Directors Commentary

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

During the time when we were doing the preliminary task we didn't plan it or anything we just straight away went in to it and improvised on what we though would be right and what would look good. So in the real opening scene we took are time sat down and thought about what we were doing. This helped us come up with good clear ideas which we all agreed on and we all new what we were doing to help create this opening scene.

In our discussion locations and genre were disscused and we came up with that the genre of the film was going to be horror and that the location was going to be the park, where we was going to film all of our opening scene. We then came up with the days that we were going to go out and film and what date we wanted to be finished by so we could then edit it together.

During the preliminary task we didn't really have a genre so we couldn't relate the characters to the genre, but on the main task we made a decision on what genre we were doing so we could relate the characters to the genre. We did alot of research on different films which are to do with the horror genre for example "The Strangers" and "The Grudge", in the strangers we used the masks that are on the masked men and put them on our masked man to make the film much more scary.

During the making of our opening scene we found out that we used a lot more camera shots in the main task then the preliminary task, but some of the camera shots that were in the preliminary task were also used in the main task. We used the long shot in the preliminary task and put it in to the main task but in the main task we think that we improved this shot, because we used it in a different way which is whilst the two girls were running down the stairs we had a long shot of them running then followed them whilst they ran past the camera which looked better than how it was used on the preliminary task. In the preliminary task we had a written task that we had to do but in the main task we were free to do whatever we want so we could do as many shots as we want and whatever shots we wanted to do but in the preliminary task we were restricted so we had to do what we could do instead of doing all we want to do.

Finally, in the preliminary task we found out alot of good information about how to put together an opening scene we found out about different camera shots and learnt about how to use a genre and how to find out the solutions to problems that came our way.

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

During the construction of our product we have learnt alot of different things about the technologies we have used.

• Shots- In particular we learned about the different range of shots that we can do with the camera equipment we had including the tripod. We learnt that the tripod can get much higher and lower for high or low angle shots that we wouldn't be able to get to without the tripod. Also, we learnt that the camera can get a wide range of different shots whenever we want them, such as close ups, extreme close ups and long shots.We slowly became more and more comfortable with the camera and then started to experiment more and more, trying different things such as zooming in on particular things and zooming out, for example, zooming in when the guy was cutting the photographs. Furthermore, we also tried to use a variety of different angle. We had a wide angle shot at one point in the film so we could show all of the scenery as well as the two characters. Also we learnt that the tripod allows us to do shots such as a "pan shot", which is much easier to do using a tripod than doing it handheld as the camera is much more steady on a tripod than it would have been handheld.

• Editing- We picked up alot about the editing software which we used to create the film. We learnt that the editing software, Final Cut Pro has alot of different elements to it that helped us show different parts of our opening scene to make the past, and the present look much more understandable. As we used the editing software more and more, our confidence grew, making us more aware of different effects that we could experiment on and use. This is shown by the contrast of black and white with the natural colours of the surrounding. Having this kind of effect tells us the difference between the past (which was in black and white) and the present (which was in colour).
  

• Softwares-We learnt alot about the sound software that we used, Garage Band. This helped us create the soundtrack that went through the opening scene. We used some of the samples and the effects from the software to create a spooky soundtrack which would make the film sound and look much more alarming, and add to the atmosphere of the diegetic sound which was already in the film.

We changed alot of things in are opening scene because our orginal plan for the opening scene was that the two girls were going to be chased by the masked man in to a house where the girls were going to find alot of different props, but we changed it and it resulted in us doing a lot of different shots in the park trying to get the right shots to put together and make a good opening scene.

In conclusion this whole experience of making an openimg scene of a film has taught us a lot about the editing software (Final Cut Pro), the camera equipment and the sound software (Garge Band). During the time that we have had to learn about the different software and equipment, it has helped us create a good opening scene which has a wide range of shots, great editing and different transitions in it, this experience has shown us how to use all of the softwares if we ever have to use them again.
Final Cut Pro

How did you attract/ address your audience?

As our intended audience is young adults, we used characters of around this age so that they are able to relate to our film and can imagine themselves in the situation the way our characters are responding.

We used various techniques to attract and grab the audience's attention.

In the beginning, we used a template from Final Cut Pro, which is just a ghostly white blur going across the screen, we feel that this can catch the audience's eyes because then they'll know straight away that the film is going to be along the lines of horror.

Adding tension is created to thrill the audience, we have gained this using the following:

• Music: The non diagetic sound added to the film helps create tension as it has an eery soundtrack, of some slow, elongated and low notes which makes the film more interesting to watch. We kept some diagetic sounds such as the cutting of papers, banging on the door and running, to cut the tention. By doing so, we hope to keep the audience entertained by not just showing the clips with the same non diagetic sounds, but adding more natural sounds. This also engages the audience because they can hear diagetic sounds, so it seems that it's not all artificial.

• Mise en scene: The character's clothing are casual and what would normally worn by teenage girls nowadays. This can relate to our targeted audience as young adults. In sense of locations, we have picked a park nearby college, the targeted audience are more like to relate to this as they are more
  likely the ones to "hang out" in parks, especially after long days of school or college. We also used an abandoned house as part of our film, because the audience could have already be thinking about a "haunted" or "abandoned" place if its genre is horror or thriller.

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• Editing: The way we cut the and edited our clips will hopefully question the audience about what's going to happen later on the film. We showed little clips on our opening scene, which later on will be explained and seen. We think this is very effective as the little clips in the beginning will stay in the audiences' head and be more distinctive, which hopefully make them understand the film more.

Main Task- "Mask"

Our final product

"Mask"

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

After doing some research on The strangers, which was one of our films we chosen to analyze, we found that the main production company for this film was Rogue Pictures and this was also one of their many distributors. As this is a relatively large company who have had involvement in many larger budgeted films such as The Strangers, unfortunately they will not be willing to disribute our film as our film is a low budgeted British film with all its conventions also being British. However we have researched some British distributers that specializes in low budget British films, and found that Optimum Releasing, which is a film distributor which is best known for its anime releases will be the most suitable in distributing our media production as they have previously distibuted films such as The Decent and Eden Lake which are also low budgeted British Horror/Thriller films.

Optimum was acquired by Studio Canal which is a French company in 2006

Optimum was aquired by studio canal which is a french based disributing company.

Putting our production under this professional distributer will enable our film to be viewed by wider audiences.

Pathe is another French company which could also be a possible distributor for our media production as they have also produced films simalarly to ours such as The Descent.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film opening introduces two young girls who are the central characters of the film and also a male character who appears to be the dominatiing role. We see the two girls run down the stairs in a park at the beginning of the scene and appear to be ditressed which follows he trumatic event of being stalked and followed . To approach this we used teenage girls to represent these characters to show the vunrability which appears in alot of young teenage girls of today. We also used two to emphasise the reality of the fact that teenage girls usually stick together as good friends. The fact that they are running is also a symbolism of teenage girls emotionally escaping from their fears and hiding away from them which emphasises the relavance of things that teenage girls usually go through. This also challenges the stereotypical view of teenage girls and allows them to be seen in a different light and show that they do have problems that an occur in their life and they are not all what may be portrayed about them.
In the opening, we also see that somebody is in a room cutting out pictures of the two teenage girls which seemed to have been taken randomly, however we do not see who is doing this creating suspense and allows the audience to question why this is taking place and how it links to why the two girls are running away amplifying that teenage girls are vunerable and can be unaware of the danger they are in.
We do not see a male character until the very end of the opening but we automatically see that he does dominate the plot to the rest of the film and may be the reason why the two teenage girls are in danger. This brings up the question as to whether he is the one that was cutting up the pictures earlier on in the scene as he somes accross as smart and in control of his moves through these courageous acts.