audience feed back

When we showed the class our film Mr Oswick recorded us presenting the film and what the audience had to say about our film after the good things and the bad things and this is it !

anamatic

This is our attempt of an anamatic we need more pictures for this as we changed most of the shots that are in this have beemn changed in a variety of ways also the anamatic only lasts 0.47 seconds where as we now know that our final footage last 1 minute 54 seconds this is because we have changed lots and changed in various ways

Evaluatation 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?

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

These two picture are of out group the left has Ana, Hannah and myself in and on the left has Zoe, Hannah and myself in too. We are holding the tripod and camera in which we used to film our task

This is the camera on its own that we used


This is a tripod we used this to put the camera on as it helps to get steady shots.

 This is my bed. My bed was used in the film when Ana was asleep before we entered the dream sequence

 

 

 

 

 

These two pictures are of drawing that Hannah drew for us to use in her scene of the creator 

 

 

 

 

 

youtube played a big part in our film as that is where we uploaded everything on to and uploaded our film online making it viewable to anyone. its also allowed us to look at other peoples opening 2 minutes and get opening two minutes from opening scene of a film.

what we learnt on youtube:

we learnt how to create and use a youtube account

• how to upload video on to youtube and make them visible to everyone
• we also learnt how to make and add speech bubbles and annotations to a video online

We used Blogger to do our main production of our coursework. On blogger we had to produce a online diary where we had to complete various tasks and record various things down such as research and planning , filming diarys so our teachers could see what we have been up to while filming , and our evaluation tasks. on blogger we had to upload many different photos, videos and slideshows and found various ways of doing this

what i have learnt from blogger :

• On blogger we have learnt how to do a detail analysis of a media works from the production of our film to the research and planning of our film.
• Also we learnt how to make a accurate detailed dairy of the work we have done at each stage of the production.

we used adobe premiere elements to do all our editing of both our preliminary task and our final film. at first we found Adobe very confusing to use as it was rather technical but by the end of both films we have got to grips with it and have learnt many different things from it heres just some:

• We learnt how to upload our footage from the camera to the computer through Adobe.
• We also learnt how to cut the frames where we wanted to and fix them together with another frame
• Also leant how to slipt digoulouge and footage apart from each other when the sound was not need
• how to fix the contrast and brightness of a frame to what you want
• we also playedaround with the audio levels of our music as we found it was to high pitch and needed it softer so we mangered to do that .
• we also learnt how to use tranisitions to make the shot play smoothly into each other .

evaluation 5-How did you attract/address your audience?

This is an annotated youtube copy of our final piece in this we say what links our opening 2 minutes to other opening scence of the same genre the genre we chose was phycological thriller/horror we firstly aimed to do a horror but as our ideas came it turned more into this.

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

This is a picture of our target audience which is mainly made of male with taking up 55% of the overall figure whereas females  is 45%. These statistics are taken from figures such as The Grudge a film with a  horror genre that has a similar style as ours in regards of Zoe one of our main characters. our audience profile has an ages range of 17 years to middle aged, which is dominantly male. This may be because of stereotypes which say  chick flicks are typically feminine whereas Horror/action is typically masculine. Horror is a genre which attracts a wide audience. In terms of shopping and music i feel that this is dependent on the gender to what they wear and listen to as many different types of people enjoy horrors

In terms of clothes i think my group have imagined our typical audience to dress in normal clothes from shops such as primark or top man for the male (in his 20's) and for a female of the same age range i can imagine them to shop in the same kind of shops and new look and places of a similar type. s for the music side i can imagine  them to listen to  again dependent on both age and gender .For  males (17-25) i feel that the genre of  music  that they will listen to will be rap/urban/ chart music with artists such as Eminem/Tinie Tempah as these are typically male. For the upper age range (25-40) i feel the music will perhaps be either more older music such as Micheal Jackson. For  the earlier age range of females the music will usually be chart/ Pop/Rnb with artists such as Rhianna/Adele/ although mainly chart music would suit this target audience.For the upper range music may be outdated again with maybe the same type as the older men e.g. west life/take that  Another assumption is that hard core horror genre lovers will listen to rock music such as My chemical Romance with Music channels such as Kerrang and Mtv Rock. The younger audience will essentially listen to music on  MTV /Kiss/4 Music. The older audience may listen to Channels such as Magic

In terms of our film it effectively attracts its target audience as it contains many horror stereotypes which  include the following:

•  an innocent girl who posesses purity with such good characteristaion that the audience knows that she will either die or become possessed
• The monster who strikes slyly but some how always seems to be just out of the picture.
• lastly  eerie suspending music that gets you through all the jumps and jolts from start to finish.

Evaluation 3

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

evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this task i have chosen to look at Zoe's character from when she first properly appears in the dream sequence,i am going to look at the similarities and differences of her character and a character from the grudge as i feel they can be comparable both are representable for a typical horror genre character.i personally think that this is the most comparable character to Zoe because ....

•  They both stalk their victims in an animistic manner

• both have a lost  look in their eyes when on screen displaying their animal side to them

•  Both have  extremely dark hair which contrast against their very pale skin, this can give a sense of undead 

•  Unlike the grudge in the opening two minutes of our film you do get to see Zoe's character start following her victim through the dream sequence 

In terms of costume they both wore different types of clothing but they had similarities,  the grudge wore ragged normal clothes( to display poverty and uncleanness) whereas Zoe wore a cape to go against traditional horror norms, which gave our own little twist on the story. The cape proved to be very useful as it highlights her movements as well as hiding Zoe's body, camouflaging her so that she can watch Ana from a distant with out being noticed also the cape kind of gave Zoe's character  a sense of wildness (Especially since it was windy when we filmed it, allowing certain shots to contrast against the stillness of the other shots.)
 In The Grudge the character uses slow, sly movements , which allows the increase of  tension as well as making the audience feel uneasy which is the type of effect we wanted for Zoe. However for Zoe's character we tried to use her facial expressions to make the audience feel uneasy we done this by having close up of her face but we also used elements of slow movement for this to . As for Roles of the two characters their aim is very similar to find the prey...and killing it! This is meant to make the audience feel uncomfortable as it is a Horror/Fantasy film.

evalutation 1- in what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

After going though our final piece  i have selected nine  frames which i am going to look at and compare to our objectives from the start of the filming process. Our aim was to create a realistic opening to a horror film but i personally think that it turnt in to more of physiological thriller /horror.
Frame 1.

For this shot we used a black background and white writing just as the opening shot of our film we had it silent and the words slowly faded on and was on the screen for a couple of seconds then had it fade out again we thought this was successful as it added an effect of a horror type film as we used a black screen which contrasted with the white writing.Throughout the film we chose titles stating who was starring in it, we chose to have small white writing that alternated on the side it was within the screen we chose them to be small as we didn't want them to be distracted from the action that would be shown on the screen.  

Frame2.

 The location within this scene is meant to be unknown as it adds mystery to the scene just like Hannah's character is.However the scene was filmed in my dining room, we made the scene by making the room dark we done this by shutting the curtains and using the dimming switch we have and putting it on the lowest setting possible for the camera to still be able to see Hannah and the easel and the pencils(which are the props we used).This is used by Hannah "The Creator" as she sketches out the scene. we used the camera to create an over the shoulder shot of Hannah then to zoom in on the drawing this shot was hard to get as we had to keep the camera steady and get the right shot we were going for. Hannah's character is introduced in a way most evil characters are shown, with out a view of there face. The costume for Hannah's character was a checked black shirt with a grey waistcoat this gave her the artist look about her as well as the dark clothing makes her blend into the background

Frame 3.

Within this shot it uses the Rule of thirds this was done unintentionally but i think it is a good thing as it draws the audience to Ana's character which is what the scene is all about.This scene was also filmed at my house but in my bedroom this is because we want to make it look like Ana is in bed so in the film it is made to look like her bedroom  Ana is made to look uneasy within this scene as if she is having night mares. the lighting within the scene was achieved by closing curtains but it was still to sunny in the room so we used towels to block out the sunlight through the windows we also shut the door. In order for the camera to see Ana we used the dimmer lights to add a bit of light so the camera would work and because it was a dimmer switch we still was able to achieve the effect of nighttime. Ana's character is introduced to be see as innocent and meaning full to the opening of this film.

Frame 4.

This shot is filmed in a school field where the grass is rather long and seems wild this is the effect that was wanted as it maybe adds the touch of Zoe's character with in the scene.The focus within the scene is on the character as well as the setting i feel the setting is important for the scenes as is adds the idea of maybe it being a dream. Ana is positioned in the center of the shot so the audience are meant to sympathise with her as she is vulnerable and worried.The next shot from this is a pan around Ana's character with almost a shaky effect to it this is made to look like it is Zoe's character circling Ana.This shot has been edited to black and white just like all the other dream scene shots have this is to show a contrast between the dream scene and Ana in bed. In this scene Ana is wearing her pyjamas to remind the audience that she is still in a dream.

Frame 5.

This scene is filmed in the same school field as frame 4 this is the first time we see Zoe's character but we do not see her face this is typical for a horror film that the villain is not shown within the first showing of these types of characters.In these first scene of the dream scenes Zoe is wearing a green cap but because we have played with the effects and have changed the contrasts of the colouring to make it look like a dark day. we also cut the cape so it looked like it had been dragged and ripped along the mud and in the dirt. we also done it on a day where it was windy out side so the cape court the wind which added effect to what we wanted
 

Frame 6.

This shot is once again set in the same field as the previous but we found little patches of very long grass so we made good use of this provided us with many different shots that could of been used. In terms of the costumes we used the same green cape was used and with the hood up for Mis-on-scene. the type of shot used was a mid shot /close up this is because Zoe was very low to the ground we used these shots as this is the first time Zoe's face is shown . The frame just like a couple of the others uses the rule of thirds this is essential as it shows the most important thing which is Zoe's face and we want the attention to be on her

Frame 7.

The location for this frame  the same field as the rest but in a slightly more shorter grass than the previous ones and there more leaves around this is made to look as if Zoe's character has travelled for some distance. within the scene Zoe is wearing old brown boots that have fur on them this could maybe be animals fur ? making Zoe's character look slightly barbaric. Before this shot there was a shot of the camera tracking Zoe's footsteps and then we see her stamp on the sticks and a piece fly off this is shot from a low angle which makes Zoe's character look powerful,this was  hard to film even using a tripod,as we wanted to track her but so it from a low angle we had to re film this many times to get the smoothness of it.This shot of the tracking and Zoe stamping on the sticks ends when the stick fly off this could show how powerful and Barbaric Zoe's character is  

Frame 8.

This shot is filmed from a low angle to show the power Zoe has it is a mid shot of the character in a tree this works very well with in the our film as the next shot is of Ana's Character at the bottom of a tree resting on it looks worried and scared so maybe Zoe is at the top of that tree although these to shots where filmed at different locations you cant see the top of the tree Ana is leaning against so it could be the case. Zoe is wearing the green cape again for match on action and mis-on-scene also she is wearing the same boots for this purpose to. she is wearing plan black tights shorts and a top this could suggest maybe that she is a normal person but is bad just within the dreams ?
Frame 9.

This frame is taken from the last shot of our opening 2 minutes which is of Ana desperately trying to run away from what is coming after her although she doesn't know what it is just yet ! i personally think this shot shows the location of the field we filmed in very well as you have it in the distances although our main focus is of Ana the field is still in the background the following shot of this is of ana half way across the field which is a long shot of her and the field . Ana is wearing the same Pyjamas as she has been throughout the opening this is for continuity editing also for match on action this frame is shot as a mid shot/close up this is so we can see the background also so we can see the expression and worry on Ana's face

Puppet Strings final film

3rd go at filming

Today we finished off filming the rest of our footage presumably for now( as we may add or deduct footage when playing around with editing), during second lesson again. As before we kept the black and white colouring to our filming which ties in neatly with our easel scene which Hannah is in as it gives an artistic feel to the film as well as conveying to the audience that Hannah the puppeteer ( the name Puppet Strings) is altering reality leaning towards fantasy elements. Prior to filming we helped alter Zoe's cape which is a yellowy-green colour (ideal for blending in the green environment) , with a rough texture, which we cut up with scissors at the bottom. This made it raggedy and chaotic looking which was idealistic as it displays barbarity and overuse, adding to the scary effect of her character. As well as the jagged edges we used safety pins to fashion a hood, giving a red riding hood feel to fool the audience into thinking that she is an ordinary person. That way we can create more suspense and tension between the audience and her.
our first shot was an overhead high angle shot from the back of Zoe, hunched over in the grass, waiting to come and possess ana. By being hunched over it contrasted against the earlier shot of ana beinging hunched over in the long grass to display the differences between the characters. The fact that she is shrouded by a cape could also suggest to the audience that although she may be adopting a red riding hood persona, she doesn't possess the same innocent, child like qualities. What I liked about this shot was that the weather was perfect as there was high wind speeds, making the cape billow out beneath her as though she was about to take off. It looks even better in black and white as it again conveys the unreality of the sequence footage. I also liked how the audience couldn't see Zoe's face which gave her a sense of ambiguity and mystery , making the audience being allowed the opportunity of open ended imaginings as to what is about to happen . This also has a better effect of capturing the readers attention. The wind was extremely apparent in this shot both in appearance and audio, with blustery wind noises that we can perhaps edit in production, enhancing the sound more. This could perhaps be contrasted against murmurs in the wind, which could symbolise her mumbling to herself, almost plotting what she is going to do to ana. I feel that if we put this in as a voice over it can portray how ana is oblivious to Zoe's presence, symbolising the immaturity of ana characters personality.  Because we got this shot correct in the first go, we moved on to our next shot: a front view shot of Zoe again shrouded by the cloak, with her pale hands clasped around her throat which the audience could perceive as what will happen to ana. This time however you could see her hair, moving in the wind alongside the cape, which almost seems as though the further the film goes on the more of Zoe we get to see. At this point we could perhaps in editing darken the contrast and perhaps if we can, Our third shot was of ana again hunched over in the grass, with her back to the camera to display continuity, i was using a tracking shot to follow Zoe as she creeps towards ana, slowly and slyly to increase tension. At this point we can enhance the sound of her footsteps with the addition of enhanced erratic breathing, pragmatically giving both ana and the audience a shared understanding that something is about to happen.As she approaches ana , she moves elegantly around ana in a semi- circle and I tremble with fear, with glances to the left and right. I believe that fast editing would be really beneficial at this point in the film, for example perhaps the use of juxtaposition as we could have me looking terrified in comparison to Zoe's sinister demeanour.   This transcends immediately into Zoe facing ana, with an eyeline match between them to show the severity of the sitiuation and the malfeasance of her character. Perhaps at this point we could emphasize the colour of both their eyes in the eyeline match shoe ( mine is brown and Zoe's is blue) by not using black and white for several seconds. We could also darken Zoe's eyes to represent her evilness whereas ana we can lighten the hue to represent the purity and innocence of ana's character. Once Zoe has turned to face ana, we could slow down editing, to make it seem as though the world has gone still for a moment. After we can resort back to quick editing when Zoe covers ana in her cloak. Perhaps the use of flash editing transition could be useful. .

2nd go at filming

Today we filmed part of the dream sequence we didn't film it all because Zoe didnt have her cape. We decided that we would contrast it to our bedroom scene by using the effect of  black and white. which show the audience it was in a different place or time Our first shot was of ana in her pyjamas lying in the long grass, hunched over cuddling her knees, Shaking which showed she was scared . In terms of Mise-en -scene Ana was bare foot to show she was mant to be in bed .. This was a good day to begin filming this scene as it was slightly overcast, stormy grey and would look excellent, especially if its used against shots of Zoe next week when it is suppose to be raining. Despite ana be henched over,i made sure that the camera was able to see a slight view of ana face looking frightened to show the audience how ana was feeling. We tried this shot several times with various techniques make sure we got enough footage .The shots we tried were panning around ana to almost make it look like zoe was the one walking round her , an over the shoulder shot to show ana's vulnerability, again hunched over to represent this and finally a high angle shot of roughly 3 seconds to show ana's fear of the unknown. During these particular shots we could exaggerate the sound of  Ana breathing[ e.g. making it more ragged as if she's out of breath]. My personal favourite shot was the panning shot as it was something which we had never attempted before and I feel that it is good to have a variety of shots. Our next shot was of Zoe's feet encased in brown boots, walking towards the camera in the grass, which we felt clearly showed the audience that something was about to happen to ana . we also got a shot of me running. We started off with ana looking over her  shoulder with the camera directly behind, in which she looked into the camera. Ana then quickly ran off without looking behind  to show that she was to scared to do look back. Ana then looked  behind  for several seconds and then ran on a little further before collapsing in the grass. 

What we did today

Today Zoe has experimented in powerpoint looking at different fonts and sizes for our opening credits so we can see what font,styles,transitions and colour we liked then we had a group dicussion bout this but we next need to do it look at a different software to do these on as powerpoint may not be suitable for what we are looking for I then spent the lesson looking on youtube for either a broken music box sound or a drown out nursery rhyme we will use this for a sound bridge or earry feel when ana wakes up and sees the teddy has its arms up we will do this as a sound bridge . Ana and hannah spent the lesson drafting the script that will be late to be posted !

Draft script

[ Enter camera over the shoulder shot of Hannah's character  zooming into easel content, as she finishes her piece] [ Fully in black, her face half shrouded in shadow, enhancement of her eye. Perhaps over exaggerationn of mascara and eye liner]
[ Use of dimming switch is applied to scene]
[ the lamp turns off mysteriously, room is left in darkness creating tension and suspense]
End of scene

Scene 2
[ Zoe is camouflaged in the grass , wearing a dark green cape. Her make up is very stark and in contrast with her pale face- enhanced by rice powder. Her lips should be bright scarlet red as though she is bleeding to add to the effect and pervading atmosphere]A centered canted angle shot is used to show the uneasiness of the situation]
[ The camera tracks Zoe while she is at a fixed point. At this period of time Zoe's face is still hidden. Long shot of Zoe follows tracking which develops into a panning shot]
Scene 3
[ mid shot panning around Zoe. As the camera reaches full circle to the front of Zoe her face is finally uncovered: she shows her true identity.]
Scene 4
[ long shot of Ana asleep in bed, surrounded by china dolls to reflect innocence and childhood. There is also an eye line match of Ana and the china dolls above on the shelf]
[ Use of dimming switch is applied to scene]
Scene 5
[ Juxtaposition shot of both Ana and Zoe's eyes . Zoe's eye is unnatural and creepy whereas Ana is innocent , reflecting the differences between the characters. It then fades into Ana eye like she's looking into Ana soul]
Scene 6
[ audience is made to feel as though they are seeing an apparition of what is going to happen to Ana. This makes them sympathize with Ana character.]
[ Continuity editing is used with an over the shoulder shot of Hannah again to represent repetition but this time it depicts future events e.g. Zoe chasing Ana]
Scene 7[ Ana is sitting in the grass cross legged looking worried and tense: To scared to turn round as Ana is unsure whether its a dream or reality][ wearing a white nightie to reflect the immaturity of Ana character]
[ I have Ana hands over ears]
[Voice over of Zoe's voice in Ana's head] "Im coming "... [ breathy whisper]
[Ana mumble to herself ] Stop![ every time its repeated it gets higher in tempo, until its a high pitched loud squeal ]
[ still sitting in the grass, cross legged and is unaware of something behind me. A 2shot of Ana and Zoe in the frame but im still unaware of her presence- Ana's breathing gets erractic and up tempo]
[ Ana stand up and see Zoe ( long 2 shot), Zoe rises up from the grass and lifts her hood off on a steady beat ]
[ Both Ana and Zoe do a clicking motion in synchronization to show unity and the fact that Ana is under her power]

First shot at filming !!

Today we began filming our first scenes at my house firstly the bedroom scene and the scene in which Hannah is drawing. We started off filming quick footage of Ana sleeping in bed and then waking up staring at the ceilingwhich make the audience question as they don't know what is going on. We took the same shot several times as we wanted to have the best shot possible therefore having more than one would mean that we have more to choose from. The lighting was a key concept in this particular shot as well as we wanted to reflect that it was night time but that was problematic in itself as if the lighting was too dark then we wouldn't be able to see our filmed footage. In the end we used a dimming switch to provide a natural lighting which interestingly gave the camera a fuzzy blurry quality- almost static. This actually worked quite well as it looked quite naturalistic which is the effect we were going for as it contrasts against the surrealistic narrative which we have composed.We also experimented with a tripod camera to see what effect this would have on the shots but unfortunately we couldn't work out how to attach the camera to the tripod. This shows us that we need to practice how to use this camera as we don't want all of our shots to be filmed hand held. Our next shot was of a teddy bear which was to reflect the childhood innocence of Ana's character and again we played around with lighting: this time as well as a dimming switch we also used a bedside lamp. This was very effective as it bathed the bear in an orange glow and was again quite blurry. This followed into a transition of an eye line match between me and the bear where the conceptualisation of Mise-en-scene took place as Ana used facial expressions. The shot showed Ana looking frightened as though Ana knew something bad is going to happen which makes the audience sympathize with Ana role and also leaves them feeling tense.We then went into my Dining room where we did Hannah's scenes. Our first shot was of Hannah drawing a picture which comes to life later on in the film. This consisted of a hooded figure[ Zoe] immersed in mist and clouds with ' It's coming' in scratch messy writing . This is to represent how Hannah is the controller of both Ana and Zoe and how Ana become possessed due to the control  that Zoe  is inflicting upon Ana. This also links in with the title of our film 'Puppet Strings'. To give an eerie effect to the film Hannah ensured that she wrote very heavily so as to create a scratchy, rasping noise. I then used zoom reverse zoom to enhance the picture which transcended into a similar shot of her drawing again but minus the writing and an additional of Ana in the background looking at her. To represent the artistic feel of the scene  Hannah wore a checkered black and white shirt and waistcoat which almost gave her a sense of normality despite the evilness of her character. Her face was also in side profile to giver her a sense of mystery. We finished off our filming session by taking a prop shot list.