Changes to the Script

Changes to the Script

As a group, we decided that we should explain the slight change in our script and the lack of dialogue that we had in our final film. Essentially, we felt as a team that our film linked more to the horror genre when it didn't have the subjectively 'cringey' dialogue that we had included. Although this may have created a slight disconnection from the audience due to their being no conversation, we feel that it reinforced the horror genre.

This therefore means that our final changes to the script include no dialogue and a change to the shots, which can be seen in the uploaded shot list.

Evaluation: Storyboard vs. Final Opening 2 minutes

Evaluation Storyboard vs. Final Opening 2 minutes

Over the duration that we produced our film, many changes took place for a variety of reasons from our original plans. During the days of shooting we discovered a number of things that could work

differently or had to be changed due to any problems we may have encountered. In this post, I will be detailing the changes from the storyboard animatic with the final product.

Shot 1: Our establishing shot went exactly to plan, as we had the train pulling into the station.

Shot 2: This shot of the girl on the train was very ambitious for us when we first started with our storyline and cinematography ideas. However, when we got the shot on the first attempt it was a dream come true.

Shot 3: This shot had some slight changes as we realised it was quite risky to take a knife to a public area and have fake blood on it before dropping it on the floor. Instead, we just had the feet of the murderer walking so that there was still some action in the shot.

Shot 4: This shot was slightly different and did not include the shoulder of the murderer. This is because on the day we decided to use a point of view shot of the murderer so didn’t find it essential to capture the murderer looking at the girl. It also introduced the convention of loneliness that is commonly seen in the horror genre.

Shot 5: This shot, along with a combination of other surrounding it in the editing, merged to make our original image as seen in our animated storyboard.

Shot 6:  This shot did not go exactly as planned, however it was still a success in telling our story.

Shot 7: As mentioned in many other posts, we decided to change the watches to an on screen timer instead as it was easier for the audience to understand and gave a more modern eerie feel.

Shot 8: This shot was very similar of the group of friends on the platform, the only difference being there being one less person as they meet them later in London.

Evaluation of Credits Ordering

Evaluation of credits ordering

This is the order the opening credits are written in, we decided to put most of the credits in the very beginning of our opening.

Cloud 9 Productions:

We put our big production company and distributor first. This is because this was the company ‘behind’ the film. In all films the production company is shown first, therefore it makes the film look more professional.

Everlasting Journey:

We then put on the title of the film in an effect. We showed the title before the actors as we wanted the audience to know the name of the film first.

Directors:

After, we put the list of directors all together. There was no ‘one’ director, therefore we decided to put all our names in but in no particular order.

• Gemma Gosden
• Eloise Williams
• Katie O’Rourke

Starring:

We then had our actors names come up on screen. We had the order that you saw the actors so that there was an order to the names.

• Grace Sullivan
• Eloise Williams
• Prassanna Uthayanan
• Gemma Flower
• Connor Bassett

Shot List for ‘EVERLASTING JOURNEY'

Shot List for ‘EVERLASTING JOURNEY'

1.       XXXXX Timer XXXXX

2.       Medium shot of train going past on diagonal

3.       Another medium shot of train going past from straight on view (added title)

4.       Medium close up from behind murderers ankles as train is continuing to move past

5.       Wide angle long shot of train doors opening to reveal main character inside

6.       Extreme close up of forehead wound

7.       Wide angle medium shot of girl on train continued

8.       Extreme close up of girls eye bruise

9.       Wide angle medium shot of train doors closing to hide the girl

10.   Close up of girls mouth and nose as she mouths the words ‘help me’

11.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

12.   High angle/birds eye view shot of murderers feet as they are walking along platform

13.   Medium shot (from behind) from waist down of murderer walking

14.   Cut back to high angle/birds eye view shot of murderers feet as they are walking along platform

15.   Medium shot of girl struggling

16.   Back to shot of murderers feet walking which pans up to reveal the girl attached to the sign

17.   Close up profile shot of girl breathing

18.   Close up of wrists and wounds

19.   Long shot of girls position on platform

20.   Medium profile shot of girl screaming (part 1)

21.   Close up of girls forehead wound

22.   Medium profile shot of girl screaming (part 2)

23.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

24.   High angle medium shot of murderer walking

25.   Extreme close up shot blood on hands holding petrol can (Murderer)

26.   Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

27.   Extreme close up shot blood on hands holding black rope (Murderer)

28.   Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

29.   Medium tracking shot over the shoulder of murderer

30.    Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

31.   Panning shot of murderers feet close to the edge of tracks

32.   Match on action shot of murderer dropping petrol can

33.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

34.   Eye level shot looking through at victim lying on the floor

35.   Medium shot with shallow focus on victims phone

36.   Repeat distorted window shot showing victim

37.   Short cut of blurred phone

38.   Extreme close up of victims phone showing message

39.   Medium to close up shot of the legs of the victim

40.   Close up of victims corner of shoes and petrol hitting floor

41.   High angle shot of victims legs and petrol can

42.   Similar High angle, medium shot of victims legs covered in petrol

43.   Repeat high angle shot of victims legs and petrol can

44.   Canted angle of victims feet and the petrol can to show imbalance

45.   Match on action shot  of murderer lighting flame

46.   Medium, canted angle shot as the match hits the floor

47.   Wide angle of flames

48.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

49.   Tracking shot of victim boy running

50.   Match on action of victim hitting sign as he runs past

51.   Extreme close up of blood on sign

52.   Tracking shot of boy running down the platform

53.   Close up of victim panting (profile)

54.   Medium tracking shot as victim runs up stairs

55.   Close up of victim panting again and shows bruises

56.   Low angle of victim running up the stairs

57.   High angle looking down on victim running up the stairs

58.   Close up of feet running past (tracking)

59.   Medium shot as boy runs down stairs

60.   Medium shot of legs as boy continues running down the stairs

61.   Low angle shot looking up at boy running down the stairs

62.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

63.   Another medium shot of train going past from straight on view

64.   XXXXX Timer XXXXX

65.   Close up of boys face as he is looking out (get surroundings in)

66.   Medium shot tracking girls from behind

67.   Medium shot of boys face as he is looking out (get surroundings in)

68.   Medium shot tracking girls from behind

69.   Medium close up tracking shot of girls shoulders up walking

70.   Medium shot with shallow focus on boy then dee focus on girls walking towards them

71.   Match on action medium shot of hug taking place

72.   Train pulling in establishing shot

73.   Long shot of characters getting on train

74.   High angle shot capturing seating arrangements

75.   Over the shoulder shot (in-between chairs) onto main victim girl

Evaluation Task: How well did our opening set up the rest of the story

How well did our opening set up the rest of the story?

The most important aspect of an opening is how successfully it sets up the rest of the story and how well it grips the audience in doing so. Our main aim was to make an opening two minutes that looked professional and enticed the audience to carry on watching with undivided attention.

One of our most successful tactics that we hoped would make the audience carry on watching is the use of enigma codes that dragged the audience into our plot and made them question what was going on so they felt that they had to continue watching until they found out the answer. Audiences hate unanswered questions and if the enigma is strong enough, then they'll sit through an entire film just to get the answer to their question. This tactic worked incredibly well for us as we began the film with the ending of our narrative, so the audience are introduced instantly to the drama of the situation, and rather than being baffled by the relevance of certain characters, are immediately wanting to know how they got into the dramatic situation that they are in. Although we were worried that our audience may become confused because of our multiple enigma codes and jumping of storylines, we quickly agreed with Alfred Hitchcock who said that 'an audience would rather be confused than bored'. The enigma codes that we created included: Who is the murderer? What has happened to the girl on the train? How did the characters end up in this situation?

We also used a mixture of fast paced action and intense graphics to create a gripping storyline. The section of our victim boy trying to escape gave the audience some of the drama that they would be interested in seeing. Furthermore, the dramatic use of thrilling screams and chilling music added to the action by giving it something to be coincided with. By making our film like this we made sure that the film was enjoyable for a wide audience, and no matter what style they prefer - chilling or thrilling - they should be dragged in by our opening two minutes.

Evaluation Task: Audience Response

Evaluation Task: Audience Response

'Sensationally gripping, I really want to continue watching it’ – Alex Andrews

‘The cinematography created a visual extravaganza’ – Calum Clifford 

‘The scary make up stood out and made the film even more realistic’ – Lily Kyle

‘I would definitely pay money to continue watching this in the cinema’ – Orla Jordan

‘The intense build up is amazing and then the sudden twist will catch many off guard, truly amazing’ – James Kelly

‘Wow, loved it’ – Lauren Day

‘Where can I watch the rest?’ – Toby Payne

To Do’s: Evaluation Tasks

To Do’s: Evaluation Tasks

• Audience response
• Evaluation of credits ordering
• Evaluation Storyboard Vs Final Opening
• Evaluation how well it set up the rest of the story

Evaluation Task 8 - What targets will you set yourself for G324 next year?

Evaluation Task 8

What targets will you set yourself for G324 next year?

We think overall our opening was a success and we had predominantly included everything we wanted to include, used a range of camera angles and shot lengths as well as focusing on making it as intriguing to watch as possible for the audience. However if we were to do this again, we would put more time and effort into the planning stage and potentially have a clearer storyline that everyone would understand and also focus more on the soundtrack and potentially make our own music. We believe our storyline is uncommon as it opens with the end of our film and involves a clock ticking down to the final seconds before it goes back to the start of the day again. We understand this may confuse some viewers however we believe if they are fully focused and engaged they will understand.    

Next year we are going to incorporate the skills we have learnt this year and adding new skills and techniques we will pick up along the way, enabling us to improve our next project. This will involve us going out and doing more research into the technical areas, eg. What mise-en-scene we will include, how we will edit the project to make it look realistic and release a certain tone, use different camera angles to reflect characters moods and show the setting in different lights and finally improve the sound quality for example dialogue.

Targets:

Mis-en-scene: Be clear on what props we are going to use and make sure they suit the style of media we are presenting. Try and make them look more realistic.

Camera composition: Use a range of angles to reflect certain character emotions and maybe hold the shot for longer (links to editing)

Editing: Have more long shots, just as effective in building tension.

Sound: Improve sound quality eg. Dialogue is more clear and easy to understand. Use more sound effects. 

Evaluation Task 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Evaluation Task 7

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

Initially when you watch our preliminary task followed by our final piece, you notice the substantial change in quality of camerawork and editing. These changes come in the form of inclusion of different (and more advance) shots, a more natural editing technique, and the quality in the portrayal of our storyline.

Throughout our preliminary task, it was not uncommon to see a shaky camera, unnatural use of shots (that we believed at the time looked professional), a poor choice of music, and lastly a poor attempt at editing and the continuity of our shots.

In contrary to this, our final version of our opening scene shows a variety of sophisticated titles, a more professional use of editing techniques, and an improved quality and choice of music to compliment our storyline. The shots that we used included:

• 180 degree rule: Requires you to not change the angle by over 180⁰ upon the character that is being filmed. It allows the character to be continually identified. We used this technique throughout, especially whilst filming our murder as their dark costume and hidden identity meant they were harder to identify.
• Shot reverse shot: We used shot reverse shot when capturing the interaction between our different characters during their train journey. This may have also been called an over shot to see their conversation taking place.
• Match on action: We used match on action to capture various events including the receiving of a text message, the dropping of the petrol can, and the falling of the match as it hit the floor.
• 30⁰ rule: We implemented this rule when capturing many of our victims who were sitting still or just moving small amounts. This made sure our editing looked realistic and continuous.
• Rule of thirds: We used the rule of thirds when filming establishing shots as this is more pleasing to the eye and allows the audience to take in the correct amount of information for a shot.
• Canted angle: demonstrates distress by altering the perception of the viewer upon the drama that is happening on screen.

Evaluation Task 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Task 6

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

• Blogger – to document our film making process and evaluate different films.
• Youtube – to upload our various videos onto (including preliminary task, animated storyboard and filming diaries)
• Sound effects websites (e.g. freesound.org) – to gather sound effects that we would use in our production company and throughout our editing process.
• Camera – to film our scenes ready for editing together.
• Tripod – to make our camera steady when filming panning, tracking and establishing shots mainly.
• Adobe premier pro – used for editing our footage, sound and adding some credits.
• Adobe after effects – used for creating our production company titles and also animating title sequence.
• PC school computers – used throughout our entire AS to edit, document and save footage etc.
• Mobile phone device - to document our filming adventure

We have learnt a lot about the power of technology from filming our opening. It allows you to recognise the lengths that people go to just to get a sound effect in time with a visual, and how hard it is to capture the essential requirements of a narrative. It has helped us to respect films and the production that has gone into them and also learn the power that we have when it comes to technology.

Evaluation Task 5 - Annotations Added

Evaluation Task 5

This is our final video with annotations added.

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Task 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience member would be both male and females around the age of 15-30 year olds. The reason for this is that they would relate to our characters better and are more likely to be frightened by our storyline (which is obviously the main intention of a horror film.) Their interests would probably include travelling, using social media and socialising publicly (for example at the pub or clubbing.) They are likely to shop at high street stores such as Primark, Topshop/Topman and H&M as these are within an obtainable price range for teenagers. I would expect them to listen to the popular music of the time which would include the top 40 as well as any other popular music. This could currently be people like Stormzy, Skepta, Catfish and the Bottlemen and The 1975. I would assume that their favourite TV programmes would be in the style of reality TV shows as opposed to TV dramas and documentaries. This is because they may feel tired of education and enjoy watching more light hearted programmes.

The reason that they might be interested and watch our film is because they relate to the character’s age and possibly their similar interests. For example, our characters are both male and female and are going on a train journey into London. This is relatable as I am sure people find it easy to relate to someone of their age group and gender and therefore can imagine themselves in the shoes of the character, which would make it even more frightening.  They may also watch it as the main character is an attractive female so the male gaze theory would mean that boys come and watch it. Furthermore, teenagers enjoy getting an adrenaline rush and this can be obtained from watching a horror film.

Overall, our target audience is likely to be in the range of teenagers to young adults from a typical middle class background. This is because middle classed people are likely to spend money upon entertainment due to a larger income than the working class.

Evaluation Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Task 3

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

In the case of film and television, a production company provides the physical basis to help start a new project; they are directly responsible for the fundraising throughout the whole process. The companies also handle the budgeting, scheduling, scripting, supplying resources, organisation, the production itself and the post production for example the marketing.

Screenwriters, directors or producers would pitch their ideas to a production company they think is best suited and is most able to help the development of their project. Production companies will put a large sum of money into the project if they believe it will be a hit and make a high amount of profit, the companies themselves would keep a high proportion off the earnings, if it is a success.

An example of one Production Company that focuses on horrors is ‘Blumhouse productions’, they have produced films such as the ‘Paranormal activity series’, ‘Insidious’ and ‘The purge’. All massive successes and raining in an astonishing amount of profit; the Purge had a 3 million dollars budget and made over 65 million dollars revenue. Obviously ‘Blumhouse productions’ is a massive American production company which has produced a number of record breaking films, however we feel that the creation of our production company ‘Cloud 9 Productions’ will be a much smaller and British founded company.

Our reasoning for this choice is though we believe our film would be a massive hit, we don’t think we would have needed a large budget which can be provided by these American companies, we would rather keep costs low and use the resources around us. For example a British company that produces horror films is ‘JW Films’ there most famous release is ‘Under the Skin’. This made a profit of 7.2 million and had actors such as Scarlett Johansson featuring in it. We believe that ‘Cloud 9 productions’ would be similar to this, small budget but a sense of pleasing the audience rather than worrying about the earnings that will come. However I do believe that a company such as ‘Twisted pictures’, ‘Rouge pictures’ or ‘Ghost house pictures’ (all exceptionally big production companies famous for smash hit horror films) would invest in our project as the film is gripping, gory and spooky, three important factors in many horror films.  

 The reasons for the choice of our production name ‘Cloud 9 productions’ is because we researched into specific and hidden meanings to certain words. Cloud nine means a state of happiness, we believe happiness won’t last forever and is untold in horror films like our own ‘Everlasting Journey’. Our production logo reflects the underlining meaning through the use of the rainfall.

The titles are followed after this, they include the director’s names first, then which actors are starring in the film, the producers and lastly followed by the writers. We choose this format as it is most common for openings and we didn’t want to break tradition. 

A distributor is responsible for the marketing of the film. They also set the release date for the film and select the method in which the film can be viewed. We think our film would be distributed in a non theatrical way, our reasoning is that this is a way of selecting a specific group of people who are especially interested in watching horror films, and they can view this by a group screening. Or potentially it could be viewed in cinemas such as Odeon or Empire, which would cost more but would be viewed by a wider audience.

However in recent years Netflix has become increasingly popular and is an easy way to distribute films to the mass market as they supply over 13,300 movies and television programmes worldwide. Linking to the common trend of people no longer going to the cinema or buying/ renting films, it is easier and less time consuming for them to just download the app onto their TV or portable device eg. laptops or ipads and watch it on the go or at home with a monthly payment. 

Netflix is now in huge demand and is taking over the media industry, destroying the movie rental business.    

Evaluation Task 2 - How does your media product present particular social groups?

Evaluation Task 2

How does your media product present particular social groups?

The first two pictures show our victim character and the last picture shows a girl from 'Dawn of the Dead'. We are comparing these characters because they have a similar appearance. 

Similarities	Differences
Blood and scars on victims faces are similar and is a code of the horror genre	The costumes are very different which shows their age difference
The low key lighting used when on the characters	The age of the characters is different, but this just conforms with our narrative and storyline
Both of the characters are female so shows their innocence and are more easily portrayed as victims in horror films	The location that our characters are in is different and this is used to show the freedom that people of different age groups have
The characters have reached a state of paranormal and possessed	Their role in the film is different because one of them is a victim and another is the villain
The role in the film is similar in that they are both main characters	The girl victim from our opening is obviously a victim due to the bruising that she has, showing she has been subject to intentional violence.
The ethnicities of the characters is the same as it is uncommon to see a black victim	The facial expressions are different as our character appears to be pleading for help and the one in the film appears evil and out to hurt someone.

Overall, the characters share a similar appearance. However, their roles are made clear through their acting style and the contrast in the use of special effects makeup.