Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Music

The style of music we used in the opening scene is quite loud and bold music. We used this type of music to build tension in the scene and also to add to the mystery of the scene. When creating the music we wanted to use quite loud and bold instruments such as drums or the bass guitar. We used these type of instruments to add to the tension and to make the viewer feel nervous about the scene. When editing the opening scene I found that without the music it was very dull and not very intense, but when we added the music it sounded interesting and it definitely helped build tension.

Quite a lot of horror films use loud and bold instruments to build tension. If you watched a horror movie on mute it wouldn't be very exciting and you probably wouldn't be scared or nervous. But when you watch it with the sound on, you immediately feel nervous and tense when watching a scene. This is because the music is a big part in making the scene tense and triggering the viewers reactions. With this in mind we wanted to make our soundtrack as bold and tense as possible.

Other film soundtracks that are quite similar to our soundtrack are 'Psycho' and 'Here's Johnny'.

'Psycho'

The piece of music from this film is very famous and well-known. It starts off with screeching noises and it ends up dipping in and out of the soundtrack. The type of instruments that have been used are string instruments such as the violin. This soundtrack is similar to our soundtrack because the same instruments have been used, and also they have similar tunes. Our soundtrack has a bigger variety of tunes, where as this soundtrack is more straight forward and basic as it uses the same instruments and has the same sort of tune to it throughout the whole thing. I like this soundtrack because although it is quite basic and they only use one instrument it is still very tense and makes the scene that little bit more scary.

'Here's Johnny'

The piece of music from this film isn't as famous as the other one but the same type of tune is used in quite a few horror movies. The soundtrack is very screechy and high pitched but it builds a lot of tension in the scene. The instruments in this soundtrack are mainly violins but there a few sound effects in it as well. This soundtrack is similar to our soundtrack because the same instruments have been used and also they have very similar tunes. Our soundtrack is made out of a few more instruments but this soundtrack and our soundtrack are similar as they use the same type of instruments in the same way.

Characters - Costumes, Sets and Props

We didn't use a lot of props in our opening scene but we did use a phone, a bag, a fake knife, and fake blood. We used them because we needed to show someone being stabbed also we used phones to make the teenage girl stereotype effect. We filmed outside on a street and in an alleyway because we wanted to build tension and make it into a mystery type scene. The costumes we used were casual everyday wear. Also for the murderer we wanted her to wear all black to emphasise the fact that she was a murderer.

The different characters we had were: Teenage girl - quite stereotypical and the person that gets murdered. 

Murderer - stereotypical villain wearing all black

Two teenage girls - stereotypical teenagers. 

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience are teenagers and adults but mainly young adults. A teenagers interest in films is a variety of different genres. A teenage boy would be interested in action movies, disaster movies, horror movies and comedy movies. A teenage girl would be interested in romantic movies, chick flicks, possibly action movies, comedy movies, fantasy movies and possibly horror movies, depending on the personality of the person. An adults interest in films is a little more restricted as they know what genres they think are boring and what genres they think are interesting. A man would be interested in comedy movies, action movies, disaster movies and horror movies. A woman would be interested in comedy movies, chick flicks, romantic movies, fantasy movies, action movies (depending on the personality) and possibly horror movies (again depending on the personality).

When deciding on what age to target the film at we created a target audience questionnaire which we gave to people of different ages to see what type of movies they like to watch. We put questions that link to the different genres of movies like; What is your favourite movie genre that you like to watch?

After having the questionnaire filled out by a variety of different genders and age groups we came up with what target age we were going to use. The results showed that teenagers enjoy watching horror movies as they like the tension and they like getting scared. Some teenagers said, however, that they don't usually like watching horror movies because they scare them, so we had to think carefully about that. More adults said that they find horror movies entertaining and they enjoy watching them because they like getting scared and they like feeling tense.

From the results of the questionnaire, we found that teenagers and adults like to watch horror movies, which is why our target audience is teenagers and adults.

Creating | Font

When choosing a font style to use for our film title, we looked on a website called “dafont.com”. We used this website because we had used it before and also we knew that we would be able to find a horror type font that we could use.

We looked at many different fonts when choosing a final font as we wanted to make sure that we found the right one. We tried out many different fonts with the title of our film, ‘Never Look Back’, to see which one suited it best.

We finally decided on a font called ‘face your fears’. We liked this font because we thought it looked like blood and we also thought it looked quite scary. There were many fonts that had the same type of style as this font but we chose this one as we thought it looked the best out of all of the ones we tried out. When thinking about the font before we knew we wanted a font that looked like blood or looked quite scary and it had to tie in with our opening scene plot. When we saw this font we knew it would work as it was what we wanted and also it tied in with our plot very well.

We put the text on a powerpoint slide and decided that we needed to change the colour of it. It was originally black and we felt that it was dull and boring. We wanted the title to be a bold colour but not too bright and not too dark. We agreed on the dark red colour as we felt it looked more like blood. Once the colour was sorted out, we had to decide on how we wanted to lay the text out. We decided that layering the text would look better so we put 'Never' at the top, 'Look' in the middle and 'Back' at the bottom. Also to make it more scary and to make it link in with the horror genre, we decided to put blood behind it and make the background black so the text would stand out more.

Creating | Movie Backing Track

These are the links to the soundtrack of our opening scene. We created three pieces of music to put in the background of our opening scene and we uploaded them all to sound cloud. When creating our soundtracks we used a mix of different instruments. We wanted the music to sound quite tense and we wanted it to show mystery. When creating the different soundtracks we had the basic edit of the opening scene playing in the background so we knew when each instrument and tune needed to come in to the scene. This helped us, as we knew when to start recording the music and we also knew when to finish. Also it helped us have an idea of how we wanted our music to sound like.

Soundtrack 1 –

https://soundcloud.com/nlbfilmas/moviesong-first-soundtrack

The instruments we used in this soundtrack is a simple drum. We used this because we wanted to add tension o the scene and we also wanted to make the scene more interesting. When adding this instrument we found that it definitely made the scene more tense and scary for the viewer. 

Soundtrack 2 –

https://soundcloud.com/nlbfilmas/never-look-back-alleyway-music
We used a keyboard with different sound effects because we wanted to add a few sound effects to the scene to make the scene more interesting and to make the tension build. We also used drums and guitar to make the scene more interesting. 

Soundtrack 3 –

https://soundcloud.com/nlbfilmas/third-soundtrack

This soundtrack was made to be put over the title scene so we can add tension to it. Again all we used is a drum because we felt it added a lot tension to the title scene. And also it was a good way to end the opening scene. 

Chosen film institution | Warner Bros.

Our chosen film institution for our own film is ‘Warner Bros.’.

• The reasons why we have chosen to use this institutional company in our film are because:
• They make quite a lot of horror genre films.
• They are a very well-known film institutional company. 

 They gain a lot of money from the horror movies that they have produced.  Even though they are an American company, they still produce British films such as the ‘Harry Potter’ trilogy. They usually have big budgets for films which mean that props can be used and sets can be created. ‘Warner Bros.’ have a variety of mixed movie genres, which means that they are known for producing lots of different types of films, so it wouldn’t be weird to the public if they produced our horror film.

When researching ‘Warner Bros.’ we looked at the type of movies they usually film and how well each of them did. We also looked at all of the films that they produced in the past years of them being around. We wanted to make sure our film was suitable for ‘Warner Bros.’ and we wanted to make sure that it was a film that they would produce. To do this we looked at all the horror movies ‘Warner Bros.’ produced, read the plots of them and decided whether our film would suit the list of ‘Warner Bros.’ horror movies.

We didn’t look for any other institutional company’s when thinking who we wanted to produce our movie, because we had our minds set on ‘Warner Bros.’. We also did our research into whether any ‘Warner Bros.’ films had other producers working on the films with them. We did a lot of research and we found a mix of results. Some ‘Warner Bros.’ films had other producers that were part of the film and helped create it; however other ‘Warner Bros.’ films didn’t have any other producers helping. We decided to just use ‘Warner Bros.’ as our film institution as we knew that they have produced movies on their own before.

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 7

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

Me and my group have said that we think we have learnt a lot through the preliminary task we complete before. 

I have learnt how to do further editing in out opening scene with the footage. I have also learnt more about the different types of shots we used in our opening scene and in our storyboard. Other members in the group said that they have learnt more about the different programs we have used when creating the opening scene. They have also said that they feel their knowledge on camera shots has grown and know we all have a wider range of different camera shots. I also feel that my knowledge on editing footage and creating music has grown as I have bigger understanding of how it all works and how to do certain things. 

Overall, the preliminary tasks helped us when filming and editing different camera shots. And through that task we have gained a lot of knowledge about different camera shots and how to edit. 

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 6

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

When creating this opening scene I used a lot of different websites and a few programmes to help me create the opening scene.

The first thing I used was a camera to film the actual footage we were going to use. We all knew how to work a camera and how it worked so when we decided on who was going to film we didn't have a problem. We all learnt how to film, zoom in and out and also we learnt how to get things in focus. All of us practised with the camera before we decided on who was going to film. 

We then used iMovie to upload our footage and convert it to the proper setting so it would upload onto final cut pro. Using iMovie was quite easy as we knew how to used it by the filming tasks we completed before our opening scene. It wasn't hard to workout what to do.  So once that was all uploaded onto the computer properly we went on to use Final Cut Pro. 

Final Cut Pro was a little harder to use as we were all we to it. During the process of editing the opening scene we found out how to cut a clip, how to speed a clip up and how to slow a clip down. We also learnt how to add music to the clips. We also leant how to add different effects and transitions to the clips of the opening scene. It was quite straight forward once we got the hang of the program and once we knew what we were doing. But at first it was very complicated. 

To create the music we used GarageBand. This program was quite easy to work out and to use as I have used it before. There were many instruments on the program and it was easy to record. It was quite hard to upload the songs into a file as the directions weren't very clear but I found a way to do it and it worked. 

For the font we used two programs. We used Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and we also used a website called dafont. As a group we knew how to work dafont so we were pretty confident with how to upload the font and find different fonts for our genre. We were also very confident when using PowerPoint because we knew how to do a lot with that programme. So changing the colour of the font wasn't hard for us to do.

When the opening scene was finished we used YouTube to upload it to the public and so it was easy for people to see it. We then uploaded it onto blogger through YouTube, we uploaded it to twitter and Facebook through YouTube as well. We did this so we could get feedback on the opening scene. We needed to know what went well and what didn't go well so when having a chance to change it slightly we were able to know what to improve.

All in all, I have learnt a lot about the technology that we have used when creating the opening scene and it was helpful because it can help me with any future jobs that I might have because I might have to use some of those programs. 

Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 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?

We chose the film institution ‘Warner Bros.’ because we knew they were a very well-known and quite popular film company, which means that our film would have had a lot of promotion. ‘Warner Bros.’ is an American company which means that they produce Hollywood films, but they also produce British films. This meant that our film could be seen as a British film even with an American film company. As a group we didn’t really think about whether we wanted this film to be made for TV or whether we just wanted it to be made for the cinema. I think our film is suitable for TV, so it could be shown on horror/thriller film channels or it could be shown on a special event such as Halloween.

‘Warner Bros.’ have produced many horror films that are comparable to ours, but one that stands out against others is the ‘Harry Potter’ film series as it is a British film produced by ‘Warner Bros.’. There are many differences and a few similarities between our film and ‘Harry Potter’.

Differences:

·      Our film is based around the horror genre whereas ‘Harry Potter’ is based around the fantasy and adventure genre.

·      They use lots of special effects and CGI throughout all of the ‘Harry Potter’ films; however in our film we didn’t use any special effects or any CGI. We did use fake blood which comes under special effects, but it’s nothing compared to what special effects they use in ‘Harry Potter’.

·      In ‘Harry Potter’ they use very special costumes and they make the outfits especially for the film. Unlike our film where we just put the characters in normal casual everyday outfits.

·      The music used in ‘Harry Potter’ is based around the fantasy genre and a lot of sound effects are used. On the other hand our film music is mainly based around horror and we didn’t use any sound effects.

·      ‘Harry Potter’ was filmed on a set that was created just for the ‘Harry Potter’ trilogy. Unlike our film where we filmed outside and didn’t make and create anything that we could have filmed.

·      ‘Harry Potter’ has a mix of genders where as our film is mainly female characters which wasn’t intentional.

Similarities:

·      Both ‘Harry Potter’ and our film were filmed in the UK.

·      They are both known as British films produced by ‘Warner Bros’.

·      Both films create mystery and build tension with the music used.

·      They have similar characters as there are three friends and one villain.