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.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product is of a 15 certificate with our intended audience being anyone who is of or over that age, specifically people who are in their late teens. This will mean that our film will not be suitable for anyone under the age of fifteen as it is a thriller/horror and therefore will contain scenes that may appear to be distressing for a younger audience. In contrast to our film and also in our previous analysis, the film "The Strangers", which is of the same genre was also certified as a 15 as both our film and "The Strangers" contain similar elemants of thriller/horror scenes and therefore cannot be watched by a younger audience. Our target audience in terms of gender would be predominatly females in their late teens. This is because the main characters in our film are of this gender and age so can be easily related to by the specified audience. Also, because of the genre being a thriller/horror, it is more than likely that it will also attract a male audience as they are usually the main target audience of this particular genre. In terms of the type of peope that our film is aimed at, it would be for people who have an interest in mytstery and drama. This would be a niche audience and may only be a minority of people with a unique interest rather than the majority who would be more interested in rom-coms.

Main Task Location

Longford Park, Trafford
This is where we wil be filming part of our film opening as it has alot of space enough for the action that we would like to put into it. We will be using different parts of this park as it is ideal for different parts of our filming.

Main Task: Location

Benchill, Wythenshawe
This is an old medical centre in Wythenshawe, and we thought it would be perfect for one scene where the girl walks through a house.

Production Treatment For Main Task

Opening of a short film:

Genre: Horror

Title: "Mask"

Duration:

2 minutes

Audience:

Our intended audience is anyone aged between 15- 25, both male and female

Resume:

The film begins at the end with a shot of the park and then there's two people walking into an empty house, where they see blood on the wall, and broken objects, covered in blood. Then they have a flashback where a girl walks through the park wearing teared up, dirty clothes, running away from someone that is chasing her.

Suggested Elements:

• Two girls walk through am empty house, and then later on, one of the girls run through the park
• Ragid clothes (blood, ripped up, dirty)
• Fake blood, old pottery, answering machine
• Park
• "title opening credits"

Recording days:

"4 days"

Estimated budget: "50p"

Main Task: Shot List

1. Medium Close up shot of characters

2. Wide Angle Shot of scenery

3. Close up shots of scenery such as the swings in the park or the answering machine and objects.

4. Point of view shot to show what a character is looking at

5. Extreme close up of a character when they have a flash back

6. High Angle Shot of the scenery

7. Pan Shot of characters walking in to the empty house

8. Establishing shot of the scenery at the beginning

9. Long shot of the characters in the house

10. Tracking Shot of the characters walking into the house

11. Low angle shot of the characters in the house

12.Two shot the two characters looking at the same object

13. Side shot of the girls face

14. Shot reverse shot of the girls and the answering machine.

15. Cut in shot of the girls.

The Grudge Analysis (5)

The opening scene then ends with a shot of the husband on the floor dead after his sudden fall. The sound at this point is very slow and very spooky because the fall was unexpected and was made to frighten viewers. This shot then fades out which is a good effect because it leaves the viewer in suspense wanting to find out more and ask the questions who made him jump off his balcony and why did he do that to himself. It leaves the viewer wanting to watch the film and see what happens.

The Grudge Analysis (4)

The scene then cuts to a point of view shot as the husband falls from the balcony to the floor below. This point of view shot shows how far the husband is falling so the viewer can see from the husbands point of view where hes falling from. The sound at this point is at a much quicker pace to show that something has happened to the husband something really bad.

The Grudge Analysis (3)

This medium shot of the husband on the balcony shows him looking out at the city seeing the view of his city in the morning. The sound at this point is very dark and gloomy giving the viewer a sense of suspense as he stands on the balcony which leaves the viewer thinking whats going to happen next is he going to fall off or is he going to walk back inside as normal.

The Grudge Analysis (2)

The opening scene begins with an establishing shot of the city where the film is based, so it shows where the film is and what sort of surroundings the film is going to be set in. This shot shows the oytside of the city from a very good view so the viewer is then able to see all of the scenery where things could be happeneing in the film and it gives the viewer and= idea of what sort of things could happen later on in the film. On this shot the mise en scene is very dull looking like it could rain and its very cold in the city which shows that something dark and not very good will be happening in the film.

The Grudge Analysis (1)

This is the start of the opening scene showing the film production company colombia who are owned by sony pictures. Sony pictures are based in the united kingdom and have produced a lot of different films such as The Green Hornet and Faster.

Main Task Analysis: The Grudge

This was another film that we researched as it related to the genre of "horror" that we are going to do. This film has a very scary start to the film where there is a woman in a kitchen with her husband who sees her husband fall from there balcony all the way down to the bottom of where they live. Which resulted in her husband then dieing. This films opening scene doesnt give the plot away it gives away enough information for the viewer to be left in suspence wanting to find out more about the film, whats going to happen and why the woman saw her husband fall from her balcony.

The Strangers Analysis (4)

This medium close-up of the blood is an element in which we would like to incorporate into our own film. This shot is a key feature into the action that has taken place in the film and will be a key focus in our own film. This adds reality of danger and suspence which is what we want to create so people will want to know how the blood got on the wall.

The Strangers Analysis (3)

This a close up shot of the record player which is playing a voice recording from an answering machine during the opening scene of The Strangers. This part of the openinmg scene adds suspence and gives people a spooky feeling about the answering machine and draws poeople in so they want to here what the record player is playing and it also draws people in to watch more of the film to see where the recording had came from in the first place.

The Strangers Analysis (2)

This shot is at the start of the opening scene where there are two children in the picture as you look through the smashed car window. This adds an element of danger to the film because of the smashed car window which is shown through a close up.and two frightened children riding towards the door on their bikes. The smashed window on the car shows that something has happened and that it is something that is not good for the people who have been in the house or the two children going in to the house who are shown using a long shot.

The Strangers Analysis (1)

This film begins with a shot of the film company Rogue Pictures who are a film company from America who have made this film The Strangers.

Main Task Analysis: The Strangers

After we decided that we wanted to do a horror themed film we thought of some films that had openeings similar to how we wanted to do ours. We looked at the opening to "The Strangers" and picked out key elements that we wanted to incorporate into our film. For example this film begins at the end which is the idea that we want to do. It also has shots of various locations and props which have meaning to what happened in the actual action of the film for example "blood on a wall". All of this adds suspense to the film which interested us and enabled us to come up with similar ideas for our own opening scene.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

• What did you learn about the camera and editing software during the preliminary task?

The cameras that we used during the preliminary task were easier to use than we thought to figure out the settings on the camera and to use in general. The camera allowed us to do a wide range of different shots in a range of different locations. To make the preliminary task have a good flow of shots that could be put together in the editing software. The editing software allowed us to edit all of are shots to make them fit in to are task. The editing software also allowed us to use a range of cuts such as a match cut and it also let us use a range of shots such as shot reverse shot. We also found out that all the shots we took with the camera worked well with the editing software to put the piece together.

• In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved

In the filming and editing part of our preliminary task the locations of the college building in which we filmed worked well with the shots that were used and were a good way of establishing the shots that we originally had in our shot list. Also we achieved good continuity editing by ensuring that our match cuts and other various shots were edited carefully so it all flowed into each other.

Overall our whole group worked well together and we planned our task well as a team to make sure we all had a part in doing something.

The only thing that I suggest that could be improved is that we could have worked faster so that we had time to add music and credits to add to the effect of our film.

• Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot/reverse shot combination in your film.

We made sure that we used the 180-degree rule in order to do our shot reverse shot. When it was the scene where the two characters were having a conversation in the classroom, we filmed one of the characters first over the opposite characters shoulder and stopped where the other character was due to say her line. We then filmed the other character saying her line from behind the opposites shoulder. We then had two different shots and then just cut and edited them together so that it flowed into a shot reverse shot.

• Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieved match cuts during the editing process

We filmed Havana walking through the corridor, and we focused on the door handle, in which she opened after. We went inside, and filmed her opening the door from the outside.

During the editing, we had to cut in between where Havana opened the door, and stopped half way. Then we added the bit where we filmed from the inside, and then cut it half way where she’s walking in. We had to choose the cuts carefully, e.g., Havana opened the door with her right foot, so we had to cut it, with her right foot inside.

Prelimanary Task: Shot List

1) Panning-the room

2) Tracking-foot steps

3) Shot reverse shot-conversation

4) Close up- characters face & door handle

5) Medium close up- characters

6) Establishing shot- the scenery

7) Low angle- as the character walks up the stairs

8) Wide angle- room

9) Long shot- characters

10) Point of view shot- looking at their phone

11) High angle shot- from flats

Preliminary Task