2. Q1. What are the forms and conventions of the medium genre you are working in?
Medium: Film Genre: Horror / Thriller
Narrative Editing
The whole of the film acts as a starting point for the film itself, we do not Transition between shots are quite smooth to not give away the hint that our
actually ever give a complete obvious answer to what is happening, for text is a thriller, but instead lull the audience into thinking that everything is
example one person who I interviewed after I had shown them our final cut happy. Until the climax of the opening to act as a shock.
of the opening scene actually said that they believed that the person who Titles and credits fade in and out slowly to also add to this.
was putting up the notice of the death in Great Haseley was predicting the The radio host in the beginning was in a older accent with some white noise
death because he was about to do it, and we did not actually have a set over the voice to establish early that it is not modern day, I also purchased a
ending so it can be interpreted by the audience in which way they like. melon and smashed it in order to create the sound effect of smashing a mans
head.
Camera work and various angles SFX
In our preliminary task we made the mistake of not actually sticking to the Our title comes over the cross on the alter that the victim was murdered in,
180 degree rule and instead kept altering our filming angles which made the along with the smashing of his head in the background. We used a grand
film very distracting and generally hard to watch! So in our final film we stuck font to show the church’s gothic style.
to the rule as much as we could but we didn’t actually have to do it in Our titles have shadows that are black or white so you can see what the title
between characters, as there was no dialogue. is saying if it is against a darker or lighter background.
We used match on match action a few times whilst editing, I can think of one We used a fade in and out to build up the calm before the climax where your
moment when we used it so that the audiences attention was not changing ideas of the production are changed
and helped us shorten a shot without bad continuity of starting a shot with
the subject in the middle of the area.
Sound Mise-en-scene
We added certain sounds in our film and included diegetic and non-diegetic During the scenes in the church we intentionally left the lights off to show
sound, for example we had “We’ll meet again” by Vera Lynn and this was the darkness of what is about to happen, and the darkness of the action that
Non-diegetic sound as the audience can hear it but the characters can not, is about to happen.
but it is still important to the setting as it shows what the time is, so it is not We intentionally had the protagonist show the least amount of character so
modern. We added Diegetic sound in the part when the man is hammering that the audience would not ever change their views on him.
the nail because it was a great sound and good overall effect on the mood as
it also added something else to the same-old tune of the music.
We also added a crackling effect of a white noise over the radio hosts voice
to show it is not in modern times but in an older time but still something the
audience can understand and relate to.
3. Q2. How does your social media product represent particular social groups?
Character Social group How represented? Conforms to Effect on audience
stereotype?
Cyclist Lower-middle class. We represent the cyclist in the We can see that he conforms Our desired effect on the
way he is in a rush for to the stereotype of being a audience was possibly
Male something, something we do working lower class boy making them feel for him in
Age 19 not know until the end, and because he is putting lots of the way that they could feel
Courier this shows someone relies on effort into reaching his bad for him, but up until the
him or has some power over destination. point when we see the
him. We thought of him as a He is also seen as venerable person he his delivering the
sort of victim but not in the because we can see he is letter to and why the
sense he was being murdered
anxious, and that it could audience should have no
but blackmailed, but we leave
conform to his age. opinion on him..
it to the audience to decide
Church worker Lower class He is represented as a He is shown as being a When he kills the man we
normal man at first, it may worker as he is doing manual want the audience to dislike
Male seem slightly odd that he is labour which conforms to his him, because they have no
Age 24 showing no emotion or pity class and then it gets opinion on him they can
Church worker or any feelings whilst putting confirmed when he kills the easily be convinced on the
this notice up on the church man, it is brutish since he type of person he is.
entrance. does it with a hammer, we Because he is not showing
When he kills the man he is did not know why the reason any emotions throughout we
represented as being a brute is but the manner he killed do not want the audience to
because he did it in a him conforms to his status. have an opinion on him until
malicious way (hammer) he is killing him
Murder victim Higher class He is represented as being He conforms to the The same as the murderer,
quite wealthy due to his stereotype of being wealthy the audience should have no
Male clothing, he seems to have as he owns a smart jacked opinion of him, he does not
Age 26 free time because he his and is not at work during the have much screen time and
City worker heading to the church out of time he is in the church , we does not effect the
service hours and probably his know it is a working day audience’s opinion on him,
own time. because all other characters he I not cared for until
As we do not show him much are working as this is murdered.
prior to his death the
happening
audience should not mind him
dying
4. Q3. What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?
Media institutions Why
Hammer films, although a large film company might distribute our media
Hammer Films product for many reasons.
Hammer films specialises in horror films and our film categorises into that
genre, although it is not a science fiction horror like their general films used
to be (Mummies, vampires, Frankenstein etc.) it is still odd in the way we
challenge the conventions of the general run of the mill horror and instead
use a stranger setting than usual.
They may also distribute our product due to (as I touched on before) its
individuality, not many films focus on an idea so odd, we tried to add as
much mystery into our film as possible (The letter, why the church, the
reason for the murder) and we believe that it makes our film more desirable
As I said before, our film is very individual, we challenge the conventions of
Warp films regular cinema, but although this is true I believe that warp would actually
choose us for individuality not because they have not seen that much but
actually because it is a rather large independent film company and their
films are very strange and individual.
Warp films has no horror films but instead has very strange and charismatic
films like four lions, submarine and This is England ’86 and although none of
these films are horror films they are very individual and succeeded because
of that.
I believe that monkey inc. combines the best of both of hammer films and
Monkey inc. warp films due to the fact that hammer films focusses on horror films and
small independent indie films and monkeys inc. focusses on horror small
independent quite original films which is what I like to think our film will be
due to the fact that our film is not a very normal stereotypical film because
they all tend to be in the same date and time with similar plots.
Monkey inc. makes films that are quite interesting in a philisophical way
because they ask the question in the film monkey what people would be like
in an enclosed environment.
5. Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Describe your target audience?
Our target audience can vary from the ages of 18 to the ages of 80 as the setting makes it both
interesting for both spectrums of the age group
Link to your medium and genre
Our opening scene had the target of being a horror (possibly thriller) film. As you can see on my
blog you can see the different versions of horror, sci-fi and thriller films that I had researched
which could be linked towards our piece and I also watched horror films to use similar
techniques. For example in the woman in black there is no dialogue but it is still scary to watch
which was inspiration for us to create a more successful horror film. Like in Alfred Hitchcock films
we used two story lines which combined at the end to make a crescendo of drama and made a
lasting impact on our audience, this was good because the pressure builds up and up until it
comes to this single point when it releases all of the tension of the scene and the audience into
one quick moment of climax. To show the idea of speeding up to increase tension we made
shorter and shorter cut until the end.
Evidence for this?
I carried out a questionnaire/survey on some people wanted to see before getting an idea of the plot
and also showed clips from some horror films to ask them what they like the most to put into a film by
us. We also did research on famous and good directors to see what techniques they used for us to
incorporate in ours.
6. Q5. How did you attract/address your audience
What research did you do to find what your target audience wanted?
We did a survey/questionnaire asking certain questions: How old they where, what gender they
are, their favourite horror movies and whether they like horror movies at all, and also what time
of day it should be filmed? The survey was very strange with the last question, people named all
the types of day, some said morning, some said mid-day some said afternoon/dusk and some
said middle of the night.
What decisions and revision did you make about form and content based on these findings?
we watched films of the same genre, like Alfred Hitchcock's film Phycho we used the effect of a
lot of non-diegetic music to add to our piece this adds tension even if it is not necessarily scary
music we tried to use it in a way that would make our piece gripping none the less.
Through our survey we found that people wanted a horror film and we had very mixed opinions
on what the people wanted the time of day to be so we filmed the climactic point in doors to
add an eerie effect and a nice mise-en-scene.
Where you successful in attracting your audience?
After we had filmed and edited to a final product we showed it to the same people we
interviewed earlier to ask what they think of the film, and we received a lot of positive feedback
and a few helpful criticisms like we had accidently written a typo and we had to re-render the
film and upload it but these criticisms helped us a lot in what we should/could be doing next
year. People also said that even though the music was happy it built suspense up well and that
the final shots which took place in the church where especially good.
7. Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
Using the camera Using the editing software
Learning the various camera shots (close up, I learnt how to desaturate film so that I could
wide shot, over the shoulder, pan, low angle put the film in a gloomy sort of light because
just to name a few) we used this to make the way we filmed made the film too happy
dynamic frames and keep the audience and lively due to the bright colours.
interested throughout.
Learning the camera techniques (shot reverse How to overlay the text over the film to make
shot, 180 degree rule, match on match action credits and putting shadows behind them so
etc.) this helped in the way that we didn’t they would stand out more, also fading in and
distract the audience from the action. out of the titles.
Learning how to use the tripod so we wouldn’t I learnt how to keep continuity throughout was
have jittery film, we did encounter the difficult due to the amount of shots we took.
problem that the tripod would move whilst Trying and keep the film as short as possible
attempting to pan so we had to use another. seeing as the film had to be 2 minutes our
rough cut was closer to four.
We shot more than once per scene so that Using various transition techniques to make it
there was no continuity errors and that we smooth, like when we had to make a very long
could make the film better if we made any shot much shorter we used the centre of
mistakes in costume or not sticking to the attention in the last shot and started it from
setting, or anything else. there, and also fading in and out.
8. Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
Preliminary task Main task
In the preliminary film we tried to use a variety I believe that in our main task we looked at all
of shots and keep the recommended time the mistakes we had made in the preliminary
which we did not do very well, we tried to get task so that we would not make them in the
it to be thirty seconds but it ended up being final product, we found that our film did not
closer to one minute. We attempted to keep have continuity errors in it like it did in the
continuity throughout, but we did not succeed preliminary task, we had a few troubles having
to do that because we made a mistake when I the continuity be the same when in one scene
entered the room and showed the door the cyclist had his sleeves down but then he
opening twice, from different angles, and we had them up above his elbows next shot but
accidently used the same clip twice in different we managed to fix it when we went back to
parts. We had no set plan which made the reshoot it again. We had a set plan, but we
whole process very disorganised and we did changed the end part to make it more thrilling
not use a tripod which made the video very for the audience. We used a tripod in all of our
shaky, we wrote all of this down for later shots so the camera was not moving to almost
reference so we would not forget it in our final act as a god eye view (third person). In the
main task. Our editing was very minimal in the editing we used Sony Vegas 12.0 and learnt
preliminary task with the title screen being how to desaturate film, make an interesting
white text on a black background with no titles title, include credits throughout and add sound
in it either. to make the film overall far more interesting
than it would have been unedited.
