Friday, 15 April 2011
Final Project - Commentary
Here is my completed commentary made on windows movie maker as i didnt want to cause any problems by using Premier Pro!
Final Project - Interview with Mr Earl
Craig and James - Animus Messor Evaluation from Chris Earl on Vimeo.
This is a video showing the interview i could not attend because i could not get there on time, however here are both Craig and James talking about our final project. I warn you both boys love to talk and while most groups lasted 15 mins this lasted 37! Enjoy!
Final Project - Evaluation
How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products and how does your media project represent particular social groups?
Our production was heavily based upon films we ourselves as a group watched during our initial research. We did this so we could know the codes and conventions of the horror genre and what they involve. A convention of the genre we used was hiding the face of the main character, the killer. The way in which we hid the killers face throughout the opening scene emphasises the mystery which would be in our film. With not showing the audience the face of the character it leaves them guessing themselves who it could be and create a character themselves. In our research Craig found that se7en done this in the opening scene. In clip of se7en Craig found that they used a lot of fast paced close-up shots. When I was doing my initial research I analysed the opening from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when I was looking through this clip I realised that different images of a young boys face was being covered by either his hands or his mothers. The focus of the cannibal in our film continues to apply to the genre in that it is commonly used in psychological horrors. The use of effects which have fragmented our breaking up of our film making it seem uncertain boosted this enigma of horror, being a killer which has led him to life of a cannibal. The music we used was to create the tension in the film the music was speeding up and up the further we went into the killers lives. We perfected the music so the “kick-off” point of the clip worked in with when my character closed the door. This again connotes the mystery the audience will feel, they will be asking questions like, why is he in her house? What is he going to do to her? Does she know him? Is she still alive?
As a whole we weren’t really intending on representing a particular social group as whole because our final project did not include a lot of characters. Also we didn’t show the face of the main character which meant we couldn’t represent him as a whole. The idea that everyone can have a dark side to them that they are scared of could be presented as a group. That they choose to keep their dark side from the public and yet it is still present. For the people who actually embrace this side of themselves we show them to be manipulative and extremely twisted in many ways and the way that they go about their lives leading them to fulfil these heinous aspirations. They way in which the killer is lewt into the womans house at the end could show that he has talked his way into it but could imply that he looks “normal” and that he can be trusted. On a much wider scale a representation of gender can be presented, that women are always the victims, there are a total of two victims in our project and both are portrayed as innocent women. It implies that the women have no power over what is about to happen or what is going to happen to them.
Who would be the audience of your media product?
When I started my initial research after deciding the genre of the product I looked a the target audience for horrors. I found that the audience for horror films are mainly interested for the thrills and the adrenaline rush from being so close to fear. They love the feeling of being so close to the edge of fear that they’re so scared they don’t want to watch but can’t take their eyes away. The age demographic is usually teenagers and younger adults. We used films like Hannibal and The Texas chainsaw massacre as inspiration for this. Generally the audience of our piece will be male, and will be between 18-26 years old. The audience be predominantly male as the horror genre being stereotypically aimed at the male population, there will be a nique in the market whereby for women who do enjoy the horror genre just as much as the males. This makes it so that they can watch a horror film and be frightened by it but with their attitude towards life it will not terrify them into never wanting to see it again, the type of person who would enjoy the blood and gore and will want to see it again. The people who would enjoy our film will be the people who have seen and enjoyed films like, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Omen and Paranormal Activity. These films include blood but not so much that will terrify and haunt their audience we have taken this into account for our project. The audience will enjoy the fact that they don’t know what is happening they will like the mystery involved in it, they being kept on the edge of their seat.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
The best choice of distributer we felt would be Lionsgate. Lionsgate are known for their distribution of the lower budget film productions and the relevance to our genre, the distribution of higher certificate horror films, we feel that ours would be a high certificate. Lionsgate are famous for distributing very popular psychological films such as Saw which is linked to the Twisted Pictures brand which is also distributed by Lionsgate. Lionsgate seemed like an obvious and appropriate choice as a distributer to our film, we feel that Lionsgate would be intrested in our film because of the genre we have chosen. Also because in the past they have distributed films very similar to our with the same classification we think ours would need and achieve.
How did you attract/address the audience?
To attract our particular audience, we felt that the type of person of whom would watch our film would instantly be attracted. The way in which we have incorporated the mystery into the horror genre will have the audience immediately hooked. We decided to let the audience make the judgement for themselves about the hidden character, we thought that the audience would be hooked into the film more if they didn’t know what was happening that they had to guess who this person is and what he is going to do, this connects with the codes and conventions of the horror genre. This kind of thing is that attracts the certain audience to our film, this element of mystery allows them to become part of the film, them seeing what is going on but not being told even at the end. The audience we feel will watch this we feel will attract them instantly, its no gory and full of blood for a reason. We want our audience to be freaked out by it all but not to an extent that they can’t watch it again.
What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?
While editing our product we have realised that we should never rely on Premier Pro to work for us every time. I am saying this because on many occasions we have had the programme crash and freeze on us and have lost our work once or twice. Even though we are happy with the work we have completed for this product, the stress of using Premier Pro annoyed our group and also our peers many times. A lot of the time it was things we could not control. For instance once we left our video rendering over lunch and we thought it would be completed for us to save when we got back but someone had removed our sign we wrote saying “do not touch” and logged off the computer. This meant we lost the work we had done and someone had messed with our work. One afternoon Craig and I went on the computer to export the rough cut, Premier Pro crashed on us for about 4 times. However a thank you has to go to Mr Earl, who made the process of completeing our project on time easier. He converted our files to a DV format and re-uploaded them onto the media server, when we used the lower quality files on Premier Pro we found that the programme ran smoothly and much quicker than it had ever been. With this being done it meant we could make progress with our project. We found that rendering took about half an hour opposed to the four hours it would have usually taken, once it had taken 6 hours. Overall we learned that it is best to convert the footage to a DV format before editing something on a larger scale being that it loads quicker and runs quicker making the editing process a lot quicker, this helps reaching deadlines.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task which was ironically the continuity task was an eye opening experience. Despite it being the continuity project we found that our project had a lot of flaws. I blame a few things because of this, I think the biggest problem was team work in my group. I found that the day everyone else on my group could film I couldn’t so I said that if they filmed I would do the majority of the editing with help from the rest of the group. However I found that there was no teamwork whatsoever in my group they left me to complete the project, I stayed in when I had free periods and on lunch times. I thought that after doing this that they would be grateful but they just complained about the editing once I had spent to much time on it and little did they. For this reason I know I had to leave this group and move into a group whom I knew would be reliable and understanding. I feel that this is the best decision that I could have made and I am very happy with my decision, I have no flaws in my group and we have gelled together well.
This time in our final project our group decided to plan based on our past experiences. In our preliminary task I can remember that the rest of my group did not film as much as they should of, we should of filmed the same angles time and time again just incase something went wrong. This time round we filmed more than we needed to which meant that the times we found continuity errors in our footage we had other clips we could use. This happened on 2 occasions in which we were very grateful for. I know that the rest of my group when they done their preliminary task they filmed at night which meant the footage wasn’t clear enough so they decided we would film in the daytime. We made sure we knew what we were filming the day before so we could get it done quickly before it became darker. We realised just how clear it was when filming at the right time of day, we dimmed the outside footage to make the footage eerie but we did not lose any of the quality. Overall i would say that over the year of as media we have picked up tips that saved us from some tricky situations when we almost lost our work but we found that the tasks before our final piece helped us with preparing us for our final project.
Our production was heavily based upon films we ourselves as a group watched during our initial research. We did this so we could know the codes and conventions of the horror genre and what they involve. A convention of the genre we used was hiding the face of the main character, the killer. The way in which we hid the killers face throughout the opening scene emphasises the mystery which would be in our film. With not showing the audience the face of the character it leaves them guessing themselves who it could be and create a character themselves. In our research Craig found that se7en done this in the opening scene. In clip of se7en Craig found that they used a lot of fast paced close-up shots. When I was doing my initial research I analysed the opening from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when I was looking through this clip I realised that different images of a young boys face was being covered by either his hands or his mothers. The focus of the cannibal in our film continues to apply to the genre in that it is commonly used in psychological horrors. The use of effects which have fragmented our breaking up of our film making it seem uncertain boosted this enigma of horror, being a killer which has led him to life of a cannibal. The music we used was to create the tension in the film the music was speeding up and up the further we went into the killers lives. We perfected the music so the “kick-off” point of the clip worked in with when my character closed the door. This again connotes the mystery the audience will feel, they will be asking questions like, why is he in her house? What is he going to do to her? Does she know him? Is she still alive?
As a whole we weren’t really intending on representing a particular social group as whole because our final project did not include a lot of characters. Also we didn’t show the face of the main character which meant we couldn’t represent him as a whole. The idea that everyone can have a dark side to them that they are scared of could be presented as a group. That they choose to keep their dark side from the public and yet it is still present. For the people who actually embrace this side of themselves we show them to be manipulative and extremely twisted in many ways and the way that they go about their lives leading them to fulfil these heinous aspirations. They way in which the killer is lewt into the womans house at the end could show that he has talked his way into it but could imply that he looks “normal” and that he can be trusted. On a much wider scale a representation of gender can be presented, that women are always the victims, there are a total of two victims in our project and both are portrayed as innocent women. It implies that the women have no power over what is about to happen or what is going to happen to them.
Who would be the audience of your media product?
When I started my initial research after deciding the genre of the product I looked a the target audience for horrors. I found that the audience for horror films are mainly interested for the thrills and the adrenaline rush from being so close to fear. They love the feeling of being so close to the edge of fear that they’re so scared they don’t want to watch but can’t take their eyes away. The age demographic is usually teenagers and younger adults. We used films like Hannibal and The Texas chainsaw massacre as inspiration for this. Generally the audience of our piece will be male, and will be between 18-26 years old. The audience be predominantly male as the horror genre being stereotypically aimed at the male population, there will be a nique in the market whereby for women who do enjoy the horror genre just as much as the males. This makes it so that they can watch a horror film and be frightened by it but with their attitude towards life it will not terrify them into never wanting to see it again, the type of person who would enjoy the blood and gore and will want to see it again. The people who would enjoy our film will be the people who have seen and enjoyed films like, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Omen and Paranormal Activity. These films include blood but not so much that will terrify and haunt their audience we have taken this into account for our project. The audience will enjoy the fact that they don’t know what is happening they will like the mystery involved in it, they being kept on the edge of their seat.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
The best choice of distributer we felt would be Lionsgate. Lionsgate are known for their distribution of the lower budget film productions and the relevance to our genre, the distribution of higher certificate horror films, we feel that ours would be a high certificate. Lionsgate are famous for distributing very popular psychological films such as Saw which is linked to the Twisted Pictures brand which is also distributed by Lionsgate. Lionsgate seemed like an obvious and appropriate choice as a distributer to our film, we feel that Lionsgate would be intrested in our film because of the genre we have chosen. Also because in the past they have distributed films very similar to our with the same classification we think ours would need and achieve.
How did you attract/address the audience?
To attract our particular audience, we felt that the type of person of whom would watch our film would instantly be attracted. The way in which we have incorporated the mystery into the horror genre will have the audience immediately hooked. We decided to let the audience make the judgement for themselves about the hidden character, we thought that the audience would be hooked into the film more if they didn’t know what was happening that they had to guess who this person is and what he is going to do, this connects with the codes and conventions of the horror genre. This kind of thing is that attracts the certain audience to our film, this element of mystery allows them to become part of the film, them seeing what is going on but not being told even at the end. The audience we feel will watch this we feel will attract them instantly, its no gory and full of blood for a reason. We want our audience to be freaked out by it all but not to an extent that they can’t watch it again.
What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?
While editing our product we have realised that we should never rely on Premier Pro to work for us every time. I am saying this because on many occasions we have had the programme crash and freeze on us and have lost our work once or twice. Even though we are happy with the work we have completed for this product, the stress of using Premier Pro annoyed our group and also our peers many times. A lot of the time it was things we could not control. For instance once we left our video rendering over lunch and we thought it would be completed for us to save when we got back but someone had removed our sign we wrote saying “do not touch” and logged off the computer. This meant we lost the work we had done and someone had messed with our work. One afternoon Craig and I went on the computer to export the rough cut, Premier Pro crashed on us for about 4 times. However a thank you has to go to Mr Earl, who made the process of completeing our project on time easier. He converted our files to a DV format and re-uploaded them onto the media server, when we used the lower quality files on Premier Pro we found that the programme ran smoothly and much quicker than it had ever been. With this being done it meant we could make progress with our project. We found that rendering took about half an hour opposed to the four hours it would have usually taken, once it had taken 6 hours. Overall we learned that it is best to convert the footage to a DV format before editing something on a larger scale being that it loads quicker and runs quicker making the editing process a lot quicker, this helps reaching deadlines.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task which was ironically the continuity task was an eye opening experience. Despite it being the continuity project we found that our project had a lot of flaws. I blame a few things because of this, I think the biggest problem was team work in my group. I found that the day everyone else on my group could film I couldn’t so I said that if they filmed I would do the majority of the editing with help from the rest of the group. However I found that there was no teamwork whatsoever in my group they left me to complete the project, I stayed in when I had free periods and on lunch times. I thought that after doing this that they would be grateful but they just complained about the editing once I had spent to much time on it and little did they. For this reason I know I had to leave this group and move into a group whom I knew would be reliable and understanding. I feel that this is the best decision that I could have made and I am very happy with my decision, I have no flaws in my group and we have gelled together well.
This time in our final project our group decided to plan based on our past experiences. In our preliminary task I can remember that the rest of my group did not film as much as they should of, we should of filmed the same angles time and time again just incase something went wrong. This time round we filmed more than we needed to which meant that the times we found continuity errors in our footage we had other clips we could use. This happened on 2 occasions in which we were very grateful for. I know that the rest of my group when they done their preliminary task they filmed at night which meant the footage wasn’t clear enough so they decided we would film in the daytime. We made sure we knew what we were filming the day before so we could get it done quickly before it became darker. We realised just how clear it was when filming at the right time of day, we dimmed the outside footage to make the footage eerie but we did not lose any of the quality. Overall i would say that over the year of as media we have picked up tips that saved us from some tricky situations when we almost lost our work but we found that the tasks before our final piece helped us with preparing us for our final project.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Final Project- Images
Here are the images we have incorparated into our final project, we feel that these images give the eiree feeling we very much wanted.
Final Project
Currently our final project is exporting itself and hopefully it will continue to do with no problems. In the past we have had many problems when trying to reder and then when we tried exporting our rough cut the proggramme premier pro closed itself over and over again. After many problems what encountered throughout the edit, we have been able to get the project completed for the deadline that was itended. Overall as a group we are pleased with the outcome, we have spent a lot of time on our work and we are hoping for the high grade we have worked so hard for. Over the past few days we have been working continuously very hard to meet the deadline. We thank Mr Earl for changing the format of our files, premier has been very reliable and has not crashed ever since. Because of this we have progressed fast in completing our work. We added a Lionsgate indent to make it more proffesional and fit the brief. After experimenting a lot with different music we think that we have made the right decsion on the music as it gives the eriee feel we so very much wanted.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Final Project - Rough Cut
Ths is the rough cut of out film opening, due to problems that we could not control, technical error's occurd time and time again. The way the video is looking at the moment we are reasonably happy with it. There are a few problems we feel we could fix with edits and trasitions. Perhaps we need to make some of the cuts smoother and some of the edits need to look more professional to enhance the quality of the film. Another we need to take note on is in the rough cut we have not yet finished the audio and so throughout the beginning clips there is the sound of voices in the background these will then be taken off when the final cut is done, so they are just be ignored for the time. We have sorted the music at the end of the clip when the door closes and we need to figure out when we will have the heatbeat playing. One thing we are very happy with is the job that we dont when we timed the music to go with the door closing at the end of the clip it took some time to get the timing perfect but we feel we done this in the end, this adds great effect to the video which creates the atmosphere how we have imagined it from the very begginging. We would like feed back on this if anyone has any spare time, to help us improve our final project.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Final Project - Problems
Before the week off from school the deadline was the friday, on the friday morning we tried to export the video but the programme Premier Pro crashed on us four times. We then emailed sir and told him of our problems and the classes deadline was extended for another week as many others have faced this problem. In yesterdays lesson we added the titles and were ready to try and export again. We came into the b17 classroom in the afternoon and started exporting and it crashed on me three times. We told James and he said he would come in after his lesson is over and mine and craigs had started. James told us today that when he tried exporting the programme shut down on him four times. Hopefully it will work by the end of the week so we can start the serious editing so we can get our finished project in a few weeks when the deadline is due.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Final Project - Editing
Today we are continuing with the editing we have done for the past 2 weeks. However we have been having problems with the speed in which the computers have been working at. The programme premier pro has been extremely slow these past few days and also has been crashing on us sometimes before we have saved so we are saving our project every 5 minutes. When rendering it is taking much longer than it has ever before which means its more time we are spending without editing and just waiting for our clips to render.Rending our work is meant to help make the project less jumpy but the speed in which it is going at is causing problems especially when its so close to our rough cut deadline. On a good not we know all of the clips we will be using and it lasts much longer than before and fits the criteria.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Final Project- More filming
After weeks of not filming the meat scene we have finally filmed it. We have filmed every part we will be needing to complete our final project. On Sunday Craig managed to go to Sainsbury's and buy some lamb kidneys and a sirloin steak. In the shots we have used the meat in different ways such as tearing and cutting the meat. I must admit that watching these clips back the images are somewhat disturbing, however these images fit in with the genre of our project. Different angles of the knives and meat are being Incorporated into our project.We struck trouble when we couldn't get the props and the same location as the first clips but now we are back on track. Already we have edited 70% of our clips, we needed the filming of the meat badly because our project was far to short before hand. We are giving a lot onto this project and will be spending a lot of dinner times and Free's in the media classroom working on this so we can reach our deadline without any problems.
For reference of the pictures of meat look on Craig's blog
For reference of the pictures of meat look on Craig's blog
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Final Project- Editing
Today we are carrying on with the editing we started at the beginning of the week to make sure we get our rough cut completed for the deadline. Today we have added two new effects to our piece of work we think these have improved the quality of the clip. These are:
- A bloody handprint on the titles screens. On the title screens there is now a bloody handprint in the back ground, behind the writing, James has editing this image to make the red a darker red which matches some other writing we will have in the clip
- A heartbeat sound overplaying throughout the whole film. Throught our film we are having a heartbeat playing constantly, we have found a heartbeat sound clip and slowed it down.
What do people think of this image? is it effective?
Final Project- Credits
Througout our film we will be having the credits flashup on a black screen, these credits will be :
- Producer - Craig Mullen, James Corker & Lauren O'Brien
- Distributer - Lionsgate
- Writer - Craig Mullen
- Editor - James Corker
- Director - James Corker
- Co-Director -Lauren O'Brien
- Actors - Lauren O'Brien & Craig Mullen
- Music - Jonathan Moore
Final Project- Rough Cut
When piecing together our filmed clips we have realised that our film does not last for the 2 minutes it should, it only lasts for 1 minute 30. This weekend we are going to do some more filming, a clip of Craig cutting up a liver in the kitchen will be filmed. This will add the to "killer" threat in our film as the liver will look like a human organ and will give a more sinister twist to our film. So hopefully by tuesdays lesson we will have our rough cut up to the 2 minute mark we are wanting and if we're lucky maybe more.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Final Project - Using Clips
On Thursday we shot the outside footage and we shot this at my house at 4.30 after school, this was the earliest time we could all meet up with it still being light outside. Any later and the darkness would have taken over our shot and would have made it more difficult to get the shots we wanted and would have made it harder to see where we are going for example in the cut next to my house where we shot Craig walking. On Tuesday, James and I watched through the clips we shot and picked out the ones we were going to use, we found that we were gonna use all of clips shot on Thursday.
Clip:
57- Craig walks to door and then knocks
58-A close up of the knocking of the door and of the victim. Criag is let into the house by the next victim
59- Craig is let in the house and then there is a zoom out of the front door, this will be the last clip we use
60- A close up of Craig's clenched fist
61- A cut of Craig walking past, just from the chest down
62- Craig walks up the steps and down the cut
63- An overhead shot of Craig when walking down the cut
64- A close up of Craigs feet when walking up the steps
65- A shot of Criag walking towards the end of the cut a front view, a long shot
66- A long shot of Craig walking towards the door
67- A shot of Craig walking towards the door but from a different angle
The shots from 57-66 we have decided will be mixed in with the kitchen scene this will give the audience a sense of knowing. They will be able to follow the story more this way. Shot 59 will be the last clip we use, this is when the killer is let into the house by the unknowing victim and then there is a zoom out of the door. I think thisis very effective because the audience will know what is about to happen because they have watched the rest of the clips.
Clip:
57- Craig walks to door and then knocks
58-A close up of the knocking of the door and of the victim. Criag is let into the house by the next victim
59- Craig is let in the house and then there is a zoom out of the front door, this will be the last clip we use
60- A close up of Craig's clenched fist
61- A cut of Craig walking past, just from the chest down
62- Craig walks up the steps and down the cut
63- An overhead shot of Craig when walking down the cut
64- A close up of Craigs feet when walking up the steps
65- A shot of Criag walking towards the end of the cut a front view, a long shot
66- A long shot of Craig walking towards the door
67- A shot of Craig walking towards the door but from a different angle
The shots from 57-66 we have decided will be mixed in with the kitchen scene this will give the audience a sense of knowing. They will be able to follow the story more this way. Shot 59 will be the last clip we use, this is when the killer is let into the house by the unknowing victim and then there is a zoom out of the door. I think thisis very effective because the audience will know what is about to happen because they have watched the rest of the clips.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Media Title And Production Company
Final Project
Today we are carrying on with the editing of the first footage we have shot. We will be shortening the clips which we think lasts too long, an example of the clip is the fridge scene. The clip shows Craig bending down and searching the fridge, this would be come tedius if we left it that length, we have shortened it so it moves the clip along.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Final project - Filming
Last night footage was shot in Daniel Jordans kitchen. We got footage of the light switch, which was an improvement from our test footage in Gregs. As i said my my last blog post, in gregs kitchen the wallpaper did not go with the mood of our movie, flowers arent really a great image to have on a wall when we're butchering meat! The lightswitch getting turned on took a few takes as we didnt get the correct liughting we wanted. Some shots where to dark, but we found a clip that worked correct when edited. Craig was filmed picking up knives and putting them back down, this could help with the story. The killer is choosing which knife he wants to use. Looking back over the clip we have found the the refelection from a red object makes the knife look like its covered in blood. This was not inteded but is adding more effect into our movie. We will have to edit out some bits, unfortunatly there was a good clip where craig picks up a knife and takes it away from the bench but a friend got in the way of the clip and this was unnoticed until now. This would have been a good clip to use so we're going to have a play around with editing to make this look better.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Wallpaper in kitchen
In the test footage there is a clip in which craig turns the light switch on, the wallpaper that surrounds the switch doesnt really go with our plot. The wallpaper is pink and flowerly. We were hoping for a darker colour, so my idea was that we just use a sheet of black fabric or paper and cut the shape of the switch out. We would obviously need to make sure that the fabric would be on the wall in other clips if the wall appeared. We couldnt have just the one place in the kitchen that would have the black wall, this would become a continuity error.
**UPDATE**
We have changed the scene once again from where we are filming the kitchen scene. Now it will be filmed in Daniel Jordans, this is for definate
**UPDATE**
We have changed the scene once again from where we are filming the kitchen scene. Now it will be filmed in Daniel Jordans, this is for definate
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Filming
We had originaly planned to film at my house on sunday but as my mother didnt give me permission we wanted we had to re-think our decisions on where to film. Greg has saved the day by agreeing to let us film in his kitchen if we agree to act in his and james' film.
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