Improved Never Look Back film opening

To gain more marks on our film opening we were given feedback on how we could increase our grade, we were told that to do this we should add in more camera shots, change our titles a little to make them look more professional, shorten the final opening and adjust the filters to make the shots look more dark to fit in with the horror genre.

We added a more diverse range of shots that would also be common in horror films so we were able to make our film opening as scary as possible. We also decided on our own accord to add in a voiceover because when looking back at other AS level film openings on YouTube we found them to be quite effective and created more tension within the film opening. Our voiceover was a recording of Becca as she is the victim within our film opening so we thought it would be best for her to do it, when recording her voice she spoke quite slow so it would sound more morbid considering she is in the future when speaking, but talking in past tense about her murder experience and what happened.

Overall we have found that by making these improvements our opening scene is a lot more fitted to the horror genre and is a lot more effective in terms of creating tension and suspense.

Never Look Back Film Opening

What have I learnt progressing from the preliminary task to our final product?

Since completing the preliminary task at the beginning of the project I feel I have progressed a lot with the variety of camera shots that we have used in our film opening, for example the idea of using the skateboard to attach the camera to it and use it to film lower shots of the feet walking and running.

I also have a lot more knowledge of the various programmes that we had to use. For example I was new to a few programmes at beginning of the project such as FinalCut and GarageBand but after using it throughout the process of creating our film opening I am now a little more aware of how to use them, which will be useful for if I need to use them again throughout the course.

We filmed a video on the iMacs with our whole group explaining one of the main things that they have learnt since the preliminary task and we all agreed that we have progressed a lot and have learnt new skills with using the iMacs and researching films and the film industry.

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

When we began our coursework we immediately began to use various technologies throughout our project to research and create our film opening, and we used the iMac's and computers to gain this knowledge and understanding of the various technologies.

Final Cut

When we began our film opening process we thought that we should start t teach ourselves how to use the programme since everyone in our group was new to the programme and wasn't sure how to use it. This was essential for us to do because in the end we decided to create and edit our clips and footage on Final Cut as we all found it easier to use, rather than using iMovie. 

We found this programme usual for our editing process but also for when we filmed our Preliminary Task as this allowed us to play around with the different filters, transitions and effects to et an idea of what kind of things we could include in our final film opening when we got round to editing. Since it was our first time using this programme we found it quite difficult to get into the process of using it properly and adding certain things in, for example we had a little trouble with our titles as we wasn't sure how we would go about adding them into our final piece, however we got round this dilemma and decided to be more creative about the process.

Overall, after using this programme it was a good learning tool for the whole group, and it will useful for us in the future if we carry on with Media later in life.

GarageBand

Another programme that our group was new to using was GarageBand, again we began to use this at the beginning of our coursework to practice and learn how to use the programme properly, as we knew that we would most likely use this to create our final soundtrack/s to our film opening. 

Whilst teaching ourselves to use this programme we decided that we would make practice soundtracks that would give us ideas for our final track for our film, so we played around with the various instruments and sound effects that were available to make various practice tracks that we thought would deem suitable for a horror film. An advantage of using this programme was that it allowed us to make changes to the soundtrack whenever we felt the need to as it remained in the GarageBand format, which was helpful as we changed our soundtrack quite a lot so it was able to fit properly with our film opening and within the editing process. We ended up creating two final sound tracks, this was to create more tension within certain clips as we felt that a particular track fit in well with a particular part of the film opening, so we ended up making two so it would fit in better with the clips. 

Microsoft Powerpoint

Microsoft Powerpoint was an essential programme that we used during the research process since this is where we were able to cut down our research information and also edit/crop any images or print screens that we needed to save as pictures so we could upload them onto our blogs to support our research. 

We also came to a decision to use Powerpoint to help us with filming our title sequence. We added our desired font that we wanted as our titles onto four slides, which created the final title of our film (Never Look Back) then added various effects that made the slides look blood splattered. We then allowed to slides to maximise into the presentation format and by pressing the ENTER key it allowed each slide to flash onto the screen which is the effect that we needed for our film opening, so while one of use flashed each slide onto the screen, another person in our group used the camera to film the titles as they flashed onto the screen, this then allowed us to add this clip into our editing process to create our final piece. 

DaFont

We decided to use this website to search for a suitable font that we could use for our title sequence, and we had all used this website previously to find creative fonts so we thought that we would use it to find one that would fit in with the horror genre.

This was effective as it allowed us to explore various font choices and decide together as a group which one would look best for the titles. However it was quite difficult to save the font choice so we could use it, so in the end we created the text so it showed the title of our film, and then print screened it to make the image so we could then put it onto Powerpoint and edit the colour of the font into a blood red so it linked in with the horror genre.We thought this was a good idea as it was quite a creative way to do things and we are very pleased with the way our titles came out.

Internet Browsers

The internet was a big part of the research process for this project since we used various websites to research into various films, genres and institutions. To research into various films we mostly used IMBd as it allowed us to get all the information that we needed on that particular film, this also allowed us to see what institutions were linked with particular films, and this helped us to identify what institutions linked in with popular horror films.

Film institution websites also proved to be very helpful when researching into particular institutions, and the Warner Bros one provided us with very useful information that we used within our research. These websites also allowed us to identify which films they had sponsored which were horror films, for example Warner Bros sponsored the Scream films which ended up to be quite a good inspiration for our film opening.

Google also helped a lot when searching for particular images to put into our research to back it up, again, especially when researching the film institutions as we were able to find particular logos to back up each one.

Facebook/Social Networking sites

Facebook was used for feedback on our film opening from the public, and since Facebook is a popular social networking website we thought that we would be able to get a few comments of feedback from our targeted audience.

The only problem we had with this was that was that the comments weren't very detailed, and not a lot of people gave any critique. Also most people didn't really look for certain things within the film opening, for example the mise en scene wasn't commented on, and most people didn't point out what they liked or disliked about particular aspects e.g. camera work, sound, editing, etc.

YouTube

YouTube was also very useful during our research and planning process as it allowed us to research other popular horror film openings that would help us with the conventions of a horror film. It was also easy to upload YouTube videos onto our blogs either by the link or by putting in the video, however this was quite difficult at times because it was hard to find good quality links to the videos or the videos wouldn't upload to our blogs properly.

We also uploaded our final cut of the film opening to Becca's YouTube channel as she has quite a few subscribers so it enabled us to get a lot of views on it. This also made it easier for us to upload our final piece to our blogs as we wasn't able to upload the file straight from our documents onto our blogs as it didn't seem to work but we got round this problem and used YouTube as our back up plan.

Camera

To capture each clip for our film opening we used camcorders that allowed us to film each camera shot so we could then edit them all together to make the final piece. These cameras were very useful as they were pretty good quality and had a memory card in them which we could easily remove and upload all of our needed footage onto the iMacs to edit.

When using these cameras we were able to experiment with various shots at the beginning of the project, this was practice for us so we were able to learn how to use them properly and gain knowledge on various that we could use in our final piece. On one particular shot within our film opening we used the camcorder and secured it onto a skateboard so we were able to film shots at a lower angle to film the characters feet, and because the skateboard had wheels we were able to film the characters feet while they were walking along, we just had to pull the skateboard along as they walked. We then edited out the sound of the skateboards movements on FinalCut.

The only disadvantage of using this particular type of camera was that there are better quality camcorders on the market, and within the film industry they would have a lot more equipment to make the films as good as they can be, but we obviously didn't have access to higher quality equipment.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We feel that our soundtrack doesn't really sound similar to any popular music tracks, however the style of our soundtrack is like the typical horror backing track that would be used within the genre. We thought that this would attract the audience because our soundtrack sounds quite eery and the majority of people would associate that style of music to horror films, so if our film opening was to be played on TV or on an advert when they wasn't really focusing on the TV they may hear the music and wonder what the music was associated with, and if they were fans of horror films then they would most likely pay even more attention to it.

We think that we could compare our soundtrack to the one that was made for 'The Woman In Black' because both our soundtrack and the one form the film have quite an eery nature to them. They both also have certain points within the soundtrack where there is a build up (crescendo) of the music/instruments, obviously to create more suspense until the track finally reaches the climax and this would most likely be the point where the victim has been attacked by the antagonist.

In terms of costumes, the clothing was quite casual for the three girls because they had to portray that they were just typical students making their way home, which the audience can relate to, especially the teenagers since they most likely would have experienced a time where they were walking home with their friends. So for this we just decided that the three girls would dress in their everyday clothes that they would wear and feel comfortable in since we only had to portray a typical teenager.

However in terms of the antagonist, we put a little more thought into the costume, even though the costume looks quite casual as well, we thought that it would be effective if I wore black because this is quite conventional within a horror film because black is seen to be a mysterious and spooky colour, similar to lucid shadows. I also wore a hoodie to conceal my face and head a little, which also was effective since this is quite a common thing for an antagonist to do before approaching a victim. Since the antagonist is wearing all black we felt that the audience would easily be able to identify straight away who the antagonist is, so when I first appear in a scene they will most likely identify me to be the antagonist and they will begin to question what will happen as I approach the victim.

For the set of our film opening we decided that an alleyway would be quite an effective place to film since there are a lot of them around and people continuously use them as short cuts or passages to get home, and a lot of students venture down alleyways to get home or to make their journey shorter. Alleyways are also quite a confined space because in most cases you can only go up or down the alley, you can't turn right or left to change your route, and the particular alley that we used to film in, we were only able to go up or down the alley, so emphasising the fact that the victim (Becca) couldn't really escape the antagonist if she wanted to.

I think that the audience will most likely relate to the three girls or Becca's character (the victim).  Because in terms of the three girls, the audience may think 'Oh those girls remind me of me and my friends' since they may relate to the fact that the girls are walking home with their friends, or someone may relate to the clip when Becca has to leave her friends to go her way home on her own.

Also I think that the majority or the audience may relate to Becca's situation where she has to walk up the alleyway on her own, since a lot of people consider alleyways to be quite scary, especially when you're on your own or during the night. So when the audience sees the scene with Becca in the alley on her own they may sympathise with her because they may have been in the same sort of situation as her at some point in their life.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We think that our film would appeal to teenagers and maybe some young adults, because in real life, most horror films are quite popular with the younger generation. This could also link in with the fact that horror films have certain ages certificates because the content may not be suitable for certain age groups, so most horror films are usually certified as either a 12, 15 or an 18. We decided to certify our film as a 15 because this would enable the film to attract a wider age group, so ranging from teenagers aged 15 and above to young adults, depending on whether you’re a fan of horror films it could appeal to older adults as well. 

Other popular horror films that would attract this particular age group would be films such as Insidious, Scream, Paranormal Activity, Woman in Black etc. We feel that this is because these films have been considered popular with teenagers or young adults, and when we asked the rest of our group of peers what their favourite horror films were Paranormal Activity and Scream were the most popular choices through out the group. 

We also found that certain people in our peer group that are fans of horror films prefer to watch a certified 15 or over film because it would include more of the typical horror conventions which creates suspense and a shock factor, but even if you're not a fan of horror films you may find that a certified 15 film would be ok for you to watch, depending on the actual plot of the film. 

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

We decided to choose Warner Bros because it is a mass film institution and is well known to an audience. We think that our film would be British as the actors/actresses would be British, however since Warner Bros is also very popular in the US it could also be released in America, which would gain the film a bigger audience.

The image on the left is the Warner Bros institution that was specially designed to be used for the Harry Potter films, which is a good technique that the institution have used because this allows the audience to be able recognise this particular design if they happen to see it in advertisements on TV, magazines, posters, etc.

We think that this idea of having a British film but releasing it out into the US can be compared to other popular films that have teamed with Warner Bros, for example the Harry Potter films. These films are extremely popular worldwide, and even though the films were originally British they soon became released in other countries such as America to promote the films, but also the books. So even though the majority of the actors and actresses within these films are British, the films still appeal to an audience from countries all over the world.

A film that our opening is very similar to is Scream, which is also linked to the Warner Bros institution, and since this film is also in the horror category we feel that it's the closest similarity that our film opening has to another horror film. Scream is a very popular film and when watching various clips of the film we felt quite inspired by the plot, and we can compare various aspects of the film to our film opening, for example the use of close ups on the victim on the lead up to her getting attacked by the antagonist, or the fact that we used a telephone as a way of communication or messaging between the antagonist and the victim. Like in most horror films, we also included the fact that the victim was alone before she was attacked, the only difference being that the setting on the between the two were different, but having differences is good because we didn’t want to just go along with the exact same plot as Scream, we all put in our own ideas to make it our own work.
 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The group that we portrayed within our film opening was a group of typical teenage girls, who happen to be making their way home from school. We feel that this could be compared to the four main girls in the film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging because even though that particular film isn't a horror it still portrays a group of teenage girls pretty accurately.

As you can see, this image shows the four main girl characters within a real film as a particular social group. They're all walking home from school, chatting a laughing which is stereotypically what a group of teenage girls would usually do on their way home from school. Which is very similar to the screen grab that I have taken from our film opening, which shows the three main teenage girls walking home, talking and laughing, so in this case we have gone with the slight stereotype of a typical group of teenage girls.

The only difference between these screen grabs is the fact that in the first image the girls are wearing a formal school uniform, whereas our screen grab shows the girls in casual clothes, however we decided to do this to portray that the girls are a little older than normal school students, so in this case they would be sixth form/college students.

We feel that we could compare our main character (the victim) who is played by Becca as the typical teenage victim who would play in films such as Scream, as we feel that the Scream films were a good inspiration for our film opening. We thought this because they are both alone when they are approached by the antagonist and are both taken by surprise when the antagonist appears. Obviously they're both acting as teenage girls and coincidentally they both have blond hair. The only difference would be that Drew Barrymore is playing an American girl in the first Scream film whereas Becca is simply playing the part of a British teen girl.

We thought that we could compare the fact that we had a female character as the murderer to the film 'I spit on your grave' which is also a horror film, even though the story lines are completely different that particular film and our film opening both feature a female playing the role of the antagonist. So even films that have been created in real life are able to challenge the typical conventions of a horror which we have been inspired to do so as well. 

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

Throughout our film opening we have used various conventions of the horror genre which allowed us to be able to build tension throughout the clip. For example, the victim within our horror film eventually gets left alone by her two friends as she has to go a different way to get home, also she begins to venture down an alleyway to get home which is also quite a typical convention of a horror because alleyways are considered frightening when you're on your own and they are hard to escape from as they're quite compact.

We also used the aspect of phones as communication, which we thought was quite similar to the Scream films as the antagonist in these films used telephone calls to talk to his victims, so we chose to use text messages as a way for the antagonist/murderer to threaten their next victim, and in this case it was the two remaining friends.

We also followed the convention of what the antagonist would wear as a costume, because it is very likely that they would wear dark or black clothing when they were about to attack a victim so they look more threatening, or so they could blend in with the shadows to conceal themselves. So we went along with this convention which allowed me to wear a whole black costume, including a black hoodie which allowed to somewhat hide my face when we were filming the murder clips.

Finally we also went along with one of the conventional murder weapons that would be used in a horror film, again we found inspiration from the Scream films as the antagonist within those films would use a knife to attack his victims, which allowed us to decide that we wanted to use the same weapon because knifes are seen as extremely threatening and the sharpness gives the audience the idea of how much damage could be done by using that particular weapon. This particular screen grab also shows the shot type, which is a close up of the knife which is covered in blood, which also creates quite a frightening image. The use of close ups in the horror genre is very useful as you're able to see particular things clearer, even if its not intentional.

Even though we included a variety of horror conventions we also challenged them a little. The day that we decided to film the weather was quite sunny outside, and after a little while a rainbow began to form which wouldn't really be an expected setting within a horror film, however this also created contrast between the future events and the beginning of the film opening. This could be seen as quite a good thing because even though the setting was quite light which didn't fit with the aspect of the victim being attacked, the contrast could make the audience more tense as the event builds up.

Another convention that we challenged was the fact that the antagonist was played by a female in our film opening when they would usually be played by a male as they are portrayed as more violent and dominant. Even though our antagonist, which was played by me, was wearing a hoodie with the hood concealing some of the features you are still able to tell that the antagonist is in fact a female because you're able to see my facial features very close up when the camera is zoomed in on my face and you can see my hair blowing in the wind as I make my way down the alleyway towards the victim (Becca).

Audience feedback

For our audience feedback we decided that we would upload our film opening to Facebook because it is a very popular social networking site that our target audience would use regularly. This allowed up to get comments back from various people on what they liked our disliked about the video.

The feedback was mostly positive which can be seen as a good and bad thing, it would've been more effective if people commented on things that we could improve on so we know what to do next time, however quite a few people pointed out particular things that they liked, for example one person stated that they liked the way we filmed the titles as the antagonist typing it out as a text message.

We also asked a few of our family members on what they thought about our film opening:

• Becca's mum- 'I love all the effects & the way you did the credits! You do look a little too happy about being stalked and stabbed though ;-)'
• My brother- 'I like the way you done the titles, but the weather looks a bit too sunny'
• My sister- 'I like the shot of the feet walking and running, it's very creative!'

Finally we also uploaded it to Becca's main YouTube channel as she has quite a few subscribers so it allowed us to gain a lot of views, which shows that people showed an interest in watching it.

Animated Storyboard

This is our animated storyboard, we found this very effective to do as it was easier to be able to upload a video of the whole storyboard rather than uploading separate images of each shot. We ended up making two storyboards, this is because before filming it was more like a rough idea of how we wanted our film opening to look with all of the separate shots, but after we had completely finished filming and editing we realised that our storyboard wasn't exactly the same as our film opening and we had also forgotten to include key shots and information. So after redoing our storyboard it looked a lot more accurate and matched up with our final film opening piece, we then had to re film all of the shots and edit them into one video.

However uploading the animated storyboard to our blogs proved to be very difficult as we couldn't upload it straight onto our blogs because it wouldn't work, so we wasn't sure what to do until we came up with the idea that we could upload it onto one of our YouTube channels then upload it onto our blogs from there. This proved to be a lot easier and less hassle.