CHHH CHH CH CHANGESssss...

Well we thought we were done, complete, finished! BUT, we changed the film opening a little, we found out that the music wasnt allowed as it was breaking copy right laws and this was obviously a problem! We used garage band and made a whole new track from scratch which actually sounds better than the music we were originally using!
We also added in an extra bit just before becky and charleys scene! it is a black screen with a title fading in saying 'one year later' this gives the film a better sense of a story and antually is much more understandable as a film opening. it makes the audience want to see more and this is very important as if the opening is rubish then the audience wont want to watch the rest.
But now we really are DONE!

What have I learned overall?

Compared to our preliminary task this film has taught us the importance of time management and team work, our preliminary task was shocking! Even though the preliminary task was pretty bad it did teach us the simple filming techniques and the camera shots and angles that looked good and the ones that didn’t work so well!
04:00 has many different camera angles and sound effects within the film. We have around found different transitions and we have audio tracking, time codes and more characters and locations than the preliminary task we did. If you watch the preliminary task and then watch the film you will see the difference in the two and how much we have progressed and learned along the way. If we were asked to do the preliminary task again we would be much more capable and would be able to create a much more detailed and thorough video!
Obviously there are things we would like to change about our final film opening such as, the soundtrack which is on loop but compared to the preliminary task it is amazing. Me and my group are all really pleased with our efforts and we are all really proud of the final product.

What have you learned about technology's from the process of creating this product?

We have learned that there is a lot more to film making than meets the eye. We had to go through the whole experience of filming editing and getting feedback from our target audience. We were pretty good at the filming aspect of the film but when it came to editing it would be fair to say we had our fair share of problems! Adobe premiere pro was really hard to get to grips with but after a while we did get the hang of it!
Charley did really well in making the soundtrack for the film and she will probably talk about how complicated it was to cut and make sound really good.
At the beginning we didn’t actually realise that it would take so much time to edit and put together! We really didn’t realise that the editing process was so laborious and complicated! I think that we have done really well in the making of this film even though the journey hasn’t been perfect.

Audience

Our target audience is 16 to 26 year olds, we knew this from a survey we did which is further down on the blog. We chose these people as they would be the type of age group that would want to watch the film but would e genuinely entertained by it! This audience are the type that will enjoy being scared and watching thrillers. They will also like to go and see it with their friends!
We attracted our audience by posting our film introduction onto youtube, posting links to it onto social networking sites like twitter and facebook. This gives thousands of people all over the world a chance to watch our film and feedback and comment on it. This is good for us as we can see what people really like about it and things we could do to improve it! We also got friends to watch the film and tell us what they thought this is good as they all liked it and told their friends to watch it on youtube.
Within ten minutes of Charley posting the link to youtube on her twitter we had a response from somebody asking if they could see the rest of the film! This is a really good example of our target audience wanting to see the rest of the film and it is good for us as it shows we did it right!

Distribution Ideas

If our film where chosen to be distributed it would most probably be the independent companies that would do this as our film is not a big budget block buster! And it is a little thriller set in Bristol which would not appeal to the huge companies which distribute to the mainstream cinemas. Companies like Warner Bros and Universal Vivendi are not the type of companies that we are aiming to appeal to! But we could appeal to Steal Mill Pictures as they are a small film company which also produced London to Brighton when it was shown at a film festival!
As we have no budget we would probably be able to get our film seen on you tube, and on the internet. We would be able to get anybody in the world to view our film and let us know what they think and if they like it, this is also another advantage as our film could be seen by a distribution company and they could support our film with money, and get it put onto a DVD !

Representing social groups

Our film represents white women, we have a blonde victim who shows vulnerability and victimisation, this is a common representation of blondes and why we used a blonde girl for our first victim. The blonde will die and this will be another common convention in the thriller genre.
Our second victim will be a brunette, the common representation of brunettes is gutsy, a little ‘tom boyish’ and strong, this is exactly why we used a brunette actress for the second victim as it would be conforming to the common representation of brunette girls and also good for the conventions of a thriller! Our brunette victim will be the fighter, the survivor the one the audience are willing to survive and make it through to the end of the film!
We also have an ‘invisible’ character (the stalker) it is obvious that this person is going to be the ‘antagonist’ of the film. This character is the one that has captured and killed the blonder girl. The only small sign of this character in the start of the film is the door opening and slamming shut off camera. This is indicated by a sound effect and the on screen reaction of the blonde girl!

Using, Developing and Challenging Conventions

My film genre is a thriller and me and my group (Abbie and Charley) have tried to incorporate all the major conventions of this genre.
We have used the typical convention with the victim being a blonde girl who ends up dying and the second victim of the film is a brunette who actually manages to survive the crazed killer! We have also used flashbacks which appear right at the start of the film in black and white and with a slight faded quality to them. We are also using cliff hangers and opening up a lot of enigma codes right at the start of the film, this is typical of a psychological thriller as it makes the audience want to watch more and really think about what is going to happen.
We challenged the typical stereotypes of a thriller by using a song at the start of the film with the lyrics explaining what was going through the character on
the screens head, this is challenging the stereotype as it is rarely/never used in a thriller! It is really effective in our film as it makes the audience really sit and watch the flashbacks and connect with the song and what is happening on screen! We where also going to take a big chance and use a voice over instead of song lyrics, this would have been like the voice over of ‘Bella’ in ‘Twighlight’ the point of it would have been for the main character (featured on screen at the start during her flashbacks) would be talking and explaining what is happening in a really cryptic way, this would open up enigma codes and make the audience really listen and want to watch more and more of the film.

EVALUATION

Evaluation

FINISHED!!! This is the finished film opening for' 4AM'

FINISHED!

This is the preliminary task we did before starting out film opening.

Nearly there...

I cant beleive we have nearly finished and the film is actually pretty good, i am really pleased with how everybody and everything has turned out. We only have a few more things to edit into place, these include the music which needs to be sorted out and also we are in diar need of a sound effect to use for the main title! As i am writing this Abbie and Charley are desperatly trying to sort out the music and they have managed to find two sound effects to use for the title and also for our company logo when it appears!

Our name for out film company is 'C.I.A productions' (Charley.Issy.Abbie) GENIUS!!!!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

So we have been editing for a few weeks now and we have pretty much finished, jess managed to help us with the effects that we wanted for the small room section and i have to say it looks AMAZING! Miss Street really likes it and now all we have to think about is the music. Charley said that we should leave that to her and she could find something really good for us to use.

Miss Street then watched the whole film and said that it was really good but asked what would happen to the girl (me) in the rest of the film, we said that she would die and there would be another victim, Miss Street said that we should actually film some more and introduce the new victim to the audience. We thought this was a good but risky idea, we have 1 week left and with some editing left to do we would have to go and film there and then.

PROBLEM! we wanted to use a brunette as this would be a perfect showcase of a typical thriller convention. As my character was blonde and had been killed, this would mean that the brunette girl will survive, this is very common in thriller films (the blonde pretty one dies, and the tough gutsy brunette survives) We now needed a brunette girl to act for us, Abbie refused and said that she didn't want to as she couldn't act! so we where stuck we wanted charley and the brunette girl to be talking and having a little pic-nic exactly where we had filmed the flash backs of my character being abducted!

I knew that our friend Becky wasn't in a lesson so i text her to see of she could come down and watch what we had done so far with the film. Whist she was on her way down we put her name into the opening titles, she watched the film and noticed that her name was in there! We then asked her if she wouldn't mind being in the film for us and that we needed to go and film it now! SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!

We went down to 'Magpie bottom' armed with a tripod, camera, tape and a pic-nic blanket! I was behind the camera, as Abbie was editing back in the main building, we quickly figured out what Becky and Charley were going to say to introduce Becky as the new victim. I filmed them having the conversation from a range of angles, i even did a establishing shot and a zoom!

In the conversation between Becky and Charley the audience learn that Becky is thinking of moving to the country (where they are sat) and she will quit her job as she is sick of the 'city boys' and Charley agrees and says that the 'country boys' really aren't that bad either!

I was really happy that we had managed to film the whole lot within the space of half an hour, we went back up to Abbie, and she had managed to find a 'door slam' sound effect to use during the small room section. It looked really good and the sound effect fitted really well with the rest of the clip! We managed to capture all the footage we had shot and add in the two clips we wanted to use for the film! I think we might actually make it for the deadline, thank god!!!

Miss Street was right the extra footage really makes it seem like a film opening and its good for us as we are introducing a new character for the audience. This also adds loads of new enigma codes for the audience to wonder about!

I hate technology

OK so i lied, now this new computer just allways freezes and we cant actually do ANYTHING AT ALL, we manage to do some editing but when it renders it will just freeze and wont come back to life :(

MOVING!!!

We are moving, machines that is!, the editing computer we were originally working on didn't have the right CCTV effects for the clips so we have moved on and up in the world and are now editing on a nice shiny new machine :)

This computer will be able to give us the right effects for the section where i am trapped in the small room. we want the camera to appear like its a CCTV camera in the room watching me and this will make the film really individual. So today something actually went right and we will be able to edit with no glitches!!!!!

Editing AHHHH.

We have filmed everything that we need and now the time has come to edit and make our footage look like a film! I was really exited to edit and see how the film would look, but when it came down to the first day we started to edit and we managed to do the whole of the flashbacks section, but i was so stressed after. editing is really complicated and i was so tired after, nothing seemed to want to work and we couldn't find the right slide transitions for each flashback and we couldn't make them black and white. we managed to put together all of the clips and in the end found a good dissolve to make each clip blend into the next.

We can also see that we will most definately have problems in the future when it comes to putting in the effects for the CCTV camera, and also when we need to do the titles the way we want them.

but putting all of the problems and stress aside i am really glad that we have managed to finish filming and get onto the long and laborious task of editing. i think that we need to just really focus on the editing and crack on with it because then we will have more time in the end to make the film look really good with all the effects and the music!

GRRRRRRR!

so we looked through all of the shots we had done and each section looked really good, but when we tried to edit it all together we realised that the man scene after the flash backs would have to be refilmed. This was due to the fact that there was no possible way to edit this section together as we hadnt filmed it properly and some of the shots didnt match. this was really annoying as we had spent a long time filming this section and to be told we had to do it all over again was a little disapointing.
So we are going out film this week and hopefully we will get it finished.

our second day of filming

we did accomplish quite a lot for our second day of filming and we managed to film the whole of the flashbacks section of the film opening.

we went to the woodland nature reserve 'magpie bottom' and did loads of different shots of me walking through the trees and across the fields and along the hills. we took about 2 hours to film all the shots we needed and we had to walk through the whole reserve to get to the field at the end and film the section before i wake up.

filming was quite difficult as it was early in the morning and the ground was wet from the rain and i kept slipping over! we did have to use a lot of film as i kept slipping over and falling randomly!

we got back from filming and put everything away and me and abbie managed to watch the clips and edit them toghether and finish editing the section that we filmed.

Title fonts!

we have been experimenting with the fonts for our film titles and the way that it will be displayed we will ask our target audience on which they prefere and what

BRANWAVE!!!

Today we finaly had that lightbulb moment! we have a title for the film, charley (the director and script writer in our group) wakes up every night at 4am and shes not sure why. she was telling me and then we both turned around and thought that '4am' would be a perfect title for a phycological thriller.

now thanks to the brainwave about the title we now have a story line for the film.

A girl has been captured and taken by a crazy mentaly unstable man and kept in a cell like room and every morning at 4am (this is the title!!) the man will come and torture her. the torturing sessions will gradually get worse until one day the girl finaly has had enough and try's to escape... she leaves him for dead and manages to escape but she is so messed up that she ends up going to find somebody else that she can do the same thing to. she goes back to the house close's the door and the film ends with a horrfic screaming session, and a blood spattering on the window (cliffhanger which leaves the audience to think)

Picture of our first filming session.

we began filming our thriller today and we managed to sdet everything up that we needed, which was placing the photographs that where taken of me up on the wall and, write things all over them. we also had to clear the furniture out of the room, there where 2 chairs and a table.

story board ...

?Ideas for the film?...

The initial idea would be to to start the film with:
-Narration (the main character speaking)
-close up shots of the main character waking up as she narrates
-the camera would zoom in to the charaters face and the eyes would open abruptly
-the main character would sit up and scream
-the camera would cut into various flash backs of the characters past giving the audience an idea of what the character has been through and where she is.
-the camera would cut back and fourth through her flashbacks and the shots of her awake and affraid, this will hopefully leave the audience with a lot of enigma codes.
-the narration would be ongoing through the whole 2 minute opening section.

I would have a second idea for the an alternate opening for the film but me and my group are really set on the ideas above and have been for quite a while!

Questionaire and Analasis

PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTIONAIRE

What age are you?
- 10/14 (2)
- 15/19 (14)
- 20/24 (4)
- 24/28 (3)
- 28 + (0)

Are you male or female?
- male (1)
- female (23)

Are you employed, self employed or unemployed?
- employed (7)
- self employed (0)
- unemployed (17)

How often do you go to the cinema?
- once a week (3)
- twice a week (0)
- once a month (12)
- not very often (8)

What type of film would you usually go and see?
- horror (4)
- comedy (18)
- thriller (2)
- chick flick (6)
- action (1)
- fantasy (0)

Do you like thriller films?
- yes (11)
- no (4)
- they're alright (8)

Do you like the films to start slowly, or would you rather it start with a bang?
- slowly (8)
- start with a bang (10)
- other (5)

What would you expect to see in the opening 2 minutes of a thriller film?
- not a lot (1)
- something strange, but establishes the main character (15)
- something that makes you jump (4)
- a lot of dialogue (0)
- not much dialogue (3)

Anything else you'd like to add about what you like about thriller films?- it depends what you class as thriller I guess... I don't like things that make me jump, I think of that more in horror films... if films like Speed are classed as thrillers then I like the tension of wondering if things are going to go badly or if it will all be fixed in the last minute.

- more in relation to the last question, i'd expect there to be something of a sort of mystery to happen, that is basically what the plot goes down to solving. i don't really watch that many thriller films, but when i do i like to have to guess what's really happening, rather than it all just being laid out on a plate from the start.

- the twist at the end. i think a good thriller knows how to create an ending no one would suspect, leaving the audience wanting more.

- they should star johnny depp. that's a helpful answer, right? yeah thought so.

- i think it depends on your definition of a "thriller." i'm not very fond of movies that always have something jumping out at you to make you jump. i think it's because it gets me every time. i also don't really like blood and gore, so horror movies are not really my favorite genre. i don't mind movies that are just suspenseful, those can actually be quite good.

- an awesome twist.


ANALASIS OF THE QUESTIONAIRE

Through my analasis I understand the conventions of a thriller film opening to be something strange that intoduces charaters but that is unexpected and leave the audience with a lot of inigma codes. From the responses to my questionaire people like a big bang at the start of a thriller they liked to be suprised and 'THRILLED!'
Our target audience will be 15- 26 year olds as these are the kind of people you would expect to watch a thriller style film.
Therefore i plan to meet the conventions of a thriller opening by including lots of jumpy unexpected turns and using music to create tention. I will include the introduction of charaters and let the audience know their roll in the film. we also hope to create a story yet leave the audience with plenty of inigma codes to keep them guessing.
However I plan to challenge the conventions by not dragging out the opening of the film and using narration from the main characters point of veiw telling the audience little bits of information, but not giving anything away! we got the idea of narration from twighlight as bella narrates over the opening of the film and explains her feelings to the audience and also fills them in on information they need to know before they watch the film.

research on film oppenings and genres...

There are loads of different film genres to choose from and it could be quite difficult to choose a genre to do my film on some of the genres i could choose are-



- action/ adventure... not really a possiblity as it would take a lot of time and equiptment to create a really good convincing oppening to the film!

- horror... a definate possibility as they are relativly easy to make convincing!

- comedy... also another possiblity as all you need to show a comedy is the appropriate music and diologue.

- romantic comedy... romantict comedy is much like a comedy and would be realativly easy to potray as a genre in a 2 minute oppening.

- thriller... thriller is a popular and very easy to do option as it is so simple to do with little or no diologue and just music and camera effects!

- gangster... it depends what type of gangster film i would do it would have to be a very simple mordern interpretation and it could be a little difficult!

- science fiction.. a definate no go for this project as it needs special effects and lots of planning to make it look even slightly covincing and with the little filming experience i have it would be a big challenge.

- western... i dont really see a western as appealing or easy for me as we would have to make a set and have accents and it would take quite a while to film right!

- chick flick... chic flicks would be a challenge but not impossible we would need quite a lot of diolgue at the starts and lots of shots to introduce everything to the audience.

- historical films... just dont appeal to me atall and they would be a challenge as we would have to find a set and cosumes and do a lot of research about the time we where conveying.



I am thinking of doing a film using a horror possibly a thriller, genre i have researched the oppenings and they usually involve no ore little diologue and a really scary slow music that build the tention. When watching the oppening to a horror genre you can usually tell that it is a horror film right from the start, the use of camera, music and the colours used will give the genre away.


'Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.'

I would like to have the opening sequence in a hand held camera mode and all in black and white i would also like camera in another angle like the person is being watched! i think we would have to do a really thorough plan for the filming so we really know what we are doing and where we want to go with the shots! I think the person should be imprisoned in a blank empty room and possibly be narrating over the top explaining what had happened and really introducing the audience to the genre!


I have decided on a thriller genre as I love going to watch thrillers and they an be more scary than horrors as they really create a lot of suspense. pyscological thrillers are more the type of film that really plays with your imagination and makes the veiwer think, as the aim of the film is to show as little of the evil as possible so the veiwer has to imagine what the person or thing may look like.

Questionaire:

1. why would you go and see a thriller film?



2. what is it about thrillers that you like best?



3. what is your faveroite thriller film


PARANORMAL ACTIVITY ANALASIS:



http://www.paranormalactivity-movie.com/

Paranormal activity is the perfect example of a phycological thriller it really messes with the audience and makes them imagine what the spirit would look like. They use a hand held digital camera throughout the film which is held by Micha (the main male character in the film) he films his girlfriend (Katie) as she believes there is an evil spirit/ demon haunting her in the house. The camera is held by Micha during the day and then placed on a tripod during the night times. The use of hand held and the fact that they have portrayed it to be just Micha and Katie filming makes the audience think that the film is real and the actors Micha and Katie use their real names and there are no credits at the end of the film! all of these factors freak the audience out and make them really scared this is a perfect example of a horror.
The film feels like a home video which makes it seem really realistic and dosnt make you see the special affects as the camera is hand held and it makes everything seem alot more real.
As the camera is allways in handheld mode their isnt any conventional camera movements or angles.

The film itself begins with a shot of a telivision screen in a house it looks like a music chanel is playing and then you realise the camera is handheld as it moves towards a mirror. in the mirror you see micha holding the camera he pulls a funny face and then walks away from the mirror and film the house a bit, he shows us the stairs and then walks into the kitchen where you can hear a phone ringing! he answers it 'oh hey whats up' the camera then cuts to the front door and micha opens it, outside a car pulls up micha says ''hello baby'' katie, (the woman in the car) looks at micha and is shocked and says ''thats a giant ass camera!) she seems pleased and we immediatly know that micha and katie are propably a couple. Katie gets out of the car and walks into the house. we then find out that micha bought the camera to try andfind out what is haunting his girlgreind katie!


ANALASIS OF DISTURBIA:

Disturbia, is another really good thriller film, it leaves the audience gripped and wanting more, it is a good film that is set at a really good pace. The story line is relativly simple, it is set in a small neighbourhood in america and the main character 'Kale' played by shia labouf is a troubled teenager in high school who dosnt give a damn after he witnesses his father being killed in a freak road accident after a fishing trip together. Now it is just him and his mother and he is slowly driffting away from everything. He ends up under house arrest for 3 months after punching his spanish teacher in the face. Kale becomes exeedingly bored after being stuck in the house day after day, he takes up the hobbie of spying on his neighbours and he gradually becomes very familiar with all the goings on and the daily routines of everyone of his neighbours. He finds out that he is living next a serial killer and him and friends try and investigate what is going on and try to frame the neighbour and catch him in the act!

The film beggins with an establshing shot of the countryside and a riverand it then switches to a two shot of what looks like a father and son who are fishing. The son (played shia lebouf) is waiting for a big fish that he has spotted and he pictured in a long shot with his dad behind him as he casts his line, they are chatting and concertrating on the fish. The camera does a shot reverse shot on the pair and the fish, the camera then cuts back to the fish and follows it as it swims down stream. Then the camera cuts to the father and son as the son manages to get the fich on the hook, the camera stays locked on a two shot with the father telling the son what he should do get the fish in, The camera cuts back to the fish and it jumps out of the water in slow motion, the camera switches back to the father and son and the fish gets away, The camera is in a two shot as they shout and the son throws down the fishing rod and the screen then dips to black and the title 'disturbia' appears in a faded white colour on the screen.