Focus Group Post 7

We discussed the films plot and script with a Focus Group. Below is their feedback:

Group Meeting Post 4

Putting together all our research taken out indivualy, we had a group meeting and discussed the overall plot, location etc. of our film:

Liam thought the intial setting of the opening sequence would be effective within a frightening woods in the local area, immediately setting a gothic tone to the rest of the film. Liam then also thought of some ideas for the main plot of the film; where we settled on his idea of a scouts weekend trip in the forest. As a group we agreed with Liam's idea, because we thought it would me more frightening knowing that the film would be about children.

Lucy then thought of the physical characters within the production; where we would use the gothic idea of a demon to create an unknown atmosphere. She thought adding another character that isnt seen throughout the opening sequence would create a sense of mystery and tension for the audience.

Jack then gave his ideas on the editing part of the production. He thought the credits should appear slowly at the bottom of each shot in a scrappy, handwritten font. He then discussed his ideas with music; and how gothic, high pitched music would add tension and thrill to the piece as a whole.

Then as a group, we thought we needed to post some type of link to show the danger this forest without introducing the scouts in the opening; which is where we came up with the idea of two young school girls.

Decided Plot of Opening Sequence: Two school girls are walking home from school when they begin to dare eachother to explore a strange looking forest. When they enter, strange things immediately begin to happen. When one of the girls disappears, the other panics and attempts to run out of the forest before tripping over a log and falling face down. With the constant feeling of being followed throughout her experience in the forest, the girls' body is dragged backwards by an unknown person.

Choosing Your Genre Post 2

Worldwide highest-grossing films of all time (click on the picture to view in HQ):



From this data, it is clear that the top selling genre of film is in fact Action & Adventure films with a heavy underlying fantasy theme. Also, it is obvious that it is not just about the genre but how well and expensively made the film is produced and distributed.




Although, the highest grossing genre from 1995-2010 is in fact Comedy. It shows that even though Action & Adventure films earn the most money, Comedy has the widest audience.

As a group, we made a questionnaire consisting of the following questions:

1. What is your favourite film genre and why?
2. What is your favourite film and what genre what you categorise it under?
3. What do you expect to see in an opening sequence?
4. Is there a genre you would like to see more of?
5. What makes you interested in a film?
6. What is your gender?
7. What is your age?

From this, we learned there was a gap in the market for a new horror movie as 'Horror' seemed to be the most popular genre within the people we questioned.

Conventions of an Opening Sequence Post 1

The Ring

The Ring's opening sequence is that of a short story in itself. It doesn't conform to every convention when it comes to opening sequences in general, but in terms of horror, it does. It remains without titles to leave the opening sequence's story as your main focus. The titles come after. It has a lot of dialogue which again isn't usually the norm when it comes to opening sequences.

Lolita



Lolita's opening sequence is the ideal example of a stereotypical opening sequence with titles. It is in black and white which adds an extremely 'classic' feel along with the style of font. It is basic, yet elegant with a very standard almost motionless picture as the background.

Other Targets

Beyond learning what skills I have developed through the preliminary task, I also became aware of things that are in need of developing in order to be successful on my main coursework task.Firstly I want to improve in the area of lighting. This is a key area I want to develop in mainly because our group had problems with lighting in issues of continuity in our preliminary task, and it makes a huge effect on the outcome of the piece. I will assure that continuity factors to do with lighting is avoiding by watching making sure the camera is not moved within filming at a certain angle, and logging exactly where it is if moving is necessary. Also, if possible, I will avoid filming on different days, therefore the natural light will be near enough the same in each shot that is filmed. If as a group we do this, when at post production stage our shots will run smootly and will avoid any situations that we encountered in that we had to add extra shots to avoid the audience drastically noticing.Another target I want to set myself is with blogging. I want to not only become more urgent with my blog, in the sense that I will spend more time on it so all of my ICT is verbally correct and it is of a high standard, but I want to get my blog finished quicker so I can spend more time on the production stages itself. Doing this will allow me more time to perfect the visual side of coursework, yet gain high marks on my blog due to the standard of my blog. This target should be done weekly; I will dedicate more time to my blog so that everything is completed in more time.Another element I feel can be improved in is team organisation. We worked well as a team, yet at times lack of organisation confused situations and wasted time. Therefore, if as a team we are more accurate and precise when planning a task and dedicate certain jobs to certain members of the team, we will be making good use of our time and will have a good outcome on our final piece. This target will have to be performed by all members of our group to assure that it is done well, therefore will start immediately. I also feel I can improve at the stage of logging rushes. We encountered a problem when logging rushes on our preliminary task; although we had a clear understanding of what we had to do, we didn't ensure our shots were visually perfect before logging therefore we wasted alot of time logging irrelevant footage. To avoid this in the future, I will ensure that our whole team is present when watching the final rushes, so that we can stress our concerns and re-shoot the footage if necessary before logging the rushes. This will be done within the production stage of future projects.The final area in which I would like to improve in is script writing. Initially the group was unsure of creative ways of portraying our chosen genre, alongside acheiving the dedicated layout of a script. Therefore I will go over and learn the ways of setting out the script so that this is not a problem when writing one. However my main target for script writing is to get more creative within the script itself so that our genre is presented adamently.

Post-Production

Final cut of Preliminary Tast - 'Doctors'

• The preliminary task has been a success in the way that it has broadened my knowledge and developed my skills in understanding how to produce a short piece of film. This is the case for technical skills, creative skills and personal skills.

Evaluation of skills developed

The preliminary tast has helped train my skills within the technical areas, particularly within editing. Although within the production stage itself, I had a small input when it came to the filming but still had to make sure the shots were accurate. I already knew the basic skills in making sure continuity factors wouldn't affect the audiences' viewing, however I now know that it can happen with even tiny factors. Not only with visual elements; hair, costumes, setting and props, but with the shot styles and lighting. Now I have had the experience and moreso dealt with issues of continuity on the preliminary task, I know that more planning and concentration is needed in order to avoid these issues in the first place. Also it has developed my skills in using acting infront of a camera, and gaining an understanding of what angles and positions make a good shot. Particularly, however, my skills in using the editing suite have been developed. As a group we used alot of elements in the editing suite therefore became aware of the types of things we could manipulate within the programme. My creative skills have developed in a way that within the preliminary task we tried to think outside the box and avoid stereotypical shots within a genre. Creativity has broadened in the way of music choices, and more than else elements within a sequence that portray the chosen genres.

Production Report

After viewing all the rushes, we were satisfied with how our footage turned out. We booked the editing suite and began logging the rushes. We hit a few problems after logging all our rushes as we realised we needed to re-shoot some of our shots. With this in mind, many of our logged rushes became irrelevant and time became limited. We logged the rushes in table format with seven different columns, making it easily identifiable and straight forward. Beyond doing this, we went through the footage and constructed a rough cut of the visuals, alternating between the two video tracks again making the editing process easier. We alternated between the group members to ensure that all of us could have a go on the editing suite, and as a rough cut we were pleased with the outcome. We did have some issues of continuity, such as the lighting in many of the shots. Some shots went from very light then to immediately very dark, something which as a group we werent happy with. To solve this, we added short shots in the places where lighting changed, making the difference less obvious to the audience. After adding transistions between each shot on our rough cut and making it visually pleasing, we added the title at the beginning of the piece and credits at the end. To fit with the mood and tone of the piece, we wanted simple titles consisting of a plain black background with white captial letters. this gave no distraction to the mood we wanted to acheive when watching the piece. Similarly to create a more intense mood, we searched for some appropriate eerie music to add to the opening titles. When we found our chosen music, we added it to the audio track, fading up and down between the shots at the opening of the piece and the end. By doing this we acheived the genre and mood that we aimed for when planning the preliminary task and we are all pleased with the final outcome.