:

 

CHRISTO

Agne thinks that for a first attempt, it is relatively good due to the different uses of effects. She had never used Premiere Pro or Adobe After Effects before, but the use of similar programming such as Sony Vegas and Final Cut had given her a head start. Generally, they have similar ways of functioning, so she got the hang of Premiere Pro and After Effects fairly quickly. However, she does think that she could have improved it.

One way Agne could make the opening titles more successful is leaving more area at the start. She edited all of her clips on the timeline, which means that some of the footage was actually lost at the beginning. This includes one of the main features; the throw of the text. When you play it, the motion at the beginning of the blood and the title being thrown onto the screen have been lost, Agne thinks that if she was to leave a few seconds before the actual footage, it would have not skipped the beginning. Now that she has learnt from her mistake, she will ensure that she will leave a few seconds before the clips so that no work is cut off.

Additionally, to improve the opening titles even more,Agne thinks that she shouldn't have gotten carried away with the effects because the titles look more like they have been edited for a film trailer. She thinks that with the sudden movement and a range of effects, it looks too dramatic compared to our opening titles. The mood isn't right, and we as a group think that if she was to edit this appropriately for the opening titles, that she would tone down with the effects, like losing the motion of the text and the blood splatter being thrown on the screen and setting the titles in a more eerie atmosphere would have been more appropriate.

In conclusion, for Agne's first attempt it was quite good, she has also experienced the ups and downs. She thinks that although she has learnt how to handle both softwares - Premiere Pro and After Effect -  she hasen't met the criteria that we as a group were working with, which makes it rather difficult to use these titles in our movie. So with the mistakes identified, we think she will be much more aware of her editing in the future.