Thinking About Fear

Green- Rebecca
Orange- Scott
Purple- Jake
Blue- Jack

The purpose of this task is to research what people fear and why they fear it. This will help aid us in our coursework, which is to create the opening two minutes of a teen horror film, the research will help us understand the common fears among people and how to play on those fears for when we start planning what we want to do for our coursework task.
We will also be able to see which of these fears are most commonly used within horror films and how they use it, for example you have zombies which have been used in horror parody films like Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead and Cockneys Vs Zombies where they are used for tension, the build up of fear and comedy; however you also get films like Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and the Resident Evil series which play on the fear of zombies and also increase it in some cases, but make the films tension filled so you have to see if the hero/heroine survive and how some things like a 'zombie' apocalypse could happen.
We'll use this research for our coursework so the audience can relate to it, so it'll feel authentic to to them because of this.
By explaining why we have these fears and how they've developed allows us to see how we can develop it further in our coursework task and see what ones look good on screen and which ones look ridiculous and would be impossible to translate onto the screen, for example drowning would be hard to do in the first 2 minutes of a film, because it would take to much time up, unless you cut parts in of it.

Main Task : Set Brief

The titles and opening of a new teen horror film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

What did you learn from the experience of filming the footage required for your preliminary task? What went well and what could have been done better?

I learnt from filming the footage that you need all the thing the same as they were in the previous shot and that you need to make sure that you're out of the shot when you start filming, for example when we were filming we had to do several retakes when we ended up in the shot, like when we were panning across the room and all you see is Evie ducking to hide under a table, after that incident though we never got in the shot again, so didn't have to spend more time filming.

Evie getting in the shot

I also learnt you need to be more aware when filming to prevent yourself from filming in portrait like I ended up doing for one shot, however I am now more aware on which position I'm filming in and because of this the rest of our shots were in landscape. 

Also we need to speak louder in future tasks as the audio of the video is poor quality and needs to be turned up a lot to be clearly heard, we can now improve on this in the future. As well as putting breaks in between the speech so it's easier to do the shot/reverse shot when editing.

What is the difference between pre-production, production and post-production?

Pre-production is all the things you need to do before filming- for example the planning, production is the filming and post-production is the editing and all the thing that come after filming. 

How easy did you find editing in iMovie? Explain at least 4 different skills or techniques that you learnt during this process. 

I found editing in iMovie really easy, as everything is quite simple and self explanatory and because of this I found it easy to learn lots of new techniques. Like editing the sound out, so you can add music into your piece and not have irrelevant background noise in it too.
I also learnt how to fade music out so it would fit into my piece better and not suddenly cut off, which would sound really bad.
As well as learning how to edit my raw footage so it has match on action and continuity which is needed for my preliminary task to make sense.
Finally I also learnt how to add transition
slides to make the whole task run much smoother and better put together, making it look more professional and interesting to the audience.

What is continuity editing?

Continuity editing is the unbroken and consistent existence of the shot over a period of time.

What do the following terms mean; a) match on action, and b) shot / reverse shot

Match on shot action is when an action commenced in shot A is completed in shot B, or an action in shot A is mirrored by an action in shot B.

Shot/reverse shot is where one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

Analyse your preliminary task as a piece of continuity editing. What are its strengths and what are its weaknesses

The strengths of my task are that I managed to use a variety of different techniques, like slow motion and transition slides to make it look more interesting to the audience and make it easy for there to be more continuity in the piece, as it's much smoother in transitioning from slides so it looks like nothing has been missed and this is a clear swap to a different place/slide, not a skipped out part.
Also that there was constant continuity and match on action in my piece and
I have used shot/reverse shot accurately and effectively.

My pieces weaknesses are the lack of music in the opening title - which is likely to make the audience feel awkward and it doesn't fit with the rest of the continuity in the piece, the lack of volume on the speaking - which makes it hard to understand and hear and that is useless, so in future pieces I now know to get the actors to speak louder and more clearly for the camera.
Also when filming the speech needs to be more spaced out if I'm filming shot/reverse shot, so when I get to editing the raw footage there will be more continuity in the piece, it'll be easier to edit and will sound more clear and less rushed.

Completed Preliminary Task

Test Edit

I have learnt how to include music and sound effects into the short video. This will aid me in the preliminary task, when making my video more interesting, as I have learnt how to use them to suit the video and audience.
Also how to import clips into iMovie and export them using quicktime, which will help in my preliminary task when I have to export it and add it to Youtube. 

 

From the test edit, I also know how to capture better quality footage, so the raw footage I have to work with will be of a better standard. It has also shown me which shots look better on screen, as well as which lighting and locations look best. Also, if the camerawork is shaky or unsatisfactory, it will look bad on the final version making my preliminary look overall bad.
I also know how to cut the raw footage to get rid of the unimportant parts, I will use this to make my preliminary task to match on action, making it more believable, which would make the overall task more effective. Also transitions from clips to make my task flow better and look more effective as long as I choose the right transition slide.

 

Planning : Casting

This is Nico Yazdi. I think Nico would be a good choice for are Preliminary task as he is

loud, confident in front of a camera and has an outgoing personality. However he is not

available during our filming schedule, as he has classes.

This is Cameron Tassell. I don't believe he is appropriate for our Preliminary task as he is 

shy, quiet and not very confident on camera, meaning he may not engage the 

audience like another actor would. However, he is also unavailable during when we shoot.

This is Oliver Iarrobino. I believe Oliver would be a suitable candidate to be in our 

preliminary task as he's confident on and off camera and is available to shoot during the 

times needed.

This is Jerin Thomas. She is available to shoot when needed and can be confident on camera,

 therefore being an appropriate candidate for our preliminary task.

This Joshua Leversha. He is very shy and quite awkward on camera which isn't what we

 need for our preliminary task, as he was reluctant just to take a photo, he is also very

 unfocused meaning the filming would take longer and he wouldn't take it very seriously,

making him an inappropriate candidate for our task.

This is Jack Gardener. I believe he is an appropriate choice for our task as he is confident 

and loud so you would be able to hear him clearly. He is also available to shoot when we 

need, making him one of the best choices.

When we went around looking for people suitable to cast we found that some we took picture off weren't. However, we didn't realise this until after we had chose the pictures and had to decide who would be good to cast because you have to look for certain things in a person when casting them for a part such as; their personality, confidence, characteristics and availability for what you're filming.