AH Evaluation: 6) Use of Technology

CJ Evaluation: 6) Use of Technology

Use of Adobe Premiere

• We used Premiere extensively to edit together and capture our footage. It was also our primary tool for exporting the footage. 
• There were a few technical hitches, in that some of the footage presented an orange screen with only the sound playing at one stage. 
• As a result, we lost a day of editing, but it proved to be no great hinderance to the end result.
• The colour editing qualities of premiere have also proved useful and easy to handle, and have helped us to produce the best image possible.
• Personally, I have enjoyed the ergonomic feel of using premiere for our project. It has been far easier and faster than I expected it would be to compile the footage into our final piece.

[Click for full view]

Use of Adobe Creative Studio 3

• We created a publicity poster for The Rushes using one of our photos. 
• I was able to edit the photo to mirror the left hand side of Ali's head in order to keep equal amounts of TV on either side of his face. 
• I then changed his shoulder and the height of his right ear in order to make it look more natural and less like it had been mirrored. 

Below is the original picture. [Click for full view]

Use of Steinberg Cubase 5

• I have also used Cubase to compile the original unused soundtrack and to edit the Doctor Who soundtrack we ended up using. 
• I used a microphone and mixing desk setup I have at home to record sounds of screams, sharpened knives and whispers, and implemented them into the mix at intervals. 
• I also heavily edited some sections of the track, including shortening the section played over the closeup sequence, and implemented some synth drumbeats in order to keep the track moving during the transition. 
• At the end, I faded the track out in order to make it finish in time to the end of our video. I then faded into a synth string chorus I created with a buildup of whispers to be played over the title.

All of this was achieved in Cubase, and took around two days to complete.

Use of the blog

The blog has undoubtedly been the biggest planning asset to our group, and we have learned to use it accordingly. 

• It has allowed us to collaborate on information that we may not have otherwise been as able to convey easily. 
• We have customised the blog aesthetically to reflect our project's nature - we used one of our images taken at the scout hut for the background, and I created a banner containing our names and group number on Adobe CS3.
• The system of presentation has also been aided by the blog, as it allows us to have an interconnection between our work at school and our work at home. 
• This has been useful for periods like the snow days in November, as without it we would not have been able to continue with our work.

Use of Prezi

We have used prezi on multiple occasions to present a large amount of information to the class, as this is something that it is particularly good at doing interestingly and aesthetically. The option to include media like youtube videos and pictures has also been useful.

Use of Youtube

We made use of Youtube to present both our rough cut from Wilderness Woods, and our final piece. It has allowed us to broadcast our work to the wider public and gain feedback. For this reason, it has been a useful and vital addition to our array of technologies.

Use of SurveyMonkey

We used SurveyMonkey to publish a questionnaire, which was subsequently answered by about forty-five people, and provided us with a substantial amount of audience research.

BW Evaluation 6) Use Of Technology

Below is a presentation which I made using Slide Rocket, which outlines our groups use of technology when filming our opening, 'The Rushes'.

Group Evaluation: 4 & 5) Who Would be the Audience for Your Media Product?

Below is a presentation of our audience research, detailed feedback and what we discovered from our audience research.

The Rushes Audience Research

View more presentations or Upload your own.

BW Evaluation: 3) Distribution

Distribution Of Films:

The distribution of a film is a process that changes from film to film, depending on the budget, the target audience and the release strategy agreed between the Producer and the distribution company. Most films are distributed in a process similar to the following:

• Production and Production are completed. The film is ready to be distributed.


• A master print’ of the final film is sent to a distributor who will be distributing the film


• The distributor will watch the film and decide on the overall release strategy, as well as the release date for the film.


• The distribution company will showcase the film to potential exhibitors of the film, and between them an agreement is made as to how the film will be exhibited.


• The distribution company will begin the marketing campaign, and having decided a target audience, will try to create a ‘buzz’ around the film.


• Just a few days before the film opens at the cinemas, the distributors will deliver the film to each exhibitor individually.


• The film will now be shown at cinemas.


• The length of the films run will be determined by how popular and profitable the film is.

Distribution Of ‘The Rushes’

Our film is a niche film with a specific target audience, but is has the capabilities to attract a mainstream audience and have a general release if there was a ‘buzz’ around the film.

Our film would start off in art-house cinemas, targeting a niche audience who enjoy horror films with a new take on them. However, alongside the art-house release, our film would start with a limited release.

Curzon Cinema is the type of cinema company which 'The Rushes' would be exhibited in.

The use of the limited release would allow for a an audience and a market to grown around the film, and at the same time the distributors would be able to gage the popularity of the film with a mainstream audience. If the film proved popular, then it would enjoy a general release in multiplexes across the country for as long as was profitable.

The reason the film would not be on a general release from the very start is because it is not the film genre or style that could build up enough of a buzz to justify being released all over the UK at the same time. Instead, it is better to engage the interest of the film along with careful marketing to get the best audience possible.

The final stage of the distribution process would be to potentially showcase the film at mainstream cinemas like The Odeon, to a mainstream audience.

AH Evaluation: 3) Distribution

CJ Evaluation: 3) Distribution

Distribution is the process whereby a film is released to the wider public in order to bring in revenue and get publicity. This process can involve months of planning and advertising beforehand, with advertising campaigns starting the moment the film is given a green light. The process goes like this:

• The production process will be completed, and the distributor will be sent a print of the film.
• The distributor will then decide on release tactics for the film, including release date, advertising campaign and the main target areas to broadcast to i.e. which television channels et cetera.
• The advertising campaign will start on websites, t.v. channels and at cinemas a few months before the release of the film. This will serve to inform more people about the film, and to increase the hype surrounding the release.
• The film will be delivered to the exhibitors who have chosen to release the film. This will occur a few days before the general release to avoid piracy. 
• The film will be shown for as long as the exhibitor deems fit, or for as long as audience interest is high and the film is profitable.

In terms of our film:
After taking into consideration the niche nature and mature target audience of our film, I have come to the decision that the distribution of our media product would be handled by an independent distribution company. This would allow us to get the right kind of publicity for our film. We could experiment with internet release as an alternative to hard-copy distribution, like with Loose Change 9/11, or we could go for a live broadcast as with The Age of Stupid. However, I am of the opinion that our film would be best suited to a cinematic environment due to the conventional standards that it follows.

In terms of the exhibitor, I would place the film within the realms of an arthouse release due to it's unconventional narrative and little-known stars. However, some films have been known to spread from an arthouse setting into wider popularity and a general release, in which case I believe that certain aspects of our film would be suited to a widespread cinematic release into cinemas like Odeon et cetera. I would stick with an initial release period in smaller arthouse cinemas though, due to the fact that it would make more sense to release a niche film to a niche audience.

AH Evaluation: 2) Representation of Social Groups

Best viewed in fullscreen mode.

Representation of Social Groups on Prezi

CJ Evaluation: 2) Representation of Social Groups

• There are two main social groups used in our opening. 
• The main character is the teenage male character - our protagonist. 
• The other is the briefly-appearing ghost figure. 
• Although the actor was female, the ghostly character would take on an almost androgynous presence within the movie, with the ghostly attributes being the main focus on that particular characterisation.

• Starting by looking at the male character, we are immediately informed of his aloneness by the surrounding images included in the opening montage. 
• The wide opening of the eyes emulates an immediate awakeness, suggesting that the character is frightened and wary. 
• This is oppositional to the usual supposition that males in a horror movie will be tough and unphased by their situation.

• Being the main character, the focus is on him and him alone so it is difficult to compare his exposure to other characters. 
• However, he does play a substantially larger part in the narrative than the ghostly figure. This is mainly for effect, with the audience only barely knowing that the other character exists for maximum impact. 

His social demographic is hard to define apart from his physical attributes, as his clothing is plain and nondescript, and there are no other indicators of money except for the car, which may or may not be his. This seemed like the easiest way to construct a characterisation within the narrative - to leave it open to the audience's imagination and gradually bring in pieces of information about him, just as he is doing with the footage of his friends. The representation of this character is designed to be progressive, and not like most other horror films with a strong willed, male lead character.

Looking at the androgynous ghostly character;

• it is also difficult to establish a clear social group. 
• However, we can tell that they are from a time or place where a white dress is required, possibly suggesting a mental hospital et cetera. 
• The representation is not clear, however, the progressive nature of the role they would play would be suggestive of a portrayal of a progressive female character.

BW Evaluation: 2) Representation of Social Groups

Below is a Prezi presentation on the representation of social groups in our film opening, 'The Rushes'.

BW: Representation of Social Groups on Prezi

CJ Evaluation: 1) Forms & Conventions

We set out at the beginning of our project with the intention of creating a piece of filmography to the best of our ability. I believe that we have achieved this, whilst also experimenting with multiple different camera and editing techniques.

The main aim of our opening was not to create genre-changing material, but more in the ballpark of a conventional horror movie with a different take on the narrative to keep the setup fresh and original. However, our initial idea was fairly unconventional, and included the use of recorded footage within the narrative, in the style of The Blair Witch Project. This concept gradually evolved into the product we have now, after reworking to make the narrative more gripping and fluent.

Looking at the places in which we conformed to conventions of the horror genre:

• ...in using the woods, we used a classic horror setting. Due to its seemingly remote setting, low visibility levels and potential for hiding places, it's perfect for a scary and emotion-evoking backdrop to the film. 
• We were able to use the southborough woods to our advantage in order to help convey the isolation of the main character.

• ...we also used the effective camera technique of fast cutting to disorientate the viewer and simulate action. 
• This technique is used in many different horror movies (Saw, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, to name a few) in order to cause an adrenaline-based reaction to the images and to heighten the audience's experience of the movie.

• We have also used some macro-based closeups of interesting objects/views to set the scene, like the scenes in Se7en. It allows a creepy sense of calm to build within the narrative, causing tension and helping to add a arty and professional feel to the camerawork.

Looking at the places where we decided not to be conventional:

• We used a character not representative of a stock horror movie. 
• The characterisation we used to embody the fear and isolation was performed in a controlled and subtle way as opposed to the extreme overacting that many horror movies employ to create a sense of fear.

• The idea behind the film was also challenging conventional practice in the horror genre by using an asynchronous time scale. 
• This threw a challenging concept into the film, something not often seen in terms of narrative within horror movies.

Overall, I would say that we have challenged certain aspects of the horror genre without deviating too far from the path many major horror movies take. It takes time to challenge the audience's intellect, and for this reason the film may not suit mainstream tastes. however

AH Evaluation: 1) Forms & Conventions

When we first chose to create a horror opening, our group decided to use some typical conventions of horror openings.
This was because:

• We wanted to keep our opening as close to the horror genre as possible and so we wanted to use props, locations and other iconography with which the audience would associate with the horror genre.
  

I researched some films of the horror genre to find what the conventional techniques are used in horror openings. The films I looked at were:

1. "28 Days Later" (Boyle, 2002)



2. "Halloween" (Carpenter, 1978)



3. "Cloverfield" (Reeves, 2008)



4. "Dawn of the Dead" (Snyder, 2004)

In addition, I was able to see that horror openings were typically used to set the mood for the rest of the film by starting in a high tempo way with a significant amount of iconography to create fear and horror from the out-set of the film.

This was a typical convention we were inspired by as our opening begins with a quick pace and a sense of fear and suspense.

Looking back now at our initial research, it is clear to see where we took our inspiration from for our opening in terms of the conventions we used.

• In our opening we eventually decided to make it part continuity and part montage edited with titles shown as part of the montage.



• We found that montages were often used for horror openings and when comparing real film openings, it is clear to see the inspiration we took form films such a "Se7en" and "Dawn of the Dead".



• Our opening is also similar to real openings in terms of sound.



• We used a very suspenseful track which continually builds up to add suspense which is a typical convention used in real openings since sound is vital for films, particularly horror.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Mise-en-scene consists of a few typical conventions which we also used during our opening.

• Firstly, as our location we used woods and a dark hut for the whole opening. This would typically be associated with horror films, in particular the woods.



• Following on from this, lighting was another convention we stuck to.



• The majority of horror films attempt to use common fears to make the film more horrific for the audience and darkness is a particular convention used to do so.



• We used a significant amount of darkness for our opening and set it at night to give it the typical horror atmosphere.
  
  
  
  
  
  

As for challenging the typical conventions of the horror genre:

• We did not use a stock character which would be associated with horror.



• Through research of films such as "Halloween", it became clear that the main stock character for horror films were usually female, probably to make the character seem vulnerable.



• Whereas in our film we used a male character which shows we did challenge some conventions of horror films.



• Furthermore, we also challenged the conventions of horror by having a mixture of continuity editing and montage editing.



• Typically, either one or the other is used in horror and character exposition is also used occasionally.



• Instead, we broke with the conventions and went for a mixture so that we could reveal part of the storyline, but also keep the sense of the unknown and keeping the audience guessing at what exactly is happening.
  
  
  
  
  
  

On the whole, during our opening we mainly stuck with the typical horror conventions and we only challenged a couple such as the editing and stock character. This was because we wanted to create a typical suspenseful and exciting horror opening which would not have been possible if we had challenged the majority of the typical conventions found in horror films.

BW Evaluation: 1) Forms & Conventions

Below is a presentation of the forms and conventions of our film opening. 'The Rushes', created on Slide Rocket.

BW: Final Edit

Today we finished editing our film opening. Due to Chris going away on a school trip last night, we wanted to make sure that we were all happy with the piece yesterday before Chris went away.

We had already made the following changes and improvements to our opening:

• To make the piece fit to the two minute time restriction, we had a group discussion and decided that a lot of the walking sequence could still be cut.
• We also cut some of the walking to the barn, as there were originally 6 shots of this shot aspect of the opening, which we agreed did not add much to the opening.
• We cut down the door locking sequence considerably, so that it felt more urgent and more dramatic.

Yesterday, we added in the final music piece which Chris had edited from the original Murray Gold track 'Midnight' (see previous post). We added this to the timeline yesterday, and the piece was exactly 2:00 minutes in length, so we were all happy with the length of each shot.

Chris also changed the colours of each clip individually, to make the colouring through the opening more consistent, as well as to maximise their quality and to fit in with the dark and mysterious horror convention which we wanted to fulfill.

Our final edit included the following changes:

• We added in a number of soundtrack layers and added in additional whispers to the ones that Chris had already put into the track. They now overlap and give the central character a more mad persona.
• We added in the final title, 'The Rushes' at the end. We used the basic, Courier New font as this came out well from our audience research and also was consistent with the font on the script within the actual opening.
• A clip which had been slowed down at the very beginning to make it longer was returned to normal speed and extended, as it was too obvious that the shot had been slowed down.

As a group, we are very happy with our final opening. The main area that we feel was not as good as it could have been is the quality of the footage, which was poorer due to us shooting in poor lighting conditions.

Group: The Rushes Film Opening

Here is our final film opening, The Rushes.

BW: Final Music Decisions and Edit

After reviewing Chris's music (see previous post), we took a group decision that not all of the music best fitted with the conventions of a horror film that we were looking to fulfil.

Our initial inspiration for music was a track by Murray Gold from the BBC's Doctor Who Soundtrack, which was called 'Midnight'. Our original plans were to write a new piece of music inspired by this track, but after problems with the music we decided to rethink.

We then decided that the Murray Gold track fitted our piece so well, we would edit the music, adding in new layers to the music and changing existing ones to make it feel like our own, but still inspired by the original track.

Using a music editing programme called 'Cubase', we imported 'Midnight'and began changing it. The changes we made to our soundtrack were as follows:

• The first six seconds are small clips of music which are on repeat and on loop, to slowly build tension but without having the music quiet. The opening of the music track in now different.
• We tried to maintain the volume level where there is a drop in music 10 seconds in. There is still a noticeable change in volume, but it is not the same.
• Between 25-30 seconds, there was a big build up and drop in the original music track. We edited this down and removed the big build up of music, so it feels more consistent with our piece.
• In the same time period, we edited in a series of drum beats to the same rhythm of the original track.
• 38-48 seconds, we added another layer of a knife being sharpened. This was another sound Chris has pre-recorded. We felt that knives were a key part of iconography of horror films, and that the sound of knives added to the horror feel of the track.
• We changed the volume levels over the track to make it fit our opening more accurately.
• We have added a third layer of sound in, with whispers which Chris recorded with his original sound recording. Whispers include 'I don't understand', 'Cross the line', and 'Where are you?'
• The trombone section at the end of the track has been shortened, and faded into a solid violin instrumental, which slowly fades out. This is also an original sound.

We were happy with the final music piece we added to our opening, and feel we have changed it a fair amount to make it more suited and appropriate to the ideas that we were trying to convey in our opening.

CJ Music and general update

Over the past five days, the team has been split in two so that the separate parts can focus on honing a specific area. Ben and Ali have been compiling and editing together the final cut, and I've been handling the sound aspect. We're aiming to complete the sound by tonight, as the last time that the group can all be together before the deadline is on Wednesday due to myself being abroad for the last two days of term.

This means that the final cut will have to be produced by Ben and Ali in order to meet the deadline.

I have been recording and compiling a soundtrack for the opening, using Cubase and a microphone/mixing desk rig I have at home. The main feel we're going for is a tense orchestral sound during periods of drama/action and an acoustic feel in the less narrative-important continuity-based shots. The acoustic areas are recorded live over a mixing desk, and I'm in the process of synthesizing the orchestral part, as unfortunately I do not have an orchestra to hand.

BW: General Updates 04/04/11

After realising on Friday that we would need to still cut back a fair amount of footage, we had a discussion today in class and decided that we could get away with not cutting many shots altogether, but instead shortening many clips so the whole opening feels more fast paced.

We have now managed to get the opening to 1.55, with room at the end to have a title - 'The Rushes'. We are very pleased with how it looks, and especially like the very fast paced locking of the door sequence.

We plan tomorrow to edit in the music, and also edit the colours of each clip individually to make the whole opening look as nice as we possibly can.

BW: Editing Progress

I have spent a couple of hours this afternoon, and have realised that we have a problem with the amount of fooatge we have in the timeline, and am struggling to reduce it. The full rough cut started being 3:51, and the finished piece needs to be 2:00. I found getting it down to 3:00 not too difficult, as I just took out some of the shots that didn't look as good or in which the colours weren't correct. However, cutting it down beyond 3:00 is very difficult, as we either have to take out some of our favourite shots or cut down the story with risk of the narrative making less sense. After editing this afternoon, the footage now stands aat 2:34. I have cut out everything obvious, we're going to have to be brutal with what we take out now. Chris, Ali, do you have any suggestions where we should cut more from? The walking shots which we have discussed are already down to a bare minimum!

Group: Work Update

We are making fairly good progress with the editing, and although we have had a number of issues, we are fairly confident that we will be able to resolve them. We need to work hard now to get the final edit finsihed by the deadline. Our problems and solutions are:

We have shot tooo much footage, so before we have even compiled the footage into the timeline, it comes to over 3 minutes.

This is not a major problem, as we intended to shoot a large amount of footage and just cut it down. It allows us to select the very best shots.

The lighting varies a vast amount between different shots.

This is an issue because we filmed in different lighting conditions. We will use the shots that are most similar in their lighting, and intend to edit the colours of the shot to make them all match.

We have not yet started editing sound.

This is more of a race against time, as we intent to record all of our own sound. We have split the group so that Chris can start working on sound whilst Ben and Ali continue editing.

Our main concern now is finishing the film on time, although at the minute we aren't too worried, as long as we now pick up the pace of our editing.