Opening Credits Research

I have researched opening credits on a movie called "Se7en", the opening credits lasted for 2 minutes 8 seconds and the opening credits started with the production company and then moved on to the producer, director then the main actors/actresses then other important roles that consist within the making of the film, e.g. costume designer, editor, director of photography etc.
The opening credits mentioned the director twice, which most film openings do. The film mentioned that it was a "A Film by David Fincher" at the beginning of the opening sequence then the director was mentioned again at the end of the opening sequence therefore closing with "Directed by David Fincher", which shows the importance of the director.

I have created a timeline for the film to present the specific times that the opening credits mentioned each roles.

My First Time Editing My Horror Film

I started my first editing for my horror film opening 'Ominous' and even though my partner and I have not completed filming for our horror opening, our first experience for editing our film was very successful. We shot many quality scenes for our film which was easy to edit. We cut out alot of the unnecessary footage we do not need to include in our film, which was very useful as the film openings are only able to be maximum 2 and a half minutes. We edited our film to have a sucessful match on action shot and the film goes according to our storyboarding which is pleasing.
However, my partner and I have not yet added any special effects or sound effects because we spent our first experience cutting away loads of footage, so adding effects would be our next step for editing our film opening.

Two More Methods To Use To Market My Film

One of my methods I would use to market my film towards my target audience is by selling merchandise, to promote my film. I could release: a soundtrack CD, keyrings, posters, computer games, and clothing etc before the film comes out to tease my target audience, and to make them acknowledge more information about my film.
There are examples of how merchandise promotes films, as the new film 'Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn' was only released a couple of weeks ago and it has a high selling amount of merchandise:

Futhermore, the second method I would use to market my film to the target audience is to create a website, and use other internet sites such as a facebook fan page, for my audience to view whenever they want. The website would include a synopsis to provide the plot and summary about the film to the audience who is interested in my film and there would be important notices on the website. On the website, apps for mobile phones would be available as my target audience would be teenagers, teenagers always use their mobile phones and other technical gadgets therefore a mobile app of my movie would reach my target audience really well.

Here is an example of Sherlock Holmes film website



Breakdown Sheets

These are my group's breakdown sheets to help us produce each scenes for our horror movie.
Here are five of our examples:

Feedback for Animatic Film

My partner and I showed a short clip that was consisted images of our storyboard (that showed the different camera shots and angles) and sound effects that would be included within the scenes. So the class would have a vivid idea of my horror film opening.

Example of storyboarding-

After showing my clip to the class, I had a wide range on positive and negative feedback. The positive feedback was uplifting as the class said that my clip was clear and they understood what was going on in the plot and I used a variety of camera shots and angles, also they said that the sounds and the timing in my film were thought thoroughly and it proved that I put effort into making the anamatic film effective.

However, the class stated that my film was too short and I need to make sure that I meet minimum 2 minutes- maximum 2 minutes 30 seconds as my anamatic film was just over a minute.

Also, it was said that the sound effect of footsteps were repeated too much during the film and it may become boring and dragging for the audience to follow. 

The negative feedback was motivating as it made me want to improve my horror opening.
Here is my animatic film for you to view yourself...

Sites and Locations for my horror film - Ominous

The first shot for my horror opening (Ominous) is to be set at Lambeth North Tube Station, this would be an establishing shot to set the scene and to show the audience where it will take place.

 The next location is near Lambeth North station and it is at Lambeth Palace Gardens pathway/alleyway. This location is threatening at night because it is really dark as the trees crowd around the pathway. It also has the church at one side of the alleyway and the graveyard at the next side. This sets the scene for spookiness and isolation.

 Here are a variety of pictures to show where the victim will be walking through the eerie, isolated alleyway.

Here is a picture of the bed where the victim will be sleeping at the end of the opening. It will be dark, but there will be a dim light so the camera could capture the action.

This is a side view of the long hallway of the vitcim's front door. This is her safety zone when she escapes from the villian, but it won't be her safety zone for long...

This hallway is frightening as it's long and the front door is big which would create the atmosphere to be even more creepy as the door is not a typical homey, comfortable small door, which would make the audience acknowledge that the setting is unsafe.

Analyzation Of An Eastenders Episode

The episode of Eastenders that I analyzed is from Thursday 3rd November 2011

The kind of characters that appear in this episode was teenagers (Ben and Lola etc), an asian family (The Masoods (to generalise different cultures)), a gay couple (Christian and Syed) and single mum (Roxy) and party people (Kim).

I do respond emotionally for some characters in Eastenders because the producers, writer or directors always zoom upon the character's face so the audience could get their genuine emotion, which is very effective because it makes it clear on what emotion the character is feeling e.g. remorse, sad, gulity, angry etc. And in this particular episode of Eastenders, I felt sorry for Christian and it was resultant because the close up camera shot lasted for a longer period than other shots so the audience could get a view on how Christian is feeling.

I don't think all audiences respond in the same way to the characters because each character in Eastenders is different (as in culture, background, ethncity, gender, morality etc) therefore each member of the audience would relate to each character differently. For example, in Christian's situation, a gay member of the audience might relate to him more because they share the same sexuality. It is very practical that Eastenders did that as it would attract more of a range of target audiences and not just one specific social group or class.

I do believe, the producers, writers and /director is trying to get me to respond in a particular way to the characters because they wanted to create an emotional atmosphere by making the scene silent so we could only concentrate on the character's image and their true emotions.

The characters are very realistic because the cast are from different ethnicity, gender, cultures etc which would generalise to a diverse range of the society. Also, the characters are realistic because the writers make the characters go through real life situations, that could help a member of the audience that is going through it, For Example, one of this month's main stories is from Tanya who has breast cancer, and other patients who are suffering from breast cancer could relate to her.

Film Pitches - From Idea To Finished Product

Creating a film is a very expensive and hard process which requires financial help from Grants, Donations, Savings etc.

An opportunity for the film to be financed is from the producer, they are the ones who will provide the funds for the film or they will find the funds for the film. If the producer could not sponsor money for the film themselves then they could rely other sources of funding such as Government Grants. To achieve a grant, there has to be benefits that a film productions could bring to the country and for the citizens, for example Employment Opportunites (for people to help making the movie), The Ecomony, Tourist Attraction (if the film is made in London, some of the audience from different countries might want to visit the setting of the film) and a development of national culture. 

Another opportunity for funding a film used to be the UK Film Council. UK Film Council funded script development, film production, short films, film export and distribution, cinemas, film education, culture and archives, festivals and audience support schemes, and they help develop and promote the film industry in the UK. There were three funds offering around £17 million Lottery funding per year for the production and development of films, but currently the UK Film Council is replaced by the British Film Institute (BFI).

Another way to make money is by Pre-Sales (they will expect certain elements that are likely to guarantee success).

To find a distributor for my film, I would enter in many film festivals as possible, hoping for my film to be recognised and for the film festivals audiences to discover my film for it to be known and blogged so that potential distributors could visit and gain more information about the film.

Also, I would take into consideration that subsidised distributors deal with less populist films and work on small budgets, so their industry profile is inevitably less commanding.

Moreover, employing well-known professional actors/actresses (Marguee, e.g. Leonardo DiCaprio on the left) would help finding a distributor for my film because it would promote my film which will attract the distributors.

In an ideal world, I would want Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation to distribute my film because it is very popular international film studio. That company has franchised many globally successful films such as Alien, Die Hard, Avatar, Star Wars, Predator, Home Alone and many more. 20th Century Fox Film Co. also franchised on popular TV programmes such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, etc.

An example of Twentieth Century Film Co.'s success is from 2009 American film 'Avatar', the film had a budget of $237 million and made a massive $2,782,275,172 in the box office, which proves how successful Twentieth Century Film Co.'s films are.

Ominous - My Horror Opening

This is a prezi presentation that explains the plot of my horror opening named "Ominous" and how it appeals to my target audience, what sounds intrigue me to use in my horror opening and camera shots that would appeal to my audience.
To improve my idea of my horror opening, I should add more props to my opening to make it more effective, for example masks and I was warned that it would be difficult to film a public place as its important to have permission from people who will be in the shot, which will be tricky to do.
Also, my class highly recommended to have the camera handheld when its from the stalkers perspective, so it would give a chance for the audience to be the stalker's shoes, rather than the victim's.
Furtheremore, my class stated that they liked the idea of the ticking sound and the fact that they won't see the stalker only the outline figure.

Click here to view my prezi slideshow explaining my horror opening

Things I Expect To See In A Horror/Thriller Film!

Things I expect to see in a horror film is eerie, rememberable music/sound effects, e.g. The Exorcist and Psycho etc. Link To The Exorcist Theme Music
In a horror movie there has to be suspense, if everything is rushed then it ruins the frightful atmosphere. There's an example to the slow suspense in The Ring, where the girl walks at a slow pace towards her victim Link To Suspense Scene Of The Ring

Also, I expect to see close up camera shots in horror movies to show the villian or the victims reaction or emotion on their face clear to the audience and I expect to see high angle or low angle shots to show the status of the character and the vulnerability in the situation. Example Below is a close up of the villian in "The Ring" and picture on the right is an example of a high angle shot from the victim in the horror "Psycho"

Futhermore, in horror movies I expect brutal deaths or somewhat of evilness being portrayed. Horror movies could include weapons or supernatural villians like vampires, werewolves or ghosts etc.

Horror movies need to have slow movements to make the suspense drag and to make the scene to be bloodcurling. Also, the editing needs to look very realistic because if it doesn't look real then the audience wouldn't be scared and it would deteriorate the ability to terrify the audience.

In Addition, the most famous horror films always has the most famous quotes, so for horror films to be more popular, a good catchphrase would be more useful and entertaining for the audience. Examples:

"Here's Johnny" Quote From The Shining 
"Hi I'm Chucky" Quote From Child's Play

My Prelim Task

This week in my Media course, we all had to get into groups of three and record a prelim project of anything of our choice, but it had to include camera shots such as match on action with a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another characer, with whom then exchanges a dialogue using shot reverse shot. I was directing the camera shots and the characters position and I edited the video above. While I was editing this video I learnt how to include titles in my movie and editing sounds and including sounds in my project, which is very useful as the sounds worked well with the atmosphere I was trying to create producing this project.
Please watch my video and tell what you think and how I could improve for my next project.

The Green Screen Experience

On 06/10/11 we had a visitor to teach the class how to function the green screen effect on a video. When the visitor demostrated how to edit a green screen video, I thought it would it was very easy, but when I had to film and edit out the background myself, it was more tricky than I thought. My group made a mistake for choosing a white background to edit out as the majority of common things are white such as eyeballs, teeth and clothes etc. So we had a few problem editing but I had massive help from the teachers and I learnt from my mistake so I now know what not to do if I use the green screen effect in the future for my coursework.
My group decided our practice video should be a scene from Titanic which I am very happy we chose to do that as it was different and the rest of our class found it amusing. 
Apart from the editing, everything else in our video was successful, like the acting, the camera angle and the sound, which I was very pleased from and I would definitely consider using the green screen effect in my coursework as I could set a scene in a place that is impossible to film.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and I am happy with my green screen video as it was my first time.

Findings On My Film Survey

When I posted my film survey, I gave it a week for my audience to complete it and then I observed the findings.

I found that the majority that were interested in my film survey were females aged 17-22, so they fell in the female under 25 category in target audience.

Most of those females watched horror films monthly and the majority like psychological horror films, for example, Hide And Seek and The Shining.

They mainly watched horror films on DVD and liked to watch horror films with equally family and friends.

A great number of women said that suspense scares them the most during a horror film and they preferred to watch horror films in the evening.

These findings will be a proficient help for producing my opening on a horror film as now I acknowledge what a minority group of females under 25 prefer to watch and how often they watch it, etc, so it could be easier to target to this specific group.

First Thoughts On Filming And Editing

Filming and editing was a very enjoyable experience in my media lesson. I have my own private video camera that I use at home and I always film daily things and edit it on my computer then put it on youtube, but it was more gradificating to work within a team in my media class.
Also, in my media class I learnt how to use the sony video camera and to edit my footage in a more professional manner.

However, most importantly, I learnt that Time Management is the most important factor for my coursework because if I do not stay on track with time, I am likely to fall behind and to not achieve the best grade or outcome in the media task.

Let Me Introduce Myself

There is a prezi slide show that I made to show my interests and my favourites
Click to view my prezi slideshow to present Michaela Haffenden