................

1. STAGE 2
RESEARCH +
EXPERIMENTS
Ben Harris

2. I personally think that my survey, went very well out of all 13 people that answered
it. I asked 10 questions that were related to my audio research. The first of my
questions, I asked was ‘What gender are you’ as, this is a standard question that
should be asked for most surveys. 11 males and 2 females answered my survey, out
of 13 people. Throughout my questionnaire I asked a mix of questions, mostly to do
with the two genre’s horror, and comedy. The reason for asking about the two
genres, is because I am thinking of doing my short film on one of those genres. Out
of all my responses the answers seemed like they were valid. There were a few
answers that were not relevant to the question, however overall the results of my
survey were valid.

5. The Season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead series got 11.4
million total viewers and 6.5 million adults 18-49 for a 5.0 rating.
That’s down 40% in the demo and 33% in total audience from the
Season 7 opener of October 23, 2016.

6. Game of thrones
That number includes people who watched the episode as it aired
and the night-of streams. The linear ratings alone put the series
at 12.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched episode in
series history. The 12.1 million number also represents a 36%
increase over the Season 6 finale, which drew 8.9 million viewers
in 2016.
The Game of thrones season 7 finale had one of their highest ratings of 16.5 million
viewers on the Sunday night that it launched.

7. The first eight episodes of “Stranger Things” was the third most watched season of
a Netflix original series to debut in the last year. Within its first 35 days on the
streaming service, the supernatural drama averaged of about 14.07 million adults
18-49. Only season one of “Fuller House” and season four of “Orange is the New
Black” drew larger demo audiences in their first 35 days.

8. Whilst gathering my primary, and secondary research I found out who is most likely to
watch my short film. I found that teenagers between the ages 15 and 18 are most
likely to watch my short film. Also, the fact that I will be uploading it to YouTube, and
the main majority of audience on YouTube are teenagers. Therefore, I intend to make
my short film for 15 and over as it will have a horror aspect to it. Also through
conducting my research, both primary, and secondary, I found out that teenagers and
students that are attending A college or University are most likely to watch it. Also
people that go to a college or university, are mostly between the ages 16 and up,
which is my target audience. My general target audience profile is middle/working
class male students between the ages 15 and up. The reason for mainly males
watching it is because when conducting my research I found out that males are more
likely to watch a horror film than females.

9. My short film will have threat in it, as I am creating a short horror film. However,
when reading BBFC’s 15 rating it states that I can not ‘dwell’ on dangerous
behaviour, such as suicide or self-harming. It also states that I am allowed to show
strong threat and horror, but it must not have a sustained focus on sadistic or sexual
threat, as they are unlikley to accept it. It also allows me to show strong violence.
However, not to dwell on the violence, which means don’t show pain or injury for a
long amount of time. Also the strongest of gore and sadistic violence won’t be
accepted either. This also includes any sexual violence, which won’t be accepted.
There is also information on the following: Language, Nudity, Sex, Discrimination,
and Drugs. However, I will not be including any of the stated above. The only things
that I may feature is violence, and or Imitable behaviour. I definately want to feature
‘threat’ as I personally think without this I could not make a good short horror.

11. Research potential production techniques you might want to use or
feel would be most appropriate – these can be related to camera,
editing, story, sound.
You should look at a minimum of 3 related products in your
research.
You should collect clips/still images/how to guides/etc that might
help you. When watching scenes from films, etc you could also ask
potential target audience what they think.
With each technique you should assess whether you can use it or
how you might employ or why you may want to disregard it
completely

12.  One of the techniques that I will be using is different types of shots in my short
film. I will be using close up shots, medium and long shots. The close up shot
will keep only the face full in the frame this is important as its one of the most
important building blocks in cinematic storytelling. The reason for using a
medium shot is because it’s not just that it’s in-between a close up shot and a
long shot. It’s because it utilises the most commonly used frame in movies
today. I am going to use a long shot for the reason that it depicts an entire
character, showing them entirely from head to toe. Another shot that I will be
using is the locked-down shot. This is a shot where the camera is in a fixed
position, and the scene is still acting out around the camera whilst that camera
is in that one fixed position. I am also using a high angle shot, I will use this to
make my character seem vulnerable in the scene where he looks up the stairs
before walking up them as he hears the knocking sound. An high angle shot is
a shot that is looking down on a character or place. This is often to make them
seem less powerful, vulnerable etc. I may also use a POV shot to make the
whole scene even tenser as you are in that characters footsteps, experiencing
what they are. POV means point of view, therefore the POV shot means a shot
that depicts the point of view of a character so that you see exactly what they
see.

13. The reason for choosing ‘The Walking Dead’ as one of my products is
because I think that it is great inspiration for my short horror film.
Even though my short film has nothing to do with zombies in it, and
isn’t set in a post-apocalyptic setting, I still think that it has elements
of similarities with my short horror film, concept idea. That is that it
has a build of tension in it, which ‘The Walking Dead’ has throughout
the show.

14. I feel like this short film is most related to my concept, as they both are to do with
someone being alone in their house. Also, the fact that it’s set late at night, and is in a
dark setting. Which I also plan to do in my short film. However, for a good horror film, I
feel like it should be set in a dark environment. One of the big similarities of my short
film concept, and the Lights Out short film, is that they both build up tension, and you
don’t know what is there.

15. EXPERIMENTS
Camera/Editing/Audio Experiments

16. For both experiments the Shaun of the dead clip, and the short film that we filmed, I used
Adobe Premiere Pro CC. One of the processes that my group had to get was our own shots.
This was because, we all had different ideas of how we wanted the short film to end.
Therefore, we shot a lot of shots, which made it more difficult when it came to sorting
through the clips to find the ones that I wanted to use. When filming we did it in different
sections. First my group started filming lots of different shots of that one particular scene,
with different angles. This was so we had a variety of footage for when it came to editing the
film. We had a basic structure which was: start, middle, and end. We first filmed the start
then the middle and followed by the end. However, we still had filming time left so we
decided it would be beneficial to create different versions of that scene. Therefore, we all
created our own take on the different scenes.

17. Once that we gathered our shots that we needed and uploaded them onto my computer, I
added them onto Adobe Premiere Pro CC. From there I needed to sort them all out, making
sure they are in the correct order, and the shots that I used didn’t have any problems with them.
Two of the main tools that I used for both experiments were the selection tool and the razor tool.
The selection tool helped me move one clip to another location. This was a big help when it
came to sorting out all of the shots that we took and where to place each one of them. The
razor tool also helped a lot as most of the clips had parts that I needed to cut out as someone
was either in the shot, or someone was speaking whilst filming. One of the tools I used was the
audio mixer, this helped me lower the volume and increase the volume of people speaking in
the shots that we had taken. This helped a lot, as in some of the shots the sound of the actors
speaking is very low and in others very high. The screenshot below shows me editing my
groups short film on Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

18. In my final product I will use the camera angles that we used when filming our short film
experiment. The angles that we used varied from close-up shots like you see in Quentin
Tarantino’s movie’s to shots that made us look smaller/bigger. I will use mainly all angles
possible in my 1 minute short film as I want a variation of takes on it. One of the camera
shots we used with our experiment that I want to use in my short film was the close-up
shot. The reason for me wanting to use this is because, it shows the characters facial
expression more clearly and its one of the most important building blocks in cinematic
storytelling. The close up shot will keep only the face full in the frame, I think that if I do
this right, it would add to the tension as you can see that the main character is scared.
When it comes to editing I will use all of the processes that I used in our experimental
short film, in my short film.
I think that my group’s short film went well as we only had a short amount of time to create
it and, only had a short amount of time to think of the idea/concept of the short film. If I
were to film it again with my group I would probably think of an entirely new idea as, our
idea had virtually no story to it and made no sense whatsoever. However, in the sense of
filming the footage that we needed, I think we did a very good job. One of the reasons I
think this is because, we shots lots of different takes and angles. Which would later help us
when it came to editing. The editing side of things went very well it was just difficult and
time consuming when I had to sort through all of the takes that we filmed as we took many.
However, in the end this helped as I had a wide variation of choice as to what scenes I
wanted to put in the film.

19. To get the sounds that our group needed for the Shaun of the dead clip we
had to go out and get them ourselves. Some of the sounds we could make
ourselves, whereas others we couldn’t so it was difficult to get some. For
example for the scene where Shaun is in the shop, we thought that we should
get some kind of ambient store noises. Therefore, we went to local shop and
recorded the sound of the freezers and fridges. When it came to editing the
Shaun of the dead scene, I found it very difficult to make the sounds sound as
if they were in the scene as they all had a slight delay on them such as the
jogger running. When editing I had to upload all of the sounds to Adobe
Premiere Pro and then sort them out deciding which ones I want and which
ones I don’t want. When it came to actually moving them into the scene, I
found it very difficult as when I listened back to it, there was always a slight
delay. However, in the end I made it as close to the transaction as possible.
Once I finished and was happy with the scene, I exported it.

20. When it comes to collecting audio, I will use the sounds that I have
filmed whilst making my short film. If I am to need anymore, I will get
them myself using the audio recorder like I used to get the sounds
for the Shaun of the Dead clip. However, I think I will just be using
the sounds that I got when recording my short film. I will also be
getting some sounds from the internet making sure they are not
copyrighted, and I can use them.
Overall I think that the sounds that I collected were very good, and the
finished product is also good. However, there are some slight issues
with the final exported copy, as some of the sounds are slightly
delayed and sound very strange when watching the entire clip. Also
when Shaun(Simon Pegg) scratches his head in the scene, the
sound that I recorded sounds very odd when put into that exact
scene. It doesn’t sound right. So therefore if I were to record and edit
all of this again, I would change some of the sounds as they don’t
match. Also I would spend a little longer editing the sounds in as they
need to be perfect.

21. One of the constraints that will affect my short film production is the timing. This is
because, we only have so long to make the short film and, get the shots that we need.
Therefore, this will be a constraint on me making my short film to the best of quality.
However, to help me I will plan out the times for when I get the footage. Another constraint
will be the time of the short film as a 1 minute short film is going to be hard to make as, I
have to fit my whole idea in 1 minute. Therefore, when it comes to filming the footage I
may have to cut parts of of my idea, making it shorter.
Another constraint that will affect me is the personnel/actors as when it comes to filming
my short film the location is not going to be in College, Therefore I will have to get people
that are willing to travel to the location I want to film in. This also leads to another
constraint which is the organisation of everything. I will need to make a plan of the short
film, the days and times of filming, and the locations that I could use. The technical side of
things won’t be a constraint as such as I can borough a Camera, and tripod from college,
or use my own camera. My short film will not cost anything to make so that will not be a
constraint. The location will be a constraint as its in a different location than our usual
filming location, which is college. Therefore, if no one is willing to travel to the location
then I will have to find people that live near by and are willing to be in the short film.